The claim that Facebook has developed a secure way for people to communicate is a fraud. This is a deliberate attempt to mislead people and lull them into believing that following revelations about the intrusive activities of western regimes monitoring internet traffic, there is finally a “secure” way to communicate. There is no such thing as secure communication on the Internet.
The Internet can be used as well as abused so Muslims have to be wary of how they approach it.
The New Year is traditionally a time when people reflect on their situations in life, as well as contemplating the possibilities of the year to come. This New Year in the Gregorian calendar coincides (more or less) with a new year, 1432, in the Hijri calendar; Muharram 1 fell on December 7, 2010.
Western policy-makers, especially in the US were in absolute panic for two days when tens of thousands of pages of leaked documents describing the grim situation in Afghanistan were released by WikiLeaks, a tiny but influential internet site.
In an attempt to put a happier face on globalization, G8 (Group of Eight, also known as ‘Greedy Eight’) leaders tried to placate the world’s less fortunate at their summit in Japan last July by promising to set up a Digital Opportunities Task Force (DOT) to identify ways to encourage the spread of technology to the farthest reaches of the “developing world”.
It has become fashionable, even dutiful, for techno-utopianists and their disciples to extol the virtues of the ‘information superhighway.’ Proclamations abound, praising the brave new world of cyberspace and its potential for easy access to information.
Malaysia has launched its audacious bid to capitalise on the growing possibilities offered by the emergence of information superhighways. In a series of high-level presentations Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohammed has started to woo key participants to the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC).
