What I am stating, Charles F., if you will please stop hyperventilating and permit your eyes to focus and your grey matter to re-oxygenate, is that unless you can gain control of a website and alter it’s content so that it delivers a malicious payload or make a malicious redirect, you cannot influence whether or not the site will acquire the malware warning in Google’s search results.
This has nothing at all to do with “Google Bombing” and “Googlewashing”. By unnecessarily conflating these entirely disparate phenomena you only risk perpetuating confusion among people with less technical understanding than yourself, presuming there is one of course.
Well, I for one think it is funny in a manner unrelated to my odd political persecution theories. At least, no more related than usual where the politics of Thailand are concerned.
Sidh #47: ” Thais do it all the time very publicly and occasionally vehemently/violently …” Oh, so Thailand is an outstanding example of free speech. I must have got it wrong. The blocking of internet sites & the ‘self-censorship’ of the media are really not repression, they’re the expression of love for the nation. Sorry…
“LM abuse is more intense in times of deep political conflicts.” Yes, that’s the whole point: the convenience of this one law as an instrument of repression when ” corruption, conflicts-of-interests and socio-economic class struggles that underpin the conflict and the ways they are addressed” become intolerable & start to cause loud discussion & civil unrest, & the powers that be need to manufacture ‘evidence’ of an underground conspiracy that threatens national security, in order to get the ‘subversives’ under the thumb again.
” ThaiRakThai came closest so far in fulfilling that roadmap in its first 2-3 years in government.” The ‘3 Wars’ of TRT (Drugs;Poverty; Corruption), while presenting a clever and easily identifiable pseudo-platform, did not represent a ‘coherent… policy to establish a workable, equal-opportunity, democracy.’ In hindsight it can be seen that it was an opportunistic advertising campaign to win the people over by saying TRT was going to solve 3 major problems of great concern to the electorate. Look at the way they conducted the wars, and the results.
And, as far as the Democrats go, I can only refer you to ” Democrats Celebrate 25th Anniversary of Non-Platform” in Not the Nation: “Democratic Party leaders and about 200 senior officers sat down to a gala dinner evening filled with keynote speeches expounding and praising Thailand’s oldest political party, and attributing its longevity to its consistent absence of opinions, positions, or remotely distinguishable ideas.” http://www.notthenation.com/pages/news/getnews.php?id=183
(Once again satire tells the truth with searing clarity.)
A very short “road-map” to a perpetual turning-circle is not a workable policy.
All Thais, judiciary or no, are crooked to a certain degree. So please don’t assume the holier-than-thou attitude. Some day the arrow you point at others will turn to point at yourself.
“Is this fair? Why should foreigners get it so easy? Is this what the lawbooks say? Is this perhaps arbitrary and injust? Is the Thai justice system so easily corrupted by foreign governments?”
Big questions that is quite beyond me. However, I think Srithanonchai’s most recent post “Prasert Nasakul: RIP” provides some glimpse/insights into the workings of Thai law at the highest levels.
On the other hand, we have Annice Smoel, an Australian tourist, who partied too hard in Phuket, clearly broke the law (written and cultural) and got arrested – and got a slap on the wrist after pressure from the Australian government.
From both extremes (and many other samples of Reds & Yellows transgressions), a strong rule of law culture is still lacking – a critical missing ingredient for a more vibrant Thai democracy especially to deal with corruption which is the major Achilles heels to Thai democracy.
LSS#43. My apologies for misreading your comments.
“Unfortunately, the current Thai culture animus, as you are a prime example of, views any manifestation of gaiatsu as affront to their national sovereignty.”
No need to construct straw men to do battle too LSS. Siam/Thailand is one of the most globalized country in the region and consistently experiences external pressures and dealt with them throughout her history. The latest being economic effects that originated from the unfathomable greed of US-based ‘Masters of the Universe’ and, interestingly, from a globe-trotting Nicaraguan PMThaksin…
“As for the late Robert McNamara, I would assume that a member of the “privileged, Thai middleclass” would have more sympathy for the man who kept you and your parents from laboring in a Khmer Rouge-style reeducation camp run by Chulanont’s р╕Юр╕Др╕Ч/CPT.”
It is a possible alternative scenario that never materialized. If it happened, maybe I would be part of the numerical statistics of the million+ deaths or form part of the exodus, like the South Vietnamese, to the US and Australia.
No, I can’t have sympathy for McNamara as I don’t for the Bush-Cheney presidency or the Wall Street fat cats that caused untold damage and suffering worldwide.
What does the path of the Bodhisattva tell you in these events, LSS?
Michael #42 “What if you wanted to stand up & really criticise the people who are obstructing the passage of Thailand into the 21st C?”
Thais do it all the time very publicly and occasionally vehemently/violently against the PUBLIC powers that be such as corrupt elected politicians, businessmen, police, military and other bureaucracies etc. If these powers that be and the Thai public can’t take Thailand into the 21st C, no one can. Private critique deals with more discreet powers which actually works quite effectively in the past in determining power succession outcomes (of increasingly less consequence to Thai political future it is argued).
“What the ” poor and the marginalized” need is the right to vote and the right to sit in parliament”
Strongly agree with this and have stated so in past posts. Yes, I am not qualified to represent the aspirations of the poor ONLY THEY ARE (arguably filthy rich tycoons like PMThaksin even less so). I am clear here, I represent the much more privileged middle class.
“Well, yes, it’s obvious – it’s the LM abusers, the accusers, who are responsible.”
Agree there, but let’s look at the broad cycles too. LM abuse is more intense in times of deep political conflicts. This is such a time and the question posed is – what is worth conveying to the world at large, especially for other aspiring democracies – the details of corruption, conflicts-of-interests and socio-economic class struggles that underpin the conflict and the ways they are addressed, for good and for bad, in Thai society or one law that totally misrepresents Thai democracy for the gaze of Western democracies?
“Why is it that in Thailand there has not yet been a political party with a coherent (or actually ANY) policy to establish a workable, equal-opportunity, democracy? Is it because there’s something (a small & powerful section of society, perhaps) stopping them from talking about fundamental issues that need to be attended to?”
The main aspiration provided with ‘roadmap’ in the 1997 Constitution. PMChuan’s Democrats were slow in implementation but consistently played by the rules 1997-2000. ThaiRakThai came closest so far in fulfilling that roadmap in its first 2-3 years in government. The rest is history.
In the 12 years since the passage of the 1997 Constitution which manifests the post-Black May middle-class aspirations for democratic Thailand, Thai political space and power has expanded and today includes, in the general population: the urban middle-class, the urban and rural poor; in the bureaucracy: the military, the police, the judiciary; amongst the moneyed elite: the business men and women – both urban and province based; the Privy Council and the palace (working together or working depend which color shades Thais view it). Pre-Thaksin, the military were being marginalized and the poor were generally indifferent to national politics, credit to him he bought activated urban middle-class activism via Yellows; urban and rural poor via Reds; the Police through institutional favoritism, the Judiciary via the political gridlock pre-coup and the military via the coup.
Thai political space has never been, historically, this wide and open. The critical problem is that each stakeholder often dwell in their own self-affirming silos (TV stations, community radios, newspapers, websites etc.) and needs a ‘common space’ where differences and aspirations can be negotiated.
Over to you Ralph and I thank and commend you on your survey attempts on #41. I am sure you will come up with more interesting findings for us (and I see you have access to military officers from the special warfare unit and is privy to many of the subtle intrigues. If it does not endanger you, perhaps you can share them with us?).
Charles F. should do more research before he makes such broad claims.
An incident earlier this year caused all of Google’s search results to display the malware warning; conservative sites, liberal sites and those with no political stance alike. The problem — either a programming error or a hack — lasted for a little over an hour.
But during that interval several conservative blogs and opinion sites came to the mistaken conclusion that they had been singled out, either by not properly researching the extent of the problem or as an implementation of their own agenda.
Furthermore it is not possible for anyone to cause Google’s results for a given site to display the malware warning simply by complaining about them to Google. It is true that Google does accept complaints about suspected malicious sites which attempt “drive-by-downloads” as well as discovering them by analysis of the sites it crawls.
But in either case the analytical process is the same: the site is visited with a popular web browser (generally the most recent version of Internet Explorer) running within a virtual machine, the behaviour of the site and the response of the browser and operating system are analyzed with regards to loading or installation of executables, scripts or redirects, or changes to the registry, and only upon failing those tests would a site be labelled with the malware warning.
Yes, Michael – I expect higher standards from more mature democracies such as Australia.
Last Friday, an aide to an opposition politician, who came in as a witness, was found dead after being ‘interrogated’ for about 10 hours until the early mornings by the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission. He was said to have fallen to his death or even possibly committed suicide.
I’d be interested to hear what Kevin Rudd has to say about this.
“This site may harm your computer” has nothing to do with the contents of the website, it solely is about the fact that the site has been noticed to spread malware by Google. And this should be taken seriously, not long ago I caught myself a virus just by browsing the web, even I had an up-to-date virus scanner and using Firefox which normally is more safe.
With the latest run of infected websites with the Gumblar virus quite a lot of Thai websites got this warning, and not few of them kept it because the webmaster either does not notice, does not care or is not around at all.
I’m referring to an earlier comment of yours and I would like you to to clarify it for me.
“LSS, do remember that I am Thai and LM law punishes Thais more severely – contrary to Westerners who fall foul of the law who can whine to their governments out in little time.”
Is this fair? Why should foreigners get it so easy? Is this what the lawbooks say? Is this perhaps arbitrary and injust? Is the Thai justice system so easily corrupted by foreign governments?
As far as I can recall, Harry Nicolaides and Olivier Jufer and maybe others were pardoned by the King. I do not know what has happened to Thais who have been found guilty of the same crimes. Can you point me to the legal statutes which differentiate between Thais and foreigners?
I hope and pray that the King extends the same mercy to Suwicha Tahkor and Da Torpedo as He did to Harry Nicolaides and Olivier Jufer.
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You’ve been warned!
What I am stating, Charles F., if you will please stop hyperventilating and permit your eyes to focus and your grey matter to re-oxygenate, is that unless you can gain control of a website and alter it’s content so that it delivers a malicious payload or make a malicious redirect, you cannot influence whether or not the site will acquire the malware warning in Google’s search results.
This has nothing at all to do with “Google Bombing” and “Googlewashing”. By unnecessarily conflating these entirely disparate phenomena you only risk perpetuating confusion among people with less technical understanding than yourself, presuming there is one of course.
You’ve been warned!
Well, I for one think it is funny in a manner unrelated to my odd political persecution theories. At least, no more related than usual where the politics of Thailand are concerned.
“An attack on the rights of journalists”
Sidh #47: ” Thais do it all the time very publicly and occasionally vehemently/violently …” Oh, so Thailand is an outstanding example of free speech. I must have got it wrong. The blocking of internet sites & the ‘self-censorship’ of the media are really not repression, they’re the expression of love for the nation. Sorry…
“LM abuse is more intense in times of deep political conflicts.” Yes, that’s the whole point: the convenience of this one law as an instrument of repression when ” corruption, conflicts-of-interests and socio-economic class struggles that underpin the conflict and the ways they are addressed” become intolerable & start to cause loud discussion & civil unrest, & the powers that be need to manufacture ‘evidence’ of an underground conspiracy that threatens national security, in order to get the ‘subversives’ under the thumb again.
” ThaiRakThai came closest so far in fulfilling that roadmap in its first 2-3 years in government.” The ‘3 Wars’ of TRT (Drugs;Poverty; Corruption), while presenting a clever and easily identifiable pseudo-platform, did not represent a ‘coherent… policy to establish a workable, equal-opportunity, democracy.’ In hindsight it can be seen that it was an opportunistic advertising campaign to win the people over by saying TRT was going to solve 3 major problems of great concern to the electorate. Look at the way they conducted the wars, and the results.
And, as far as the Democrats go, I can only refer you to ” Democrats Celebrate 25th Anniversary of Non-Platform” in Not the Nation: “Democratic Party leaders and about 200 senior officers sat down to a gala dinner evening filled with keynote speeches expounding and praising Thailand’s oldest political party, and attributing its longevity to its consistent absence of opinions, positions, or remotely distinguishable ideas.” http://www.notthenation.com/pages/news/getnews.php?id=183
(Once again satire tells the truth with searing clarity.)
A very short “road-map” to a perpetual turning-circle is not a workable policy.
Wat Luang Sipsongpanna: a follow-up report
You call it a temple, so it is easy for a lot of wayward things to happen at a temple. If it were a monastery, things would be different.
Nick Nostitz at the FCCT
All in all, Thailand is indeed a backward country!
Prasert Nasakul: RIP
All Thais, judiciary or no, are crooked to a certain degree. So please don’t assume the holier-than-thou attitude. Some day the arrow you point at others will turn to point at yourself.
Wat Luang Sipsongpanna
[…] […]
“An attack on the rights of journalists”
Tom Hoy #45
“Is this fair? Why should foreigners get it so easy? Is this what the lawbooks say? Is this perhaps arbitrary and injust? Is the Thai justice system so easily corrupted by foreign governments?”
Big questions that is quite beyond me. However, I think Srithanonchai’s most recent post “Prasert Nasakul: RIP” provides some glimpse/insights into the workings of Thai law at the highest levels.
On the other hand, we have Annice Smoel, an Australian tourist, who partied too hard in Phuket, clearly broke the law (written and cultural) and got arrested – and got a slap on the wrist after pressure from the Australian government.
From both extremes (and many other samples of Reds & Yellows transgressions), a strong rule of law culture is still lacking – a critical missing ingredient for a more vibrant Thai democracy especially to deal with corruption which is the major Achilles heels to Thai democracy.
“An attack on the rights of journalists”
LSS#43. My apologies for misreading your comments.
“Unfortunately, the current Thai culture animus, as you are a prime example of, views any manifestation of gaiatsu as affront to their national sovereignty.”
No need to construct straw men to do battle too LSS. Siam/Thailand is one of the most globalized country in the region and consistently experiences external pressures and dealt with them throughout her history. The latest being economic effects that originated from the unfathomable greed of US-based ‘Masters of the Universe’ and, interestingly, from a globe-trotting Nicaraguan PMThaksin…
“As for the late Robert McNamara, I would assume that a member of the “privileged, Thai middleclass” would have more sympathy for the man who kept you and your parents from laboring in a Khmer Rouge-style reeducation camp run by Chulanont’s р╕Юр╕Др╕Ч/CPT.”
It is a possible alternative scenario that never materialized. If it happened, maybe I would be part of the numerical statistics of the million+ deaths or form part of the exodus, like the South Vietnamese, to the US and Australia.
No, I can’t have sympathy for McNamara as I don’t for the Bush-Cheney presidency or the Wall Street fat cats that caused untold damage and suffering worldwide.
What does the path of the Bodhisattva tell you in these events, LSS?
“An attack on the rights of journalists”
Michael #42 “What if you wanted to stand up & really criticise the people who are obstructing the passage of Thailand into the 21st C?”
Thais do it all the time very publicly and occasionally vehemently/violently against the PUBLIC powers that be such as corrupt elected politicians, businessmen, police, military and other bureaucracies etc. If these powers that be and the Thai public can’t take Thailand into the 21st C, no one can. Private critique deals with more discreet powers which actually works quite effectively in the past in determining power succession outcomes (of increasingly less consequence to Thai political future it is argued).
“What the ” poor and the marginalized” need is the right to vote and the right to sit in parliament”
Strongly agree with this and have stated so in past posts. Yes, I am not qualified to represent the aspirations of the poor ONLY THEY ARE (arguably filthy rich tycoons like PMThaksin even less so). I am clear here, I represent the much more privileged middle class.
“Well, yes, it’s obvious – it’s the LM abusers, the accusers, who are responsible.”
Agree there, but let’s look at the broad cycles too. LM abuse is more intense in times of deep political conflicts. This is such a time and the question posed is – what is worth conveying to the world at large, especially for other aspiring democracies – the details of corruption, conflicts-of-interests and socio-economic class struggles that underpin the conflict and the ways they are addressed, for good and for bad, in Thai society or one law that totally misrepresents Thai democracy for the gaze of Western democracies?
“Why is it that in Thailand there has not yet been a political party with a coherent (or actually ANY) policy to establish a workable, equal-opportunity, democracy? Is it because there’s something (a small & powerful section of society, perhaps) stopping them from talking about fundamental issues that need to be attended to?”
The main aspiration provided with ‘roadmap’ in the 1997 Constitution. PMChuan’s Democrats were slow in implementation but consistently played by the rules 1997-2000. ThaiRakThai came closest so far in fulfilling that roadmap in its first 2-3 years in government. The rest is history.
“An attack on the rights of journalists”
Ralph #40, I’ll start simply with:
In the 12 years since the passage of the 1997 Constitution which manifests the post-Black May middle-class aspirations for democratic Thailand, Thai political space and power has expanded and today includes, in the general population: the urban middle-class, the urban and rural poor; in the bureaucracy: the military, the police, the judiciary; amongst the moneyed elite: the business men and women – both urban and province based; the Privy Council and the palace (working together or working depend which color shades Thais view it). Pre-Thaksin, the military were being marginalized and the poor were generally indifferent to national politics, credit to him he bought activated urban middle-class activism via Yellows; urban and rural poor via Reds; the Police through institutional favoritism, the Judiciary via the political gridlock pre-coup and the military via the coup.
Thai political space has never been, historically, this wide and open. The critical problem is that each stakeholder often dwell in their own self-affirming silos (TV stations, community radios, newspapers, websites etc.) and needs a ‘common space’ where differences and aspirations can be negotiated.
Over to you Ralph and I thank and commend you on your survey attempts on #41. I am sure you will come up with more interesting findings for us (and I see you have access to military officers from the special warfare unit and is privy to many of the subtle intrigues. If it does not endanger you, perhaps you can share them with us?).
You’ve been warned!
So, what you’re staing then is that the terms, Google Bombing” and “Googlewashing, and their many variants are just make believe??
Perhaps MongerSEA should do more research.
Of all the search engines, Google is the most vulnerable to hacks, manipulations and spoofs. Google has admitted as much.
You’ve been warned!
Charles F. should do more research before he makes such broad claims.
An incident earlier this year caused all of Google’s search results to display the malware warning; conservative sites, liberal sites and those with no political stance alike. The problem — either a programming error or a hack — lasted for a little over an hour.
But during that interval several conservative blogs and opinion sites came to the mistaken conclusion that they had been singled out, either by not properly researching the extent of the problem or as an implementation of their own agenda.
Furthermore it is not possible for anyone to cause Google’s results for a given site to display the malware warning simply by complaining about them to Google. It is true that Google does accept complaints about suspected malicious sites which attempt “drive-by-downloads” as well as discovering them by analysis of the sites it crawls.
But in either case the analytical process is the same: the site is visited with a popular web browser (generally the most recent version of Internet Explorer) running within a virtual machine, the behaviour of the site and the response of the browser and operating system are analyzed with regards to loading or installation of executables, scripts or redirects, or changes to the registry, and only upon failing those tests would a site be labelled with the malware warning.
Prasert Nasakul: RIP
Will the judges behind the “judicial coups” also take the secret of who ordered their verdicts to the grave?
An open letter to Kevin Rudd
Yes, Michael – I expect higher standards from more mature democracies such as Australia.
Last Friday, an aide to an opposition politician, who came in as a witness, was found dead after being ‘interrogated’ for about 10 hours until the early mornings by the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission. He was said to have fallen to his death or even possibly committed suicide.
I’d be interested to hear what Kevin Rudd has to say about this.
You’ve been warned!
What Andy says for Thailand may be true, but in the U.S. it is abused by people attempting to squelch free speech on conservative blogs.
It is common knowledge that Google can be manipulated by those with an agenda.
Support Suwicha Thakor
I’ve asked that the elephant be named Suwicha. I hope that it helps.
You’ve been warned!
“This site may harm your computer” has nothing to do with the contents of the website, it solely is about the fact that the site has been noticed to spread malware by Google. And this should be taken seriously, not long ago I caught myself a virus just by browsing the web, even I had an up-to-date virus scanner and using Firefox which normally is more safe.
With the latest run of infected websites with the Gumblar virus quite a lot of Thai websites got this warning, and not few of them kept it because the webmaster either does not notice, does not care or is not around at all.
A campaign for Suwicha
It has already been established that govts are not responsive to letter-writing campaigns or online petitions.
This is a fabulous, creative idea. Think of Suwicha not as one man deserving his freedom but as a symbol.
Elephants live as long as humans. Suwicha’s name will remind people of the importance of freedom of expression for a lifetime.
Here’s the Taronga Zoo baby elephant name website:
http://babyelephant.taronga.org.au/name-our-little-one.aspx
“An attack on the rights of journalists”
Sidh,
I’m referring to an earlier comment of yours and I would like you to to clarify it for me.
“LSS, do remember that I am Thai and LM law punishes Thais more severely – contrary to Westerners who fall foul of the law who can whine to their governments out in little time.”
Is this fair? Why should foreigners get it so easy? Is this what the lawbooks say? Is this perhaps arbitrary and injust? Is the Thai justice system so easily corrupted by foreign governments?
As far as I can recall, Harry Nicolaides and Olivier Jufer and maybe others were pardoned by the King. I do not know what has happened to Thais who have been found guilty of the same crimes. Can you point me to the legal statutes which differentiate between Thais and foreigners?
I hope and pray that the King extends the same mercy to Suwicha Tahkor and Da Torpedo as He did to Harry Nicolaides and Olivier Jufer.