Category: Sosial

K Box: Steps Are Taken to Hold Those Responsible For This Deplorable Act

SINGAPORE: K Box Entertainment Group, which runs a chain of Karaoke outlets, said it is taking the theft of its data as well as publication of its customers’ details “very seriously”. Its Chief Operating Officer Priscilla Ng issued a statement late Tuesday (Sep 16), after the apparent leak of its customer database with more than 317,000 names.

The Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) has said it is concerned about the scale of the leak and is investigating.

“We are conducting a full internal investigation, and have provided the PDPC and Singapore Police Force with our fullest cooperation. Steps are being taken to remove the stolen data and hold those responsible for this deplorable act wholly accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” Ms Ng said.

She said K Box has been able to “remove” stolen data and links from at least three websites. “We wish to assure you that controls and safeguards are in place in protecting your data and we take your data privacy very seriously,” she stated.

A check of URLs emailed to the media by the group claiming to be behind the leak, shows the links are dead. The group, who identified themselves as The Knowns, said they had published the data, to protest an upcoming toll hike at Woodlands Checkpoint.

Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/k-box-taking-data-theft/1365592.html

September 17, 2014
BREAKING: 317,000 Personal Details of Members from K Box Singapore Leaked Online

SINGAPORE: Personal details of more than 317,000 members of Karaoke entertainment operator K Box Singapore appear to have been leaked publicly.

At 4.17am on Tuesday morning (Sep 16), a group calling themselves The Knowns emailed links to the list of members’ details to several media outlets, including MediaCorp.

The list includes names of K Box members as well as their contact number, email address, NRIC number, date of birth and marital status. It also includes K Box-specific data, such as membership numbers and “K Points” earned.

Channel NewsAsia has been able to verify the details of several of the individuals on the list. One member, who confirmed her details in the list were accurate, said that K Box has not yet contacted her about any leak.

“I’m a bit freaked out,” said the member, who asked to remain anonymous. “My main concern is that with those details, someone could sign me up for random stuff.”

Another member whose name was found on the list said he was “extremely concerned what other personal information got leaked” and that he was also worried if other companies’ databases had been hacked. He filed a police report reporting the leak on Tuesday afternoon.

K Box did not respond to phone or email queries from the media. A senior management staff at the company headquarters said the company had “no comment” on the issue.

Channel NewsAsia understands that the relevant government agencies are aware of the incident and are looking into it.

The group claiming responsibility for the leak said that it was in response to “the recent increase in toll at Woodlands”, saying that it was “an unnecessary financial burden on working Malaysians”.

“To show our displeasure, we are releasing the database of Kbox containing more than 300k personal details of its membership. We had done it before and will do it again.”

Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/leaked-k-box-singapore/1364214.html

September 16, 2014
13 Factory Workers Diagnosed with Cancer Assembling Apple’s New iPhone 6 in China

A factory in Shenzhen, China, that assembles iPhones and other Apple products, has reportedly witnessed 13 workers aged between 19 and 24 diagnosed with cancer. Five have died from the disease.

An investigation by the Mail on Sunday found that the factory workers had contracted leukaemia, potentially as a result of exposure to dangerous cleaning chemicals used in the plant.

Apple has previously been accused of dangerous working conditions in its Chinese supply factories, with advocates from China Labour Watch (CLW) all previously campaigning for improved welfare.

Earlier this month, an investigation by CLW and Green America found that one of Apple’s assembly plants in Suqian, China, was responsible for endangering the safety of up to 20,000 workers.

Following similar accusations regarding the welfare of factory workers in 2013, Apple claimed that it no longer used hazardous chemicals, such as benzene and n-hexane.

The California-based company said that it required production facilities to meet the safety standards for the handling of hazardous chemicals as set by the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

“The new report demonstrates that in the 16 months, Apple has not made progress with this supplier to improve conditions for its workers,” CLW said in a statement, referring to the findings of its most recent investigation.

“In spite of Apple’s supplier code of conduct and commitments to prevent these violations, more than a year later, they persist.”

According to the Mail on Sunday report, workers that fall sick with leukaemia in the factories are dismissed and denied continuing medical coverage, resulting in the bankrupting of families unable to afford medical treatment.

Foxconn, the supplier that runs the Shenzhen factory, has said that it is set to meet with members of Labour Action China to find out more about the leukaemia cases. It claims that there is no evidence to link the deaths to dangerous chemicals.

Source: https://sg.news.yahoo.com/iphone-6-factory-china-sees-spate-cancer-deaths-152944956.html

September 16, 2014
Failed Policies of UMNO Are to Blame For Certain Lazy Malays

IT is wrong to single out one type of people as lazy and it does nothing to improve the situation, says Global Movement of Moderates (GMM) chief executive officer Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah.

He was commenting on a speech by former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who said that shamelessness and laziness are holding back Malays.

“Being lazy is an attitude of some people. It happens everywhere and not only among Malays,” says Saifuddin.

Instead, Saifuddin suggests that what is needed is to improve the attitude of all Malaysians, not just limiting such efforts to any one ethnic group, as well as positive encouragement.

“We should celebrate successful people and motivate others to emulate them.

“Continuously nagging people will not make any difference,” says the former Deputy Education Minister.

PKR deputy information chief Sim Tze Tzin accuses Dr Mahathir of simply trying to cause provocation. He says failed policies have caused Malays to seem as though they are lazy.

“Dr Mahathir is just trying to provoke Malay insecurity by comparing them with other people.

“The Malays that I know, who work in Bayan Baru and Bayan Lepas factories, are among the best in the world.

“They are hard-working and disciplined and they come from all over the country,” says Sim, who is also the MP for Bayan Baru.

He says this showed that Malays are not lazy and could stand toe-to-toe or shoulder-to-shoulder with any people in the world.

However, he says failed policies, including practices initiated by Dr Mahathir himself, are to blame in cases where certain Malays could be seen as lazy.

“His policies are what has made certain Malays very lazy, such as cronies who get projects and immediately pass them out to contractors.

“This is the policy laid out by Dr Mahathir that made some elite Malays very lazy,” says Sim.

But, he adds, that it is not only the elites that have lost out in some way due to failed policies but also the poor.

“Failed policies of Umno are destroying their economic prospects. Cheap labour from Indonesia or Myanmar are suppressing the low wages of Malaysians, of low-income families, the majority of whom are Malays.

“At the end of the day, because of cheap labour, they give up.

“Not because they are lazy, but because of the cheap wages, they cannot sustain themselves,” says Sim, adding that low pay provides a “disincentive” to work.

“Don’t blame the Malays, blame the policies,” says Sim in conclusion.

Source: http://www.therakyatpost.com/allsides/2014/09/15/malays-lazy-blame-failed-policies-malays/#ixzz3DRO8UjBB

Read more: http://www.therakyatpost.com/allsides/2014/09/15/malays-lazy-blame-failed-policies-malays/#ixzz3DRNmk57x

September 16, 2014
Chinese and Myanmar Workers Are More Honest Than Malays

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 14 — Ethnic Chinese and even the migrant Myanmar workers are more honest compared to the native Malays where money is concerned, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today as he continued his decades-old belief of inherent racial weaknesses to explain the economic failures of Malaysia’s largest community.

The former prime minister also claimed that many Malays do not pay back their debts, and therefore many companies prefer to award contracts to the Chinese, whom he insisted were more trustworthy.

“Now I have a bakery. I want to say honestly, I am ashamed because among the Malay, Chinese or Burmese or any other workers, the Malay ones sometimes when they see money they forget themselves, they become dishonest,” Dr Mahathir told Umno-controlled Malay paper, Mingguan Malaysia in an exclusive interview published today.

Dr Mahathir is the chairman of The Loaf, a chain of Japanese-inspired bakery which first opened in Langkawi in 2006.

“Whenever the [Malay workers] see money, if they can swipe the money, they will. I have fired a lot of Malays because of this attitude. But the Chinese are not like that,” the veteran Umno politician said.

According to Dr Mahathir, some of his Malay managers have even tried to collude with his workers to cheat the outlets of money.

He also claimed that there are also cases where the managers did not deposit the outlets’ money in the bank, or have swindled the money by not recording the proper amount of sales.

“When we’re trustworthy, when we want to lend money, people will give because they know we will pay it. How many Malays when they borrow money, they don’t pay back?” asked Dr Mahathir.

He singled out as an example, those who received scholarships but refused to pay them back despite having the money to do so.

“We have to be trustworthy so people will give contracts to us. When we want to give contracts, we give to the Chinese instead because we know they will do their work properly. This is our weakness, not trustworthy,” added Dr Mahathir.

Dr Mahathir was widely panned last week after he described Malays as being lazy and dishonest in a speech last Thursday.

The 89-year-old said Malaysia’s largest race group lacks good values, ethics and were not hardworking enough, which he said has caused them to trail behind the other races economically.

In response to criticisms, Dr Mahathir said he was only calling a spade a spade: “I have never wanted to fool myself. If they’re lazy, I call them lazy. If people don’t like it, then be it. When I was Umno president, I used to nag all the time.”

Dr Mahathir is a staunch defender of race-based affirmative action policies as prescribed by the New Economic Policy, an economic model mooted in 1971 to close the socio-economic gap between the largely-urban Chinese and the rural Malays as well as other indigenous Bumiputera.

However, the former prime minister has admitted in the past that the programme has made the Malays more complacent while noting that the system had been abused to enrich only a few elites who were close to the ruling party.

But the man who ran the country from 1983 to 2003 has continued to defend the policy, saying it was still needed to help the Malays compete and bridge the income disparity among the races.

Source: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/chinese-myanmar-workers-more-trustworthy-than-malays-dr-m-says#sthash.iUoCqnzx.dpuf

September 16, 2014