Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Your Computer May Be Watching You

Written by Vanson Soo   
MONDAY, 26 AUGUST 2013

No Cheeze Please
If you have ever got the feeling someone was watching you while you were using your computer, tablet or smartphone, it could be because someone is. You may well be sitting there while someone, somewhere out there, is commanding your electronic device to transmit pictures of you and what you are doing.

You might assume that if you haven't given electronic orders to the camera, it's shut off. But this might send a chill down your back. The friendly folks at the US's National Security Agency - the omnipresent spy agency dominating the news, and not in a good way - recently released a little two-page primer on tips to "harden" your computer against attacks.

One eye-catching bit of advice is to "Disable Integrated iSight and Sound Input" on Mac machines - the handbook was written explicitly for Mac devices but it is safe to assume the same applies to all built-in Webcams on other computers and devices.

"The best way to disable an integrated iSight camera is to have an Apple-certified technician remove it," according to the NSA Systems and Network Analysis Center. "Placing opaque tape over the camera is less secure but still helpful. A less persistent but still helpful method is to remove /System/Library/Quicktime/QuicktimeUSBVDCDigitizer.component , which will prevent some programs from accessing the camera."

And don't forget to mute or disable the internal microphone of these devices, the document says.

This comes as no surprise as anything with an Internet connection is vulnerable to attacks. The real surprise is that this advice came from the very agency now infamously known for conducting covert cyber-snooping and surveillance on ordinary citizens, as the former NSA contractor turned fugitive Edward Snowden has alleged.

But if even the NSA doesn't trust those Webcams, why should you? Irrational paranoia or cold reality?

The real issue is that most people have become thoroughly accustomed to these devices, it is indeed almost oxymoronic behavior to disable or give up on those innovations and gadgets supposedly designed to give us a modern digital lifestyle and to make us more efficient and put us abreast with the real world.

A hard pill to swallow? Consider this.

There are reportedly now special spy apps designed for smartphones. You don't have to be interested in them. You don't have to buy and install these apps. More importantly, you don't even need to know about them. Their very existence simply makes everyone highly vulnerable.

All it takes is for someone to install one of these apps on his/her phone and then covertly target another phone. The innocent victimized phone will then serve as a live broadcast for all the actions and conversations of the phone owner, or whoever was holding it or in proximity to that phone - who wouldn't even have the slightest clue as the compromised phone remains in rest mode in the midst of these intrusions.

The implications? Just imagine using the compromised phone in business meetings or say, on personal concerns, in the washroom - remember most smartphones these days come with front and rear cameras.

A client recently shared his concerns about these intrusive apps. But it is hard to give up the smartphone, he acknowledged.

The same good old words of wisdom: remove the SIM card and battery during important business meetings or private conversations. To go a step further, leave the phone outside the meeting room or inside a zip-loc plastic bag. Snowden was known to leave his phone inside the fridge, which works fine at home but isn't so convenient in a business setting. And what if the phone rang and you missed the calls?

The simple solution is to forward all calls to a spare old-fashioned mobile phone with a spare SIM card. Yes, those good old Nokias and the likes that are designed solely for phone calls and free of camera, internet connection, wi-fi, bluetooth, etc. Any phone but a smartphone.

So the choice is, give up the smartphone altogether or forward all calls to the spare phone, especially during those private, important conversations when you feel compelled to disable the smartphone. The forwarding function still works even when the smartphone is stripped of its SIM card and battery.

Now, it is fair to ask if the world has gone berserk. What is the point of buying sophisticated computers with all the digital add-ons and then disabling them? Using smartphones and reverting to old fashioned cellulars?

Well, just look at the Kremlin. The FSO, successor to the Russian KGB, announced last month a move to boost security of its communications and safeguard against cyber-snooping and NSA eavesdropping. The solution? Electronic typewriters.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Without Shadow Of A Doubt The U.S.A Is An Evil Empire

Hantu Laut

They sent Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison for exposing the truth to the world about American atrocities committed on non-American citizens in countries they invaded. 

War crimes committed by the United States of America on innocent civilians in foreign lands under the guise of putting the kibosh on terrorism. 

Hundreds of thousand of innocent Iraqis and Afghans civilians have died senselessly in equally senseless wars at the hands of their so-called liberators.........the U.S Military.

Below are some revelations and confessions of ex CIA and ex-military personnels, who weren't happy with what their government are doing and they face the grim prospect of being thrown in jail longer than what a murderer gets in the U.S.

For Edward Snowden the President has some advice:


President Obama, in his news conference this month, said that Edward Snowden was wrong to go public with revelations about secret surveillance programs because “there were other avenues available for somebody whose conscience was stirred and thought that they needed to question government actions.”
This is a common refrain among administration officials and some lawmakers: If only Snowden had made his concerns known through the proper internal channels, everything would have turned out well. The notion sounds reasonable, as do the memorandums Obama signed supposedly protecting whistleblowers.

We need more people like Snowden to tell the world what a rotten government they have.



Malaysian beware! Our ISA is mild compared to what the whistleblowers are getting in the land of the free......U.S of A

Watch the video below:




Without shadow of a doubt the U.S. is an evil empire.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Mahathir,Pak Lah And Advice That Will Bankrupt The Nation.

Hantu Laut

I have tried numerous times posting Tun Mahathir's articles to Facebook but failed to get through. 

I suppose, Facebook has blanket banned his blog and installed a Firewall to the link.

Sadly, Facebook had become victim of its own device and succumbed to biased, unbalanced and distorted reporting made by Mahathir haters. Hate campaign carried out against him by the oppositions and political kernel that Facebook failed to see.

Facebook have arbitrarily taken to criminalisation of opinions expressed online. This, to me, is a gross violation of freedom of expression.


I can't figure out any semblance of hate speeches in his writings as conjectured by his detractors and blindly accepted by Facebook. 

I suppose, he has to pay the price for being a controversial and well-known figure.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

Below is Mahathir's response and rebuttal to Abdullah Badawi's "Awakening",  short, concise and profoundly written in layman's language.


ADVICE THAT WILL BANKRUPT THE NATION





1. I am happy that Tun Abdullah has explained that he did not write about how the nation would be bankrupt if he had followed my advice. It was the interviewer.
2. I hope he does not mind my clearing my name over what the interviewer wrote in “The Awakening”. Yes, I agree that I was a spendthrift Prime Minister who finished all the government money building the North South Expressway, Penang Bridge, West Port, KLIA, Putrajaya, Cyberjaya and an assortment of others.
3. Had Tun Abdullah succeeded me earlier all these would be stopped to save Malaysia from bankruptcy. As it is, he managed to stop the crooked bridge and the railway double-tracking and electrification project.
4. The bridge would have cost just under 1 billion Ringgit. The cancellation cost the Government 200 million Ringgit in compensation and unfinished work.
5. The railway project from Johor Bahru to Padang Besar was going to cost 14 billion Ringgit – slightly more than 2 billion per year for six years. Fourteen billion Ringgit was saved. But then it was found necessary to build the electrified double track from Ipoh to Padang Besar. The cost is 12 billion Ringgit.
6. A contract was given to a foreign company to build the track from Seremban to Gemas. I don’t know what it cost. Looks like the 14 billion saved was spent on very much shorter tracks, about one-third in length.
7. Still there must have been a lot of money saved. The small jet I used was good only for the Deputy Prime Minister. A big jet was bought not through the usual channels but by some private individual. There was denial by the Government that the A320 was bought for the use by the Prime Minister. But the aircraft is even today used by the Prime Minister. Wonder why the deal was struck. Who really owns the aircraft? How much money has been saved by the Government from this deal?
8. Then there were these corridors to be developed. Each would cost 70 billion Ringgit. Then it is learnt that the allocation include private sector investments. Before Government budget is about how the Government will spend Government money. Under Tun Abdullah the Government budgets for the private sector to spend. But that’s allright because the figures look good.
9. However since none of the corridors took off, billions were saved.
10. It must have been a very rich Government which went for the 12th General Election. Sadly the people did not appreciate the billions that were saved. They rejected the Government party, giving 5 states and one federal territory to the opposition, and just a small majority to the thrifty party.
11. Just imagine how many billions more would be saved if I had stepped down earlier before building the North-South Highway, Penang Bridge, KLIA, West Port, Putrajaya, Cyberjaya, the twin towers of Petronas and a host of other mega projects. We would be sitting on a mountain of Ringgits.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

DAP Wayang Kulit

Hantu Laut

Indeed, what Tunku Aziz says here is not far from the truth, exaggerated and excessively dramatic, the DAP theatrics.

What grave injustice and abuse of power  against you when you cheated some of your members of their rights to vote?

You continue to cheat the people by proselytising lies into truth and truth into lies.

Accused the government of cheating in the recent polls, when you have not been entirely honest yourself.

Can you be trusted to be part of the big government?

DAP will continue to play the wayang kulit to hoodwink the people that they are being victimised by ROS and the government. 

I agree calling on PM Najib Tun Razak to guarantee that the party won't be de-registered is mischievous.

Sadly, too many Malaysians believe in this wayang kulit.


Bapa Borek, Anak Rintik

Hantu Laut

A man with a huge chip on his shoulder and a terribly bad attitude.

When confronted about his son's appointment he responded with sheer indignation and arrogance.

Herein lies his retort:

"You must know, I am a trained lawyer and I know what I am doing.

Nadim shall remain a special officer to me.

I don't care what people think.I don't care what bloggers, netizen, journalists write about me.

Today I am still a minister appointed by a bigger majority in my constituency, so what do they have to say.

I don't please anybody but myself.If making him a special officer makes me happy then that's it"

He says he is a trained lawyer and knows what he is doing, if so, why so many criticisms and contention of his action. We are not talking about legality here, it is more moral grounds and convention. 

He claimed he is a trained and good lawyer. Does he not know that the law also disallow as witness to signature of certain documents to anyone closely related to the signatory?

Why so? 

When the chips are down, blood is thicker than water.

That's why the law frown upon such practices.

Now, you people decide.

Is he a good lawyer?

Is he fit to be a minister?

He also mentioned that his family was already rich, so what the fuzz?

If that was the case, why work on such miserable and meagre minister's salary and if adding salt to the wound not enough, appoint his son to work for him in his ministry. 

Shouldn't the young man be out there somewhere managing the family's fortune...........? 

"Bapa borek, anak rintik" for those who don't understand Malay idioms, it carries the same meaning as the English idiom "like father, like son"

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

BN On Death Throes ?

Hantu Laut

Haven't posted anything this past week, things haven't changed and getting sick of defending the indefensible.

I once was an ardent supporter of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak's 1Malaysia, him trying to unite the different races in the country and trusting him as the man who could bring viable changes to a system that is insidiously killing the country, politically and economically.

It looks like we are becoming more rudderless than before. Like his predecessor he has fallen victim to UMNO greedy warlords and think that everything will be hunky-dory to continue the status quo. I scratch your back, you scratch my back in typical UMNO style.

Adding to his woes is a home minister who has a penchant for saying the quirkiest things and doing things "thick as two planks". Seriously, besides his two planks act this "Yang Berhormat" also needs to seek anger management therapy. Him getting physical against a man who claimed he was physically abused by him was recorded in a law suit against him. Angry man do not make wise decision and unwise decisions aplenty, the latest being stripping a poor Singaporean businessman off his permanent resident status. Though, I agree the government has the prerogative to cancel his PR, a bit of leniency and compassion over heedless and unintentional mistake sould suffice with a slap on the wrist. 

To err is human, to forgive divine. 

I am not even sure if there was a breach of divine law here, or just the angst of a small fraction of Muslims.

Mecca, before the dawn of Islam was full of idols particularly the Kaaba, used as a place of worship for the deities of Arabia's pagan tribes. When Islam took over Mecca they demolished the idols but not the buildings. The Kaaba now stands as the holiest shrine of Islam.

From the quirkiest to the smuggest, a minister of tourism who broke all conventions and claimed he was right to appoint his son as his special officer in his ministry and the conviction of righteousness came in the form of salary paid from his own pocket.A bumptious and opinionated ass who forgets the ministry is  not his personal fiefdom, but property of the people. It's fine if it was his "SDN BHD" He can do what he likes! Nobody cares!

If the quirkiest and the smuggest not enough to piss you off, try the scummiest of excuses, using religion in furtherance of racial domination. When the empire strikes back protecting the sanctity of Islam, more often than not, it's for racial consumption rather than religion.

PAS, whom I thought was the real fundamentalist looked more and more coy and innocuous. PAS leaders must be watching the show from the sidelines with their tongues hanging out in disbelief.

Bak kut teh, dogs, surau and improvised temple add more fun to a growing list of DOs and DON'Ts against Islam, an official religion but not constituted law of the country.

Any Muslim slighted over the slightest slight can lodge a police report and you are in a deep shit. The police will react faster than the bullets they used to shoot down criminals, because it is easier to find you and harder to find criminals.

The reason crimes on the rise, the police can't find the criminals, they outsmarted the police.

The EO (Emergency Ordinance) and ISA (Internal Security Act) had been blamed for the rise in violent crimes. The Home Minister claimed there were over 2000 hardcore criminals released when the EO was repealed and over 200,000 criminal foot soldiers are now working for these crime chiefs. 

New York City is a huge city compared to KL and had no EO or ISA, how come Mayor Rudy Giuliani succeeded in bringing down organised crimes in the city? Triad infested Hong Kong had no EO or ISA, how come they can clean up the city of big crimes making it one of the safest cities in the world today. Singapore, another gangster infested city before is now almost crime free and another one of the safest city in the world. 

How come our Home Minister is more interest in protecting the police than looking at the problems with an open mind and finding real solutions?

As they say "if there is a will, there is a way"

Someone asked me the other day "with is wrong with Islam today"? 

It is not Islam the problem. Muslims are root of the problems. Muslims are the trouble with what happened to Islam today. Muslims have become easily humiliated, use religion as a tool to retaliate and have become arrogant and self-destructive.

The current government is heading the same way, its arrogance will lead to.......self-destruction!

They do everything to agonise, antagonise and caused people's antipathy toward them.

The have lost the popular vote, completely lost the Chinese supports and lost the urban Malay votes.They have only one more thing to lose....the next general elections, as sure as the sunrise, if Najib keep dragging his foot on his transformation policy.

As proven in the past two general elections without Sabah and Sarawak the rural Malay vote bank in West Malaysia is insufficient to keep them in power. I expect the KDM in Sabah and Dayaks in Sarawak to abandon the BN in the 14th GE. They may also lose significant number of UMNO seats in Sabah.

As I have said before and still bear the same opinion, BN will lose in the 14th General Elections, unless some sort of miracle happened.

It better be soon!

Monday, August 12, 2013

Manila Times Porkiest Lie...Sabah Invaded Again!

Hantu Laut

A friend once said if they don't know how to do all this things..... lie, cheat and steal, they are not Filipinos. You can accuse him of racism, but he has a point. Time and again, such aptitude is proven true of the community.

Read a fantastic story of fairytale of a battle between Kiram's soldiers and the Malaysian armed forces from a paper (not worth the shit it was printed on) trusted since 1898 for shitty journalism.

FROM THE MANILA TIMES ONLINE:


While the Muslim community was celebrating the end of Ramadan last Friday, clashes between the Malaysian forces and the fighters of Sultan Jamalul Kiram 3rd erupted anew in Lahad Datu, Sabah.
Kiram’s spokesman Abraham Idjirani on Sunday said eight members of the Malaysian forces were killed after they were ambushed by at least 50 members of the Sultanate’s Royal Security Force (RSF) and volunteers composite headed by Utuh Ubie, RSF’s top officer.
He said the incident was relayed to him by RSF commander Raja Muda  Agbimuddin Kiram,  brother of the  Sultan during their conversation over the phone.
Raja Muda leads the 1,600-strong RSF that is holed up in Sabah in an attempt to regain its claim over the territory from Malaysia.
The ambush took place early morning Friday at Felda area in Lahad Datu, Sabah.
Idjirani, who is also the secretary general of the Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo, said while the RSF always takes defensive positions, it decided to attack the Malaysian troops, fearing they could be outnumbered.
“The Malaysian’s operations was a total violation of the principles of Islam. So the RSF decided to attack,” he said.
Idjirani said that in the tenets of Islam, after the commemoration of  Ramdan Muslims have seven days in which to seek forgiveness from the people they have sinned against.
Prior to the incident, Idjirani said a relative of Raja Muda who lives in Lahad Datu had informed Raja Muda that the Malaysian troops will launch a new offensive against the RSF.
The relative also said the Malaysian Forces have intensified their  coastal perimeter defense from Tawau to Sandakan after receiving reports that more Kiram fighters are set to enter Sabah to join the fight in “reclaiming” the island.
To reassert its territorial claim over Sabah, Idjirani said the Sultanate will be sending more volunteer fighters from Mindanao to the territory.
He said that a group of Bangsa Suluk volunteers from Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Basilan, and Zamboanga Peninsula are preparing to sail for Sabah.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak last March 1 ordered an all-out offensive to flush out the Sulu fighters, who were initially holed up in Lahad Datu.
Subsequent clashes resulted in the death of 68 RSF men and 10 Malaysian policemen and soldiers. Read more crap here.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Malaysia Trade: Foreign Investors Don't Like What They See



Hantu Laut

With Fitch's downgrade of Malaysia's sovereign credit outlook to negative, Malaysia will suffer more capital outlaw in coming months as foreign investors continue to dump Malaysian government bonds and liquidate equity stocks. The ringgit will slide down further against major currencies.

Foreign investors are jittery of the expected Malaysia's economic downturn, an uprise that depend much on Najib's transformation policy that ain't coming. 

I expect the economy to perform worse than the figure adjusted downward by the World Bank. I expect a worse scene scenario of less than 5 % of GDP growth for 2013.


Three days ago I bought physical US$ at US$1.00 to RM3.22. The lowest against the dollar in three years. In May this year it was RM2.96 to US$1.00.


The racial tension prevailing in the country is a cause for great concern and could get out of hand if both sides of the ethnic divide do not come to their senses.

DAP had thrown down the gauntlet on the ROS and I expect ROS will rise to the challenge with a well-deserved de-registration of the party. I say well-deserved because it is what the DAP wanted, a devious ploy to show the Chinese community that the government is taking revenge on the community for their wholesale support of the party in the 13th GE. 

DAP leaders, particularly the Lims, want the Chinese community to continue to be angry with the government so as to sustain the supports for DAP until the 14th GE, where DAP expect to gain more grounds if the momentum is kept alive.

DAP leaders knew by not acceding to ROS demand to hold fresh elections, which they should have, because the complaints came from party members who felt they have been cheated, the next action would be de-registration of the party by ROS. 

Both sides are testing each other's resolve.

There were rumours, true or not, that certain DAP leaders want a merger with PKR, which if materialised will make them very formidable. Out of PKR's 30 MP seats, only 14 or thereabout are held by Malays.

Fortunately for BN, Anwar Ibrahim will not allow it, not in a million years.


Najib's transformation seemed to be on delayed mode. His government spend more time on pettifogging and listening to leaders bankrupt of constructive ideas.


From the WSJ:


Malaysia’s exports continued to weaken Monday, another worrying sign for an economy facing increased investor scrutiny.

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Malaysia's Biggest Opposition Party Under Threat



On May 5, the opposition Democratic Action Party became the second-largest political party in Malaysia, drubbing its main rival for Chinese affections, the Malaysian Chinese Association and taking 38 seats in Parliament. The election made the DAP, as the party is known, a powerhouse in Malaysian politics, with the legitimate claim to represent the country's Chinese, who make up 24.9 percent of the country's population.

Today, however, the 48-year-old DAP's status is in doubt amid allegations that the government, headed by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, has set out to put the party out of business in the wake of its electoral success. 

Malaysia's Registrar of Societies on Monday invalidated the party's Dec. 15, 2012 central executive committee election over alleged intraparty irregularities during its annual general meeting after two DAP members, the vice chairman and secretary of a local branch, lodged reports in January, saying the party's election results had been manipulated to exclude them. 

Tellingly, the Home Minister, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, announced the decision against the DAP rather than waiting for the Registry of Societies to deliver a formal letter. The letter was delivered Thursday, containing the directive to hold fresh party elections.

In any case, the party's executive committee has now been ruled illegal and a new election of executive committee members must be held within a specified period, probably 30 to 60 days, according to the registry. The party, however, is refusing to hold a new election, meaning the registry could put the party out of business. 

The facts appear up for grabs. Certainly the DAP appears to have made an embarrassing error in the election. 

"It's their own members who took out the complaints," said the head of a think tank in Kuala Lumpur. "It was a huge embarrassment to them during the election. This is registry of societies business, it has nothing to do with anybody. The DAP, as paranoid as they are, say they are under siege." 

The DAP strategist Chin Tong acknowledged in an interview that the party had erred in computing results of the election, but that it had rectified the mistake. In any case, it is questionable why the action is being taken now. Although the agency investigated the situation earlier this year and issued a letter that put the validity of the central executive committee in doubt, in the end it cleared the party for the general election. After first refusing to allow the DAP to use its "rocket" symbol on election materials, the registry relented and allowed its use.Read more.

Friday, August 2, 2013

Crime Has No Statute Of Limitations


Hantu Laut

The 1974 killing of the IGP was never solved.

Questions are still being asked but Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak was reported to have said a couple of years back, it would be difficult to reopen the case as "it happened a long time ago."

Someone should tell the now Prime Minister that crimes have no "statue of limitations"

Onerous, is on the police to solve murder cases, but when luck ran out and lackadaisical attitude takes over the police ran into a brick wall. 

In the old days the police had better crime-busting work and higher rate of success.

Today, many high profile murder cases remained unsolved. The police found them too confounding to sleuth around and do a Sherlock. Detective work is also deductive work, needs not only lots of skill, but lots of passion to unlock the puzzle.

No justice system is perfect, innocent people have been sent to the gallows and the guilty have gone scot free, but police work to catch the perpetrators must not stop.A file can be closed, but should be reopened if new evidence surfaced. Serious crime has no "statute of limitations". Till death do us part.

Malaysian police seemed to have lost the passion for real detective work, depending too much on direct evidence rather than pursuing  circumstantial evidence where and when direct evidence is lacking. 

Collection of circumstantail evidence can become "colloborating evidence" that can establish or refute whether the accused is guilty or not.

The truth is, gathering circumstantial evidence is tedious and require much more police work than direct evidence and police investigators assigned to such work must have a nose for it, which is telling why many murder cases have gone unsolved. 

Read below how the police lost its mojo.


Good Cops, Bad Cops And All


Thursday, August 1, 2013

Are We Going To The Dogs, Literally ?

Hantu Laut

I still can't get over the arrest of dog trainer Maznah Mohd Yusof for what she did some three years ago. The video must have been there all along until some religious zealots saw it that ignited their ire, ignorance and fanaticism.

For some Muslims dogs are not considered dirty if you handle it according to Islamic rites. My late grandfather and late father,  both devout Muslims kept two large German Shepherd as guard dogs at the house on a farmland up in the country completely isolated from other neighbours. The nearest neighbour was half a mile away. Your best security alarm those days were dogs. No wonder they called dog, a man's best friend.



Read here, how she was remanded on such ridiculous allegation.

Never mind that, but how the heck the police was so quick to the gun and arrested her on God knows what ground is beyond comprehension. Was the Home Ministry complicit to the quick action of the police?

It is obvious crime-busting has taken a back seat, more efforts are spent on this kind of inconsequential cases than going after real criminals.

How can the government allow such repugnant action against an innocent girl on such flimsy allegations of insulting the Islamic faith, pandering to a handful of religious zealots, that bespoke culture more than religion.

Who is running the country, the politicians or the ulamahs?

Read a percipient article on the unfortunate affair: In the dog house for being kind


Malaysia Worries Over a Crime Wave




Contract hits raise concern over rising street violence
Two contract-killing attempts - one successful - on Malaysian streets have focused attention and growing anger on perceptions of a worrying rise in violent crime in the country, turning it into a political issue between Malays and Chinese as well.

An alarmed Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak held a press conference to say the government is prepared to give the police whatever is needed to fight crime and expressed concern over the spate of killings, saying it affected public confidence and increased fear with regard to security and serious crime.

In the most spectacular incident, banker Hussain Ahmad Najadi, 75, the founder and head of Arab-Malaysian Development Bank, was gunned down along with his wife on the street as they walked to his car. Hussain was hit in the chest and lower abdomen and died on the spot while his wife was hit in the arm and leg. She survived the shooting.

The second shooting occurred on July 27 when a gunman riding pillion on a motorcycle pulled up next to a car occupied by R Sri Sanjeevan, the head of a local anti-crime organization called MyWatch, and shot him in the chest when the car stopped at a traffic light in a town in Negeri Sembilan state. Sanjeevan remains in critical but stable condition in a local hospital.

The two incidents are hardly similar. For instance, there is widespread conjecture that Hussain was killed over a land deal gone bad, and Sanjeevan had publicly said he had identified links between policemen and drug dealers, and that he intended to make them public, and unnamed forces on either side of that equation may have attempted to silence him.

However, the shootings tie in with the widening spread of violence including a series of contract killings, such as that in April of the Customs Department director general, Shaharuddin Ibrahim, who was shot dead at a traffic light while being driven to work. The department's highest-ranking uniformed official and one who is believed to have gone after illegal schemes, his death is the focus of a task force that so far has turned up no suspects.

Nor are those alone. The Penang Institute has identified 38 gun murders between January and April of 2013, a shocking figure for a country unused to such carnage. Two street killings took place last week in addition to the shootings of Hussain and Sanjeevan. Street murders by gun have been averaging two a week, according to statistics. A 26-year-old Indian with a criminal record was shot and killed on the street today, according to local news reports. Read more.