[Air-L] Jail for Facebook spoof Moroccan

[Julian Hopkins]

Conor, good point and you could well be right. 

Actually, the reason why that struck me in particular is because it struck a
chord with some events that occurred in Malaysia (where I'm based) that
highlighted the government/the police's lack of knowledge of how the
internet functions. But I suppose that's the situation in many places, with
the authorities lagging behind the private sector and individuals in terms
of technology use.

As for Fouad, apparently he was tracked to his home via the ISP. This is an
example of something similar (tracking via ISP) in Malaysia:
http://www.kennysia.com/archives/2007/07/anonymous_onlin.php . It also
highlights the potential for online harassment (a woman was sent abusive and
threatening emails).

It seems to me that three years is very harsh - he did not try to benefit
from it in any way or defame the Prince apparently. But it is most
definitely a different cultural context, the other example that springs to
mind is the King of Thailand and YouTube affair. 

Anyway, I hope they release the poor guy. 

Regards,

Julian

++++++++++
Blog: www.julianhopkins.net
Skype: julhop
IM: jfprhopkins at hotmail.com


------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 13:57:15 +0100
From: Conor Schaefer <conor.schaefer at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Air-L] Jail for Facebook spoof Moroccan
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Message-ID: <47C169AB.1040705 at gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

I don't at all speak French, but couldn't the quote you use to
demonstrate the authorities' ignorance be simply a nomenclature issue?
In English all the time I find people mixing up "site" and "page." I
don't think this indicates such extreme ignorance that the authorities
are incapable of assessing Fouad's actions.

More likely to me is that they understood roughly what he did, and are
just motivated by politics which most of us on this list might be driven
to call a bit extreme.

Julian Hopkins wrote:
> This might interest some people. 
>
> Jail for Facebook spoof Moroccan 
>
> A Moroccan computer engineer has been sentenced to three years in jail for
> setting up a Facebook profile in the name of a member of the royal
family...
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7258950.stm
>
>
> There's also a website set up with a petition and more information about
the
> case: http://www.helpfouad.com/ 
>
> There are some mitigating factors stated, one of which is interesting: 
> "La police marocaine ne comprend absolument rien ? Internet. Il est
demand?
> ? Fouad dans un des paragraphes pour quelle raison avait-il cr?? le site
> Facebook ?"
> (Translation: "The Moroccan police understands absolutely nothing about
the
> internet. It is asked of Fouad in one of the paragraphs [of the charge
> sheet] for what reason had he created the Facebook site?")
>
> Cheers,
>
> Julian
>
>
>