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Please do us a favor and check this out RAHIMCONGERS .


Besides of their cool header yet a rather dull layout (so I've been told), they do provide a very informative information in regards of Software & Malware. 

Issues in regards of Cloud Computing: Jurisdictional

Cloud computing is considered by many to be a lower cost, efficient, easily accessible solution to data storage and retrieval. Storing your data in the “cloud” offers the promise of access irrespective of the location from which you are accessing it. Such universal accessibility is understandably appealing to both businesses and consumers equally.

In other words, cloud computing act  as a means of ensuring that your information is available to you anywhere you have internet access. The fundamental premise upon which cloud computing is based is that it does not matter where data is stored but what matters is that the data can be accessed anywhere. From a legal perspective, however, the distributed nature of cloud computing creates jurisdictional uncertainty, because with information being stored and available “anywhere”, who has jurisdiction over it? Whose laws apply?

Hence we will continue to discuss how jurisdictional aspects becomes an issue in cloud computing. First of all, data that might be secure in one country may not be secure in another. In many cases, users of cloud services don't know where their information is stored. Currently in the process of trying to synchronize the data laws of its member states, the EU favors very strict protection of privacy, while in America laws such as the US Patriot Act invest government and other agencies with virtually limitless powers to access informations.

In Malaysia, around the year 2009, MIMOS ( Malaysian Institute Of Microelectronic Systems) took the first step toward public  sector cloud computing by joining the open source cloud computing test bed called Open Cirrus, created by HP, Intel, and Yahoo. This was aimed at learning from the global adoption of the delivery model and establishing a platform for the same in the country. Additionally, MYEG and the National Archives database use certain elements of the private cloud platform. However, there is significant room for the expansion of cloud services in the country. Not only that, the Malaysian Government has identified cloud computing as a major focus area and had kept cloud computing as the foremost strategic technology for 2010 under the MSC Malaysia program. The Malaysian Information System Officer Association expects cloud computing to lead to increased transparency and reduced ICT expenditure by up to 50 percent, while improving efficiencies.


The territorial borders for determining jurisdiction of courts in Malaysia can be seen from order 11 of the Rules of High Court 1980 and section 23 of the Court of Judicature Act 1964.Unfortunately, because cloud computing means ensuring your information is everywhere and anywhere, jurisdictional uncertainty issue will definitely arise.

However, the lack of clarity over jurisdiction issues due to free flow of data across state and national borders, complicate the decision to move into the cloud, especially for the public sector.  In order to overcome these issues, governments in the region need to put in place plans to improve local internet infrastructure, promote entry of local participants in the market and bring in standardization. 

Unlike the United States and European Union (EU) which are largely homogenous regions from a jurisdiction standpoint, Asia Pacific is an extremely heterogeneous region. In the absence of international cloud computing legal and governance frameworks, cross-border data interchange will be nearly impossible in the government sector. Data centers hosting the cloud infrastructure have to be largely local and preferably closer to the Federal agencies. 

As a whole, we can say that although the internet is global, but laws and regulations governing ICT Companies are often national. Human rights risks also may vary according to which country personal information is stored in, and how a company’s network is structured. Hence, it is important for policy makers to strike the right regulatory balance in ensuring flexibility, regulatory compliance and jurisdiction issues. The right balance between these three components will allow cloud computing to perform in an efficient manner. 

Name:Puteri Nursheila bt Rahimi A127443
Sources:
1. http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240089111/Top-five-cloud-computing-security-issues
2. http://www.frost.com/prod/servlet/cio/232651119
3. http://www.frost.com/prod/servlet/cio/232651119
4. http://www.kehakiman.gov.my/node/517

Disclaimer: This blog information is for the purpose of academic as we are learning Cyber Law. If there is any dissatisfaction of the information contain in this blog, please comment in this blog and we will retract back the information.  Thank you for your cooperation.

Issues in regards of Cloud Computing : Data Protection

The earliest post has already explain what cloud computing is all about. Briefly on the definition itself and the essentials characteristic of cloud computing, among other things.

The very term, ‘cloud computing’ derives from the cloud symbol, usually to represent the internet and the complex infrastructure behind it. Now as one knows, such infrastructure, or more fittingly, such service is bound to have many issues in question.

One of it, dare I say, which is among the important issues, would be data protection.

Obviously, data protection issue relates to the distributed nature of the data within the cloud computer service. Keep in mind, that the ‘cloud’ can be external, public cloud such as Facebook or Hotmail, or an internal, private cloud within one organisation.

Before we continue, it need to be noted that privacy and security issue around cloud computing can be addressed as an awareness and education issue.

So, when hen we talk about data protection in cloud computing, we need to understand that there are no borders within the cloud. The very concept of cloud computing is globalised and that makes it difficult for us to search for the borders. The cloud service providers can be located anywhere on the globe, save for some providers such as Amazon. Amazon offers their customers the option of choosing between certain availability zones. By choosing the option, the data will remain only at the selected zones.

Cloud computing raises a few interesting issues in regards to data protection. Amongst them includes the fact that most of data protection law is based on the premise that it is always clear where the data is located, who is responsible for the data processing as well as by whom the data is processed. However, this is not the case with cloud computing as the service is in conflict with the said premise.

The easiest example in this matter is that a person uses an e-mail service based on cloud computing, then his or her data can be stored anywhere in the world. Hence, with cloud computing, it is almost not possible to say where the data is at a certain moment and by whom and how it is being processed. This situation will cause doubt whether tjose responsible for data processing are in a position to effectively assume their responsibility at all, in line with each country’s data-protection regulations.

Similarly, if the data circulates freely around the globe, then we can no longer be clear of which data protection authorities at which location, are responsible for ensuring the accordance of the principles of data protection. 

(To be continued)

Issues in regards of Cloud Computing : Intellectual Property

What is Intellectual Property?

Intellectual property is property which is deemed to be the “creation of the mind”. It is an intangible creation of through intellectual process. Looking from the angle of law, intellectual property is property which is intangible creation which resulted from intellectual and creative process of human mind and the end result of the thinking being reduced to material form which is assigned certain rights of property. There are eight type of work being protected under Malaysia Copyright Act 1987 that is literary work, artistic work, musical work, film, sound recording, broadcasting, performer rights, and derivative work. An example of literary work would be books, musical work will be music sheet, film such as The Avenger, sound recording such as CD’s Album, derivative work such as translation of an original language of a book to malay language (eg. Harry Potter).

Ever since the beginning of Internet Era, infringement of intellectual property had been done in massive production throughout the Internet. Before the idea of Cloud Computing is made popular, P2P(peer to peer) sharing had been utilised and landmark case of P2P is Napster which is a  music-focused online services. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer to peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files, typically music, encoded in MP3 format. The original company ran into legal difficulties over copyright infringement, ceased operations and was eventually acquired by Roxio. For literary work, books are being scan page by page and being upload into the internet and can be download free of charge. Worst still, seven out of eight work that is protected under Copyright Act basically infringe the exclusive right of owner to reproduce the work.

Issues of Intellectual Property regarding Cloud computing

Sovereignty on the internet: location and use of data

In most cloud-based services, data(specifically intellectual data) will potentially be stored on hardware located in a country outside Malaysia. Storage of data outside of Malaysia will make the data susceptible to legal process instituted in the country in which it is stored and subject to the laws of that country. It will, for example, be susceptible to interception warrants issued in that country or, in the United States, come within the bounds of the Patriot Act, which gives the United States government broad powers to access data stored anywhere within the United States or passing across telecommunications infrastructure located in the United States.

What if the hardware of cloud-based services is located a communist country such as North Korea or country that had political turmoil or any instability? It would be unfair to the cloud-user especially to those that paid premium to the cloud-based services as other country government can gain access to the data.

Infringement of Intellectual Property by User in Cloud Computing

With cloud-based services such as an example, Microsoft hotmail Skydrive, the perpetrator able to store the infringe works such as songs, ebooks, documents, or photos.  Normally, the perpetrator will download the infringe works and save it in his hardware but through the improvement of internet bandwidth, cloud-based service able to accommodate a large storage for storing files (music,ebooks, etc), and the user able to upload their files over the cloud-based service with two benefits mainly time saving and cost cutting (cut the cost of buying pendrive or print out paper or laptop[can see files in any computer provided there is Internet] and etc). Another situation is that if a person own a CD album or any things that is protected under copyright 1987, the person only own a single licence of the data or things and he transferred the data and make multiple copies of data in the cloud, there could be issue whether he has the “right to store an additional copies” in the cloud.

Conclusion

Base on the issue above, we can see that sovereignity plays an important role especially to those people that would want to keep their intellectual property as data in the cloud. Issue such as “additional copies data” in the cloud is also yet to be solve. As to the matter of intellectual property infringement over the internet, legal mechanism must keep in pace over the technology to prevent the downfall of intellectual creation.


References


Journal

Internet Law Bulletin (newsletter)/2011/Volume 14 No 2 -- May 2011/Hidden in the cloud -- the dangers of keeping your data where you can't see it

Privacy Law Bulletin (newsletter)/2010/Volume 7 No 3 -- November 2010/Legal issues in the cloud

2008 Mich. St. L. Rev. 1 WHAT IFS AND OTHER ALTERNATIVE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND CYBERLAW STORY: WHAT IFS AND OTHER ALTERNATIVE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND CYBERLAW STORIES: FOREWORD

36 J. Legis. 395 RAIN OR SHINE: FAIR AND OTHER NON-INFRINGING USES IN THE CONTEXT OF CLOUD COMPUTING

10 J. on Telecomm. & High Tech. L. 53 CLOUD COMPUTING: CLOUD CONTROL: COPYRIGHT, GLOBAL MEMES AND PRIVACY


Website


http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/webmaster/intellectual-property-copyright-and-the-cloud-more-details-on-the-law-for-web-masters-and-developers/480

Name: Benjamin  Goo Koon Wern A132312

Disclaimer: This blog information is for the purpose of academic as we are learning Cyber Law. If there is any dissatisfaction of the information contain in this blog, please comment in this blog and we will retract back the information.  Thank you for your cooperation.