<nettime> Malaysia's goals

[Steve Cisler <sac@apple.com>]

www.sjmercury.com/news/asia/malaysia/stories/mahatir.htm is just
one of the many stories that appeared last Sunday in the San Jose
Mercury News about the grandiose plan Malaysia has called "The Multimedia
Super Corridor", much of it being pushed by Mahathir.

He and his government have been here in Silicon Valley, trying to get
support from high tech companies for this huge enterprise which has been
influenced by Smart Valley's programs (www.svi.org) which, in turn, was
inspired by Singapore's much older "Smart Island" program of the early 90's.

On one hand the Malaysians want to provide a high-tech environment where
American (and other) companies feel safe, yet able to grow. The S.J. Mercury
articles outline some of the legal changes that Malaysia is making to provide
penalties for non-malicious hacking, strong intellectual property protection
and non-censorship of Internet traffic...in the corridor.

And now this week the accusations against Soros.  Given all the talk about
the decline of the nation-state, the porosity of the banking system, it shows
the Malaysians are quite worried about the unfettered flow of network transaction
because their currency is vulnerable.

Steve Cisler
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