Dear Friends,

I was amazed at what the Federal Government of Malaysia is doing. Emails for everyone? In the first place, why would anyone in their right mind want to provide an email address for every Malaysian above 18 years of age.

Every savvy Malaysian who wants an email address has one, long ago and it is provided FREE. How? Every one of the internet browsers today, provide unique, personal and free email addresses to anyone. Every work place in this networked world have their own unique email addresses for their workers. Even government offices have their own websites and email addresses. How is the new email superior to the existing ones? Secure? Gmail is one email account that is at the forefront of security. So advanced are they, that even large corporations around the world have stopped their in-house email servers and opted for cloud computing with Google mail.

Why do we need another email address to complicate our lives? On average, a person has at least 2 email addresses in Malaysia, one work and another personal. I have one email for work, one for personal use, one for the home and two others for social networking and community work.

Tell me dear Malaysia, why spend millions on providing another email address that may never be used? Is it not better to spend those millions on providing free WiFi access to people or even reducing the exorbitant cost of internet access? The exercise proposed is a complete waste of public funds or private funds. Have they even considered the millions of ringgit for maintenance of the servers, etc? Even as the PM has said that there is no public funds involved, it is obvious to a tech savvy individual that money is coming from the public funds. Just the mere act of engaging the email providers creates funds for the providers. I'm sure that adverts, etc are going to be part of this grand scheme. Isn't that funds generated that could be used for better network infrastructure? The hidden costs are there. In time to come the company concerned will be providing services to keep this scheme going that is going to incur public funds.

Today's email providers are vying to provide email boxes that are larger than 5 gigabytes each. Gmail is providing each about 10 Gigabytes free, Yahoo and Hotmail is providing similar capacity. If one looks at Telekom Malaysia, their broadband still provides an primitive10 megabytes! Many Malaysians have actually stopped using Streamyx email addresses because of the small capacity. I had stopped using that for almost 10 years now. How many Gigabytes is the new scheme going to provide? About security, Is the email scheme more secure than Gmail or similar providers? We have seen how hackers from overseas have broken easily into government websites. Now we are going to provide these hackers another incentive. They have the added providence of every Malaysian's personal details in one so called secure location. How secure can that be? Has anybody even realised why the US and more technologically superior countries do not attempt such schemes. It is the fear of hackers who can cause havoc to the financial system if personal details can be scooped from just one place in one devastating hacker attack. In today's cyber attacks, they are silent and all traces of an intrusion can be erased unless sophisticated and up to date software against hackers are installed and monitored round the clock.

So, what is the current interest in providing email addresses for Malaysians. Many feel, it is just another fat cow to milk for certain individuals. Only the ignorant dodos would go for this scheme which is worse than scratch-n-win! This is far more destructive as laid out above.

The money invested by the government or the private sector can be channeled to providing better internet services or giving a better tax rebate to people who have to pay for their internet service. At the moment it is a miserable RM500 rebate!! What is so wrong about giving a 50 percent reduction on internet access? That would give half the users, savings that would matter. It would keep the money out of the pockets of cronies and in the pockets of the rakyat. Alternatively, provide us with fast internet access without any added on schemes that we DON'T use. Just pure speed of 10 megabytes per second at a reduced rate! Is that difficult? Ever thought of free WiFi for everyone?

It is truly amazing that this government which prides itself in e-government and e-service of every kind can come up with such a hare-brained scheme like this. Have they not realised that every schoolboy/girl who has a PC, has an email account, a facebook account and maybe a Twitter account? Would it jolt the powers that be, to know that the children of today who are on the verge of finishing school are more savvy of the happenings in this world than some ministers who profess to be all knowing.

On the other hand, dear friends, is this a scheme whereby the powers that be, can bombard us minnows, with propaganda? Since everyone will have an email account the channel is there. As all grandiose schemes, this scheme can be effectively curtailed. Just don't use it and it may go away. We may yet be forced to use it. Ignorance of an email may not be a defence as according to them, all must eventually use it for official emails. Ludicrous? Maybe, but we have have seen worser schemes in the past!

Stop insulting our inteligence and be intelligent for a change! Please.

Anthony

Via e-mail-edit