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@hotmail.com ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 13:57:15 +0100 From: Conor Schaefer <conor.schaefer@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Air-L] Jail for Facebook spoof Moroccan To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Message-ID: <47C169AB.1040705@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