What's With India, Pakistan And The UFLA?

I read about this several days ago, but have not had the time to post about it until now.

Apparently a discussion (or rather more like a debate) regarding Assam on Orkut has reached the India Gazette who quotes several people within the UFLA forum from last year (although the debate seems to have carried over well into 2007).

I decided to shop around Orkut to see what this UFLA debate was all about. I came across a forum called We Hate UFLA in which Bhargab explained some brief history regarding the whole event.

Historically Assam has been one of the most peaceful regions where various races and religions have lived in peace. Shortly after seven states were carved out of Assam in the early 70s, and towards the late 70s, the Assam agitation began. This agitation, started by students, sought to bring to the government's notice, two things:

1) Assam being neglected by the Central government in creating employment opportunities, despite Assam producing so much oil and tea,

2) Illegal migration by Bangladeshis and the Assamese slowly losing livelihood and land to them. These being pertinent issues, the whole of Assam supported the causes. This agitation carried on for about a decade, turning violent at times, and resulted in the Assam accord of 1988, when the Congress government at the centre, led by Rajiv Gandhi, made some lofty promises.

Assam was overjoyed and the student leaders became overnight heroes. Somewhere along the same time (late 70s) the ULFA (United Liberation Front of Assam) was formed; their agenda was similar to the students, except that they always demanded an independent nation.

Apparently things seemed to have spiraled down from there, with the current situation that is happening in Assam playing in front of the world stage.

Although terrorism in any form (in my opinion) can not be justified, at least there is some diolouge starting between the pro-UFLA and anti-UFLA crowds.

A long time ago my (former) boss told me that he didn't "want to hear your problems, I want to hear your solutions." Hopefully these two groups can come to a solution that pleases everyone, (at least a little bit) as war isn't the most fun of things to experience on planet Earth.

Saddam On Orkut

Aside from dating, hacks and discussions around technology, Saddam Hussein seems to be one of the major topics on Orkut.

With the execution of the former dictator of Iraq, some members are expressing joy or sorrow over the news of his life ending before the year was over.

Over in the United Nations forum, TicTac informs everyone of the news that Saddam is no more and calls for a beer.

Kristina disagrees, saying she would rather have Saddam rot in his cell than be executed. Sehtareh provides an interesting view of Saddam death and trial by saying:

I have vivid memory of Saddam's bombs dropping. I saw them first hand. I remember how enraged I was when I heard he had made a war memorial from the helmets of dead Iranian soldiers.

I wished him dead many times. But I would have been a lot happier person if he was hanged after a fair trial that exposed him for who he was. I dont want history to have any doubt about how evil he was, and the kangeroo court might just remain excuse for history to judge his fate.

There is also some discussion regarding Saddam's execution over in the American Politics forum, in which Brent thinks this event has made Saddam a god (note: Really?) in the eyes of the terrorists.

But the most interesting discussion seems to be in the International Relations community where Hugo has posted a humorous obituary (by Mario Benedetti) celebrating his death.

Interesting Note: I wonder what the Don't Kill Saddam forum is going to do now that their hero is gone?

Indian Police: Hacking Orkut Is Too Hard?

It looks like law enforcement in India are having a tough time hacking through Orkut in order to find the real identities of terrorists and criminals. Is it me or does this strike you as a bit...ironic?

(Indiatimes Infotech) Indian security agencies are having a tough time in catching criminals and terrorists who are members of Google-owned Gmail or Orkut sites.

According to security officials, since Google servers are based in US and their IP addresses are masked, it takes a long time to get the real IP addresses and log details of culprits. Moreover, Google demands a judicial order to process the request which further delays the arrest of the accused, who may even have fled by then.

You would think that they would realize Google (probably) hires the best hackers around the world. Although I wonder if anyone inside Orkut would be willing to offer their services to the cops for a small fee?

Is Google Really Funding Terrorists?

It seems so. According to the Search Engine Journal, which only reports the truth, especially on Wednesdays (and Loren Baker posted this yesterday on Wednesday). Here is what they had to say:

(Search Engine Journal) The specific Google properties which are serving these ads are housed on the Google Orkut social network. Orkut groups which were serving these Google Ads were set up by Hezbollah, Iraqi insurgent and other terror oriented groups.

I took it upon myself to perform some searches within the Orkut network and came across multiple Hezbollah and Al Qaeda groups, associated forums and member profiles which are serving Google AdWords contextual advertisements. [...]

Sure the argument can be put together that Google is not responsible for the content which is created by members of their Orkut community, which lets registered users set up their own forums, blogs, and groups to connect different users over the Google network.

I am shocked, I tell you shocked! Ionut, over at Google Operating System has vowed to never blog about Google again. But why should he?

After all Google is responsible for so many evil things, I can't post them here because they will delete my Ad Sense account.

Is this the end for Inside Orkut?

Disclaimer: I am totally joking, and no Google is not funding terror according to the Search Engine Journal. Matt Cutts (from Google) has already debunked this both in the comment section as well as on Digg.

I actually found this story to be quite funny...until people started taking it seriously. Ah well, we are all human and we all make mistakes...at least I do.

Remembering September 11th

It's been five years since the attacks on September 11^th, and members of the September 11th "9/11" post their thoughts of where they were when they heard that the planes hit the towers.

Fahed: i was studying preparing for my mid term exams when a 5 year old kid from second floor of my apartment came to my door and said why dont u watch TV. A plane got Stuck in a building and they are trying to remove it..
i was like...how can a plane get stuck..i switched on my TV apparently to find one more plane hitting the WTCs that was terrible and SAD

Osama sucks. and yes m muslim

Gaurav: I was celebrating my B'day with my frenz here in India and it was late in the evening here wen suddenly i saw this news on TV channels which shocked me & i cut short my B'day party & celebrations & got hooked on to the news for 1 whole day....My condolences to all those who died in those terror attacks that day.

Candy: I was awakened by a phone call from work. I was told to turn on the TV. As I did, I saw a plane hit the World Trade Center. There was speculation that it was a small aircraft at the time. The footage I saw was a big plane.

I showered and sped to work. I work for United Airlines. We didn't have a TV at work, which was probably a bad idea! I never saw what the World saw. I only heard via word of mouth. I only saw the events unfold some 12 hours later.

Perhaps, this is why I can't seem to watch it on TV now.

Many Americans will be reflecting on what happened during that day, and where they were when they heard the news that the US was attacked. I, ironically first doubted the news, having visited New York many, many times throughout my childhood.

After friends pointed towards video being played on the news of the buildings crashing down, I was pretty much shocked by what I saw (as it is hard to imagine NY without those buildings).

The Google Video Blog has highlighted a video commemorating the event, which you can view over at the Google Video site.

Fundraising For Hezbollah? (Or Rather Hizbollah)

It looks like networking works for anyone--even Hezbollah (or is it Hizbollah?).

Over in the Hizbollah forum, one of the members asks where he can donate Khums towards Hizbollah (and if you do not know what Khums are, simply Google it or visit Wikipedia for an explanation).

Here is a screen shot below of the request:



...and here is another snap shot showing the assist:



Although not a good thing to discover, I'm not too surprised to see these types of activities happening on Orkut. After all, if drug dealers are using the forums, what prevents terrorists from doing the same?

Related:

• We don't want Al-Qaeda's money


• Lebanon war debate--Who's at fault?

Who's The Terrorist?

Aside from dating, debate about terrorism seems to be the highlight of the day (or rather the week).

Ania from the Human Rights Watch forum has posted a video link with George Galloway showing adamant support for Hezbollah. Geoffrey does not seem too impressed with Galloway, and replies with:

Ah yes, George Galloway, terrorist sympathizer that was tossed out of his own party, Al Jazeera regular, Oil for Food scandal participant. I don't have to even watch that to guess what it shows.

If you want to form an honest opinion, why not start choosing independent sources, rather than forming an opinion then going to look for trash that agrees with it?

This of course kicks off a debate with Ania pointing out how the accusations against Galloway were defeated in court (it was a congressional committee, but he still defeated them) with more fun raging on pages two and four.

Over in the American Politics forum, James posts this image (shown below) which leads to much debate over who is at fault in the Lebanon war.



Here are some opinions from both sides of the conflict. From the pro Hezbollah side:

(Michael on page two) What Hezbollah has delivered, as a matter of historical fact, is the resistance of Israeli occupation of Lebanon, from 1982-2000. That resistance had several facets, not the least of which is providing a counterbalance to Israeli-backed Christian militias, such as the SLA which operated in South Lebanon, and was quite indiscriminate in brutalitizing the native Shia population there. So Hezbollah has street cred when it comes to defending actual Lebanese.

And from the pro Israeli side:

(Len on page four) Hezbollah did not "drive Israel out" in 2000. You'll find that the UN, US and the Knesset got Israel out. Hezbollah were not that powerful and still aren't. Annoying? Definiately. No matter how many rockets Hezbollah fires into Israel, they won't "drive them out".

The UN resolution that led Israel out also agreed that Hezbollah should be disarmed by the Lebanese gov't. Obviously this was not going to be easy given the Syrian manipulation of the Lebanese gov't, and Israel might have waited for the Lebanese gov't as of the end of last year to do something.

More debate continues on pages five, six and seven with Donald, Tejas, Wahab and Hamza jumping into the debate.

Related:

• Leeron (in Zionist Jews) discusses Hezbollah's goal of genocide.


• A.SIPRA in the Hezbollah forum asks whether it is fair to kill civilians (since Islam forbids this).


• Mirel (in the Conflict in Israel forum) declares that most terrorists are Muslim, something Raihaan and Xeni both dismiss as false.

A Lebanese Speaks Out Against Hezbollah

Over in the other Hizbollah forum (is it spelled Hezbollah or Hizbollah?) Samir, a Lebanese vents against what he sees is the main problem of the war in Lebanon.

Just one question Mr. Nasrallah: Who gave you the right to open a war in Lebanon? From whom did you take the advice of choosing this critical time of the year to do that STUPID operation of getting 2 Israeli soldiers as hostages? Those who live in Lebanon know that Lebanon survives because of the tourists spending their money in these 3 months of the year.

But NO Hezbollah chose to do their attack now! NICE TIMING GUYS! AND PLEASE, don't come and convince me that they did this in return of Lebanese hostages in Israeli prisons. As a matter of fact, Hezbollah are everything but Lebanese! Hezbollah is pure Iranian/Syrian Shiite Muslim fanatic militia! [...]

Thanks Hezbollah for ******* up my country, please go back to Iran, there you will live better with your compatriots, and stop claiming that you are Lebanese because you are everything but Lebanese!

This leads to an interesting discussion with Ayaz rebuking Samir and saying he should realize "how lucky" he is while others chant choruses to Hezbollah or post more rants against Israel.

I personally was perplexed (like Samir) why Hezbollah started the war when they did. It seems to promote more of Iran's interests rather than Lebanon's. The sad part is that I have friends in all three regions of this conflict (Lebanon, Israel and Palestine) with various opinions, although right now I'm trying to figure out who is alive (a major concern for me).

Israel, Hezbollah, And The Lebanon Crisis

By now, unless you have no access to media, you have probably heard about the crisis in Lebanon. It seems like the buzz is finally spilling into Orkut itself, with much of the action within the Israeli and Hezbollah forums.

Over in The War In Israel forum, Naor posted his first impressions of the war.

i was today at work, 5 minutes after i entered the office we heard the bombs and then we saw them from the window in the office, it was scary !
but we have strength and we don't mind to be in shelters as much as it takes until our great army will distroy the Hizbullah and disarm them !!!

With Israel on the hunt for Hezbollah (as well as for their missing soldiers) it seems that not everyone is happy with what the Kosher army is doing to Lebanon, as Juliana (over in the Lebanon forum) is screaming for Israel to "Stop Destroying Lebanon."

Juliana is soliciting aid within the forum I hope it's for the Lebanese and not some terrorist group (hint: Hezbollah).

Speaking of Hezbollah, over in their forum, MaRoOf has decided to return back to Lebanon with the blessings and cursings of members within the forum.

AQSA: best of luck for martrdom
all the best and drop bombs and rockets [and] kill as many jews as possible .

best of luck for martrdom but if death is not destined then may Allah give u life till khilafah

Donald: Good luck *****. I hope you get martyred real quick. I hope a lot of muslims around you do too. Blessings!

Not too suprisingly, this terrorist forum is known for promoting death against Israel, although some Muslim extremists have decided to share that information within the Israel forum, which is not receiving very many "happy replies."

Sigh...and you thought we all could get along on this blue little world. Perhaps when the Space Elevator is built, I can take a trip towards Mars. Anyone else want to come along?

Vacation, Terrorism And More (Oh My!)

Well, I have not had time to post yesterday, as I have been either busy or blogging elsewhere, or both. I'll be away from Inside Orkut until Tuesday, so you probably will not see any posts from me. However, these sites below should entertain you until I get back.

• Orkuttando (english version over here)


• Joga.com: a project between Orkut and Nikefootball.com


• Beyond Satire: A Googler who I think works on Orkut

Moving on, today saddens me as both Israel and India have been hit with terrorist attacks over the past several days, with a war in the former case as Israel seeks to find its missing soldiers.

One item I would like to highlight though is what Divyanth said in the End Religious Violence forum:

[...] I have noticed something interesting. These terrorists aren't killing to "terrorise" people into giving them what they want, or "preach" islam and "Jehad" to the world in an "Islamic" way. One the contrary, these very anti-islamic feelings that we all have today, is simply and exactly what they wanted. They want to disintegrate India on communal lines, and through these "anti-islamic" feelings of ours', they have succeeded in doing so.

Therefore, what I am saying, is that we have become those terrorists' pawns. It is good that we have already realised this. Let us not hate islam and muslims anymore. That is not what muslims want.

In all my experiences with Muslims, most of them have been pretty cool. We may disagree over Muhammad, but they have no desire to kill me by slitting my throat (and yes, I've met Muslims like that...and that is a story for another day). May God be with the victims families as they cope with the losses over these incidents.

Last but not least, next week I'll post the top Orkut programs, hacks or tricks that I have seen while posting at this site. I've encountered at least two dozen (and perhaps three) but I'll go over the top five ones either Tuesday or Wednesday. So stay tuned!

Al-Zarqawi Killed In Iraq

On the news it was reported (and confirmed) that the terrorist mastermind Al-Zarqawi in Iraq left this world via two 500 pound bombs on his head. Although this is great news (as my friends in Iraq are celebrating) apparently some within Orkut are mourning his loss.

(Via Apoio a Al Zarqawi or Support to the Al Zarqawi)

Chiquinho: (Translated via Google) Today it was one day sad, therefore lider of the Al Qaeda in Iraq, Al Zarqawi, was died for the American troops. It is my pezames here and the fight against the invasion did not finish!

For those wanting to see a picture Michelle Malkin has the round up (as usual). May Zarqawi join his friends in the after life, and may he never again harass humanity (of all faiths) with his dark logic.

A Muslim And Not A Terrorist

After stumbling inside the Zionist Jews forum, Muhammed became upset at reading some of the viewpoints of the members of the community.

I am a muslim.......a muslim not a terrorist [...] I just joined this community and have read a couple of forums.......after reading them i feal heart broken and sad......do all you people think of muslims as terrorists only? are we nothin' except trouble maker to you? and do you think that we are proNazis and anti jews? [...]

I have great sympathy towards Israel and belive that jews have every right to live there,i am not an extreamist and am, against suiside bombing (which are cleary forbidden in islam).

I'm just sick of being refered to as a terrorist and request all you people that don't judge us by the doings of a hand full of people..........Israel is a great country may it live forever and may the muslims and jews make peace one day......

Muhammed's comments are welcomed by Aviroop and Iara, the latter who offers "big hugs to him."

Roberta is very pleased about Muhammed's viewpoint, although she thinks the Muslim prophet of the Quran (or is it spelled Koran?) was not a man of God. This of course stimulates new debate on pages three, four and six.

Terrorist Verses A Freedom Fighter

Over in the United Nations forum, Farukh starts an interesting topic by asking everyone what is the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter?

Here are some of the "civilized" responses below:

Rosney: A terrorist can be a freedom fighter but his means are wrong. A freedom fighter is not necessarily a terrorist, for example Martin Luther King Jr.

A terrorist doesn't deserve freedom, he deserves punishment.

Tawfigur (on page 3): To me, a FREEDOM FIGHTER is a person who fights for his nation or people (for liberation). fighting for religion can also be freedom fighting.

A terrorist is one who is fighting for a group who are derailed from the normal track just to establish some unjust demand. a terrorist doesnot have any religious or national backing. a terrorist or terrorist group might reflect a religion or natinality. but that is for exploiting. they do not have the backing of the general people.

Marcelo (on page 4): A freedom fighter is a warrior who's target the military opressor only, a terrorist is a criminal who target women and children.

Tawfigur probably has the best response out of the entire forum, but unfortunately some members within the discussion can not see the difference between the two. Sad.

Unfortunately on page 5, the discussion gets heated with Patriot and Ahad cussing each other out while presenting their viewpoint.

Al Qaeda Is The Least Of Your Worries

Many of you have probably heard about Al Qaeda using Google's Orkut service, but for those of you who missed it, here is a snippet from USA Today.

(USA Today) Al-Qaeda sympathizers are using Orkut, a popular, worldwide Internet service owned by Google, to rally support for Osama bin Laden, share videos and Web links promoting terrorism and recruit non-Arabic-speaking Westerners, according to terrorism experts and a survey of the sites. [...]

The largest bin Laden community has more than 2,000 members, according to Orkut's tracking data, available on the site. It has a link to the site of the Islamic Army in Iraq, the group that claimed responsibility for and released a video of a bombing Dec. 2 that killed 10 Marines in Fallujah.

I came across these sites last year, although I would not be too surprised if Uncle Sam (that is the US government for the international readers) was already reading the posts as they are already wire tapping US citizens with terror ties.

But for those who think Al Qaeda's presence is "all threatening," I would personally consider these groups to be more dangerous--at least in cyberspace.

• Iraq Freedom fighters: Community dedicated to the Iraqi Resistence who bravely defy the huge american army fighting for the freedom of their country against the rotten american imperialism.


• Al Hamas: Come and join every Muslim. who hates the enemies of Islam
  And wanted to liberate AL QUDS SHARIF.
  Hamas is the most deadliest Muslim militant group has ever know Ned The 1st Fidai attack (suicide Attack) was also done ba that group By 1 of our sister LAILA KHALID
  
  Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (Shaheed)
  Islam must be refreshed from time to time by the blood of Mujahideen and Tyrentz
  
  (Note: Don't forget their larger twin)


• Freedom fighters everywhere: for resistance movements everywhere! from the islands of jolo to the land of palestine to the fields of ireland to the jungles of south america. viva la resistance. A forum for discussion on weapons, tactics and warfare.


• Muslim Freedom Fighters!: To support all the Muslim freedom movements going on all over the world whether it be Palestine, Chechanya, Iraq, Afghanistan or Kashmir.

These sites generally represent the fringe groups of Islamic radicalism as most Muslims that I've encountered (both online and off) are generally friendly.

I know the last thing Google desires is to play "internet nanny," but if these groups are violating their terms of service then they should either be removed or warned, as the last thing Google wants is the NSA up their wazoo.