Choosing a next-generation firewall: Vendor comparison

Many firewall vendors offer next-generation firewalls, but they argue over whose technique is best. A next-generation firewall is application-aware. Unlike traditional stateful firewalls, which deal in ports and protocols, next-generation firewalls drill into traffic to identify the applications traversing the network. With current trends pushing applications into the public cloud or to be outsourced to Software as a Service (SaaS) providers, a higher level of granularity is needed to ensure that the proper data is coming into the enterprise network.

Each vendor has its own approach to building application awareness into a firewall. SearchNetworking.com asked each of the leading firewall vendors to explain how their next-generation firewalls differ from the competition. Here is what we learned. 

•  Astaro uses an application signature database from its partner Vineyard Networks to deliver application awareness to its Astaro Security Gateway. Through this partnership, Astaro's firewall can distinguish different applications running from the same website and apply Quality of Service options to prioritize and allocate bandwidth to these applications.  The latest version of Astaro Security Gateway enhances the presentation of this information to the firewall administrator. It offers a network-wide view that allows administrators to quickly define  security polices based on the real-time situations. The key, according to Astaro, is to enable IT to react to new threats by seeing what is happening and fine tuning the firewall quickly and easily.

Astaro is also focused on identifying new, unknown application types as soon as new applications start hitting customer networks. Planned for an upcoming release, the system would allow administrators to opt-in and anonymously submit unknown packet types for review by Astaro engineers. The company will use the compiled data to identify these applications and add them to the signature database.

•  Check Point Software has developed the AppWiki application library, which the company claims can identify over 5,000 applications and 100,000 social networking widgets. These application signatures are pulled into the company’s Check Point Application Control and Identity Awareness Software Blades. The software also integrates with Active Directory to identity the user and endpoint, allowing administrators to customize granular security policies. Check Point also offers the ability to educate users in real time. Agent software on the user's PC, UserCheck, will pop up a window when the user violates security policy. The window explains the violation and guides users through remediation. This software also lets users provide feedback to administrators, streamlining the process of customizing security policies in response to user needs.  

•  Cisco Systems has announced plans to add new levels of application visibility into its Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA), as part of its new SecureX security architecture. Cisco claims that this new architecture will not only address application awareness, but also user and device identification, as it rolls out features throughout 2011. Details on how Cisco acquires that application visibility remain sketchy for now.

•  The application control functions of Fortinet’s FortiGate devices use protocol decoders and decryption of network traffic to identify applications. The company’s FortiGuard Labs team maintains an application signature database, adding signatures for new applications as well as updating signatures for new versions of existing applications. The application database enables Fortinet’s products to separate disparate applications from a single site, such as Facebook or Google, and allows separate policies for each. Fortinet claims that its products have a performance and integration advantage over its competitors because all of its technologies are developed in-house.

•  Juniper Networks uses a suite of software products, known as AppSecure, to deliver next-generation firewall capabilities to its SRX Services Gateway. The application-aware component, known as AppTrack, provides visibility into the network based on Juniper’s signature database as well as custom application signatures created by enterprise administrators. With AppTrack providing visibility, the AppFirewall and AppQoS components of the suite provide the policy enforcement and traffic control of the applications. Juniper also claims a high level of scalability in its platform, with the ability to deliver application protection at up to 100 Gbps speeds.

•  McAfee, recently acquired by Intel,  uses its McAfee AppPrism technology for application discovery and awareness in McAfee Firewall Enterprise. AppPrism identifies thousands of applications, regardless of port or protocol, backed by application signatures developed in-house by McAfee’s own Global Threat Intelligence team, the company claims. AppPrism also provides a high level of application control, allowing administrators to disable just the riskier portions of an application. For example, administrators can use the technology to block the file sharing capabilities of an instant messaging application without blocking a user's ability to chat. McAfee claims its next-generation firewall has an edge because its application-awareness technology is a core part of its firewall architecture and all components, including application signatures, all of which are internally developed.

•  Palo Alto Networks says it was the first vendor to deliver next-generation firewalls and the first to replace port-based traffic classification with application awareness. The company’s products are based on a classification engine known as App-ID. App-ID identifies applications using several techniques, including decryption, detection, decoding, signatures and heuristics. Individual App-IDs for a given application can rely on any combination of these techniques in a single bundle, allowing the engine to identify all versions of an application, as well as all of the platforms the application runs on. App-ID, as the core of Palo Alto’s firewalls, is always running, so it can identify when an application performs a function, such as a file transfer, and it can apply policy to that specific function. The company also notes that App-ID is extensible, so that as new techniques become available, they can be incorporated into the classification engine.

• For SonicWALL, the formula for application awareness in its Next-Generation Firewall is a combination of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) and an ever-expanding signature database that can currently identify and control upward of 3,500 applications and application functions. SonicWALL's Reassembly-Free Deep Packet Inspection (RFDPI) scans every packet across every protocol and interface. On the signature side, the the SonicWALL Research Team continually generates new signatures, which are automatically delivered and implemented without requiring extra work from the network administrator. In addition, IT shops can create their own signatures as needed.

SonicWALL's firewall solution also includes a Visualization Dashboard and Real-Time Monitor, which enables administrators to see specific applications on the network, including information on who is using them and to what extent they're being used. The idea is to use this information for policy setting and troubleshooting.

(Sources - http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com)

Africa Takes Off - Sub-Saharan Africa is starting to shed its reputation as an economic laggard. The West should pay attention

Pity sub-Saharan Africa -- but maybe for not much longer. In the first decade of the new millennium, six of the world's ten fastest-growing economies (Angola, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Chad, Mozambique, and Rwanda) were from this region. And in eight of the past ten years, it has grown faster than Asia.

To be sure, some of the region's growth stars owe their success in part to the global boom in commodity prices, most notably in oil. But Ethiopia managed to grow by 7.5 percent last year without producing a drop of petroleum. (Ethiopia's brightest newest export: cut flowers.)

Note, too, that average incomes in sub-Saharan Africa are still very low; for example, the per capita income in Chad is below $1,800 measured in terms of purchasing power, less than a tenth that of Poland or the Czech Republic. It will thus take decades of years of growth to bring living standards to acceptable levels.

But according to the IMF, the region is on track to grow by six percent this year, about the same as Asia. And there are convincing reasons to believe that a healthy pace can be maintained for the foreseeable future. Indeed, in the World Bank's view, Africa "could be on the brink of an economic take-off, much like China was 30 years ago, and India 20 years ago." That should be raising doubts about the appropriateness of international assistance policies based on the presumption that Africa still lacks the capacity to break out of its dispiriting cycle of poverty, dysfunctional governance and tribal violence. More on that later.

Ready to be surprised? Trade between Africa and the rest of the world tripled in the last decade. And by no coincidence, Africa has attracted more private foreign investment than official aid since 2005. Consider, too, that Africa's share of global foreign direct investment -- the most prized sort, since it brings along technology and management skills -- rose from less than one percent in 2000 to 4.5 percent in 2010.

But perhaps the most visible evidence of widening prosperity is the incredibly rapid penetration of mobile communications. Take Ghana, which, by the World Bank's reckoning, graduated to middle-income status last year. In the late 1990s, the country has a mere 50,000 working phone lines in a country of nearly 20 million. Now, three-quarters of the population has access to cell phones with both voice and instant-message capability.

In fact, the amount of money directed towards phone use has forced government bean counters to reconsider their (sometimes very rough) estimates of the region's income. In Ghana's case, the government recently revised upwards its estimate of private GDP by an astonishing two-thirds.

(Read more - http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles)

Debat Sinar II temukan Saifuddin dan Salahuddin

Salahuddin (kiri) dan Saifuddin (kanan)

SHAH ALAM - Untuk kali kedua, Debat Sinar Harian akan dianjurkan antara dua tokoh berlainan ideologi politik bagi memberi peluang kepada rakyat mendengar idea mereka berhubung isu yang menjadi buah mulut masyarakat hari ini.

Penasihat Eksekutif Editorial Sinar Harian, Datuk Abd Jalil Ali berkata, tajuknya masih lagi dibincangkan peringkat akhir sebelum diumumkan penganjur dalam masa terdekat.

“Debat antara Ahli Majlis Tertinggi Umno, Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah dan Naib Presiden Pas, Salahuddin Ayub itu akan diadakan di Auditorium Kumpulan Media Karangkraf pada 19 Jun depan.

“Penyertaannya adalah terhad, jadi kami akan membuat jemputan khas untuk 350 kerusi yang disediakan pada malam berkenaan,” katanya kepada Sinar Harian semalam.

Debat berkenaan akan dikendalikan oleh Pensyarah Jabatan Pengajian Strategik dan Antarabangsa, Fakulti Sastera dan Sains Sosial, Universiti Malaya, Prof Datuk Mohamad Abu Bakar.

Abd Jalil berkata, Sinar Harian sebagai akhbar rasmi, juga akan siarkan laporan penuh debat ini keesokan harinya.

“Sinar Harian telah mengadakan beberapa perbincangan dengan kedua-dua pendebat ini, masing-masing menunjukkan kesungguhan dan sedia berdepan dengan hujah masing-masing,” katanya lagi.

Sebelum ini, Sinar Harian pernah menganjurkan 13 siri wacana setiap bulan dengan pelbagai tajuk menarik untuk disajikan kepada pembaca setia.


(Sumber - http://www.sinarharian.com.my)

Khalid Ismath mahu cabar hukuman UiTM

Khalid Ismath

SHAH ALAM - Penuntut jurusan undang-undang Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Khalid Mohd Ismath, yang kelmarin digantung tiga semester, mahu mencabar keputusan pusat pengajian tinggi itu di mahkamah.

Khalid berkata, beliau mahu mencabar penggunaan peruntukan Akta Institusi-Institusi Pelajaran (Tatatertib) 1976 oleh UiTM dalam mengenakan tuduhan ke atasnya.

Khalid, 22, dibicarakan Jumaat lalu oleh Lembaga Tatatertib UiTM dan dijatuhkan hukuman digantung pengajian selama tiga semester bermula sesi akademik September ini.

Sebahagian tuduhan ke atas itu berkait dengan tindakannya ketika demonstrasi menuntut pemansuhan pinjaman Perbadanan Tabung Pendidikan Tinggi Nasional (PTPTN).

“Saya akan teruskan perjuangan saya di mahkamah agar Akta 174 ini (Akta Institusi-Institusi Pelajaran (Tatatertib) 1976) dimansuhkan. Sama seperti perjuangan mahasiswa untuk hapuskan Akta Universiti dan Kolej Universiti (Auku) satu ketika dulu,” kata beliau kepada Sinar Harian Online.

Dua tahun lalu, empat penuntut Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) telah membawa kes mereka ke mahkamah dengan mencabar Seksyen 15 Auku.

Keputusan mahkamah memihak kepada keempat-empat penuntut itu dan kerajaan sedang membuat rayuan.

Malah keputusan itu juga telah menjadi titik tolak kepada pindaan Auku baru-baru ini, sekali gus membolehkan pelajar-pelajar aktif berpolitik.

Pindaan itu dituntut oleh kedua-dua parti kerajaan dan pembangkang.

Sehubungan itu Khalid berkata, beliau akan mengadakan perbincangan dengan kepimpinan Solidariti Mahasiswa Malaysia (SMM) pada Selasa ini.

“Saya mempunyai rancangan saya sendiri. Bagaimanapun segala keputusan akan dibuat sebulat suara bersama SMM terlebih dahulu. Saya perlu bincang dan keputusan akan dibuat bersama ahli SMM,” katanya.

Beliau juga merasakan keputusan Jumaat lalu berat sebelah kerana percaya masih ramai lagi mahasiswa UiTM lain yang aktif berpolitik tetapi tidak dikenakan sebarang tindakan.

Khalid, mengikut tuduhan pertama, didakwa tidak hadir kelas selama dua minggu berturut-turut dan dikenakan hukuman tidak dibenarkan mengambil peperiksaan dalaman semester ini manakala di bawah tuduhan kedua pula, Khalid didakwa menerbitkan unsur-unsur ugutan menerusi Facebook. Selain itu, Khalid juga dituduh menghina isteri Perdana Menteri.

Di bawah tuduhan kedua dan ketiga, Khalid dikenakan hukuman masing-masing membawa hubung digantung pengajian satu dan tiga semester. Hukuman itu berjalan serentak.

(Sumber - http://www.sinarharian.com.my)

Dealing with the classic Catalyst 6500 end-of-life

Network managers who have relied on the classic Cisco Catalyst 6500 platform in their data center and campus networks are approaching a crossroads: the Catalyst 6503, 6506 and 6509 platforms will reach end-of-life in November, which means Cisco will cease offering hardware support. Cisco will also stop selling the classic Catalyst 6513 in November, ending hardware support in August 2017.

Cisco offers a couple of migration options for customers facing classic Catalyst 6500 end-of-life. In the campus LAN, users can invest in the newer Catalyst 6500-E platform, which got a new lease on life with the release of the Supervisor Engine 2T. Meanwhile Cisco recommends that customers with the classic chassis in their data centers migrate to the Nexus line.

Catalyst 6500 end-of-life: Core migration is a headache

Catalyst customers are more concerned with a rip-and-replace at the core than in the wiring closet. Migration is somewhat simple in the wiring closet, while at the core it's much more radical.

“Replacing a core is not a trivial event. The hardware is cheap, but swapping out that hardware is an expensive proposition from an outage perspective, from a time perspective, and [in terms of] configuration validation,” said Forrest Schroth, network manager with staffing firm Randstad. “I would rather an upgrade at the core layer be a [result] of me needing functions that [the classic Catalyst 6500] doesn’t support rather than a vendor trying to push me new products.”

For many customers, the classic Catalyst is still sufficiently meeting their needs in the core.

“If you still have Catalyst 6500s around, they’ve been running in a fairly stable state for a while and most folks out there are going to continue running them as they stand. They understand that [the Catalyst 6500s] have limited functionality, but they are put in places in the network where [users] are not worried about a lot of forward evolution in terms of functionality,” said Eric Hanselman, research director with the 451 Group.

Even those that want to make change in the data center don't love the fact that Cisco is pushing them toward the Nexus line. In a newer data center, Schroth installed Catalyst 6500-Es in his core rather than migrating to the Nexus line.

“We were going back and forth because there are features we don’t need [in Nexus] and features we would lose going to Nexus,” Schroth said.

Can you avoid a Catalyst 6500 end-of-life?

As Cisco winds down the classic Catalyst 6500, network engineers can turn to after-market equipment specialists like Network Hardware Resale (NHR) that offer third-party support for the equipment. In fact, these companies see the Catalyst end-of-life as an opportunity.

Mike Lodato, senior vice president of sales and marketing at NHR, gives the example of one   healthcare organization with 385 classic Catalyst 6500s that was facing a $65 million migration bid from Cisco to the Catalyst 6500-E. The upgrade was driven by an upcoming rollout of voice over IP (VoIP) that would need the more robust Power-over-Ethernet capabilities of the Catalyst 6500-E. However, the VoIP rollout was a phased project with 85 sites in the first year, 120 in the second year and 92 in the third year. Rather than upgrade them all at once, the healthcare provider wanted a phased installation of the new switches, saving money by staggering the purchase, installation and support costs in time with the VoIP rollout. NHR was able to support that slow transition

“We came in and said, 'instead of converting them all before you need them, how much does it save you to put those on third-party support?'” Lodato said. “'How much can you save in capital and depreciation expense by deploying them at the time of business need rather than the time of vendor mandate?'”

NHR is also working with Matrix Telecom Inc. to maintain 18 classic Catalyst 6500s in its service provider network, according to the company’s manager of IP network services, who asked not to be identified. He  plans to keep the switches for as long as NHR can keep getting him replacement parts.

“As technology grows and evolves, we will need to upgrade them. Right now, my network is really stable. We’re not looking to do any major upgrades,” he said.

Other companies have been reluctant to use third-party support for network infrastructure because it is difficult to change course and get back on a Cisco support contract, Hanselman said. But with the classic Catalyst 6500, this worry is irrelevant. “Something bordering on antique becomes less of a concern,” he added.

Will Cisco stick to the Catalyst 6500 end-of-life dates?

Cisco has tried to retire elements of the Catalyst 6500 line in the past but has encountered pushback from customers. Some wonder if customer protest will stop this upcoming end-of-life.

“There are so many backbone nodes out there,” Schroth said. “[Customers] did not allow them to outdate CatOS, and they have not allowed them to remove the 6500 series. I believe this is more of a threat than an end-of-life. There is going to be a customer revolt and that date is going to slide.”

(Sources - http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com)

What Stuxnet's Exposure As An American Weapon Means For Cyberwar

Two years of theories and speculation in the cybersecurity research community were confirmed Friday morning: Stuxnet was indeed the first known digital attack launched by a government to destroy another country’s physical infrastructure. And the government that launched it was ours.

As revealed in an extensive report from an upcoming book by New York Times‘ Washington correspondent David Sanger, the Stuxnet malware that has fascinated cybersecurity researchers since in was discovered in the fall of 2010 was in fact built by U.S. and Israel government agencies and deployed to disrupt Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities. It seems to have worked: One thousand of Iran’s 5,000 enrichment centrifuges were temporarily put out of commission by the malware, and some sources within the Obama administration told the Times that Iran’s nuclear ambitions may have been set back by as much as 18 months to two years.

But even in 2010, the Obama administration knew that the potential exposure of the program, which it codenamed “Olympic Games,” would spell trouble.

“Mr. Obama, according to participants in the many Situation Room meetings on Olympic Games, was acutely aware that with every attack he was pushing the United States into new territory, much as his predecessors had with the first use of atomic weapons in the 1940s, of intercontinental missiles in the 1950s and of drones in the past decade,” Sanger writes. “He repeatedly expressed concerns that any American acknowledgment that it was using cyberweapons — even under the most careful and limited circumstances — could enable other countries, terrorists or hackers to justify their own attacks.”

That acknowledgement has now arrived, thanks in part to a bug in Stuxnet that caused it to spread far beyond its intended targets and to catch the eye of antivirus researchers, and in part due to Sanger’s own excellent reporting that ties the malware directly to Washington. So will the public confirmation of America’s role as a cyberwarfare aggressor lead to the escalation of the digital arms race that Obama feared?

Jeffrey Carr, author of Inside Cyberwarfare and chief executive of cybersecurity consultancy Taia Global, believes it will. ”This is a gift to Iran,” says Carr of the Times‘ revelations. “I think it will give a reason–an excuse–for other countries to ramp up their offensive cyber capabilities. Certainly it gives Iran an excuse to take steps to retaliate in exchange for what’s occurred. It’s a really unfortunate disclosure.”

After all, the original advantage of using a digital attack to sabotage Iran’s nuclear facilities instead of a physical one, Carr says, was to keep the operation secret and allow deniability if it were discovered. “The whole point of a secret operation is that it stays secret and doesn’t blow back on the country that launched it,” says Carr. “Now there’s really no doubt left. It’s really damning.”

According to the Times‘ story, in fact, much of Stuxnet’s effectiveness came from the mystery it created for the Iranians. The malware generated malfunctions in the centrifuges of the Natanz enrichment plant at random intervals over months, using different errors every time, and rendering them undetectable to the diagnostic systems in the control room. The Iranians became so paranoid about their own hardware, according to Sanger, that they assigned staff to physically watch the centrifuges. ““The intent was that the failures should make them feel they were stupid, which is what happened,” one source said.In the Iranians’ confusion, the plant workers closed down entire sections of the facility and fired workers. With so many details of Stuxnet’s workings–and its origins–now revealed, it’s unlikely the next digital weapon will have the same effect.

But the exposure of American involvement in Stuxnet shouldn’t be blamed on the Times, says Mikko Hypponen, a malware analyst who closely analyzed Stuxnet since its discovery in 2010. American fingerprints were all over Stuxnet since antivirus researchers first saw the malware disseminating out of the Middle East and infecting their clients’ machines. “All the other governments must have already assumed it was the United States or the Israelis,” says Hypponen. “We’re already in this arms race, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it now.”

As early as the fall of 2010, researchers like Ralph Langner and a team at antivirus firm Symantec had already reverse engineered Stuxnet to show that it specifically targeted centrifuges at enrichment facilities like Bushehr and Natanz, leaving little doubt of who created it. And if independent researchers like Langner were able to come to that conclusion, it’s likely foreign intelligence services and others had already confirmed U.S. and Israeli involvement.

The real importance of confirming Stuxnet’s American origin may be more introspective, says Bruce Schneier, a well-known cybersecurity guru and author: Now we know beyond a doubt that the potential for a physical cyberattack, so often portrayed as a foreign (and specifically Chinese) threat, actually starts at home. “Every country is engaging in the cyber war arms race,” says Schneier,  ”This isn’t one of our finer moments. But it’s the truth. It’s icky. But it’s good to get the truth out.”

As Richard Clarke outlined in his 2010 book, Cyberwar, the U.S. military is likely the most powerful offensive force in cyberspace, ahead of both Russia and China. Defense against foreign attacks rather than offense is where the U.S. lags–Clarke argued that even North Korea is less vulnerable than the U.S. to cyberattack, given its lack of automation and Internet connectivity. And as a story inTechnology Review points out, Stuxnet’s traits have already shown up several other malware samples that have hit American targets, implying that the Obama administration has been more focused on using its new weapons than in considering the consequences once that destructive code proliferated in the wild.

With U.S. critical infrastructure still vulnerable to the same sort of attacks that Stuxnet used, the confirmation of the first military malware may be a valuable one: that America shouldn’t be driving forward a cyberwar where every digitized nation suffers, and the U.S. has perhaps the most to lose. “These guys are playing war in cyberspace, and they’re doing stuff that affects our networks,” says Schneier. “When countires attack each other in cyberspace, we’re all in the blast radius.”

Read David Sanger’s full New York Times‘ story on Stuxnet here.

(Sources - http://www.forbes.com)

Facebook's Saverin: 'No hard feelings' against Zuckerberg

Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin.(Credit: Facebook)

Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin says he bears no resentment against Mark Zuckerberg for being forced out of the company and even goes so far to call the social network's CEO a "visionary."

"I have only good things to say about Mark, there are no hard feelings between us," Saverin said in an extensive interview with Brazilian publication Veja, according a Forbes translation. "He was a visionary, he always knew that the only way to get Facebook to grow was to maintain its central idea, that of people truly presenting themselves as they are, without nicknames or pseudonyms."

Saverin expressed similar sentiments earlier this month on his personal Facebook page as the social network put the final touches on its much-anticipated IPO (although he managed to misspell his former partner's name): "... I especially wanted to congratulate Mark Zukerberg on keeping tremendous stead-fast focus, however hard that was, on making the world a more open and connected place."

Saverin, who helped Zuckerberg launch Facebook at Harvard in 2004, was edged out by Zuckerberg the next year when the social network began to take off. Saverin should have beenfocusing on reforming the company as a Delaware corporation so it could accept investments. But wasn't, and that was the key factor in his ouster.

Despite being forced out and his shares in the company being famously diluted, his holdings in the company is estimated to be worth more than $3 billion.

Saverin, who recently made headlines again by renouncing his U.S. citizenship, took issue with "The Social Network," the 2010 movie about Facebook's early days and Zuckerberg's rocky relationship with Saverin and the Winklevoss twins.

"That's Hollywood fantasy, not a documentary. Facebook wasn't built out of a Harvard dorm window. And I would never throw a laptop at someone, like it appears in the movie. Not even at Mark."

(Sources - http://news.cnet.com)

CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE IN SARAWAK 1963-1988: 25 YEARS AS A STATE WITHIN THE FEDERATION OF MALAYSIA

On 21 June 1962 the Cobbold Commission had issued its report supporting Sarawak and British North Bomeo becoming member states in a proposed Federation of Malaysia. Three major differences between the Malayan and Sarawak constitutions were that the former decreed Malay as the national language, Islam as the official religion, and afforded Malays special rights.

However, the ethnic mix in Sarawak was different from that in the Federation of Malaya, where Muslim Malays made up about half the population." Subsequently, an Inter-governmental Committee (IGC) agreed on the terms and constitutional safeguards that would apply to Sarawak, issuing its findings on 27 February 1963.With the formation of Malaysia on 16 September 1963, an amended Malayan Constitution, incorporating the constitutional safeguards agreed to by the IGC, applied to Sarawak. In the absence of a cession clause and the "good-government" Cardinal Principles of the Brooke Constitution, Sarawak relied on those safeguards to protect its interests." Although complex in detail, in simplified form these were:

1) Citizenship: automatic Malaysian citizenship for those bom and normally resident in Sarawak. For those of good character who were normally resident in Sarawak and who had resided in any part of Malaysia for seven of the preceding ten years, but had not been born in Sarawak or any part of Malaysia, citizenship upon application.

2) Education: although on the Federal List, to remain under the control of the Sarawak State Government. Knowledge of the Malay language not required as a qualification for any educational opportunity and no application of any Federal requirements for religious education. Use of English as the education media could be continued for a maximum of 10 years.

3) Emergency powers: during a national emergency, the Federal Parliament given unqualified power when a Proclamation of Emergency is declared, not withstanding anything in the Constitution.Immigration: this remained on the Federal List, but admission to Sarawak not to be granted to persons from or outside Malaysia without the approval of the Sarawak State Government, giving Sarawak effective rights over immigration into the State.

4) Federal Constitution: any amendments to the Constitution to require a two-thirds majority in the Federal House of  Representatives.

Federal House of Representatives: Sarawak to elect 24 members of the total membership of 159.

Federal Senate: Sarawak to be represented by at least two members.

Legal Department: Sarawak to have a legal department with the Attomey-General a State Officer appointed in consultation with the Federal Govemment.

5) Religion: religious freedom is guaranteed in the Malayan Federal Constitution. A two-thirds majority of the total State Legislature is required to pass any law that may control or restrict the propagation of any religious doctrine or belief among persons professing the Muslim religion. Federal Law should not provide for special financial aid for establishing Muslim institutions or Muslim religious education in Sarawak without the concurrence of the State Govemment.

6) Sarawak Constitution: Sarawak is allowed to continue calling its Executive Council the Supreme Council and its Legislative Assembly the Council Negri. The Yang diPertuan Agong (King) appoints Sarawak's head of State after consulting with the Chief Minister

7) Sarawak's Legislative List: Muslim Law, Native Law and Customs, land, agriculture and forestry, local government and services, electricity, state works and water, state machinery, state holidays, turtles and riverine fishing.

8) Concurrent Federal and Sarawak Legislative List: social welfare, scholarships, national parks, animal husbandry, town and country planning, public health and sanitation, and drainage and irrigation.

The Council Negri passed the first amendments to the Sarawak Constitution by the required two-thirds majority on 25 June 1964. One of these enabled another person to perform the functions of the Speaker should the latter be unable to do so. The other removed the impractical stipulation that indirect elections be held within 60 days in all situations. Opposition Council Negri member Chan Siaw Hee claimed the amendment showed that the State Govemment had no intention of holding a direct election before 16 September 1968, the latest date given in the IGC Report. Initially, direct elections were to be held in 1967, but setting up new electoral boundaries each with approximately the same number of voters delayed the projected date of elections until May 1969. To prolong the life of the Council Negri due to be dissolved in September 1968, the Federal constitution had to be amended.

For this, the [Federal] Constitution (Amendment) Act, 1968 was enacted. During the debate on this act in the Dewan Rakyat (House of Representatives), on 21 August Stephen Yong Kuet Tze, Secretary-General, Sarawak United People's Party (SUPP), suggested that the Federal Govemment had deliberately delayed delimiting constituencies and registering voters because it feared defeat at the polls. Criticizing the wording of the amendment, Yong took the opportunity to say that "if the arbitrary arrest and detention of [his SUPP colleague] SUPP member Chan Siaw Hee ... was in accordance with the law, then let us see [whether] the proposed amendment ... is also in accordance with the law. Polling finally began on 10 May 1969. Five days later polling was suspended, following a proclamation of emergency over racial riots that broke out in Kuala Lumpur on 13 May 1969.

The aim of the next amendment to the Federal Constitution was to prevent any recurrence of the 1969 racial riots in mainland Malaysia. By the end of June 1969, hundreds of people had been killed and over 350 injured in the riots." The riots were generally accepted as a major setback in the polls for the ruling Alliance coalition headed by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), with feared loss of, and resentment over, the special privileges for the bumiputera (Malays) in the Constitution.

After the riots broke out, the govemment quickly assumed emergency powers, suspended parliament, and established direct government through the National Operations Council (NOC). The NOC was disbanded on 19 February 1971 and parliamentary rule re-established on the following day. In preparation for retum to parliamentary rule, the [Federal] Constitution (Amendment) Act, 1971, was published on 15 February 1971."

Simply, this act empowered the Dewan Rakyat to pass laws restricting any freedom of speech questioning the special position of the Malays, the sovereignty of the rulers, the national language (Malay), and constitutional provisions on citizenship. This restriction extended to speeches in the Dewan Rakyat and all state legislative assemblies, which included the Council Negri in Sarawak. On 24 February during the debate on the act in the Dewan Rakyat, Haji Amad Arshad (Alliance coalition) said that the choice was between a restricted democracy, meaning the restrictions imposed by the amendment bill, and military or emergency rule. The act was passed on 3 March, with only 17 dissenting votes.

Earlier, in 1966, the Federal Government's power to amend the Constitution of Sarawak following a declaration of a state of emergency was used to resolve a complicated political impasse. On 17 June Governor Tun Abang Haji Openg dismissed Chief Minister Ningkan, who was said to no longer hold the confidence of the majority in the Council Negri. A new Chief Minister, Tawi Sli, with his new Supreme Council members, was then sworn in. The High Court in Kuching subsequently found that the governor had no power to dismiss Ningkan. To provide the govemor with those powers, the Federal Government declared a controversial state of emergency in Sarawak on 14 September."

The Federal Parliament then passed the Emergency (Federal Constitution and Constitution of Sarawak) Act, 1966, which enabled the Dewan Rakyat to change Sarawak's constitution so that Sarawak's governor could convene the Council Negri and dismiss Ningkan. On 24 September the governor once again dismissed Ningkan and once again Tawi Sli and his Supreme Council were swom in. Ningkan's petition against his unconstitutional dismissal progressed slowly though the courts for another two years, finally ending on 1 August 1968 when he was advised that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had dismissed his appeal. Commenting on the controversial declaration of a state of emergency. Lord Mac Dermott observed: "their Lordships could not find any reason for saying that the emergency was not grave and did not threaten the security of Sarawak."

An appeal by a man sentenced to death for possessing firearms in 1969 led to an interesting ruling by the Federal Court on the Federal Constitution. On 21 August the Court ruled that the Dewan Rakyat had the power to make constitutional amendments, even if those amendments were inconsistent with existing provisions in the constitution.

Lord President Tun Mohamed Suflfîan said many provisions in the constitution showed that it was intended to be a living document, which, if the need arose, could be amended in any way thought fit. His comments were put to the test in 1983 when the Dewan Rakyat was forced to reverse some constitutional amendments already approved before Royal assent would be given.

The Federal Constitution (Amendment) Act 1983 passed by the Dewan Rakyat in August 1983 contained some controversial amendments that curtailed the powers of the head of state, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong. These amendments were: Article 150 ( I) that transferred the power to proclaim an emergency ffom the Agong to the Prime Minister; Article 66 (5) that made a Federal bill law if the Agong's assent had not been given after 15 days; and 8th Schedule 11(3) that made a state bill law if [in Sarawak's case] the governor's assent had not been given within 15 days.

Royal assent was withheld until 15 December after Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir gave a written undertaking that a new bill would reverse those amendments. A special joint session of the Dewan Negara (Senate) and the Dewan Rakyat (House of Representatives) approved the Constitution (Amendment) Act 1984 that reversed the contentious amendments and the Act received Royal assent on 19 January, All the other amendments in the 1983 Act remained, including another of direct relevance to Sarawak, the abolition of appeals in civil cases to the Privy Council in Britain, That connection was finally severed at the beginning of 1985 when the Federal Court was renamed the Supreme Court and all remaining appeals to the Privy Council were abolished.

Eight years earlier, two special provisions in the Malaysian Constitution reflecting the non-prominence of Islam in Sarawak in 1963 were repealed. These were Articles 16IC and 161D that were introduced on 16 September 1963 and repealed by the Malaysia Act Constitution (Amendment) Act 1976, effective from  27 August 1976.

Shown in full in Appendix II, both Articles had been incorporated in the Constitution when Malaysia was formed as "illustrative of the fact that Islam does not occupy the place in the Borneo States that it does elsewhere in the Federation" and that "In Sarawak the majority of the Chinese and indigenous people are not Muslims.The repeal of Article 161C enabled the legislative provision of special financial aid for establishing and maintaining Muslim institutions or instruction in Muslim religion to Muslims in Sarawak to be passed without the consent of the governor of Sarawak, Further, the stipulation that any such special financial aid by the Federal Government already being given to all States in Malaysia be applied to social welfare in the case of Sarawak was removed. The repeal of Article 161D removed the provision for a two-thirds majority in the Council Negri needed to approve any bill controlling or restricting propagation of any doctrine or belief to Muslims, Removal of these two articles reflected the fact that Islam is the religion of the Federation under Article 3 of the Malaysian Constitution and meant the removal of barriers that could be viewed as restrictive to increased penetration of Islam in Sarawak, Only three days before the Articles were repealed, the Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi (Dr,) Haji Abdul Rahman Ya'kub had presided at the conversion of 44 people to Islam and told his audience that it was the duty of all Muslims, particularly the intellectuals, to play a leading role in the propagation of Islam," The Constitution (Amendment) Act 1985 passed on 23 October 1985 increased the number of seats for Sarawak in the 180-seat Dewan Rakyat by three to a total of  27 ,"

This was the first increase in seats for Sarawak since Malaysia was formed, reflecting the increase to 597,237 voters in Sarawak by January 1985. In 1988, Articles 83-6 of the Constitution, all relating to land, were amended. According to Dr. Mahathir, this was to help carry out the Federal Government's privatization, economic, and development plans. The 1988 amendments enabled state governments to hand over land to the Federal Govemment, enabled Federal Govemment to ask state govemments to tum over rights to reserve land to the Federal Govemment, and enabled the Federal Govemment or relevant public authority to retain alienated land that was no longer needed. State interests were served by mutual agreement on compensation and land usage. Only a review after another decade or more would show the outcome of these amendments on Federal land holdings in Sarawak.

Both Sarawak and Sabah had a well-developed sense of identity and individuality before both agreed to become part of the Federation of Malaysia. Their different ethnic, economic, and religious mix, and their past histories compared with the states of Malaya, coupled with their distance from the federal capital, Kuala Lumpur, were all sources of friction when those states became part of the Federation. The special safeguards and conditions given to Sarawak and Sabah, such as control over education, immigration, and land, enabled both states to retain much of their own identity, without being completely overwhelmed by the mores of mainland Malaysia.

However, those safeguards came under pressure from time to time and were indeed completely overridden during the 1966 Ningkan crisis. Easier relationships were established post-1966 after state governments in the image of the ethnic Malay Muslim-dominated Federal Government had been installed. This muted resistance to the special status of Malays and Indigenes embodied in the Constitution helped to overcome serious opposition to changing the official language from English to Malay. It also enabled the Federal parliament to provide special financial aid for Muslim institutions and instruction in Islam to Muslims in Sarawak without the consent of the governor of Sarawak, removing the need for a two-thirds majority in the

Council Negri to approve any bill controlling or restricting propagation of any doctrine or belief to Muslims. By 1988 the basic tenets of the Federation of Malaysia, Malayas the national language and the pre-eminence of Islam, had been firmly entrenched in Sarawak by amendments to the 1963 constitution. Federal power to alter the constitution unilaterally had been established and Sarawak had been completely integrated as a state

within the Federation of Malaysia.

(Reference - Borneo Research Buletin Vol.38 pge -159 by Vernon L. Porritt, Honorary Research Associate
Murdoch university,Western Australia)

Google to Warn 500,000+ of DNS Changer Infections

Google plans today to begin warning Internet users if their computers show telltale signs of being infected with the DNSChanger Trojan. The company estimates that more than 500,000 systems remain infected with the malware, despite a looming deadline that threatens to quarantine the sick computers from the rest of the Internet.

Security experts won court approval last year to seize control of the infrastucture that powered the search-hijacking Trojan in a bid to help users clean up infections. But a court-imposed deadline to power down that infrastructure will sever Internet access for PCs that are not rid of the malware before July 9, 2012.

The company said the warning (pictured above) will appear only when a user with an infected system visits a Google search results property (google.com, google.co.uk, etc.), and will include the message, “Your computer appears to be infected.” Google security engineerDamian Menscher said the company expects to notify approximately a half-million users in the first week of the notices.

“In general we want to notify users [of malware infections] anytime we are capable of doing so, but the fact that we don’t do this more often is really just because it’s hard to come across cases where we can do it this accurately,” Menscher said.  “In many cases we only have maybe a 90 percent confidence that someone is infected, and the false positive rate of 10 percent is simply too high to be feasible. But in this case we can be essentially certain that someone is infected.”

The warning that infected users will see is nearly identical to a similar alert Google used last year in a campaign to rid the Web of another search hijacker that was trying to frighten users into purchasing bogus antivirus software — also known as “scareware.”

DNSChanger may no longer be hijacking search results, but the malware still carries secondary threats and risks. It was frequently bundled with other nasty software, and consequently machines sickened with DNSChanger also probably host other malware infestations. Additionally, DNSChanger disables antivirus protection on host machines, further exposing them to online threats.

To address these concerns, Google is steering users of infected systems to a set of instructions that include steps to eradicate DNSChanger and to third-party cleanup tools that may help scrub infections from other malware.

Menscher said Google will be displaying the warning in dozens of different languages.

“We think part of it is that all of the public press on this so far has been in English or a handful of other languages,” Menscher said. “It turns out that only half of these infected users speak English as their primary language.”

DNSChanger modifies settings on a host PC that tell the computer how to find Web sites on the Internet, hijacking victims’ search results and preventing them from visiting security sites that might help detect and scrub the infections. The Internet servers that were used to control infected PCs were located in the United States, and in coordination with the arrest last November of the Estonian men thought to be responsible for operating the Trojan network, a New York district court ordered a private U.S. company to assume control over those servers.

The government argued that the arrangement would give ISPs and companies time to identify and scrub infected PCs, systems that would otherwise be disconnected from the Internet if the control servers were shut down. The court agreed, and ordered that the surrogate control servers remain in operation until March 8. When the March 8 deadline approached and cleanup was discovered to be taking longer than expected, the court agreed to extend the cutoff date to July 9, 2012.

(Sources - http://krebsonsecurity.com)

Yusuf Al-Qaradhawi mengutuk kezaliman rejim Basyar dalam khutbah

Presiden Persatuan Ulama Sedunia, Syeikh Dr Yusuf Al-Qaradhawi mengutuk kezaliman rejim Basyar dalam khutbah beliau pada hari Jumaat semalam (25 Mei 2012) di Masjid Umar Al-Khattab di Doha.

Antara ucapan beliau:

Sesungguhnya aku melihat kehancuran dan kematian Basyar Al-Asad beserta tenteranya dengan mata kepalaku.

Justeru itu, beredarlah wahai Basyar Asad sebelum rakyat mengambil tindakan tegas kepada kamu. Nanti kamu akan mengalami kesusahan.

Seluruh bangsa Arab, umat Islam dan seluruh manusia memarahi dan membenci kamu.

Dr. Qaradhawi berkata lagi : “Kamu adalah musuh kepada rakyat! Kalian semua adalah penghisap darah!”

Dengan kereta kebal, jet pejuang dan senjata berat, kalian membunuh kanak-kanak, meruntuh dan merobohkan rumah dan menghina maruah rakyat.

Namun ingatlah! Kezaliman tidak akan kekal lama. Allah sangat murka kepada orang yang zalim lagi angkuh.

Basyar! Anda sudah melampaui batas. Anda penumpah darah, pembunuh dan penjenayah.

Kemudian Syeikh Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradhawi berdoa kepada Allah s.w.t :

Ya Allah, berilah bantuan kepada mujahidin di Syria dan sembuhkanlah orang cedera di kalangan mereka.

Ya Allah, bertindaklah ke atas Basyar dan tenteranya, pisahkan kesatuan mereka dan pecahkanlah himpunan mereka. Letakkan mereka dalam zon bencana dan turunkan azab siksa ke atas mereka!

Ameen..

Pendapat Saya - Debat Sinar Pemansuhan PTPTN dan Halatuju Pendidikan Negara

Malam tadi saya mengikuti debat diantara YB Khairy melawan Sdr Rafizi melalui saluran Astro501. Perdebatan ini merangsangkan minda saya berfikir dan terus berfikir tentang fakta yang dikemukakan oleh kedua-dua belah pihak. Saya berpendapat bukan kemenangan yang dicari dalam perdebatan ini sebagaimana umumnya dalam sesuatu pertandingan, tetapi ia adalah platform untuk kita menggunakan akal, pemikiran dan analisa sendiri menilai mana satu hujah itu berdasarkan fakta atau auta. Saya cuba untuk memisahkan diri saya dari belenggu kepartaian dan pengaruh fahaman politik dalam membuat analisa terhadap hujah yang dikemukakan oleh kedua-dua belah pihak. Kesimpulannya, pada pendapat saya fakta yang dikemukakan oleh Sdr. Rafizi lebih rasional berbanding fakta yang dikemukakan sdr Khairy. 

(bersambung)

Muhyiddin hadiri majlis perkahwinan anak Nasharudin

Muhyiddin Yassin bersalaman dengan Mohd. Nazri Husain (kiri) sambil diperhatikan oleh Nusaibah Nasharudin (dua dari kiri) dan Nasharudin Mat Isa (kanan) ketika hadir pada majlis perkahwinan pasangan pengantin tersebut di Bandar Bukit Mahkota, Bangi, semalam.

BANGI 20 Mei - Timbalan Perdana Menteri, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin hari ini hadir memeriahkan majlis perkahwinan anak sulung bekas Timbalan Presiden Pas, Nasharudin Mat Isa di Bandar Bukit Mahkota di sini.

Muhyiddin, yang tiba pukul 3.40 petang, meluangkan masa kira-kira 30 minit sambil menikmati jamuan bersama pasangan pengantin, Nusaibah Nasharudin, 25, dan Mohd. Nazri Husain, 27, serta bergambar kenang-kenangan bersama mereka.

Turut kelihatan pada majlis itu ialah Menteri di Jabatan Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, Yang Dipertua Dewan Negara, Tan Sri Abu Zahar Ujang, Timbalan Speaker Dewan Rakyat, Datuk Ronald Kiandee, Ketua Pemuda UMNO, Khairy Jamaluddin dan bekas Pesuruhjaya Pas Selangor dan Presiden Jalur Tiga (Jati), Datuk Dr. Hasan Ali.

Ketika ditemui pemberita, Nasharudin yang juga Anggota Parlimen Bachok berkata, beliau berterima kasih kepada Timbalan Perdana Menteri dan tetamu kehormat lain yang sudi hadir menyerikan majlis itu walaupun berlainan ideologi politik.

Nusaibah, anak tunggal perempuan dalam kalangan lima beradik, sedang melanjutkan pelajaran dalam bidang Ijazah Pendidikan di Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia manakala suaminya seorang arkitek. — BERNAMA.

Mark Zuckerberg's Wife Priscilla Chan: A New Brand of Billionaire Bride

 Shortly after Mark Zuckerberg tied the knot with longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan on Saturday, the Twitter jesters came out of the woodwork.

“Mark Zuckerberg has changed his status to ‘Married’,” read one iteration of a popular joke. “Priscilla Chan has changed hers to ‘Jackpot’.”

It seems, though, that the wedding’s timing had little to do with the $16 billion blockbuster Facebook IPO the day before. It wasn’t the social network’s flotation Zuckerberg was waiting for — it was Chan’s medical school graduation, at least according to a guest authorized to speak for the couple. This spokesperson told the AP:

“The wedding had been planned for months and the couple was waiting for Chan to finish medical school, but the date of the IPO was a ‘moving target’ not known when the wedding was set.”

“The wedding had been planned for months and the couple was waiting for Chan to finish medical school, but the date of the IPO was a ‘moving target’ not known when the wedding was set.”

The Monday before the public offering, the same day Zuckerberg turned 28, he was in the audience at Chan’s UCSF School of Medicine commencement ceremony. He ‘checked in’ via Facebook, natch, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, writing: “I’m so proud of you, Dr. Chan :).”

Dr. Chan was never going to be a stereotypical billionaire’s wife of the many-spouses-of-Donald-Trump variety. The 27-year-old bilingual Mandarin speaker graduated from Harvard in 2007, the year after Zuckerberg would have earned his degree if he hadn’t left to focus on Facebook — or thefacebook, as it was then known.

The two dated on and off during their undergrad years, first meeting in 2004. After Harvard, Massachusetts native Chan spent two years teaching science at the prestigious Harker School in San Jose before beginning her medical studies at UCSF, one of the top programs in the country. She only moved into Zuckerberg’s $7 million Palo Alto pad in 2010.

Chan wasn’t always so certain that she wanted a career in medicine, though — at least according to a 2005 Harvard Crimson article currently making the rounds on social media. Published when Zuckerberg announced he’d be leaving Harvard, the piece includes a brief mention of Chan:

“Hey Priscilla, do you want a job at the facebook?” Zuckerberg asked a passing friend.

“I’d love a job at facebook,” Priscilla Chan ’07 responded, offering him a Twizzler.

“Hey Priscilla, do you want a job at the facebook?” Zuckerberg asked a passing friend.

“I’d love a job at facebook,” Priscilla Chan ’07 responded, offering him a Twizzler.

A job at the social network never materialized, but Chan still wields an influence over Zuckerberg’s work. It was her passion for pediatrics and concern for sick children she met during her training that prompted her now-husband to add an organ donation registry tool to Facebook. As Zuckerberg told ABC’s Robin Roberts earlier this month: “[Priscilla will] see them getting sicker and then all of a sudden an organ becomes available and she comes home and her face is all lit up because someone’s life is going to better because of this.”

Contrary to the golddigger jokes pervading Twitter, Chan won’t be retiring to start a jewelry line or other such vanity project now that she and Zuckerberg are official. She aims to begin her work as a pediatrician later this year.

Chan joins a group of Silicon Valley billionaire spouses who are achievers in their own right rather than kept women or arm candy.

Laurene Powell Jobs earned an economics degree at Wharton then put in time at Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch before completing a Stanford MBA the same year she married the late Apple mogul Steve. She’s the co-founder of natural foods company Terraverra and education nonprofit College Track, and a mother of three. She also serves on the boards of the New America Foundation and Teach for America.

Anne Wojcicki, wife of Google billionaire Sergey Brin, has a degree in biology from Yale and co-founded biotech firm 23andMe, a genetic testing company that gives customers an analysis of their DNA for a relatively affordable price.

Then there’s Melinda Gates, the ultimate power partner. The former Melinda Ann French earned undergrad and MBA degrees from Duke before joining a young computer company called Microsoft in the late ’80s. She helped develop well-known products like the Encarta encyclopedia and the Expedia booking tool — and met the man she’d eventually marry, Bill Gates. Since, she’s taken the lead with the couple’s Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and earned a reputation as one of the world’s foremost philanthropists.

(Sources - http://www.forbes.com)

Google Wins Final Needed Approval for Motorola Mobility Purchase

Google Inc. (GOOG) (GOOG) won approval from Chinese regulators for its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. (MMI) (MMI), clearing a final hurdle for a deal that boosts its patents portfolio and steps up competition with Apple Inc.

“We are pleased the deal has received approval in all jurisdictions,” Motorola Mobility said in an e-mailed statement yesterday, confirming that the transaction has been approved in China. “We expect to close imminently.”

The deal helps Larry Page, the Google co-founder who took over as chief executive officer last year, push the Web company to better compete with Apple’s iPhone and gain more clout for its Android software as it expands in the hardware business. It also gives Google, the worlds’ biggest maker of smartphone software, a trove of 17,000 patents to protect Android devices in legal disputes with competitors.

The acquisition, announced last year, had already received approvals in Europe, the U.S. and other jurisdictions worldwide. Libertyville, Illinois-based Motorola Mobility had said in a regulatory filing (MMI) in February that only Chinese clearance was still required.

“Our stance since we agreed to acquire Motorola has not changed and we look forward to closing the deal,” Mountain View, California-based Google said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. The company also confirmed it had received word from Chinese authorities of the purchase being approved.

Handset Makers

With the acquisition -- the largest wireless-equipment deal in at least a decade, according to data compiled by Bloomberg -- Google becomes a competitor to the other handset makers that make Android devices. In addition to Motorola Mobility phones, the software runs handsets made by companies such as Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) and HTC Corp. (2498)

As part of the approval, Google needs to ensure that Android software versions are free and open over the next five years, China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on its website.

Google will report to an independent monitor in China on its efforts to comply with terms of the deal approval, according to the website.

Google fell 3.6 percent to $600.40 yesterday in New York trading. The shares have fallen 7 percent this year. Motorola Mobility closed unchanged at $39.20. The stock is up 1 percent year to date.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Womack in San Francisco at bwomack1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net

(Sources - http://www.businessweek.com)