The rise of risky Internet casinos gambling among youths

Betting among youths more popular with rise of Internet casinos

PETALING JAYA: Gamblers are getting younger and increasingly using the Internet to try their luck in hopes of striking it big.

Besides gambling in online casinos, there are also bookies as young as 13, who take bets in school on football matches.

Gamblers Rehab Centre Malaysia president David Chiang said young punters were a worrying trend, with some already becoming habitual gamblers at 15.

“Youths usually gamble over the Internet because it is not regulated. They will obviously get stopped at casinos because of their age. So they turn to online casinos instead,” he said.

Chiang said youths could also deceive their parents into believing they were conducting research over the Internet when they were actually gambling online.

Addictive vice: Two boys visiting an online casino website. Teenage gambling is becoming more rampant with easy access to Internet casinos and young bookies taking bets in schools.

 

“Parents will easily believe them because the Internet is such a huge part of the lifestyle of youths today,” he said,

Chiang said young people were able to gamble in online casinos because they could borrow credit from online brokers, who offered their services on the websites.

“If the teenage gambler loses the credit, the broker would then pay the online casino first with a credit card. The teenager has to repay the broker in cash,” he said, adding that besides betting on games like roulette and poker, young gamblers were also fond of sports betting, especially football.

“The youngest habitual gambler I know is a 15-year-old. Habitual gamblers are actually addicted to gambling but they are not aware of it,” he said.

Chiang said that while the problem of teenage gambling was widespread across the nation, another alarming trend was schoolchildren borrowing money from loan sharks to pay their gambling debts.

“Some Ah Long know the teenagers' parents are rich enough to pay off the debts so they have no qualms about encouraging them to take loans,” Chiang said.

He said young people resorted to gambling because many of them wanted a quick way to get money to buy better handphones, computers and branded goods.

The centre expects a surge in calls to its hotline at the end of Euro 2012, mostly from gamblers who have lost their bets.

MCA Public Services and Complaints Department head Datuk Seri Michael Chong said he had received six cases of gambling problems involving those aged between 16 and 18, amounting to RM200,000 so far this year.

“This is considered an increase because last year I received fewer than 10 cases. I've already got six and it is only June,” he said.

Chong said he believed the cases highlighted were only the tip of the iceberg, adding that the youths he met were already in serious trouble and needed to seek his help.

“There are many out there who choose not to seek help,” he said.

About 80% of gambling cases involve the Chinese, with the other races making up the remaining 20%, he added.

By YUEN MEIKENG meikeng@thestar.com.my 

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Warning DNSChanger victims, check for malware!

Facebook joins Google in warning DNSChanger victims

Warnings follow decision to withdraw safety net on 9 July

Federal authorities will not seek a further extension to a DNSChanger safety net, meaning an estimated 360,00 security laggards will be unable to use the internet normally unless they clean up their systems before a 9 July deadline.

DNSChanger changed the domain name system (DNS) settings of compromised machines to point surfers to rogue servers – which hijacked web searches and redirected victims to dodgy websites as part of a long-running click-fraud and scareware distribution racket. The FBI dismantled the botnet's command-and-control infrastructure back in November, as part of Operation GhostClick.

In place of the rogue servers, a bank of duplicate machines was set up to resolve internet look-up queries from compromised boxes. This system was established under a court order, which has already been extended twice. The move meant users of compromised machines could use the internet normally – but the safety net by itself did nothing to change the fact that infected machines needed to be cleaned.

At its peak as many four million computers were infected by DNSChanger. An estimated 360,000 machines are still infected and there's no sign that further extending the safety net will do any good, hence a decision to try other tactics while withdrawing the DNS safety net, which has served its purpose of granting businesses with infected machines time to clean up their act.

Last week Facebook joined Google and ISPs in notifying DNSChanger victims‎ that they were surfing the net using a compromised machine.

"The warnings are delivered using a 'DNS Firewall' technology called RPZ (for Response Policy Zones)," Paul Vixie, chairman and founder of Internet Systems Consortium, told El Reg. "This allows infected users (who are using the 'replacement' DNS servers) to hear different responses than uninfected users (who are using 'real' DNS servers). We can control how an infected user reaches certain websites by inserting rules into the RPZ," he added.

More information – along with clean-up advice – can be found on the DNS Changer Working Group website here. ®

 By John Leyden • Get more from this author

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PC users urged to check for malware

PETALING JAYA: Come July 10, thousands of computers infected with the DNSChanger malware (malicious software) will be disconnected from the Internet if their users don't take some necessary steps.

The problem is that many PC users may not even know that their computers have been infected.

F-Secure Labs Malaysia security adviser Goh Su Gim explained that the United State Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) planned to shut down hacker-controlled servers that had been reprogrammed to prevent infected PCs from being suddenly disconnected, causing support-call chaos.

Security issue: The F-Secure response lab in Kuala Lumpur. The cybersecurity company warns that thousands of infected PCs worldwide may be affected if the DNSChanger malware is not removed by July 10.

 

The servers were temporarily reprogrammed after the arrest of six Estonians believed to have created the malware in November last year.

The servers, located in Estonia and the United States, will be deactivated on July 9 and PCs still infected with DNSChanger will not function normally as they will not be able to access these servers.

For more story in The Star Tue 14, June 2012

Mums top list of child abusers

KUALA LUMPUR: In a surprising finding, the highest number of child abusers turn out to be the hand that rocks the cradle the victim's mother.

Deputy Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Heng Seai Kie said statistics from the past three years had revealed that most child abusers were parents themselves and in particular, mothers.

“Mothers make up 25.4% of perpetrators in child abuse cases while 18.9% are fathers.

“Together, parents comprise 44.3% of child abusers in incidents recorded nationwide last year,” she said in her speech at the third national conference of the Association of Registered Child Care Providers Malaysia here yesterday.

Heng said the third largest number of child abusers at 11% of the total number of cases were the lovers of teenage victims.

Children are defined by the ministry as those aged below 18.

Parents should learn to strike a balance between work and parental responsibilities, she said.

Heng also revealed that child abuse statistics from Selangor and Kuala Lumpur were constantly above 50% of the total number of cases in the country.

On another matter, she said the ministry hoped to increase the percentage of children enrolled in child care centres from the current 4% to 25% by 2020.

“This is in line with the Government's policy of encouraging the participation of women in the workforce.

“One of our objectives is to increase the number of women from the current 41% to at least 55% of the total workforce by 2015,” said Heng, adding that a major challenge facing women who wanted a career was their responsibility towards their children.

She added that to set up more child care centres, the Government had offered incentives to corporate bodies and government agencies to establish such facilities at the workplace.

Heng said a RM200,000 incentive was given to government agencies while private companies were offered a tax deduction of 10% from their annual income for 10 years by the Finance Ministry to set up child care centres.

Early Child Care and Education Council assistant treasurer Shamsinah Shariff said it would encourage housing developers to set aside land to build child care centres and kindergartens at residential areas.

By YUEN MEIKENG  meikeng@thestar.com.my