Police in New Zealand have arrested a would-be thief after putting CCTV photos of him up on Facebook. The criminal genius tried to crack open a pub's safe, but after an hour in a small, enclosed space, he got hot and removed his ski mask -- then later helpfully looked directly at the CCTV camera. Cops in the town of Queenstown put the image up on their two-month-old Facebook page, and a day later, he was identified. Media worldwide have picked up the story, but really, it's nothing more than some smarts on the part of the police to go where people are. In times gone by, getting images like this in the local paper, or on the Crimestoppers segment of the local TV news were about the best way to try and get witnesses or identify criminals. Facebook and other social-networking sites now offer huge audiences (or potential witness pools), particularly among young people, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise to see cops set up shop there.

We've written an awful lot about the rise of political blogging in Malaysia. The government there has had something of a love-hate affair with blogs for quite some time, starting with a plan to force blogs to register, to later telling various candidates for government they were requiring them to blog, to having a special agency set up to respond to bloggers. More recently, though, things have taken a very negative turn, as various opposition party bloggers were able to use their blog popularity to catapult themselves into office, the ruling party began cracking down, even sentencing leading bloggers to jail.

The good news on that front, however, is that a court has decided that the arrest was illegal and the blogger is to be freed. Though, you get the feeling that the government will continue to try to punish him.

In the meantime, one of the most interesting political bloggers in Malaysia may be the former Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, who apparently championed many of the free speech restrictions that allow the crackdowns. We had mentioned his embrace of blogging about a year and a half ago, and now the NY Times has written up a more detailed article, claiming that now that he's no longer in power, he's had quite a change of heart concerning restrictions on freedom of the press. Of course, much of it seems to come off as whining that people won't listen to him any more:

"Where is the press freedom? Broadcast what I have to say! What I say is not even accurately published in the press!"

While it is a good thing that he's realized how problematic free speech restrictions are, there is a bit of karmic justice in having him find himself stymied by rules that he championed and used to his own advantage when in power.

It took quite some time for authorities around the world to recognize the extent to which organized crime was using the internet for various scams and frauds, but in the last year or so, it seems like many agencies around the world really are looking to go after the criminals. The latest example is that Darkmarket, an invitation-only secretive forum for buying and selling credit card numbers, has been shut down, and 60 people involved with the site have been simultaneously arrested. This is definitely a step up from what we were hearing just a couple of years ago, where the best authorities could do was arrest kids messing around with phishing scams, rather than actually going after the organized criminals who were the real issue. Cracking down on one site and arresting 60 individuals isn't going to stop these scammers, but it's at least good to see authorities trying to focus on the real problem cases, rather than just the small fry. Update: As was pointed out in the comments, it appears the original BBC article we relied on has the story a bit wrong. The site itself was actually an FBI-run honeypot. So, while the site was taken down, the story of how the whole process worked is quite different than what was implied in the first article.

We've been trying to follow the situation with the government crackdown on opposition bloggers in Malaysia, and with different stories coming out every day, it got a little confusing. So when we wrote about a blogger being released following a public outcry, it was actually a different blogger than the original one we had reported as arrested. It now turns out that the original blogger has actually been immediately sentenced to two years in jail without any trial -- and those two years can be extended indefinitely at will by the government. As for the other blogger who was released, apparently that's just a temporary thing, as he's still facing charges as well. Apparently, the ruling party seems to think that by jailing opposition bloggers it will shut them up. This wouldn't be the first time that the government underestimated the response to trying to silence critical bloggers.

It's hard to figure out what the government of Malaysia is thinking in its ongoing trouble in dealing with critical bloggers (some of whom were so powerful that they got elected). Last week, we noted that one of the more popular bloggers, whose blog had been ordered blocked by ISPs was arrested, just as the block on his blog was removed. Not surprisingly, the arrest led to a public outcry, and the government has now relented and freed the blogger, who quickly posted an anti-government rant on his blog, promising not to back down. The whole thing makes you wonder how tone deaf the leading party politicians in Malaysia are that they didn't expect this to happen. Arresting an opposition blogger was bound to create further outcry, and this move only helped legitimize the points he's been making. You would think that at least someone in the ruling party would have been savvy enough to recognize that this was inevitable.

Over the last few years, we've followed the ongoing efforts of gov't officials to figure out the whole "blogging" thing. It started off poorly with gov't officials insulting bloggers and trying to pass a law that would have required all bloggers to register with the government. After that failed, the ruling party looked, for a bit, as if it might be trying to understand and embrace blogs. It set up an agency just to respond to blogs and even told certain of its own candidates for office that they needed to blog themselves. However, apparently it was the opposition party that embraced blogging much more -- and even a few of the bigger name bloggers got themselves elected. In response? The government demanded that ISPs block certain blogs, including the very popular Malaysia Today.

The latest news is that the government has rescinded the ban... but has arrested the site's founder. That doesn't seem like the best way to get bloggers on their side. It never fails to amaze me why politicians seek to shut up those who oppose them. What's wrong with actually responding and letting people understand the multiple positions? If you're confident that your position is the correct one, then why not convince people that's the case?