Spoof site mocks 1Malaysia e-mail

A spoof site is making fun of the 1Malaysia e-mail project that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak recently launched to much controversy.

PETALING JAYA: In the wake of the controversy surrounding the 1Malaysia e-mail project, an anonymous parody of the e-mail service has surfaced to mock the government-supported initiative.

FMT was alerted to the existence of the website (http://1myemail.com/), which was entitled “Free 1Malaysia Email: Not worth RM50,000,000″ by a reader after she accidentally stumbled across the webpage when searching for information about the “real” 1Malaysia Email (http://myemail.my/).

A check revealed that one could sign up for a free e-mail account with the address suffix of “@1myemail.com” at the spoof site.

The e-mail utilises Microsoft’s Windows Live platform, the same one that Tricubes Bhd, the company behind the 1Malaysia e-mail service, is expected to use. The site made it clear that it was poking fun at the service by saying, “This e-mail service is run by Windows Live Admin Center, just like the infamous myemail.my service.”

The parody site also touted other “features” of its service: “No email address created here will be sold to anyone, especially not to the Malaysian government.”

“Your email address is your own, you can name it whatever you want. No one will force you to use your IC number as your email address,” it said.

It also said there would be no charges for any e-mail sent or received and database would not be shared with anyone.

However, the only “decent” thing that can be said about the website is that it has security features and anti-spam measures that similar to Microsoft’s Hotmail service.

The site also asked users to tell other people about its “FREE service”.

Massive protests

It is still unknown who is behind the creation of the website, but an FMT check through a “whois” (a command to check information about a website) revealed that the website was created barely less than a week ago on April 22.

The search also identified its registrant address to a location purportedly in Queensland, Australia.

A trial also found that e-mails could be sent and received through the use of the service.

The 1Malaysia e-mail project for all citizens above 18, expected to be launched in July, caused a furore when it was announced by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak on April 19.

Najib said the project would allow direct and secure communications between Malaysian citizens and the government.

He said the project will have a gross national income (GNI) impact of RM39 million up to
2015. Tricubes is aiming to sign up 5.4 million users by year-end.

However, massive protests – both online and offline – against the project costing RM50 million triggered an immediate response from Najib who assured Malaysians that the venture was a private
sector initiative and was not funded by the government.

But questions were raised when it was later revealed that government agencies that wished to send e-mails to users would need to pay a 50-sen fee to Tricubes.

Yesterday, more confusion was caused when Tricubes CEO Khairun Zainal Mokhtar announced that users can choose to buy a USB biometric device sold by his company for a “more secure” e-mail.

Concerns were also directed at why the loss-making Tricubes, which was at risk of being delisted after its weak financial standing triggered Bursa Malaysia Securities’ Guidance Note 3 (GN3) in October last year, was chosen to spearhead the project.