Over the past month, I have been doing some work for work.com as a community leader for the technology section. It has been very interesting because I have learned a lot. Some of the most interesting guides. This SEO guide is written by one of the granddaddy's of Search Engine Optimization. Read it. It is very useful.
Work.com is aimed at small businesses. Just type in the topic you want to learn about to get a list of related guides. The guides have a general introduction followed by action steps, tips and tactics, Recommended solution providers, Best sites to learn more and then best blogs and forums. Great concept, I have never found so much relevant information in the same place before.
Anyone is welcome to post comments and ask questions. The Community blog has the latest news on whats happening on work.com.
My favorite guides
http://www.work.com/web-20-1111/
http://www.work.com/using-linux-for-your-desktop-1209/
Friday, December 22, 2006
Friday, December 08, 2006
Nigeria oh nigeria
Nigeria is a country synonymous with fraud, corruption and cheating. Ask my Nigerian friends and they will tell you how they are frisked 3x as much as any other traveller at airports. Carrying a Nigerian passport today is as bad as carrying an Al-Queda id card whiles travelling. A zdnet article reports that Nigeria is enlisting the help of Microsoft to fight spam scammers. If you have not heard of the spam scanners from Nigeria, you better get on google and educate yourself.
There is one misconception about these spammers. They are all over the west coast of Africa, not only in Nigeria. Ghana, Togo, Benin are countries in which these spammers exist. For a continent with a low pc/internet penetration rate, the rate of spam seems amazing. How has this business thrived and what makes it still profitable?
1. The concept is not new.
The underlying concept of this fraud scheme is not new. It works on an old principle called GREED. People are greedy and will forever be greedy.
2. Lack of information
People dont know a thing about Africa. Ignorance is no excuse. Someone comes telling you that he is the nephew of the governer of Connecticut, you will be able to verify that through public records. Where are you going to find record of the nephew of the king of Swaziland? Good Luck.
3. The days of dictators stashing money are gone.
For many years, dictators in Africa thrived because of the cold war. Some western countries supported dictators just because they kept the Russians at bay. There are only a few dicatators in Africa and they are finding it hard to stash thier money.
So long as people are greedy, ignorant and stupid, the 419 funded mansions in Lagos, Accra, Lome and Cotonou will continue to proliferate.
There is one misconception about these spammers. They are all over the west coast of Africa, not only in Nigeria. Ghana, Togo, Benin are countries in which these spammers exist. For a continent with a low pc/internet penetration rate, the rate of spam seems amazing. How has this business thrived and what makes it still profitable?
1. The concept is not new.
The underlying concept of this fraud scheme is not new. It works on an old principle called GREED. People are greedy and will forever be greedy.
2. Lack of information
People dont know a thing about Africa. Ignorance is no excuse. Someone comes telling you that he is the nephew of the governer of Connecticut, you will be able to verify that through public records. Where are you going to find record of the nephew of the king of Swaziland? Good Luck.
3. The days of dictators stashing money are gone.
For many years, dictators in Africa thrived because of the cold war. Some western countries supported dictators just because they kept the Russians at bay. There are only a few dicatators in Africa and they are finding it hard to stash thier money.
So long as people are greedy, ignorant and stupid, the 419 funded mansions in Lagos, Accra, Lome and Cotonou will continue to proliferate.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Social Engineering - my attack.
An article on today's slasdot about how a penetration tester was able to break into a a bank's computer network caught my attention today. See First-Person Account of a Social Engineering Attack .
I have always been interested in social engineering attacks after reading the story of Kevin Mitnick . A lot of people are simply not aware of how simple it is to gather simple information by gaining thier trust of simply by snooping around.
I just thought of an attack on snooping someone's phone messages. This will only work on phones with an LCD display.
Me: Hi XXX, I left you a message but I did not hear back from you.
Him : Oh ok. I will check it now.
Me: Great.
He then proceedes to check the messages. Of course, he will not have had a message from me.
Him : I did not get a message from you.
Me : Can I use your phone to make call mine and make sure that everything is ok. Hey can you grab me that pencil over there.
Once he is distracted, I hit redial and viola, his voice mail number and most probably his password will appear on the screen. However, tis attack did not work on my Samsung phone.
I have always been interested in social engineering attacks after reading the story of Kevin Mitnick . A lot of people are simply not aware of how simple it is to gather simple information by gaining thier trust of simply by snooping around.
I just thought of an attack on snooping someone's phone messages. This will only work on phones with an LCD display.
Me: Hi XXX, I left you a message but I did not hear back from you.
Him : Oh ok. I will check it now.
Me: Great.
He then proceedes to check the messages. Of course, he will not have had a message from me.
Him : I did not get a message from you.
Me : Can I use your phone to make call mine and make sure that everything is ok. Hey can you grab me that pencil over there.
Once he is distracted, I hit redial and viola, his voice mail number and most probably his password will appear on the screen. However, tis attack did not work on my Samsung phone.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
I am back
I am back..... I got my first fan email today. One from an old classmate from college. Thanks. So whats new. I got this great job working at a college here in town. After running away from the almighty School of Engineering in KNUST, I find myself at the College of Engineering in Santa Barbara.
Seems like fate. Yeah yeah, you superstitious people. Of course it is a sign.......
Hey, big ups to all the married folks from the University of Science and Tech Electrical Engineering class of 2001. My man G ..... I knew it. Whats up?
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