Cyberworms

8 Jan. 2012 -  I am not into Twitter, but I do Facebook and of course there is this blog. Like many people I frequently serve the internet, and I am sometimes struggling to remember all the different passwords. Buit passwords are important, no vital! BBC reports that a computer worm has stolen 45,000 login credentials from Facebook, according to security experts. The data is believed to have been taken largely from Facebook accounts in the UK and France, according to security firm Seculert. The culprit is a well-known piece of malware - dubbed Ramnit - which has been around since April 2010 and has previously stolen banking details.
Facebook told the BBC that it was looking into the issue. The latest iteration of the worm was discovered in Seculert's labs. "We suspect that the attackers behind Ramnit are using the stolen credentials to login to victims' Facebook accounts and to transmit malicious links to their friends, thereby magnifying the malware's spread even further," said the researchers. "In addition, cybercriminals are taking advantage of the fact that users tend to use the same password in various web-based services to gain remote access to corporate networks," it added. I need to be more careful,.

Dependent

23 April 2011 - A 75-year-old Georgian woman who says she has never even heard of the internet is facing a possible prison sentence for single-handedly cutting off the web to an entire country. Georgian police arrested Hayastan Shakarian after she allegedly hacked through a fibre optic cable that runs through Georgia to Armenia, while digging for copper. With one stroke, the pensioner plunged 90% of internet users in Armenia into online darkness for nearly 12 hours. The episode is a timely reminder that all it takes in our hi-tech world to shut down thousands of companies for a day is a determined old lady with a spade. Research carried out in October 2010 by Avanti Communications offered a snapshot of just how fundamental the internet had become to businesses. The survey of companies worldwide suggested only 1% could function adequately without the internet. More than a quarter (27%) of those surveyed said they could not function at all if the internet went down, and one in five said a week without being online would be the death of their company. "In the past, network downtime might have prevented a batch of communication at the end of the day," says Chris Kimm, vice-president network field operations EMEA at Verizon Business. "Today it could mean no phones, no e-mail, no customer database, no ordering systems, no supply chain visibility and effectively, no capability to conduct business."

One Year Blogging

16 April 2011 - It's official: in a few days I will be one year blogging away. It has been relatively easy to find the inspiration or source for the daily blogs, but overall I enjoy sharing my snippets with the world. The world seems to enjoy my blog as well, because in one year I had 11,892 pageviews. That is almost 1,000 per month! The top three visited postings were 1) 'Whole Lotta Bowing' (22 July), 2) 'Sanlitun SoHo' (7 Sep) and 3) 'Sexy Trunks' (26 Nov). The anonymous googling reader may be somewhat disappointed about the content of the 'Sexy Trunks' article, because it is not about what one thinks it is about. I am very pleased having a worldwide audience. The highest number of visitors is from the USA, but there is also a good representation from Europe and of course from Asia (including Hong Kong and Malaysia). I still cannot explain the mysterious surge in clicks from the USA in January 2011, but welcome! My blog is blocked in China, propbably because I talk about some of the 'sensitive' topics, such as Tiananmen Square and Ai Wei Wei. It is always exciting to see that people from the most exotic places find my blog too - there were clicks from Uzbekistan, Chili, Fiji, Rwanda and so on. I can only commit that I will try to keep it up - and hope that the readers will keep coming. Cheers!

Confused Already

17 April 2010 - So there you go .... I tried and tried and tried, but blogging may not be for the computer illiterates - in particular not for gweilos in Chinese speaking countries. Why is the bar in Chinese? How to change? Sigh ... already.

Day 1

16 April 2010 - There is always a Day 1. No matter what, against all odds and even after too many failures, there is always the possibility to start all over again. A brand new day: Day 1. I like the idea of a blog, but (its been said before) one needs to be committed and disciplined. I may be committed, but discipline is not my best trait. But I am an optimist, and believe in Day 1...., so here is to a new start. Morning has broken. Enjoy the read.