Nigeria, in coming months will join the likes of Kenya where Mobile Money is changing the way people access financial services. More than 8 million people are actively served by the MPESA MMT System in Kenya alone and 15 percent of the GDP passes through the system.With this great opportunity exit in Mobile Money businesses in Nigeria considering the success achieved in mobile telephony in Nigeria.

As potentials stakeholders prepare for Launch in Nigeria with 70Million subscribers under an addressable market of 140 Million people,MobileMoney Africa will be conducting series of trainings to enable the stakeholders acquire the required knowledge in the emerging industry.

One of such training is  the Basic fundamentals trainings which covers all the broad areas of MMT and in-depth covering of Agency development and management.

 It also includes showcasing of technologies by providers to a very compact select group. Providers can indicate interest to showcase tech or book a tech specific presentation slot. The media will also be well represented with confirmed attendance from other West African Region  for this inaugural training.

Course Outline.
-Mobile Money Fundamentals.
-Relevance of MM to Nigerian economy.
-Early adopters (Successes and failures)
-Emerging scenario for Branch less

 Venue for the training:Victoria Crown Plaza,Hotel – Ajose Adeogun,Victoria Island.Lagos – www.vcp-hotel.com
Date: March 10th, 2010

Course Fee per participant is 25,000 naira.

For Participation please call Emmanuel on 08030818868

www.mobilemoneyafrica.com

This has tarnished the image of the country in no small measure.
One of the ways to reduce the incidence of cyber crime and rebrand our country is by empowering Nigerians with the latest opportunities that the Internet provides in areas of business, education, governance, communication, medicine, agriculture etc.

Nigeria Internetworld Conference and Exhibition (NICE) has come to help address this issue by empowering Nigerians.

Nigeria Internetworld Conference and Exhibition (NICE) is an annual event which provides education, empowerment, networking, business opportunities for Nigerians.

It is a gathering of Internet based businesses, service providers, e-Commerce providers, Telcos and experts that are involved in Internet services, online marketing, e-commerce technology, web technology and development, content development and management and Internet related businesses.

The idea is to create a platform where Nigerians will be educated and empowered with the latest development in the world of Internet. This event is meant to spark up the Internet for Business (I4B) revolution in Nigeria and encourage netpreneurship.

The mode of achievement of the main essence of the conference is through seminars, exhibitions and networking.

The seminar will involve speakers who are experts in relevant Internet related fields and ICT. Topics will be drawn from the focus and theme of the event.

This year’s event is tagged NICE2010

The theme of the event : Internet for Business (I4b): Empowering Nigerians through the Internet.
Date: May 5-6, 2010
Venue: Expo Centre, Lagos

Focus
-Internet access and Connectivity
-E-commerce and Digital marketing
-Web technology and development
-Internet security
-Social media
-Content development
-Internet and its application in different fields like media, medicine, governance, security
-Internet Trends and Business opportunities like domain name business, web hosting etc.
-Legislation
The seminar sessions will provide quality education and answers to issues based on the broad topics above and speakers will be drawn from relevant institutions, sponsors or government agencies.
The exhibitions will provide participants and visitors to the event with the needed marketplace that will help them implement strategies learnt from the seminars. They will also meet suppliers and Internet service providers face to face, see latest products and compare prices, find new technologies they can use.
In terms of networking, it will serve as the largest gathering of Internet based professionals, service providers, strategists, equipment manufacturers; it offers the best opportunity to network.
Why the Event
The event will:
-Empower Nigerians with the business potentials of the Internet
-It will encourage online business in Nigeria
-It will spark up entrepreneurship
-It provides the latest web based strategy, development, marketing skills, technology
-It will help reduce cyber crimes in Nigeria
-It will help in rebranding our image around the world.
Benefits to Exhibitors
As an exhibitor, You are very effectively putting your brand in front of over 30,000 targeted prospects with our:
-Tailored package designed to suit your needs, budget, time frame, target market and your goals.

-Exposure within the telecom industry that will help maximize your exposure with advertising, branding and advertorial space event publications.

-Branding will appear on associated marketing materials, including brochures, flyers, signage, the event website (www.nice2010.net) and through appropriate emails.

Networking with key players as the event will attract elite professionals within the industry.

As a sponsor you can use this platform to meet key players and further relationships with existing clients. Additionally, you have;

-Direct contact with target market of over 30,000 visitors at the event.
-Business opportunities
-Branding opportunity
-Free advert and media exposure

This is surely an event to be part of to help curb Cyber crime, foster Netpreneurship and further consolidate on the gains in Telecommunication and ICT in Nigeria.
For participation, Sponsorship and Exhibition please call:
08034005018, 08052207809.
Visit the official website  www.nice2010.net   for registration.

“Digital inclusion brings about a level playing field. It means that the little girl in a village in Nigeria can get information for her research project as a little girl in Washington or China.”-

Professor Turner Isoun.

Former Minister of Science and Technology

The term digital divide according to Wikipedia refers to the gap between people with effective access to digital and information technology and those with very limited or no access at all. It includes the imbalances in physical access to technology as well as the imbalances in resources and skills needed to effectively participate as a digital citizen.

In other words, it is the unequal access by some members of society to information and communication technology, and the unequal acquisition of related skills. The term is closely related to the knowledge divide as the lack of technology causes lack of useful information and knowledge.

Digital divide is currently referred to as gaps in the ownership of, or regular access to a computer. As internet came to be seen as a central aspect of computing, the usage of the term shifted to encompass gaps in not just computers but also access to the internet.

The world is undergoing an Information Communications Technology (ICT) revolution, a revolution that has enormous social and economic implications for the developed and less developed countries of the world. A gigantic gulf already exists between the industrialised and developing countries in terms of access to ICTs (this includes radio, computers, TV and mobile phones).

The criteria often used to assess the imbalance between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ of the digital divide tend to focus on access to hardware and to the Internet, but the nature of the digital divide is both contextual and debatable. Widespread poverty across the developing world has a complex and multiple reasons; lack of access to information that is essential to the lives of the poor is one such reason. Poor access to education and knowledge is another; this is particularly acute for girls and women.

Lisa Servon argued in 2002 that the digital divide “is a symptom of a larger and more complex problem – the problem of persistent poverty and inequality”. As described by Mehra (2004), the four major components that contribute to the digital divide are “socioeconomic status, with income, educational level, and race among other factors associated with technological attainment”.

In today’s society, jobs and education are directly related to the Internet, in that the advantages that come from the Internet are so significant that neglecting them would leave a company vulnerable in a changing market.“Andy Grove, the former chair of Intel, said that by the mid-2000s all companies will be Internet companies, or they won’t be companies at all.”

In countries where the Internet and other technologies are not accessible, education is suffering, and uneducated people and societies that are not benefiting from the information age, cannot compete in the global economy.

This leads to developing countries, suffering greater economic downfall and richer countries advancing their education and economy. However, when dealing with the global aspect of digital divide there are several factors that lead to digital divide. For example, country of residence, ethnicity, gender, age, educational attainment, and income levels are all factors of the global aspects of digital divide.

Recognition of digital divide as an immense problem has led Governments, scholars, policy makers, and the public to understand the “potential of the Internet to improve everyday life for those on the margins of society and to achieve greater social equity and empowerment”.

According to the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS), one of the key principle for building an inclusive information society thereby bridging the digital divide and ensuring harmonious fair and equitable development for all requires an improved access to information and communication infrastructure and technology as well as to information and knowledge; building capacity; increased confidence and security in the use of ICTs; create an enabling environment at all levels; develop and widen ICT applications; foster and respect cultural diversity; recognise the role of the media, address the ethical dimension of the information society; and encourage international and regional cooperation.

Kofi Anan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, defined the information society as that through which “human capacity is expanded, build up, nourished and liberated, by giving people access to the tools and technologies they need, with the education and training to use them effectively.”This is the kind of society that the WSIS set about to create.

Multiple initiatives have been, and continue to be, implemented across the world to address the major obstacles to bridging the digital divide.

For example, many developing countries have poor communications infrastructure, which prevents connectivity, particularly in rural areas. The issue of infrastructure is a major issue as this requires global, long-term investment, and support from a variety of sources including governments, private sector, multilateral institutions (United Nations), financial institutions (World Bank) and the civil sector (NGOs). There are a number of global initiatives, such as the UN ICT Task Force and G8 Digital Opportunity Task Force (DOT Force), that are working to address these vital areas.

To begin overcoming digital divide in Nigeria, The Federal Ministry of Science and Technology (FMST) and National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) collaborated with the Intel World Ahead Programme and Microsoft to develop the Computers for All Nigerians Initiative (CANI). CANI is a comprehensive programme to enhance economic and social opportunity by improving access to affordable, high quality PCs and the internet, the digital inclusion programme is helping tens of thousands of Nigerians purchase their first PC.

Nigerian Companies like Zenox, Omatek, Beta and Brian PCs are among the ones that were made available to employees of participating public and private sector organisations at affordable prices and at a two- year low interest loan.

Another initiative by NITDA in bridging the digital divide is the internet penetration to rural and underdeveloped areas- the Rural Information Technology Centres (RITCs). This project started in 2007 with ten (10) centres, and by 2009, there are 40 centres scattered all over the country. These centres are equipped with computers that have e-learning facilities where beneficiaries can take courses on Microsoft Office, Oracle, Cisco, Hewlett Packard etc. Echoing the statement made in Ethics in the Internet, “The Internet can make an enormously valuable contribution to human life. It can foster prosperity and peace, intellectual and aesthetic growth, mutual understanding among peoples and nations on a global scale.”

To participate actively in and benefit fully from the information society and the knowledge economy, each person should have the necessary skills and knowledge in order to understand and participate. In this regards, Capacity building on Information Technology know – how was also carried out by NITDA, where 6100 graduate were trained in IT related fields. One thousand graduates from each of the six geo-political zones and one hundred from the Federal Capital Territory.

Now that the Internet is becoming an increasingly vital tool in our information society. The Nation is rapidly going on line, with an ever higher share of Nigerians regularly using computers and the internet in their daily lives.

More Nigerians are going online to conduct such day-to-day activities as education, business transactions, personal correspondence, research and information-gathering, and job searches. Each year, being digitally connected becomes ever more critical to economic and educational advancement and community participation.

Now that a large number of Nigerians regularly use the Internet to conduct daily activities, people who lack access to these tools are at a growing disadvantage. Therefore, raising the level of digital inclusion by increasing the number of Nigerians using the technology tools of the digital age is a vitally important national goal.

For Nigeria and her people to compete globally and participate meaningfully in the information age, the Federal Government implemented some socio-economic development programmes which require the development of information and knowledge based Nigerian economy. Some of these socio-economic development programmes and initiatives are National Economic Empowerment Development Strategy(NEEDS), State Economic Empowerment Strategy(SEEDS), Millennium Development Goals(MDGs), National Poverty Eradication Programme( NAPEP), and World summit on Information Society (WSIS) Plan of Action.

On the other hand, NITDA will continue to work vigorously to better maintain, understand and promote goal of full digital inclusion for all Nigerians thereby achieving President Yarádua’s 7 point Agenda and placing the country among the top 20 economies of the world come year 2020.

This is true of careers as well, including yours. Where do you want your IT career to be in one year? Do you want to have earned several IT certifications in that time, therefore advancing your IT career, or do you want to be in the exact same place you are today? The only person who can make this decision is you. And I can speak from experience that when you begin putting your career into motion – the possibilities are unlimited. But you have to get started – today.

Before going around asking experts on what IT career path to take or what IT certification to pursue, first the only person you should ask that question of is yourself. Whether you want to start an IT career or jumpstart your current one, make the decision to move forward in your career – and then follow through on that decision. Because the goal of getting a job is less important than the goal of getting a job that you like. You have to have passion for what whatever you are doing if not you won’t do it very well, so try to get a job that you like, pay the whole of your attention on it and then allow nature to carry you along its path.

Other than the obvious passion for computers and technology, salary and job growth potential are excellent reasons to consider computer careers. Diversity of computer skills adds to marketability in the workforce. A lawyer that is a Microsoft Certified Professional is having an added value internationally than a lawyer without an MCP. Many employers do not have time to train workers on basic skills and expect employees to be more than familiar with computers. If you have an aptitude or interest in math, science or art, and have strong problem solving and analytical skills you are a perfect candidate for a computer related career. Computer careers can be solitary work, but often require good communication skills. Systems administrators must know how to relay information to clients and coworkers in order to maintain order and efficiency in the system.

Computer education is available in many varieties; from certifications, certificate programs, associate’s degree programs, and bachelor’s and even master’s degree programs. Many professionals in Nigeria receive degrees in computer science and related fields, but still cannot produce in the local and international IT markets therefore, they are required to have specific certifications (for example MCSE-Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, CCNA or MCSA-Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator) and some hands on experience to fit in. In fact, it is better to have a good hand on experience without having the certifications than having the certifications without knowing the equipments. 

The acceptance of computers into business has created a great demand for IT professionals. Almost every industry has a need for IT pros for marketing, client retention and daily operations. Industries such as banking, insurance, hospitals and utilities absolutely rely on them. The information age has created a wealth of career opportunities for computer specialists, elevating their status as knowledgeable professionals and compensating them well financially. If you’re a computer specialist, or would like to become one, a career in the IT professions can be obtained in less than a year of study with the current spring of various IT certifications.

A lot   of  people these days are crazy about get IT certifications attached  to their  foundation degrees or   other basic  knowledge because certification credentials will definitely enhance their knowledge and also, the IT industry are now requiring those  certifications as  a proof   of  sound  understanding  of IT principles . There are over 400 certifications out there for you among which are:

A+ 2003, CCDA, CCNA voice, CCNA security, CCNP voice, CCNP security, CCIE, CEH, CSSP, CISSP Linux+, LPIC2 Linux Junior Level, LCPI2 Linux Intermediate Level, Master CIW Administrator, Master CIW i-Accelerate, MCNE, MCSA 2000, MCSA 2003, MCSE 2000,MCSE 2003, NetWare 5 CNE, NetWare 6 CNE, Network+, RHCE, RHCT,SCE, SCM,SCP, Security+,  Server+, Solaris 8 SCNA, Solaris 9 SCNA, Solaris 9 Security TICSA and a host of others, but the   issue is  what certification do you start ? And after then what to do next?

There are various schools of thoughts regarding how   to go about your IT certifications, and one can daisy-chain these schools to be able to bring out a suiting profile of certifications. Do you want to be a programmer, a network engineer, a security advisor, an animator, a graphic artist, system engineer, a hardware engineer, a database administrator, a movie / picture editor or a statistical analyst?

Firstly, I would recommend that you first consider your foundation degree or any basic know-how you have acquired and see what IT skill can enhance it, then you certify on that IT course. If you are a  structural engineer, an architect, a builder, surveyor or a planner, before thinking of any IT certification you have  to think of obtaining a certification on AutoCAD, 3D Studio Max or some sort of  animation certifications. This will definitely add speed, color and effects to your designs because the era of paper and pencil design has been long forgotten.

Unfortunately, even the educators teaching these courses in Nigerian universities don’t understand these technologies not to talk of the transferring it to the students. Come to think of this, an architect who is good in animations in 3D Studio Max or similar packages can fit in the advertisement industry or the fast growing Nollywood. These sectors relies a lot on animations and pay good money them. 

Also, if you are an economist, or in the administrative discipline or any related discipline, obtaining a certification in the statistical packages  or Econometric View will do you a lot of good as your will be involved in a lot of predictions from past or real-time data and running data a lot.

Despite the reality of the above school of thought, people now venture more and more into how the computer functions like networking and system support as computers have now flooded every nook and cranny of the world and they need support. Popular certifications in this section include MCSE, CCNA CCIE and a host of others.

The idea is based on the fact that people make projections as regards to the sectors where investment are moving to, so they prepare themselves through certifications to exploit those sectors in future, and IT is the place to go.

Also, if you are a trained anthropologist or archeologist and the society doesn’t need your service for now, you can retrain in less than a year in IT certifications to transform into a hot cake labor.

I am a trained economist but I am working as a network support engineer in the organization  which I work, always carrying cables, crimpers and laptops to test routers and  switches – yeah, I feel happy even though it makes me  the dirtiest personnel among  my colleagues. So, majority in IT requires starting with A+ and N+ then  any other thing can  happen.

At home and abroad as we proceeded into the year 2009, we began to understand the chicanery that brought us to within a whisker of complete collapse. As businesses went to the wall and repossessions increased, bankers and banking became an unpleasant euphemisms. Some chief executives were put on 24hour watch, some earned police surveillance, some got arrested and a few got sent down. Ponzi schemes and all manner of fraudulent chicanery were forced out of hiding in file cabinets, paper saved from shredders and massive irregularities were revealed. Financial institutions were summarily stripped of the “reputable” adjective. Nigeria was not without its own thrilling episodes.

But in the Telecom/InfoTech industry, the story was somewhat different. In both the Nigerian experience and from a universal perspective, 2009 was a mixed bag of the good, the bad and sometimes the downright ugly. 

The year started with a new Minister of Communications, Prof Dora Akunyili who was appointed in the dying days of 2008.  She resumed at the Radio House with the vigour and reputation of an accomplished professional and fighter having taken on the scourge of fake drugs and its miners with considerable success. She took her office battle-ready to take on the mantra of being government mouthpiece, which essentially is the job of the Minister of Information and Communications. In an Iron Lady-like fashion, she hand bagged virtually anything in sight and around – telephone tariff, transparency, ‘rebranding’, ‘ hijackers? Not us’ that by the year end yesterday, observers conceded a loud but slow year for the telecom industry. She saw current telephone tariff as deplorable and bore down on it with vengeance attempting to force it down by using best wishes, emotion and bold face. It did not quite work.

On the balance, the industry recorded a few isolated wins in these bruising encounters while simultaneously forced to slow down its pace to synchronize with the speed of overall leadership.

The Rural Telephony Project

The Minister resumed to meet the controversial rural telephone project, a Chinese initiative for Nigeria, into which $200m had been sunk and she read out a list of six telephone ‘operators’ (more like licensees who never invoked their licenses) who offered to buy over the failed project. January 2010 will mark the first anniversary of the handover. Hopefully Ministry officials will give a progress report.

Compulsory NEFT

Banks and financial institutions still maintained their lead in applying e-processes as they introduced a range of financial products for which telecommunication plays key role just as mobile operators also deployed banks’ automatic teller machines as platform for enhancing their payment services.

Federal government insisted, for the first time, that all of its disbursement henceforth would be by bank-to-bank transaction thus giving the National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) its literal meaning in running government business. Although government has given it the “e-payment” nomenclature, it may well have to move full steam ahead in 2010 to implement other related electronic technology inspired facilities to turn what is essentially an e-aspiration into an e-reality. Can there be a true ‘e’ without broadband internet access?

Broadband hopes

A sizeable number of submarine fibre projects which may turn around Africa’s low internet penetration began to see reality during the year. MainOne Cable Company concluded the shore-end laying of its undersea fibre optic cable in Lagos marking  a critical intermediary stage of installation on the shores of countries where the cable system was expected to berth its origins in Portugal. Ditto for Globacom, both promising good and cheap access in the New Year. Elsewhere on the continent, SEACOM announced the New Transatlantic submarine fibre-optic project designed to encircle the African continent, connecting its coastal and hinterland countries as well as islands reached a remarkable milestone with the completion and commissioning of the phase which links South and East Africa to global networks via India and Europe. All representing progress for Internet development in Africa.

ITU Secretary General, Hamadoun Toure, applauded the progress made in the continent when he said in Abuja that the continent has given a good account of itself. He craftily deprecated President Yar’ Adua’s prediction  that Nigeria would attain 100 million telephone lines by the year 2020 as lacking in ambition since recent trends show that the President’s prophecy may be achieved by 2015 if things go fine in Nigeria.

Co-location, Wimax, and Number Portability(NP)

The issue of co-location was aired when Nigerian Communications Commission in collaboration with Telecom Answers Associates, an indigenous telecoms consultancy company and Helios Towers Ltd a frontrunner co-location licensee brought key industry players and stakeholders together under the Co-location Forum 2009 to deliberate,  coalesce  their thinking, experiences and views on the development of Infrastructure Sharing and co-location as a concept and modus operandi to be embraced primarily by industry. The forum report attests co-location is a worthy cause and the report went ahead to publish industry networking and industry resource data which investors would take advantage as a result latch on to co-location as a viable option of industry management tool.  Telecom answers associates promises that future work on Wimax and NP would optimise the industry database and potentials resources.

Marginal reduction in telephone tariff

3 years after the last review of tariff of telephone service, NCC commissioned a new study into the subject and came up with marginal downward review of interconnection tariff which served as a basis for deriving subscribers’ telephones charges by operators. It also went ahead to prescribe adjustment on the rates payable among operators at the end of each of the next three years. An industry study had prescribed tariff review, foreclosed and recommended a repeat to determine future decisions. Strange? Not half. 

Death Knell of NITEL and eviction of Mtel

NITEL, the First National Operator’s continued slide into obscurity shows no sign of abating. It now looks like the government is more confused today than it was two years ago when it shepherded the company into the stable of Trans Corporation International, a.k.a. Transcorp. The purpose-built ‘conglomerate’ of the previous administration was revoked for failure to follow through with the investment and capital injection plan. The parastatal was handed back to the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE) to initiate another, hopefully more successful sale. Hoping against hope, they just might be in another relay race. Transcorp of course challenged the government’s action and hinted at a protracted legal struggle, but shortly after its senior executives became guests of the EFCC, the hint rapidly dissipated. 

It all seems a far cry from days of old when NITEL was at its pomp bestriding the industry unchallenged. Days when all we had were land lines, poor connectivity and low coverage and when telephone cost an arm and a leg.

Death of $100 laptop in Nigeria

A few projects commenced by the Obasanjo regime, appear good investment at least on paper albeit in a customary fashion that betrays democratic discipline somehow conveniently got ignored by the present government. One such project was the $100 laptop, which disappeared from the agenda and even more surprising nothing is in place to replace it.

Cyber war campaign made an issue in Nigeria

The threat posed by cyber criminality on Nigeria’s banking and telecommunications institutions, was highlighted by the President and Co-founder of EC-Council, Mr. Sanjay Bavisi advocating internal Information Technology (IT) policy to be implemented by corporate big wigs. Speaking at a seminar for bank and telecom executives in Lagos, he called for vigilance and companies should deter just anybody taking a mobile phone into a company as this was potentially perilous as rogues could use mobile phones or digital devices, to install malicious software and steal data.

“Without human capital and proper methodology in place, it will be difficult to control cyber attacks,” he said.

Nigeria’s slow motion raises concern

The pace of Nigeria’s transformation to a digital economy continues to be a cause for consternation with Nigerians in the Diaspora impressing on home based that while mobile telephony had somehow fulfilled the major objective of providing communication services throughout the country, we are light years away from what is a digital revolution. Nigeria’s snail pace of reform was highlighted by  what President Obama did not say in Ghana dispatching  Secretary of State Clinton on a whistle stop tour of Africa  to wake officials up and ‘smell the coffee’. 

Who did not listen? Those who should.

Threat to the Regulator’s Independence

The national communications Act 2003, heralded as very apt at its inception, may well just be due for revision. The legislature mounted so much debate and held public forums to suggest a genuine desire to make the regulator better able to fulfill its role and discharge its responsibilities, but is yet to back such talk, or indeed desire, with the propagation of a statutory framework that would bring about changes. 

The Act itself came under severe pressure when the independence of the Nigerian Communications Commission was tested with President Yar’ Adua’s belatedly giving a ruling over the controversial issue of 23.5 GHz frequency auction. For reasons of administrative convenience at best, the President overturned a frequency allocation which the regulator had issued but did on specious legal justification. Alas this afforded us a chance to test a critical aspect of the law which had all along been assumed a good instrument of industry management but which was crying out for a review that could bolster the role of the regulator to act faster than it could otherwise have in evoking sanction on erring industry players. But sadly the opportunity was lost.

A threat to the independence of NCC represents a direct affront to inward investment which, analysts say, will slow down even more if it is subjugated by ‘here-today-gone-tomorrow’ politicians. Mobitel’s and a few others’ investment might have gone down the drain and its prospective challenge to current players has been curtailed but more importantly, it is the ‘wait and see’ approach that investors would adopt when it comes to squaring up with the industry. Such a shame, more so for the only industry sector that stumbled on getting it right.

Lagos State government on its part continued its insistence on taxing InfoTech infrastructure. The move was construed by some as hostile to business. To others, it was a demonstration of the crippling bureaucracy of the Lagos State Government and constitutional aberration of its House of Assembly, but more importantly, it was viewed as extortionist and draconian. To these people, justice prevailed when both the High Court and Court of Appeal ruled that the regulation of the telecoms sector remained the business of the Federal Government.

Good Friends we lost

The industry suffered a colossal loss of some its most illustrious contributors. This list included, Ndukwe Kalu a patriot who contributed immeasurably within and beyond his capacity toward ensuring online visibility and presence of Nigeria within the cyberspace. The year also saw the departure of perhaps the longest serving minister of Communications in Africa, South Africa’s Mrs. Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, who died at 71. She was in her 10th year as Minister when she passed away.

The Global Economic Recession

The year began with the global economic recession claiming its first big casualty in the Telecom industry. As the global meltdown’ beginning to bite, One of the victims to feel its teeth marks was Nortel, – a world class Canadian Telecommunication equipment manufacturer, Nortel Networks. Nortel sources said that phone companies are reducing their orders and figures are going downwards so Nortel has to move fast.  It went to Court to file bankruptcy papers just as it was making a debt payment of over a $ 100million.

Obama deploys Broadband investment to stem economic decline

The Obama administration ended the year like it began – full of hope and embracing ICT. Carrying the banner of Keynesian economics (socialism to the average American), it named 18 projects that would receive a portion of the $7.4 billion in stimulus funds set aside to bring high-speed Internet to poor and rural areas that have been overlooked by Internet service providers. Vice President Biden announced the government plans to distribute about $2 billion over the next couple of months with the remainder spent on mapping projects or will be distributed in a final round of grants in coming months. VP Biden said the funds were the essence of the Recovery Act sparking new growth, tapping into the ingenuity of the American people and giving them the tools needed to help build a new economy in the 21st century.

The World Wide Web was 20

In 2009, the world celebrated as World Wide Web turned 20. Not to be confused with the internet which describes the global network of connected computers in a manner that makes it an open platform, the year marked 20 years of sharing of information through a global database of linked pages. What links both is how radically change they have both transformed our lives in the realm of business, pleasure, research and development. The founder of the World Wide Web Sir Tim Berners-Lee is still very much around leading its further development.

Somethings never change

Public Electricity

The greatest malady of the telecom industry has remained inaccessibility of reliable pubic power supply. A 1996 study by Telecom Answers Associates on why internet penetration remained low in Nigeria in spite of high number of licenses issues for service provision reported that much when it said:

‘‘…There is a huge gap between demand and supply of bandwidth. The gap is brought about by consumers’ inability to buy bandwidth and this inability is accentuated by an indescribable and worsening access to basic public electricity supply across the entire country…’

It was toward the end of 2009 that a veiled suggestion for a truly liberalized electricity power supply industry came from a very unusual quarters. Engr. John Ayodele a General Manager in charge of Operations at Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, in a Lecture delivered to the NIEEE recommended that the option of ‘Distributed Generation’ (DG) be adopted. Distributed generation refers to the  proximity between electricity production and the place of consumption as a means of addressing the asymmetry between investment, expenditure and demand in the supply of power. The lecture represented the first steps in a long road to liberalization: That is, generation, distribution and marketing of electricity. Though the concept is not new on the agenda of National Electricity Regulation Agency, its implementation had always dogged by a perceived sense of insincerity.

2010 Expectations: More or more of the same

Industry restructuring, not merger, expected

The industry caught a whiff of the Minister of Information and Communications pledging to recommend the merger of the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, and the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, before the end of the year as if it was a new subject. As the year ended not much was heard of the pledge. The reasons given for a merger are at best specious as industry players have consistently argued that what is required in the spirit of driving the industry and economy forward is restructuring via the wholesale review of regulatory and administrative regime in a true, orderly ICT industry.

SIM Card registration scheme 

Eight years after the first use of subscriber identification module, SIM system of locating users within networks, Nigerian authorities eventually introduced a scheme to curtail the menace of mobile phone handset theft in Nigeria, authorized and commissioned a registry and anti-phone theft system for Mobile phones in the country. The registry and the service are designed that a mobile phone which is reported stolen will be rendered useless as it cannot be connected to any telephone network in the country. The service which will be at no cost but will require subscribers register their 15 digit  International Mobile Equipment identity (IMEI) numbers with the Central Equipment Identity Registry (CEIR) thus addressing the need to identify phone users not only within the switch system but also within the global networking to curtail fraud and improve planning data. NCC in the closing days of the year put commencement date to March 1, 2010.

Naturally, operators are bound to cry murder since necessary investment to realise the change may not be necessarily recoverable. It will only just be a normal reaction to expect.

Broadband in Nigeria expected

Tempo of the clamour for Nigeria to make strategic investment in Broadband infrastructure is approaching fever pitch. Professional associations, NGOs, those in academia and informed industry players are united in their accepting that although there is reason to celebrate the rapid increase in subscriber numbers, it has become obvious the aspect of data penetration through broadband that is supposed to boost Internet penetration is lagging behind owing to the unavailability of full broadband services, coupled with high cost of bandwidth. A government that mouths the ‘20-20-20′ slogan  without prioritising broadband stimulation presents as queer at best.

Emerging Businesses

A new Global Mobile Personal Service by Satellite provider, Globaltouch West Africa rolled out service from its earth station based in Kaduna. 

And two Nigerian firms Globacom and Omatek forayed into other markets as they opened shops in Ghana and Benin Republic.

Nigeria’s DAAR Communications Plc, operators of DAARSat and AIT Television turned on the switch of access to world class digital broadcasting with a further acquisition of a number of high-resolution based outside broadcast facilities which it received into its stock.

Space Research and Development:

Nigeria’s Satellite launch is business, Yes; technological development?, No!

NARSDA which celebrated its 10th anniversary during the year started it with a new administration which ended the tenure of the biology Professor who took charge of the agency in its formative years. It took the country the loss of a launched commercial satellite in space to reappraise things. Quite remarkable for an agency which in all ten years of its existence and modus operandi has no basis – no Act of law nor in the appropriation of its finances by the nation’s legislature. Such malady of democracy! The legacy of a somebody.

The agency has promised that the lost satellite would be returned to space in 2010. Say ‘amen’, somebody.

Content development in Nigeria,

Cyberchuulnews.com takes a lead as it goes commercial.

CyberschuulNews.com has set April 21, 2010 as the launch date for commercial services at a public event in Lagos. A recent release by the publishers to its subscribers says a new world of opportunities would emerge from the stable of the e-publications The launch represents an opportunity to marry various independent and impartial aspects of Telecoms and IT company portfolios performance and financial reporting with content to produce an entity which is more vibrant inspirational and an expression of the magic of a creative spirit.

For Nigeria, I think the story will be different with the meltdown still showing up in different areas of the economy especially the compulsory reform going on in the financial sector at time. We are just beginning to see the effect of recession in Nigeria. This has come with lost of jobs, businesses closing shops, and general hardship on the people.

At this point I am moved to recite the song of the popular PSQUARE group, I see danger! danger!! wahala dey…. Frankly speaking I see only businesses and individuals that will be creative and e-nnovative surviving 2010,creativity here could mean thinking out of the box, finding new ways of doing business at a cost effective way and achieving results with that. It certainly will not be business as usual in 2010. Relevant information will be a vital tool for success ushering in a good base for a knowledge-driven economy.

The Internet is one pool that provides information at the fingertips of any entrepreneur or CEO. It is only those who have the needed knowledge will prospect the opportunities the times provide because even as businesses try to recover or die, great businesses spring up daily world over.

It has been proved that successful businesses that have stood the test of time even with the economic recession are those that have always followed the trend and have equipped themselves with information and exit strategies.

Online businesses didn’t really feel the impact of recession; companies like Google increased its profitability. According to Interbrand and BusinessWeek 2009 research (September 28, 2009 report), Google rose to become the 7^th global brand in the world with 25% growth, which is the best business with positive change.

Amazon, another online brand and the leading online retailer of books had 22% positive growth in 2009, while Coke, the leading global brand grew by 3%.This goes to show how profitable and cost effective doing business online is even with the recession.

The social network, Facebook as at December 2009 has 350 million users and has also started making profits. I could go on and on to mention successful online businesses. Not forgetting Twitter another social network waxing strong in terms of growth and profitability.

In all of these, one question that keeps coming to me even as I write articles about online business is the position of Nigeria in all these developments around the Internet world. Nigeria will be affected in one way or the other.

How can we leverage the Internet to build our businesses and even build online brands that will compete with the brands I mentioned earlier?

It can be done and I see it coming to past if and only if you articulate this piece and decide to  take your business online by following the trends, financing Internet based businesses, Ideas and positive initiatives. In addition to that, always read our techblog at www.techtrendsng.com to keep abreast of with latest developments.

Having said that, let’s look at the opportunities provided by the Internet for Nigerians to leverage from and build successful businesses come 2010. These opportunities follow a particular pattern called the web or Internet trends.

A web or Internet trend is simply the various ways the internet is used as a business solution. It is the pattern of doing business on the web at any given period. Web trend can also be regarded as the current era of the web, what is in vogue online. This is determined by what the Internet users want and how they want it.

More importantly, it shows how the web technology is tailored to suit what the demands are. Right now web users are yawning for high personalization online. They need particular and specialized services as the day goes on.It is the social network era, virtualization and cloud age.

If you can determine what millions of people using the web want, and you give it to them the way they want it at a good price regularly, you will be successful online. This is the secret of online wealth creation.
With these web trends you can build a new business to serve the need or adapt your already existing business to suit the trend.

The Current Era of the Web and its Business Potentials

-Increased Internet Access.

The one most important factor that will drive this whole change I like to call the Internet revolution is increased and affordable Internet access in Nigeria. Dr Ernest Ndukwe, the executive vice chairman NCC said “access to internet means being connected to the Internet at the right speed and the right place and linked to the right content at the right time and place”. With the unprecedented growth in the telecoms industry, there is no doubt that the telecom industry has the capacity to drive the Internet revolution in Nigeria.

Great hope and optimism is imminent with the launch of various Internet packages especially the 3G portable modem by service providers, Internet access which will drive the desired online business, has increased within the last few months and this will continue to increase even into the rural areas with the licensing of more than 400 ISPs. Connection to Internet exchange point of Nigeria will reduce cost of data transport, improve data security and encourage local content development among other benefits.

Government projects like the State Accelerated Broadband Initiative (SABI), Wire Nigeria Project access will increase .The private sectors will also be part of the growth with projects like the Glo-1and Mainone fiber optic cables when fully deployed will further make Internet access affordable to Nigerians. We also expect that with increased Internet access more people will own computer systems and Internet-ready mobile devices.

With increased internet connection, there will be great businesses for Internet service providers, Computer sales will soar, and mobile phone market and related services will also grow.

Have you ever thought of what people will be doing when they eventually get online with increased access? There will be great opportunities in Internet marketing services like email, search engine optimization, web design, hosting and domain name business, online advertisement.

Online Ad spending will account for 13.8% of worldwide advertising in 2010 and worth $63.1bn.With this traditional media will continually lose advertising share (The Economist: The World in 2010).

-Growth of Web based Applications

The future of the Internet will see the success of web based applications. A web based application is a program that resides entirely on the Internet and can be accessed via a web browser. These applications are quickly becoming the preferred platform for business information systems and critical applications. They will become very popular in wide range of uses because they can be updated and maintained without distributing and installing software on every computer before they are used. They are therefore cross-platform compatible. Common web apps include webmail, blog,wiki,google doc.

Some of the benefits of web- based applications are:

-They can be accessed anywhere in the world since they are basically on the internet.

-They usually have user friendly interfaces that are easy to use.

-These applications are usually free since they are placed in open source platforms where users can easily access them. This is a cost –effective solutions for businesses.

-They run on any type of computer with any type of operating system, all one needs is a compatible web browser.

-The security in using these applications is guaranteed with the introduction of SSL certificates which ensures that data sent via the Internet is encrypted from point to point.

Web based applications will encourage the use of netbooks which are computers with single core processors and web browsers. With the netbooks and the web based applications you don’t need to install say a photoshop on your system, all you need do is get online through the browser and go to the web application called fotoflexer.com and tweek your photos.

You don’t need to install a word processor, just use google doc and type and save your documents online. You want to chat? no need to worry yourself installing chat messenger that takes hours, use the web app at meebo.com,listen to your online radio from lastfm.com,do your video recording from a webcam to Youtube.

Worried about the size of your disc space? Just go to amazon.com for example and save your encrypted data safely online. These are some of the applications that are web based.They will make netbooks affordable and also reduce the cost of sharing information online for businesses.The demand for electronic books(e-books)and e-readers will increase even for our universities with virtual libraries.

IT training centres in Nigeria should also leverage on the increased demand for web application to offer training in web application development.e-commerce will thrive with web based e-payment platforms.

-Web 2.0 in Nigeria

These web applications make up the Web 2.0 era. Web 2.0 is a term used to describe the trend in the use of the Internet these days which enhances creativity and information sharing for business and personal purposes.

According to Tim O’Reilly (an Internet technology expert):”Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.”

Web 2.0 is not a technical update in internet technology rather it is the change that has occurred in the way businesses are fashioned on the Internet to suit the end-user and solve problems better.

Some of the characteristics of this era, include; rich user interface and experience, High level of user participation, dynamic contents, scalability (ability to grow within a short period), openness, freedom, collective intelligence.

The features of this trend are social networking for business and relationship, this brought about the success of social networking websites like Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and others.

This is the era of search engine growth like the Google, Yahoo!, Live search and other search engines. It is an era of online media examples are the Youtube (a video website) Flickr –a picture sharing web community. This is also the time for great e-commerce breakthroughs like the Amazon.com, eBay,

As the present trend is the determinate of what type of business thrives online, if you build your business around these features of web 2.0 you will make a fortune online.
-Mobile Web
Going by what the times are with 70,337,657 of telephone subscribers in Nigeria as at September 2009(Source:NCC); the Internet will mainly be accessed through mobile devices e.g. (the iphone, blackberry,Nokia etc.)

Rich internet applications will be incorporated into mobile devices. This is already a big business in parts of Asia, Europe and the US. The internet will be accesses via mobile devices providing personalities services like online shopping, social networking,finding directions,search engine usuage,creating blogs.corporate communication,reading news,music,videos,sports.

This is going to bring collaboration between mobile operators and Internet companies.I see the winning team incorporating local contents. This will result in great mobile devices more powerful than what we have already.

Businesses like mobile advertisement, SMS and other mobile related businesses will thrive. One area that Nigerians will experience the business side on mobile will be Mobile payment. Mobile payment solutions will be on the increase soon in Nigeria, with some African countries like Kenya, Ghana, South Africa and others already enjoying such services provided for the unbanked population in an emerging market like ours.

Online Video/Internet TV
This is a trend that has already exploded on the web in some developed nations. This will bring about the advent of Internet TV stations, terrestrial TV stations will have to adapt then.

International Web Market
The use of Internet in Africa, India, and China will improve tremendously in no distance time because statistics have shown that the web 2.0 websites are mainly used by people from these nations. As a result of this, Nigeria will become an international web market giving netpreneurs and businesses great opportunities.

Websites as Web Services
Websites that wants to make money will have to transform into offering web services beyond online.

There is no better way to conclude the article rather than advice that everybody should take their business online no matter what your business is.All of these opportunities will not come without its attendant challenges, and one major challenge is the issue of cyber crime.Learn how to avoid them.Major targets will be through phising, spamming targeting ATM users and online transaction and banking services. Facebook among other major websites will also be a channel for identity theft and other cyber crimes. This calls for carefulness and the good news is that identified efforts to curb the menance will be renewed with legislation and advocacy.

The Internet is so dynamic that what works today might be old-fashioned the next second. There is a place for you on the Internet. Internet based services and businesses will flourish and only those who will make use of this information will benefit from it .If we understand the positive ways to create wealth online, cyber crime which is a big challenge will reduce. For your questions, do contact me and always read our techblog at www.techtrendsng.com.

Though mobile money is generally known as the play turf of mobile operators but financial institution are also seeking for a piece of the cake that will enable them bank the unbanked and reach millions of Africans that are currently left behind.

As the landscape gets interesting with strong compelling needs for mobile payment technologist, agency developers, third party Banking agents, support services and consultants to support the evolving ecosystem, there is need to develop a skill pool and talent Bank that will position the industry on a proper footing.

Despite the urgent need to bring formal financial services to millions across Africa where millions are still excluded from any form of formal financial inclusion, the main challenge of how Mobile money works and the value creation that it adds to the overall strategy of the provider, Banks and mobile operators. The industry is still faced with critical manpower shortages. The governments are still trying to tackle regulation, Banks battling understanding low value, volume transaction platforms while mobile operators are untying the risk involved in managing deposits which they are not used to.

The presence of the challenges is now creating a new pool of corporate mercenaries which specializes in hijacking new industries with the short term aim of instant benefits against industry experts with the deep knowledge that can sustain long term vision of the organizations. Corporate mercenaries are promoting all sorts of technologies and solutions which cannot be sustained and does not deliver strong value realization even if it meets short term objectives of the banks. Mismatches at the early stages can set the stage for a future failure and Africa cannot afford not to properly position Mobile money as it holds the key to meeting many of the millennium development goals and targets.

Financial institutions are prone to such mis-hires at the early stages. Some Banks are actually deploying technologies which are not compatible with more than 30 percent of their total target mobile subscribers based on some expert mercenary advice which will ultimately ruin the project in the long run.

Industry experts are still few in the industry but their efforts are contributing positively all across Africa and they have deep insights across all the sectors to make change happen. Africa will need to tap into her reservoir of talents all around the world and also groom new hands to sustain this rapid growing industry that holds so many promises for Africa.

Lastly, mobile operators and Banks should collaborate further to develop mobilemoney academies to serve their markets and grow the industry together. Lessons are to be learnt from the Orange Money Academy in Mali. We cannot afford to loose out on this last chance opportunity.

In addition, it contained too many features that I found insignificant to basic web browsing. Sometimes I use Safari on the Mac and see no problems with it. I especially love its Private Browsing feature that can easily be enabled. Let  me  see  whether  I  can  do  some  numeric  listings  below:

1. Web form texts are reserved automatically if they are not passwords- and it is not just the login names, the whole forms are saved. For the most part, this is very useful to me. However, this can indeed include security/privacy risks if not handled properly. The good thing here is that all private data can be cleared with a click of a button, or chosen to auto clear once the browser is closed.

2. Built-in auto correction/dictionary while you type-a very important feature for me.

3. The Foxmarks add-on seamlessly synchronizes my bookmarks on machines I use.

4. The PlainOldFavorites add-on is a very cool feature in IE.

5. NoScript: This Firefox staple disables active content from sites you do not trust. Unless you tell NoScript to trust a given site or domain, it prevents JavaScript, Java, and other executable content from running. You can still use NoScript either way. It is a great security addition to Firefox, but it can block content, such as the videos and polls on some sites, unless configured properly.

6. Morning Coffee: This is for those of us who start nearly every day opening the same group of Web sites- whether cruising through favorite news sites or tapping into an array of Web-based admin tools. This extension allows you to create a group of sites that will open- each in its own tab – with the click of a button. No more digging through bookmarks or clicking for each new tab and link! You can even set up sites to open only on certain days of the week. Now, once you have all of those tabs open, you might appreciate a way to keep them organized.

7. Colorful Tabs: This add-on gives each open tab a different color, making it easier to distinguish between them. You can color-code tabs randomly or according to URL. You can also set tabs to fade. You can even set a background image for tabs.

8. Faster fox: This handy add-on lets you customize a variety of Firefox configuration settings, including simultaneous connections, pipelining, and link prefetching through a graphical interface. Now before you rush out and download Fasterfox from Mozilla.org, you should know a few things.

9. Page Saver: This utility lets you capture an image of a Web page- even if the page extends past the bottom of the screen. Now, this is a handy add-on for Firefox users running Mac OS Ten. Windows users can use tools like SnagIt to capture long Web pages too.

Consider this too:

 1. with  the  issue  of  compatibility  I  mentioned  earlier, I think IE is still more compatible on many websites than Firefox. I have seen javascripts that simply do not work in Firefox.

2. IE has always started faster than Firefox on my machines. It still does. However, IE7 is a bit heavier than IE6 and (I think) Firefox 3 is a bit quicker than Firefox 2 and the race has not ended yet.

3. The zooming feature in IE7 is awesome.

4. The quick tabs button shows web page thumbnails-a brilliant idea!

I tried Opera a long time ago. It was ok. Avant is quick. I also tried one called “Enigma” browser and Crazy browser. Nothing special other than that they are browsers built for speed and had good memory optimization- good for slow machines.

Comparing Chrome to IE 8, IE 8 uses multiple, discrete processes to isolate and protect each tab’s contents. However, while Chrome takes a purist approach and literally launches a new process with each opened tab, IE 8 uses more of a hybrid model: It creates multiple instances of the iexplore.exe process but does not specifically assign each tab to its own instance.

Thus, a look at Task Manager under Windows will show an equal or greater number of Chrome instances than running tabs, whereas IE 8 will generate a fewer number of instances – for example, six copies of iexplore.exe to support 10 discrete tabs – and share them among the running tabs.

This new development – browsers chewing up more memory than their host OS –At the time, I was shocked by how bloated IE 8 had become, consuming 332MB of RAM to render a simple 10-site/10-tab browsing scenario. Google Chrome’s UI is Spartan compared to IE 8’s and has no dedicated Search box, instead combining search and auto-complete suggestions as part of a single, unified address superbox.

New tabs open to reveal thumbnail views of frequently visited sites (IE 8 offers a similar view but focuses on recently closed tabs) and can be dragged into, out of, and between Chrome windows, allowing you to isolate, combine, and reorganize tabs on the fly (something you really need to experience firsthand to appreciate). In a sign of the times, Chrome features its own take on “porn mode” (dubbed Incognito), where cookies and history data are deleted as soon as the tab is closed.

 IE 8 adds a host of new capabilities, like Web Slices. These are sections of a web page that are isolated and reproduced in a separate, updatable mini window. Other IE features are Accelerators, which are context menu options that activate common web services such as dictionary lookup or translation.

Another IE feature InPrivate Browsing, a.k.a “porn mode,” lets you surf without leaving behind a browser or search history, cookies, temporary files, and other evidence of where you’ve been. Microsoft has also revamped the address bar to provide better auto-complete suggestions and expanded the dedicated Search field to include images and other rich media as part of the drop-down results set. Well,   choosing a browser is all about you; Sleep on the side that you like.

A browser is an application program that provides a way to look at and interact with all the information on the World Wide Web.

The word “browser” seems to have originated prior to the Web as a generic term for user interfaces that let you browse (navigate through and read) text files online.

Technically, a Web browser is a client program that uses HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) to make requests of Web servers throughout the Internet on behalf of the browser user.

Most browsers support e-mail and the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) but a Web browser is not required for those Internet protocols and more specialized client programs are more popular. We have many browsers like Opera, Safari, netscape, Mozilla, Avante, Chrome and the rivalry continues.

Internet Explorer seems to be taking the lead partly due to its default installation with Windows operating systems but how do you truly know a user likes the browser they have selected purely for its features and performance and not for its name?

A user would use various browsers not knowing which one they were using and they would simply all look the same. Then you can truly see if the user likes the browser for its features and not lead to like it for its name.

Granted, this would be a little difficult as the look and feel has a lot to do with the selection of a browser. Being that IE has a larger market share, most of the users connect with IE6 and 7, but what surprised me was that there was actually a pretty large number of users who use Firefox too (~20% or so).

The industry the client services is not aimed strictly at technical people either.

From experience, I have found that with the lion’s share of the user base on the Internet, almost every site I have tried displays 100% correctly in IE. When you go to other ‘compatible’ browsers you start to find, to a greater or lesser extent, incompatibility.

I know many say IE is insecure compared to xyz browser. It seems to me that security is much more about how you surf and whether you have the right precautions/tools in place and whether your OS is patched and properly configured than any inherent weakness or strength in your chosen browser.

At the other side of the coin, Firefox demonstrated to me some good features — if I accidentally close a tab, I can go to History > Recently Closed Tabs and easily recover the tab. With the tough competition between browsers in terms of features, ease of use, etc, I have to applaud Firefox for continuing to please me and never failing to impress me with its add-ons.

Some specific features that I like about Firefox is that it allows you to clear your cache easily, blocks pop ups by default, has tabbed browsing capabilities, and has the ability to restore your open Firefox windows after recovering from a crash.

Yes, some of the features are now included in all browsers, but Firefox was among the first (if not the first) browser to have these features, everyone else copied.

Firefox would also allow you to hide all of the browser’s menus including the address bar, bookmarks bar, File, Edit, etc, menus. Initially, when Firefox was losing to Slim Browser -yes, a browser that you may have never heard of- it was the Hide Menu Bar add-on that saved Firefox. Another add-cool feature of Firefox is IE Tabs.

The add-on will essentially “emulate” an IE environment in a Firefox tab, allowing you to open sites that are incompatible with Firefox, in Firefox. With firefox you will be able to start several tabs automatically as a ‘homepage’ and you could have a separate download helper box: It’s great to have downloads pop out into a separate window that retains a list so you can easily go back and see what you did and find the files. It must be age, but I periodically find myself searching for something I downloaded but cannot find where it got to.

Even within the IE family, I do prefer IE6 to IE7, and find it very useful at work when I need to Run As. This feature in IE7 does not really work, although it appears to.

Furthermore, IE7 seems to take slightly longer to open (and launch tabs) than IE6. I use a browser-based application for about 90% of my time at work, so I have noticed the smallest differences in browsers in terms of speed, features, ease of use, and intuitiveness. I do find the feature in Chrome of it launching each tab in a separate process to be nifty, but how often does Firefox crash?

How often do people surf processor intensive/memory intensive web sites? Not very often-that single cool feature is not enough to make people fall in love with Chrome. I used Opera for a while, but did not find it intuitive as Firefox. In addition, it contained too many features that I found insignificant to basic web browsing

Every device that connects to the Internet needs an address. But those addresses are rapidly being depleted. As unlikely as that may seem, the system put in place in 1977 assumed that four billion separate addresses on the network would be more than sufficient.

The Internet’s enormous success and growth has seen those addresses rapidly taken up. Within the next five years, and possibly sooner, the “free pool” of addresses – those that have not yet been used or assigned – will run out. As a result, unless a method of providing more addresses is introduced, the Internet’s growth will become increasingly constrained over the next decade.

Fortunately, Internet engineers foresaw the problem and back in 1996 devised a solution that would provide 340 trillion trillion trillion separate addresses.

 To give an idea of the scale, if all existing four billion Internet addresses were contained inside a Blackberry phone, the new system would fill a container the size of the Earth.

Adoption of that solution – called Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) – has been slow. The benefits of IPv6 are long-term. Technical workarounds that allow for continued use of the existing Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) systems have also appeared that allow several devices to share one Internet address.

The slow movement to IPv6 has caused increasing concern in the technical community and relaxed expectation of movement has moved to active promotion of IPv6 adoption.

What is IPv6 and why is it needed?

IPv6 stands for Internet Protocol version 6 and is the technological solution that allows for a vast expansion in the number of Internet addresses.

At the moment, the Internet uses version 4 of the Internet Protocol that provides just over four billion unique addresses on the network.

The Internet was designed for each device attached to the network to have its own individual numerical address so computers can communicate with one another, so while four billion addresses was once seen as more than sufficient, the explosion in the Internet’s use

has rapidly seen those addresses eaten up. IPv6 theoretically allows for 340 trillion trillion trillion addresses, so IPv4’s fundamental limitation is address space.

The majority of Internet users will never need to concern themselves with IP addresses because the domain name system (DNS) links the addresses with names such as “example.com”, so people need only recall a name to get to a particular part of the Internet. But without those numeric addresses in the first place, the Internet simply wouldn’t work.

Many of the electronic devices people carry around today such as mobile/cell phones, PDAs, pagers, and so on, use the Internet. At the moment, most of those devices access the Internet through a “gateway” that has a single, unique IP addresses on the Internet but produces a number of private addresses behind it.

These private addresses are then provided to individual devices. As applications evolve, however, the advantages to each device having its own unique address are going to increase. In the future it is expected that not only will the number of people connecting to the network increase but also that they will each possess more devices that also need to be connected to the Internet.

As the Internet continues to become an everyday part of our lives there are predictions that appliances such as refrigerators, televisions, even alarm clocks will make use of the network.

Are there any stop-gaps?

The reduced availability of IPv4 addresses (as of October 2007, only 17 percent is left), and the slowness to move to IPv6, has seen people develop systems and solutions to make the most of the IP addresses they already have.

One such system is called Network Address Translation (NAT). It allows one outside IP address to be shared between a number of computers and other devices. Each of the devices is given its own private IP address within the network but to the wider Internet they all appear to come from one address or device. With NAT technology, the outgoing connection, such as browsing a website, works well, but inbound connections such as file-sharing applications or voice-over-IP (VoIP) require special attention. Operating servers from within a NAT environment is particularly awkward, although NAT’s low cost continues to make the system attractive.

As IPv4 addresses become increasingly scarce, many believe it is inevitable they will become increasingly valuable. As a result, the existing allocation system has come under increasing scrutiny as some organisations look to profit from the scarcity and others seek to avoid unnecessary extra costs in the future expansion of the network infrastructure.

 The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is among the organisations reviewing the potential economic impact of this scarcity.

There are a variety of predictions, using different models, that attempt to estimate when there will be no more IPv4 addresses to allocate. The cut-off date ranges from 2009 to 2013.

It is now the widespread opinion of the technical community that for the continued and uninterrupted expansion of the Internet, it is vital that IPv6 adoption begin in earnest.

How are IP addresses allocated?

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) – a function of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – jointly manages allocation of the global IP address pool with the

Regional Internet Registries (RIRs).

In the early days of the Internet, address “blocks” were allocated to organisations – mostly universities and research organisations – by the Network Information Center (NIC) which operated under IANA. But as demand exploded, particularly outside the United States, the RIRs were established in order to deal with requests from different geographic regions.

 IANA now supplies address blocks to these RIRs, who then allocate them to other users, mostly Internet Service Providers (ISPs). ISPs then make these IP addresses available to their customers, the individual Internet users.

The allocation of those blocks over time has closely reflected use of the Internet around the world; with many IPv4 blocks provided to the burgeoning North American Internet community in the early days because that was where the Internet started and where investment in the infrastructure first occurred. More recent allocations reflect the modern global use of the network.

What is ICANN’s role?

ICANN acts as a coordinator of the Internet’s unique identifiers, including IP addresses. Its stakeholders cover a broad spectrum from

governments to individual Internet users. Some of those stakeholders will play an important role (in conjunction with other technical and non-technical bodies) in making IPv6 a reality.

In June 2007, the ICANN Board resolved that the organisation would “work with the Regional Internet Registries and other stakeholders to promote education and outreach, with the goal of supporting the future growth of the Internet by encouraging the timely deployment of IPv6.”

ICANN has held, and continues to hold, open forums and discussions about IPv6 in order to spread understanding and facilitate cooperation between Internet organisations.

How far are we with IPv6 adoption?

Despite the fact that IPv6 was defined over a decade ago, its adoption has been slow – too slow. There are a number of inter-relating factors for this:

• Cost. It costs network providers time and money to move to an IPv6 system and to be able to run the existing IPv4 system alongside IPv6 (something that will be essential for some time into the future).

• Features. Although IPv6 provides incremental improvements over IPv4, its main advantage – greatly increased address space – has yet to provide a compelling case for investment. Address depletion simply has not been a major focus for many businesses.

• Incompatibility. IPv6 is not directly compatible with IPv4. There are technologies that enable the two to communicate but IPv4 is liable to survive a long time into the future, so bridging technology will be needed for a significant period of time.

• Demand. There is currently little or no demand for a move to IPv6 from paying customers. But all applications need an upgrade, and in that regard, application sellers have work to do.

Some predict that a widespread shift to IPv6 will only occur once the cost of running on IPv4 starts rising due to scarcity. However, governments are beginning to recognise the need for movement to IPv6 and have started using incentives, funding and contractual obligations to encourage the transition.

The Chinese, Japanese and Korean governments have been leading rollout; the US government has mandated that contractors be IPv6-ready by the summer of 2008; and the European Union is reviewing methods to encourage adoption.

The RIRs are also supporting the adoption of IPv6 with four of the five making public statements on the matter. The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), stated that it felt “compelled to advise the Internet community that migration to IPv6 is necessary for any applications that require ongoing availability from ARIN of contiguous IP number resources”. And the Latin American and Caribbean Network Information Center (LACNIC) has launched a campaign to have all the region’s networks running IPv6 before 2011. Mexico’s domain registry, NIC.mx, have stated they will stop allocating IPv4 on 1 January 2011.

What are the advantages of IPv6?

• Greatly expanded address space, with plenty of addresses for everyone. Home users will have enough for thousands of devices. Enterprises will be able to reduce the cost of managing internal address space.

• It allows for every machine/device to have its own IP address on the wider Internet, simplifying network designs and also allowing for easier remote configuration.

• It allows for much larger data packets.

• It will open the door to a new generation of devices because of larger address space.

• It provides an improved degree of connectivity where individuals will be able to interact directly with devices anywhere on the network i.e. anywhere in the world. One example frequently quoted is being able to turn your home air conditioning on from the office, but there are likely to be thousands of other examples in future.

• Since most experts agree that an eventual shift to IPv6 is inevitable, there may be a significant “early mover” advantage to businesses and governments that adopt the protocol.

What are the issues with IPv6 rollout?

IPv6 is already available in some desktop and server operating systems. However, the vast majority of Internet content and services are only provided over IPv4, which is a problem as IPv4 and IPv6 are not interoperable. That means a desktop computer that only has an IPv6 address cannot access a website that only has IPv4 connectivity

without passing through a NAT-PT device or some other form of protocol translation system or application gateway.

Another key issue in IPv6 deployment is that the vast majority of networks were built for IPv4. Enabling IPv6 on those networks involves making sure that provisioning, management, monitoring, auditing, billing and firewalls all work with IPv6.

Widespread deployment only becomes possible when consumer devices work with IPv6, and there is still some work to be done to make a very large number of devices fully compliant. The problem is also with those who have not even started looking at what needs to be done to deploy IPv6. Issuing millions of consumers with updated devices could be expensive.

Because some of the more useful features in IPv6 have been made available in IPv4, ISPs have not felt it is a priority to deploy it on their production networks and create products until now.

Is it IPv6 or nothing?

No. IPv4 will continue to be in active use for the foreseeable future, particularly in developing countries, due to the cost of moving to IPv6.

As long as IPv4 continues to serve people’s needs, a wholesale move will not happen. And although there is an increasing sense of urgency that people should start moving to IPv6, it is not the same situation as the Year 2000/Y2K issue that had a clear date by which transition was vital.

New allocation policies for both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses have been drawn up, and discussion is ongoing about how best to reintroduce unused IP addresses into the system, particularly in the case where early allocations of IPv4 address space were larger than proved necessary.

It is important to note however that there have been many transitions in Internet technology over the years, from dial-up modems to always-on DSL, from host files to the domain name system. IPv4 to IPv6 is a more complex step on the path of the Internet’s future. But it is crucial to expansion of the network.

Where can I find more information?

There are a number of resources available for those who wish to know more about IPv6. A few are below:

IPv6 resource website: http://www.ipv6.org/

IPv6 Wikipedia page: http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6

ISOC FAQ on IPv6:

http://www.isoc.org/educpillar/resources/ipv6_faq.shtml

Glossary

IANA - Internet Assigned Numbers Authority: The IANA is the authority originally responsible for the oversight of IP address allocation, the coordination of the assignment of protocol parameters provided for in Internet technical standards, and the management of the DNS, including the delegation of top-level domains and oversight of the root name server system. Under ICANN, the IANA continues to distribute addresses to the Regional Internet Registries, coordinate with the IETF and others to assign protocol parameters, and oversee the operation of the DNS.

IP - Internet Protocol: The communications protocol underlying the Internet, IP allows large, geographically diverse networks of computers to communicate with each other quickly and economically over a variety of physical links. An Internet Protocol Address is the numerical address by which a termination point in the Internet is identified.

RIR - Regional Internet Registry: There are currently five RIRs: AfriNIC, APNIC, ARIN, LACNIC and RIPE NCC. These non-profit organizations are responsible for distributing IP addresses on a regional level to Internet service providers and local registries.

This article was culled from ICANN’s fact sheet.

About ICANN

ICANN is a nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the Internet’s systems of unique identifiers, including the systems of domain names and numeric addresses that are used to reach computers and other devices on the Internet. ICANN’s mission is to ensure the stable and secure operation of these unique identifier systems, which are vital to the Internet’s operation. In addition, ICANN coordinates policy development related to these technical functions through its effective bottom-up consensus model. Further information about ICANN is available at http://www.icann.org.

 We have entered the Information Age, where information technologies have been integrated into virtually every aspect of business and society.  This integration is posing new challenges for all of us in law enforcement.   Today, there are critical challenges, seeing computers being used for criminal behavior in three major ways. 
 

. First, a computer can be the target of an offense.  When this occurs, a computer’s confidentiality, integrity, or availability is attacked.  That is services or information are being stolen, or victim computers are being damaged.  The denial of service attacks that were experienced by numerous Internet sites earlier this year and the recent proliferation of the “I Love You” virus and its variants are but a few examples of this type of computer crime.

. Second, a computer can be used as a tool for committing criminal behavior.  This category includes those crimes that we in law enforcement have been fighting in the physical world but now we are seeing with increasing frequency on the Internet.  These crimes includes child pornography, fraud, intellectual property violations, and the sale of illegal substances and goods online.

. Third, a computer can be incidental to an offense, but still significant for our purposes as law enforcement officials.  For example, pedophiles might store child pornography and drug traffickers and other criminals may store business contact information on their computers

All three types of crimes involving computers are creating challenges for almost all nations of the world.  In the United States significant resources are channeled to identifying these challenges and formulating a sound legal and policy framework in which to address them.   There are useful reports by Attorney General Janet Reno on “The Electronic Frontier: The Challenge of Unlawful Conduct Involving the Use of the Internet,” which was drafted by President Clinton’s Working Group on Unlawful Conduct on the Internet.   This extensive report highlights the significant challenges created by cyberspace for law enforcement - not only in the United States, but throughout the world.  The report, is available on the Internet at www.cybercrime.gov .   As the report states, the needs and challenges confronting law enforcement “are neither trivial nor theoretical.”

The challenges that law enforcement agencies face in the battle with cybercrime generally being divided into three categories:

a) Technical challenges that hinder law enforcement’s ability to find and prosecute criminals operating online;
 

b) Legal challenges resulting from laws and legal tools needed to investigate cybercrime lagging behind technological structural, and social changes; and

c) Operational challenges to ensure that we have created a network of well-trained, well-equipped investigators and prosecutors who work together with unprecedented speed – even across national borders.

  3.1 Private Sector & Consumer Involvement

Before we discuss these challenges in more detail, it should be emphasized that governments, even if we all work together, will not be able to meet these challenges alone.  The private sector must be involved.  In fact, the private sector must take the lead in certain areas, especially in protecting private computer networks, through more vigilant security efforts, information sharing, and, where appropriate, through cooperation with government agencies.  The private sector has the resources, the technical ability, and the trained personnel to ensure that, as technology continues to develop and change rapidly, the Internet is a safer place for all of us.  As such, the private sector must take the lead on improving security practices and the development of a more secure Internet infrastructure.

In addition, we need the assistance of the consumer, the everyday user of computer systems, to ensure that safeguards are taken and that sound practices are followed.  The best infrastructure and most secure means of electronic commerce will be ineffective if the users of the technology, that is, all of us, don’t follow the basic “rules of the roadmap.”

That being said, even if companies and consumers do everything they can do to protect the Internet, law enforcement must be properly equipped, trained, and organized to fight cybercrime.  There is little doubt that there will be instances where the practices and safeguards fail.  As we all know, criminals rob banks even though banks use effective security measures.  When practices and safeguards fail, we must be ready – ready to investigate and ready to prosecute cybercriminals – so that we can stop their criminal activity, punish them, and deter potential cybercriminals.

3.2 Technical Challenges

When a hacker disrupts air traffic control at a local airport, when a child pornographer sends computer files over the Internet, when a cyberstalker sends a threatening e-mail to a school or a local church, or when credit card numbers are stolen from a company engaged in e-commerce, investigators must locate the source of the communication.  Everything on the Internet is communications, from an e-mail to an electronic heist.  Finding an electronic criminal means that law enforcement must determine who is responsible for sending an electronic threat or initiating an electronic robbery.  To accomplish this, law enforcement must in nearly every case trace the “electronic trail” leading from the victim back to the perpetrator.   Tracing a criminal in the electronic age, however, can be difficult, especially if we require international cooperation, if the perpetrator attempts to hide his identity, or if technology otherwise hinders our investigation.

As networked communications and e-commerce expand around the globe, businesses and consumers become more and more vulnerable to the reach of criminals.  The global nature of the Internet enables criminals to hide their identity, commit crimes remotely from anywhere in the world, and to communicate with their confederates internationally.  This can happen in nearly any type of crime, from violent crime, terrorism, and drug-trafficking, to the distribution of child pornography and stolen intellectual property, and attacks on e-commerce merchants.

Criminals can choose to weave their communications through service providers in a number of different countries to hide their tracks.  As a result, even crimes that seem local in nature might require international assistance and cooperation.   For example, a computer hacker in Oslo might attack the computers of a corporation located only a few miles away.  Yet, it is very possible that the ØKOKRIM might have to go to U.S., French, or Danish law enforcement officials for help in finding this criminal.  This would happen if the hacker routes his communications through providers in New York, Paris, and Copenhagen before accessing his victim’s computer.

Naturally, criminals like these, who weave communications through multiple countries, present added complexities to governments trying to find criminals.  Mutual legal assistance regimes between governments anticipate sharing evidence between only two countries, that is, the victim’s country and the offender’s country.  But when a criminal sends his communications through a third, or fourth, or fifth country, the processes for international assistance involve successive periods of time before law enforcement can reach data in those latter countries, increasing the chances the data will be unavailable or lost, and the criminal will remain free to attack again.

At the same time, the global nature of the Internet makes it easy for a criminal armed with nothing more than a computer and modem to victimize individuals and businesses anywhere in the world without ever setting foot outside his or her home.  The incidence of denial of service attacks serve as a good example of how easy it can be for cybercriminals to commit crimes across borders, as well as how technical and infrastructure challenges have made international cooperation a necessity.

While the Internet may be borderless, national boundaries exist for law enforcement and we must respect the sovereignty of each other’s countries.  We increasingly are dependent on mutual cooperation from other countries in investigating and prosecuting computer crimes.  Simply stated, cybercriminals know no national boundaries, and the multi-jurisdictional nature of cybercrimes requires a new multilateral approach to investigations and prosecutions.

For example, the scenario during the denial of service attacks many countries experienced the investigation of the dissemination of the “Love Bug” virus.  This virus, wreaked havoc on computers around the world, probably in most of our nations, and caused tremendous damage.  Within a day or so, international law enforcement agencies, as well as high-tech companies in the private sector, began focusing their investigations on the Philippines.

The Philippine National Bureau of Investigation, assisted by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, pursued several leads.  What is certain is the case for other nations that were victimized by the virus, is the commitment to assisting the Philippine government and to ensuring that the perpetrators of this crime are brought to justice.

To succeed in identifying and tracing global communications, there is need to work across borders, not only with our counterparts throughout the world,  but also with industry, to preserve critical evidence such as log files, e-mail records, and other files, and we must be able to do so quickly, before such information is altered or deleted.   If we cannot get this information quickly, the investigation may grow cold.

Technically, it is important to trace criminal transmissions in real time, during an actual communication.  This can be technically difficult, since many communications technologies are not designed to facilitate tracing.  The victim’s computer often only receives the address of the computer connected directly to it, not the address of the communication’s source, and this address can be false or temporarily hijacked. 

The infrastructure of the Internet does not normally provide an automated mechanism for identifying the true source.  Therefore, investigators will often need to contact individually each communications provider in the chain, to determine the source of the prior connection.  When these investigations cross national borders, they often cross time zones as well.  This often means that it is nighttime in at least one jurisdiction, and critical personnel may not be at work.

While less sophisticated cybercriminals may leave electronic “fingerprints,” more experienced criminals know how to conceal their tracks in cyberspace.

With the deployment of anonymous software, it is increasingly difficult and sometimes impossible to trace cybercriminals.  At the same time, other services available in some countries, such as pre-paid calling cards, lend themselves to anonymous communications.  All of these technologies make identifying criminals more difficult, even though they have other benefits.

There are countless other technical challenges we face, like those stemming from Internet telephony, strong encryption, and wireless and satellite communications.  The technological advances in electronic commerce and communication that have led to the explosive growth of the Internet have also made it possible for international criminals and terrorists to target victims in all our countries in unprecedented ways.   In an age of anonymous, wireless, and encrypted communications, how is law enforcement to identify and prosecute those who would do harm to our citizens and businesses?  What do we do when criminals located domestically use satellite and wireless communications that travel exclusively through gateways located in other countries?

3.3 Legal Challenges

The second type of challenge faced by investigators and prosecutors is in the legal arena. Deterring and punishing computer criminals requires a legal structure that will support detection and successful prosecution of offenders.  Yet the laws defining computer offenses, and the legal tools needed to investigate criminals using the Internet, often lag behind technological and social changes, creating legal challenges to law enforcement agencies.  In addition, some countries have not yet even adopted computer crime statutes.

All nations must take the threat of cybercrimes seriously.  Hacking and virus-writing and proliferation are not simple pranks, but injuries that have significant security and financial consequences. 

At a time when the number of crimes carried out through the use of computer technology is increasing at an alarming rate, it is especially important that law enforcement officials around the world demonstrate that such crimes will be punished swiftly and with an appropriate degree of severity.    When one country’s laws criminalize high-tech and computer-related crime and another country’s laws do not, cooperation to solve a crime may not be possible.  Inadequate regimes for international legal assistance and extradition can therefore, in effect, shield criminals from law enforcement.  As France’s President Jacques Chirac once stated at a G8 cybercrime conference in Paris, “what we need is the rule of law at [an] international level, a universal legal framework equal to the worldwide reach of the Internet.”

For those countries that do have computer crime statutes, they must also have appropriate procedural laws in place to investigate crimes.  We must recognize that technology is constantly changing and that procedural laws need to be updated.   For example, tracing criminals online in real time can be difficult in some countries because they have not yet adopted mechanisms to obtain traffic information in real time.

In certain cases, countries might want to reconsider both their substantive and procedural laws.  For example, some countries have laws that require telecommunications carriers and ISPs to routinely delete data that may be critical to an investigation.  These countries may want to review these laws to determine how these deletion requirements balance against the need to provide a safe and secure Internet. In this regard, electronic storage space becomes a critical issue and government must come up with incentives to enable ISPs preserve the Laws.

3.4 Operational Challenges

In addition to technical and legal challenges, law enforcement agencies around the world face significant operational challenges.   The complex technical and legal issues raised by computer-related crime require that each jurisdiction have individuals who are dedicated to high-tech crime and who have a firm understanding of computers and telecommunications.  The complexity of these technologies, and their constant and rapid change, mean that investigating and prosecuting offices must designate investigators and prosecutors to work these cases on a full-time basis, immersing themselves in computer-related investigations and prosecutions.

Available records show that the United States has taken this challenge seriously and has made specific efforts to create specialized investigative and prosecutorial offices at the federal level.   At the Department of Justice, the cornerstone of the prosecutor cybercrime program is the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, known as CCIPS.  CCIPS was founded in 1991 and has grown from five attorneys  to twenty attorneys today.  CCIPS works closely on computer crime cases with Assistant United States Attorneys known as “Computer and Telecommunications Coordinators” (CTCs) in each of U.S.  Attorneys’ Offices located around the United States.  Each CTC is given special training and equipment, and serves as his or her office’s expert in computer crime cases.  Increasingly, these prosecutors are working with state and local law enforcement as well.

On the investigative side, the National Infrastructure Protection Center was created in 1998 to coordinate the FBI’s investigation of computer crimes.  The NIPC currently has approximately 100 investigators, computer scientists, and analysts working on computer crime matters.  In addition, the FBI has almost 200 agents located in FBI field offices through the United States who are assigned to investigate computer crimes.

It is wise to suggest that every country should have dedicated high-tech crime units that can and will respond to a fast-breaking investigation and assist other law enforcement authorities faced with computer crimes.

Given the quickly evolving nature of computer technology, our nations must also continue to increase their computer forensic capabilities, which are so essential in computer crime investigations.  Yesterday, it is customary that we equip a new police officer with a uniform, gun, a flashlight, and a notepad.  When that officer retired, the four items would be returned to the police department, and the only intervening equipment expenses would have been replacement bullets, batteries, and note paper.  Today, keeping pace with computer criminals means that law enforcement experts in this field must be properly equipped with the latest hardware and software.

In addition, because of the speed at which communications technologies and computers evolve, prompting rapid evolution in criminal tradecraft, experts must receive regular and frequent training in the investigation and prosecution of high-tech cases.

3.5 CYBERETHICS

As we move to meet technical, legal, and operational challenges, we should not forget to educate our youth and others in society that computer hacking and virus dissemination is not only illegal, but ethically wrong.   Regardless of which country we call home, most of us know that it is wrong to break into our neighbors’ houses and steal things or damage their property.   Yet, it doesn’t seem that our youth today are being taught that the same principles apply to their behavior on computers and the Internet.  Indeed, in certain instances, unethical online behavior has been glorified.  In the United States, the Department of Justice is working with the private sector in an effort to rectify this situation.  Approximately a year ago, a joint private-public effort, was formed – the Cybercitizen Partnership, an initiative designed to educate and raise awareness of computer responsibility.  It is important for all countries to think about how they, too, can encourage ethical cyber-behavior among their citizens.

4.0 CONCLISION – INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS

Cybercrime is a very serious challenge to Global development endeavor of the New Millennium. This new information order presents a lot of opportunities, benefits and equal risks to the brave new world. Each nation of the world owes it a responsibility to the world to come up with responses on how to combat Cybercrime. Private and Public sectors must collaborate to resolve issues of standards and procedures. It has been noticed that the efforts of the Council of Europe on Cybercrime has received International attention. No doubt, the Council of Europe’s Draft Convention on Cyber Crime has broken new ground in the area of computer crime as the first multilateral instrument drafted specifically to address the problems posed by the spread of criminal activity in computer networks. 

Indeed, the G-8 nations have been interested in cooperation on cybercrime since at least December 1997, when the G-8 Justice and Interior Ministers met in Washington, DC and adopted 10 Principles and a 10-point Action Plan to fight cybercrime.  When the Heads of State for the G-8 nations endorsed the Principles and Plans a few months later, it was the first time that a group of Presidents and Prime Ministers agreed to a joint plan to fight cybercrime.

One of the things that has come out of the G-8’s efforts is the 24/7 network, which requires participating countries to designate a 24 hour, 7 day per week Point-of-Contact for the purposes of providing investigative assistance.  Currently, almost 20 countries are participating in the network.  We are working to further develop the network so that we are better prepared to address crimes committed using computer networks wherever and whenever they occur. 

The name Tim Berners-Lee may not ring a bell to the casual internet user neither will the famous quote by one of mankind’s most famous innovators describing the internet “turning point in societal evolution depends not only on the technology but also how we use it.” Furthermore, “the web gives us lots more choices about how we organize ourselves” says the founder of the World Wide Web, now known simply as the internet.

Over the years the internet has become a veritable tool for commerce, business, health care delivery, transport, research, communication… the list is endless. The internet now controls a better part of our everyday lives prompting researchers and observers alike to coin out terms like “global village” “weblog” “blogosphere” to mention but few all which signify the growing importance of this innovation. The internet has been described as one of the greatest inventions in the history of mankind. Whether or not we accept these assertions, chances are that you will send or receive an email or use an internet run device before the end of today and a lot in some time to come.

Everyday millions of emails and web enabled messages are sent across the world. Many of these messages are sent to people around the cyber world who are like the next internet user out there in cyberspace to merit from it – either legally or illegally. Sadly many of these are sent by fraudsters in the ploy to cheat, defraud and deceive unsuspecting internet users. In previous essays I have outlined many of the faults and common discernable errors made by these fraudsters. In this piece I will analyze a typical email I received. Below is a sample;

We regret to inform you that access to your GTBank Online Account and Atm Cards has been temporarily limited. This has been done due to several failed log-in attempts. To restore your account please log in correctly here: http://www.we-pro.ru/finestroy/gtbaccount.html If you fail to log in correctly your account will be suspended for fraud prevention. You will be able to register again for GTBank Online Account only after you authenticate your profile. We apologize for the inconvenience; this measure was taken for your protection.

GTBank Security Team

The highlighted texts are some of the many mistakes the scammers make. A quick glance will tell you this is a typical scam. Here is how to tell,

1. The term ATM is the acronym for Automated Teller Machine and the cards used to operate them are called “ATM Cards” or simply Debit cards as it is the case in Nigeria and not “Atm cards” Hence any firm or company with a reputation like GTBank will be very careful not to make a common error as to write it in small case letters especially not in a formal email or letter to one of their esteemed customers.

2. “Temporarily limited” is not technical enough to be sent by an ICT staff of a reputable firm. It is an absolute No-No in cyber language. It is tantamount to a Organic Chemist describing Chemicals as Ingredients – which is a monstrosity. If it was indeed sent by a GTBank staff, who I know are well schooled and trained, the expression would have been; “Access to this account has been temporarily suspended”.

3. The website the scammer is directing his supposed-victim is http://www.we-pro.ru/finestroy/gtbaccount.html is hosted in Russia or perhaps the .ru is meant to add credence to its existence as a genuinely hosted website. Come on! Of all places, who outsources bank and confidential customer information to a Russian registered firm? No offence to Russians but it is illogical, uneconomical and outright suspicious.

The internet has become a tool used by criminals and so users must be very careful about posting their details on the internet even on social sites like Facebook, Twitter e.t.c. Chances are that some of the fraudsters might be friends or perhaps may share your information with some people who are internet fraudsters. Issues such as identity theft, misuse of personal details uploaded on websites has become rampant because of internet fraud – be careful.

In summary, care must be taken while using the internet. It stands to reason that only then will the internet be used for what it was initially designed for – to be a tool to influence “societal evolution using technology” that has no boundaries whatsoever. It is what Tim Berners-Lee dreamed the internet to be. In my opinion internet will continue to give us a “lot more choices about how we organize ourselves” and the future of mankind. Well said Tim!

 2.2 CATEGORIES OF CYBER THREATS

The following are some of the categories of cyber threats that we confront today include, but not limited to:

Insiders, Hackers (or “crackers”), “Hacktivism.” Or Political Hacking, Criminal Groups,  The Phonemasters’, Internet Fraud, Foreign intelligence services. Information Warfare, Virus Writers, Internet Fraud, Identity Theft, Child Pornography, Terrorists  Etc.

2.2.1 Insiders.  The disgruntled insider (a current or former employee of a company) is a principal source of computer crimes for many companies.  Insiders’ knowledge of the target companies’ network often allows them to gain unrestricted access to cause damage to the system or to steal proprietary data.  The year 2000 survey by the Computer Security Institute and FBI reports that 71% of respondents detected unauthorized access to systems by insiders.

 One example of an insider was George Parente.  In 1997, Parente was arrested for causing five network servers at the publishing company Forbes, Inc., to crash.  Parente was a former Forbes computer technician who had been terminated from temporary employment.  In what appears to have been a vengeful act against the company and his supervisors, Parente dialed into the Forbes computer system from his residence and gained access through a co-worker’s log-in and password.  Once online, he caused five of the eight Forbes computer network servers to crash, and erased all of the server volume on each of the affected servers. 

No data could be restored.  Parente’s sabotage resulted in a two day shut down in Forbes’ New York operations with losses exceeding $100,000.  Parente pleaded guilty to one count of violating of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Title 18 U.S.C. 1030.

 In January and February 1999 the National Library of Medicine (NLM) computer system, relied on by hundreds of thousands of doctors and medical professionals from around the world for the latest information on diseases, treatments, drugs, and dosage units, suffered a series of intrusions where system administrator passwords were obtained, hundreds of files were downloaded which included sensitive medical “alert” files and programming files that kept the system running properly. 

The intrusions were a significant threat to public safety and resulted in a monetary loss in excess of $25,000.  FBI investigation identified the intruder as Montgomery Johns Gray, III, a former computer programmer for NLM, whose access to the computer system had been revoked.  Gray was able to access the system through a “backdoor” he had created in the programming code.  Due to the threat to public safety, a search warrant was executed for Gray’s computers and Gray was arrested by the FBI within a few days of the intrusions.  Subsequent examination of the seized computers disclosed evidence of the intrusion as well as images of child pornography.  Gray was convicted by a jury in December 1999 on three counts for violation of 18 U.S.C. 1030.  Subsequently, Gray pleaded guilty to receiving obscene images through the Internet, in violation of 47 U.S.C. 223.

2.2.2 Hackers.  Hackers (or “crackers”) are also a common threat.  They sometimes crack into networks simply for the thrill of the challenge or for bragging rights in the hacker community.  Recently, however, we have seen more cases of hacking for illicit financial gain or other malicious purposes. While remote cracking once required a fair amount of skill or computer knowledge, hackers can now download attack scripts and protocols from the World Wide Web and launch them against victim sites.  Thus while attack tools have become more sophisticated, they have also become easier to use.  The distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks last month are only the most recent illustration of the economic disruption that can be caused by tools now readily available on the Internet.

Another recent case illustrates the scope of the problem.  On Friday authorities in Wales, acting in coordination with the FBI, arrested two individuals for alleged intrusions into e-commerce sites in several countries and the theft of credit card information on over 26,000 accounts. 

One subject used the Internet alias “CURADOR.” Losses from this case could exceed $3,000,000.  The FBI cooperated closely with the Dyfed-Powys Police Service in the United Kingdom, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Canada, and private industry.  This investigation involved the Philadelphia Division, seven other FBI field offices, our Legal Attache in London, and the NIPC.  This case demonstrates the close partnerships that we have built with our foreign law enforcement counterparts and with private industry.

2.2.3 “Hacktivism.” Or Political Hacking. The is another cybercrime. We have also seen a rise recently in politically motivated attacks on web pages or email servers, which some have dubbed “hacktivism.”  In these incidents, groups and individuals overload e-mail servers or deface web sites to send a political message.  While these attacks generally have not altered operating systems or networks, they have disrupted services, caused monetary loss, and denied the public access to websites containing valuable information, thereby infringing on others’ rights to disseminate and receive information. 

Examples of “hacktivism” include a case in 1996, in which an unknown subject gained unauthorized access to the computer system hosting the Department of Justice Internet web site.  The intruders deleted over 200 directories and their contents on the computer system and installed their own pages.  The installed pages were critical of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) and included pictures of Adolf Hitler, swastikas, pictures of sexual bondage scenes, a speech falsely attributed to President Clinton, and fabricated CDA text.

 2.2.4 Virus Writers.  Virus writers are posing an increasingly serious threat to networks and systems worldwide.  Last year saw the proliferation of several destructive computer viruses or “worms,” including the Melissa Macro Virus, the Explore.Zip worm, and the CIH (Chernobyl) Virus.  The NIPC frequently sends out warnings or advisories regarding particularly dangerous viruses, which can allow potential victims to take protective steps and minimize the destructive consequences of a virus.

 The Melissa Macro Virus attack and response. The response was two-fold — encompassing both warning and investigation — to a virus spreading in the networks. 

The NIPC sent out warnings as soon as it had solid information on the virus and its effects; these warnings helped alert the public and reduce the potential destructive impact of the virus.  On the investigative side, the NIPC acted as a central point of contact for the field offices who worked leads on the case.  A tip received by the New Jersey State Police from America Online, and their follow-up investigation with the FBI’s Newark Division, led to the April 1, 1999 arrest of David L.  Smith.  Mr.  Smith pleaded guilty to one count of violating 18 U.S.C. § 1030 in Federal Court, and to four state felony counts.  As part of his guilty plea, Smith stipulated to affecting one million computer systems and causing $80 million in damage. 

 2.2.5 Criminal Groups.  Today, there is an increasing use of cyber intrusions by criminal groups who attack systems for purposes of monetary gain.  In September, 1999, two members of a group dubbed the “Phonemasters” were sentenced after their conviction for theft and possession of unauthorized access devices (18 U.S.C. § 1029) and unauthorized access to a federal interest computer (18 U.S.C. § 1030).  The “Phonemasters” were an international group of criminals who penetrated the computer systems of MCI, Sprint, AT&T, Equifax, and even the National Crime Information Center.  Under judicially approved electronic surveillance orders, the FBI’s Dallas Division made use of new data intercept technology to monitor the calling activity and modem pulses of one of the suspects, Calvin Cantrell.  Mr. Cantrell downloaded thousands of Sprint calling card numbers, which he sold to a Canadian individual, who passed them on to someone in Ohio.  These numbers made their way to an individual in Switzerland and eventually ended up in the hands of organized crime groups in Italy.  Cantrell was sentenced to two years as a result of his guilty plea, while one of his associates, Cory Lindsay, was sentenced to 41 months.

 2.2.6 The Phonemasters’ methods included “dumpster diving” to gather old phone books and technical manuals for systems.  They used this information to trick employees into giving up their logon and password information.  The group then used this information to break into victim systems.  It is important to remember that often “cyber crimes” are facilitated by old fashioned guile, such as calling employees and tricking them into giving up passwords.  Good cyber security practices must therefore address personnel security and “social engineering” in addition to instituting electronic security measures.

Another example of cyber intrusions used to implement a criminal conspiracy involved Vladimir L. Levin and numerous accomplices who illegally transferred more than $10 million in funds from three Citibank corporate customers to bank accounts in California, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Israel between June and October 1994.  Levin, a Russian computer expert, gained access over 40 times to Citibank’s cash management system using a personal computer and stolen passwords and identification numbers.  Russian telephone company employees working with Citibank were able to trace the source of the transfers to Levin’s employer in St. Petersburg, Russia.  Levin was arrested in March 1995 in London and subsequently extradited to the U.S.  On February 24, 1998, he was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay Citibank $240,000 in restitution.  Four of Levin’s accomplices pleaded guilty and one was arrested but could not be extradited.  Citibank was able to recover all but $400,000 of the $10 million illegally transferred funds.

 Beyond criminal threats in cyber space, we also face a variety of significant national security threats

 2.2.7 Terrorists.  Terrorists groups are increasingly using new information technology and the Internet to formulate plans, raise funds, spread propaganda, and to communicate securely.   While we have not yet seen these groups employ cyber tools as a weapon to use against critical infrastructures, their reliance on information technology and acquisition of computer expertise are clear warning signs.  Moreover, we have seen other terrorist groups, such as the Internet Black Tigers (who are reportedly affiliated with the Tamil Tigers), engage in attacks on foreign government web-sites and email servers.  “Cyber terrorism” – by which I mean the use of cyber tools to shut down critical national infrastructures (such as energy, transportation, or government operations) for the purpose of coercing or intimidating a government or civilian population – is thus a very real, though still largely potential, threat.

2.2.8 Foreign intelligence services.  Not surprisingly, foreign intelligence services have adapted to using cyber tools as part of their espionage tradecraft.  Even as far back as 1986, before the worldwide surge in Internet use, the KGB employed West German hackers to access Department of Defense systems in the well-known “Cuckoo’s Egg” case.  Above all, we would not be surprised to hear that foreign intelligence services increasingly view computer intrusions as a useful tool for acquiring sensitive U.S. government and private sector information.

  2.2.9 Information Warfare.  The prospect of “information warfare” by foreign militaries against our critical infrastructures is perhaps the greatest potential cyber threat to any national security.  It is common knowledge that several foreign nations are developing information warfare doctrine, programs, and capabilities for use against perceived enemy nations.  Knowing that they cannot match our military might with conventional or “kinetic” weapons, nations see cyber attacks on our critical infrastructures or military operations as a way to hit what they perceive as America’s Achilles heel – our growing dependence on information technology in government and commercial operations.  A Russian official has observed and commented that an attack on a national infrastructure could, “by virtue of its catastrophic consequences, completely overlap with the use of [weapons] of mass destruction.”

 The categories described above involve computers used as weapons and as targets of a crime.  We are also seeing computers used to facilitate more traditional forms of crime.

 2.2.10 Internet Fraud.  One of the most critical challenges facing the law enforcement in general, is the use of the Internet for fraudulent purposes.  Understanding and using the Internet to combat Internet fraud is essential for law enforcement.  The accessibility of such an immense audience coupled with the anonymity of the subject, require a different approach.  The Internet is a perfect medium to locate victims and provide an environment where victims do not see or speak to the “fraudsters.” Anyone in the privacy of their own home can create a very persuasive vehicle for fraud over the Internet.  Internet fraud does not have traditional boundaries as seen in the traditional schemes.  The traditional methods of detecting, reporting, and investigating fraud fail in this environment.  By now it is common knowledge that the Internet is being used to host criminal behavior.

2.2.11 Identity Theft: Identity theft has been referred to by some as the crime of the new millennium. It can be accomplished anonymously, easily, with a variety of means, and the impact upon the victim can be devastating. Identity theft is simply the theft of identity information such as a name, date of birth, Social Security number (SSN), or a credit card number. The mundane activities of a typical consumer during the course of a regular day may provide tremendous opportunities for an identity thief: purchasing gasoline, meals, clothes, or tickets to an athletic event; renting a car, a video, or home-improvement tools; purchasing gifts or trading stock on-line; receiving mail; or taking out the garbage or recycling. Any activity in which identity information is shared or made available to others creates an opportunity for identity theft.  

2.2.12 Child Pornography : Child Pornography is high on the agenda of Cyber Crime chart on the Internet. On September 29, 1999, Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder gave remarks on “Combating Child Pornography on the Internet” at Vienna, Austria International Child Pornography Conference. The conference sought to combat child pornography and exploitation on the Internet and was based on existing international obligations and committments for the protection of children, including the Conventionon the Rights of the Child. The conference built and acted upon commitments undertaken at the Stockholm World Congress against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (1996) and ongoing initiatives in many countries and regions.

2.2.13 Sale of Prescription Drugs Over the Internet :On October 25, 2000, a New Jersey man pleaded guilty to one count of fraud.  The man, Stanley Lapides, admitted to selling via the Internet home HIV test kits.  However, Lapides neglected to tell his customers that these kits had not yet been approved for use by the FDA. On May 25, 2000, Deputy Associate Attorney General Ethan M. Posner testified before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Committee on Commerce on the subject of Online Pharmaceutical Drug Sales.  His testimony detailed the role of the Department of Justice in Internet drug sales, including current specific efforts by the Department and information on the Internet Prescription Drug Sales Act of 2000. On December 9, 1999, a federal grand jury charged Kent Aoki Lee with selling Viagra over the Internet without a prescription.  Lee was also charged with wire fraud and trademark violations growing out of his operation of a separate pirated Internet website.

The top ten most frequently reported frauds committed on the Internet include Web auctions, Internet services, general merchandise, computer equipment/software, pyramid schemes, business opportunities/franchises, work at home plans, credit card issuing, prizes/sweepstakes and book sales.

The“Bermuda Declaration” for the ICT sector

____

 “As we are all witnessing the world is going through a revolution driven by IT.  Business, government, education, the media – all are being transformed by the Internet, wireless telephone, access to powerful yet inexpensive computing technology, cable and satellite television, and other elements of the new IT.   But what is less understood is the enormous potential of the new IT for transforming the status of the poorest of people in the world.”  (Creating A World Without Poverty,  Muhammad Yunus – 2008).

“In the search for pathways out of the current economic crisis, one of the recurring themes that has emerged from the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos and through its regional meetings is the global need for a robust information infrastructure” (Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum – July 2009).

“ICT must be used to accelerate the global recovery. It’s the key infrastructure for the 21^st century.” (Leonard Waverman, Dean of the Haskayne School at the University of Calgary).

Background

In 2007, while the GPPS Summit in Cairo was taking place, the first signs of the global credit crunch began to surface.

Although there had been low growth throughout the year some third world economies had seen success with the introduction of economic reform (shifting from state-controlled economies to free open markets[1]). However on July 10, 2007 Moody’s downgraded 399 residential mortgage-backed securities and on August 9, 2007 bad news from BNP Paribas in France triggered a sharp rise in the cost of credit “as the financial world realized how serious the credit squeeze had become”[2].  By the time of the GPPS Summit in Cairo the first run on a bank in over a century occurred in the UK[3] and UBS in Switzerland and Merrill Lynch in the US declared large exposures to bad debt resulting from sub-prime investments.  In the New Year the World Bank predicted a global economic slow-down.

Over the subsequent two years the information and communication technologies (“ICT”) sector has been affected by the global economic slow-down. When viewed as a total of GDP, ICT spending remained stable from 2003 to 2006. From 2007 onward, it dropped and is expected to reach 6.3% by 2011 (down from 7.3% in 2000).

ICT for Growth

In the light of these global developments it is important to focus efforts on those areas where the greatest benefits lie.

There is evidence to suggest that a positive correlation exists between the development of ICT and macroeconomic growth[4].  There is also evidence to suggest that in the past decade ICT has been the main basis for productivity growth[5] (ICT has had positive effects on both labour productivity and total factor productivity[6]).  Further, in both product and process innovation the percentage of ICT-linked developments is significant. Some highlights are[7]:

Multiple studies show that rankings in national competiveness and network readiness are directly correlated[8]. For example, future broadband investments could generate a total of 968,000 new jobs and result in more than 170 billion Euros of additional GDP (0.60% GDP growth) by 2020 in Germany alone[9].

It must also be recognised that innovation and investment are most likely to take place in a competitive and wisely regulated telecommunication market.

By stimulating both upstream capacities (R&D, product design etc.) as well as downstream services (logistics, transportation etc.) ICT acts as a multiplier for economic growth[10].  This is clearly seen with international trade. ICT can accelerate growth by making supply chains more efficient and enhancing collaboration. Underpinned by effective competition, ICT stimulates and improves trade by connecting people and places previously not connected and by bringing velocity to the progress of new ideas[11]. 

While the private sector is a key source of innovation in ICT, national governments can provide an enabling environment. An enabling environment consists of several elements, among them:

• Intellectual property rights protection
• Stable and predictable legal systems
• Education and capacity building
• Technology neutrality
• Trade liberalization
• Global regulatory framework that promotes competition and fosters entrepreneurship

Without these there will remain a significant barrier to future growth. In any event it is clear that protectionism must be avoided. The recently published 2009 Global Enabling Trade Report states that in the current economic situation protectionist measures can constrain growth with all the cumulative impact causing damage to all nations.

Finally, there is clear evidence that public-private partnerships built around the development of strong ICT infrastructures play a key role in reducing global poverty and sustaining economic growth.

WITSA’s Role

Keeping the global ICT marketplace on course is the mission of the World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA). WITSA is dedicated to advocating policies that advance the industry’s growth and development; facilitating international trade and investment in IT products and services; and strengthening national ICT industry associations through the sharing of knowledge, experience, and critical information.

As the global voice of the ICT industry WITSA believes that ICT products and services should be regarded as an important tool for economic development.  It also believes that the liberalization of ICT markets helps economies to expand existing activities and develop new export opportunities. ICT will not only promote innovation in other industries but innovation in the ICT industry itself will create new value. Thus ICT plays an invaluable part in the ongoing efforts to overcome the current economic crisis.

WITSA has a real impact on the global ICT public policy environment. It strengthens the industry at large by promoting a consistent legal and regulatory environment.   WITSA voices the concerns of the global ICT industry at an international level with such organizations as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Bank, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the international Telecommunications Union (ITU),   the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), and other international forums where public policies affecting industry interests are discussed, developed, or implemented.

WITSA’s Views

• WITSA rejects protectionism and supports an open trading system free from barriers. The private sector is the primary investor in and innovator of ICT infrastructure products and services. Effective markets are therefore essential in ensuring sustainable development and growth in an information society.

• WITSA also believes that public-private partnerships can play an important role in facilitating the creation of a sustainable information society. WITSA members are committed to building public-private ICT partnerships and enabling policy environments that facilitate ICT use in our economies. This will stimulate private investment in the infrastructure necessary to support the sustainable development of the Information Society.  The private sector can thus fulfill its role through comprehensive business and investment strategies. The role of government is to introduce competition and provide a favorable regulatory environment to enable the development and deployment of an underlying ICT infrastructure and its many beneficial applications.

• The economic crisis has reduced global tax revenue and emergency support for key sectors has stretched government budgets. This has caused severe fiscal problems. To address these problems the immediate focus has been on cuts to existing services and tax increases. We believe that this focus should be broadened and that in addition governments should learn from the experience of the private sector by considering the use of ICT and technology enabled change as an additional means of addressing these problems. Use of ICT, based on robust business cases, can improve efficiencies, reduce duplication and increase the productivity of public servants around the world. Effective use of ICT could reduce the harm posed to the business environment by tax increases and the reduction in public spending.

• Governments should continue to develop tax regimes that support research and development. Research and development delivers substantial public benefit both to the individual enterprises that invest in such work and to society as a whole (by increasing quality of life and the creation of taxable wealth). Tax regimes should also encourage private sector investment in ICT that will drive future growth.

• The ICT industry has a central role to play in reducing harmful emissions across all industry sectors. While the ICT sector has worked hard to reduce its own environmental impact (as illustrated by dramatic falls in processor power use and in standby power consumption) it can aid the efficiency of sectors such as transport, utilities and buildings. It also has the ability to create positive change in other sectors through transforming processes and altering behaviour. ICT is one of the few tools available that can produce dramatic changes without negative effects on prosperity or individual lifestyles.

• In both the public and private sectors, information security challenges must be met with a combination of factors, namely: People, Processes and Technology. Individuals must be vigilant in maintaining the security processes laid out by organizations; organizations must implement and enforce security processes and procedures; and business and government must use multiple layers of security technology to deter threats. All three are necessary to minimize risk. WITSA encourages solutions developed collaboratively by industry and public policy makers can help minimize the threat of attack and ensure that our systems and the data remain protected.

• Without the requisite education, including basic tools such as literacy and more targeted tools such as computer literacy, individuals will not be able to benefit from the information society. WITSA also recognizes that the IT industry is one based on the knowledge of its workers. We need to actively engage our future workforce and to encourage them to continue their education so as to obtain the maximum benefits from their chosen career.

The purpose of the Declaration

The GPPS Declaration is intended to:

• raise public and institutional awareness and attention to the benefits of a coordinated global ICT policy;
• stimulate increased ICT investment, projects, and opportunities;
• re-commit WITSA to the continued global promotion and development of ICT solutions.

Declaration

WITSA is the global body that represents the information and communications technology industry.

The Global Public Policy Summit is a WITSA event that focuses on global policies affecting the information and communications technology industry.

The current global economic crisis requires a coordinated policy response that recognizes the critical role played by ICT in economic recovery and the overall benefits that it brings to all nations and communities.

Future economic growth should be environmentally as well as economically sustainable.

Therefore, participants at WITSA’s GPPS 2009 declare that:

1. ICT is a proven driver for global economic activity and growth.
2. The economic growth generated by the development of the ICT sector will benefit all economies.
3. Access to ICT and the knowledge and information provided by the Internet is an important part of an inclusive information society and is essential for broader sustainable economic growth.
4. Public-private partnerships are a critical part in building ICT infrastructure and an information society.
5. There should be an open trading system between nations free from barriers for ICT products and services. We urge WTO Members to reach the compromises needed to achieve a successful conclusion to the Doha Development Agenda with an ambitious and balanced outcome, including comprehensive results in services.
6. Harnessing the power and benefits of ICT for society will not come automatically. Only if business and governments work together with other partners, including their education systems, can people everywhere be assured of access to ICT tools and the knowledge and empowerment they deliver.
7. International strategies to tackle climate change need to make full use of ICT as one of the most powerful tools available, and one of the only ones that can produce dramatic changes without negative effects on prosperity or individual lifestyles.
8. With the pressure on global public finances, governments should recognize the use of ICT and technology-enabled change as tools to address their operational costs and efficiencies.
9. The continued success and growth of ICT depends on trust and confidence; privacy and security should be appropriately integrated into ICT programs, systems, and products from the beginning.

The World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA) is a consortium of over 70 information technology (IT) industry associations from economies around the world. WITSA members represent over 90 percent of the world IT market. As the global voice of the IT industry, WITSA is dedicated to advocating policies that advance the industry’s growth and development; facilitating international trade and investment in IT products and services; strengthening WITSA’s national industry associations through the sharing of knowledge, experience, and critical information; providing members with a vast network of contacts in nearly every geographic region of the world; hosting the World Congress on IT, the premier industry sponsored global IT event; and hosting the Global Public Policy Summit.

GPPS 2009, a flagship event of the World Information Technology And Services Alliance (WITSA), focused on business technology as an enabler in world economies and featured representatives from key global players including the World Bank, WTO, ICANN, ITU, IGF and the OECD.

“I was extremely pleased to see delegates from around the world tackle the most pertinent issues facing our industry today”, said WITSA Chairman Dan E. Khoo. “As an enabler of other industries, ICT can raise productivity and efficiency in all economic sectors. The GPPS is an important venue for world ICT leaders, senior government officials and policy makers to work together to identify the best solutions for building out the ICT infrastructure through pro-competitive market policies and sound investments”.

The Hon. Michael Scott JP MP, Minister of Energy, Telecommunications & E-Commerce added “My Ministry was most pleased to be a partner in this incredible event which again shows that Government fully understands the importance of technology in a fast paced and rapidly changing world. We will continue to support initiatives that demonstrate that Bermuda is at the forefront of ICT.”

Noted David A. Olive, WITSA’s Public Policy Chairman, “GPPS 2009 in Bermuda convened an impressive group of private and public leaders to make recommendations on global public policies which impact the global ICT industry and enable ICT development and use by our businesses, economies, and societies. Our overall message from the Summit is that we should embrace ICT and place ICT in our plans and programs as a strategic economic driver for recovery and future sustainable economic growth.  In addition, carefully crafted and flexible public policy attracts and facilitates innovation, trade and investment, information flows, and infrastructure.  

A key part of GPPS 2009 was the Bermuda Declaration for the ICT Sector, which was adopted by over 90% of the delegates. The Declaration, whose initial proposal was drafted by Graham Wood of the Bermuda WITSA GPPS 2009 Committee, recognizes the importance of ICT as a proven driver for global economic activity and growth. It also set out some guiding parameters for harnessing the power and benefits of ICT.

The Declaration stated:

1. ICT is a proven driver for global economic activity and growth.
2. The economic growth generated by the development of the ICT sector will benefit all economies.
3. Access to ICT and the knowledge and information provided by the Internet is an important part of an inclusive information society and is essential for broader sustainable economic growth.
4. Public-private partnerships are a critical part in building ICT infrastructure and an information society.
5. There should be an open trading system between nations free from barriers for ICT products and services. We urge WTO Members to reach the compromises needed to achieve a successful conclusion to the Doha Development Agenda with an ambitious and balanced outcome, including comprehensive results in services.
6. Harnessing the power and benefits of ICT for society will not come automatically. Only if business and governments work together with other partners, including their education systems, can people everywhere be assured of access to ICT tools and the knowledge and empowerment they deliver.
7. International strategies to tackle climate change need to make full use of ICT as one of the most powerful tools available, and one of the only ones that can produce dramatic changes without negative effects on prosperity or individual lifestyles.
8. With the pressure on global public finances, Governments should recognize the use of ICT and technology-enabled change as tools to address their operational costs and efficiencies.
9. The continued success and growth of ICT depends on trust and confidence; privacy and security should be appropriately integrated into ICT programs, systems, and products from the beginning.”

Nancy Volesky, Co-Chairman of the organising committee stated “We were very pleased and proud that WITSA took on board the idea of the Bermuda Declaration. It added an exciting and interactive element to GPPS 2009 as delegates were solicited for their input to produce the final declaration that establishes global objectives for the ICT industry.”

In addition, Mr. Olive, Chairman of the Declaration committee, pointed out that the Bermuda Declaration will be used to provide important inputs into a number of high level international conferences and summits taking place in the near future on internet governance, trade, and climate change.     

A full draft of the Bermuda Declaration may be obtained at www.gpps2009.com.

                       1.2    The New Creative Class

The New creative class is like the Managerial Class of the 1950s, they are the norm-setting class of the present era – applying and using technology. The growth of the Internet’s now most-infamous component, the World Wide Web, has been even more spectacular. With more than 700 million users worldwide and a growth rate of 15 percent per month, it is being integrated into the marketing, information and communications strategies of almost every major corporation, educational institution, charitable and political organization, community service agency and government entity in the United States.

A brief study of electronic history demonstrates that no previous advance, not the telephone, television, cable or satellite TV, the VCR, the facsimile machine or the mobile telephone, has penetrated public consciousness and secured such widespread public adoption as rapid as the Internet.

The questions that many people are now asking are concerned with determining where this phenomenon will ultimately lead. Predictions range from so-called electronic “virtual communities,” in which individuals interact socially with like-minded Internet users around the world, to fully networked dwellings in which electronic devices and other appliances respond to the spoken commands of residents

1.3          The Magnitude of the Challenge

On March 28, 2000, testifying in Washington, D.C. on Cybercrime Issues and Challenges before the Senate Committee on Judiciary – Subcommittee for the Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information Louis J. Freeh, Director Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said:

“Our case load is increasing dramatically.  In Year 1998, we opened 547 computer intrusion cases; in FY 1999, that had jumped to 1154.  At the same time, because of the opening the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) in February 1998, and our improving ability to fight cyber crime, we closed more cases.  In Year 1998, we closed 399 intrusion cases, and in Year 1999, we closed 912 such cases.  However, given the exponential increase in the number of cases opened, cited above, our actual number of pending cases has increased by 39%, from 601 at the end of Year 1998, to 834 at the end of Year 1999.  In short, even though we have markedly improved our capabilities to fight cyber intrusions, the problem is growing even faster.“

Reliable studies on IT security breach reveal that ninety percent of respondents detected security breaches in 2005.  At least 74 percent of respondents reported security breaches including theft of proprietary information, financial fraud, system penetration by outsiders, data or network sabotage, or denial of service attacks.  Information theft and financial fraud caused the most severe financial losses, put at $68 million and $56 million respectively. 

The losses from 273 respondents totaled just over $265 million.  For example, losses traced to denial of service attacks were only $77,000 in 1998, and by 1999 had risen to just $116,250.  Further, the new survey reports on numbers taken before the high-profile February attacks against Yahoo, Amazon and eBay,.  Finally, many companies are experiencing multiple attacks; 19% of respondents reported 10 or more incidents.

Over the past several years the world has witnessed a sea of computer crimes ranging from defacement of websites by juveniles to sophisticated intrusions that are suspected to be sponsored by third parties. 

Some of these are obviously more significant than others. 

• The theft of national security information from a government agency or the interruption of electrical power to a major metropolitan area have greater consequences for national security, public safety, and the economy than the defacement of a web-site. 
• But even the less serious categories have real consequences and, ultimately, can undermine confidence in e-commerce and violate privacy or property rights. 
• A website hack that shuts down an e-commerce site can have disastrous consequences for a business. 
• An intrusion that results in the theft of credit card numbers from an online vendor can result in significant financial loss and, more broadly, reduce consumers’ willingness to engage in e-commerce. 

Because of these implications, it is critical that we have in place the programs and resources to investigate and, ultimately, to deter these sorts of crimes.

2.0    The Nature of the Problem – Crime of the new millennium.

Identity theft has been referred to by some as the crime of the new millennium. It can be accomplished anonymously, easily, with a variety of means, and the impact upon the victim can be devastating. Identity theft is simply the theft of identity information such as a name, date of birth, Social Security number (SSN), or a credit card number.

The mundane activities of a typical consumer during the course of a regular day may provide tremendous opportunities for an identity thief: purchasing gasoline, meals, clothes, or tickets to an athletic event; renting a car, a video, or home-improvement tools; purchasing gifts or trading stock on-line; receiving mail; or taking out the garbage or recycling. Any activity in which identity information is shared or made available to others creates an opportunity for identity theft.

Victims of identity theft often do not realize they have become victims until they attempt to obtain financing on a home or a vehicle. Only then, when the lender tells them that their credit history makes them ineligible for a loan, do they realize something is terribly wrong. When they review their credit report, they first become aware of credit cards for which they have never applied, bills long overdue, unfamiliar billing addresses, and inquiries from unfamiliar creditors. Even if they are able to identify the culprit, it may take months or years, tremendous emotional anguish, many lost financial opportunities, and large legal fees, to clear up their credit history.

2.1    How Does Identity Theft Occur?

Identity theft occurs in many ways, ranging from careless sharing of personal information, to intentional theft of purses, wallets, mail, or digital information. In public places, for example, thieves engage in “shoulder surfing” watching you from a nearby location as you punch in your telephone calling card number or credit card number or listen in on your conversation if you give your credit card number over the telephone. Inside your home, thieves may obtain information from your personal computer while you are on-line and they are anonymously sitting in the comfort of their own home.

Outside your home, thieves steal your mail, garbage, or recycling. Outside medical facilities or businesses, thieves engage in “dumpster diving” going through garbage cans, large dumpsters, or recycling bins to obtain identity information which includes credit or debit card receipts, bank statements, medical records like prescription labels, or other records that bear your name, address, or telephone number.

In August 1999, President Clinton established an interagency Working Group on Unlawful Conduct on the Internet.  Executive Order 13,133 directed the Working Group, under the leadership of the Attorney General, to prepare a report with recommendations on:

    –The extent to which new technology tools, capabilities, or legal authorities may be required for effective investigation and prosecution of unlawful conduct that involves the use of the Internet;  and

    –The potential for new or existing tools and capabilities to educate and empower parents, teachers, and others to prevent or to minimize the risks from unlawful conduct that involves the use of the Internet.

ComBIT Africa Expo

Africa will for a long time remain the hottest hub of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) business in the world. Nigeria – the acclaimed giant of Africa – will undoubtedly continue to lead the rest of the continent as the biggest market for ICT products and services.

With a population of over 150 million people, good economic endowments, high purchasing power, a stable democracy and on-going revolution in the ICT sector, Nigeria is well positioned as a viable and preferred investment destination in Africa and, perhaps, the world.

ComBIT Africa  2009 is designed to further facilitate the establishment and sustenance of highly rewarding commercial partnerships between foreign investors or technology providers and local representatives, dealers, distributors as well as resellers in Nigeria. It will also provide a cost-effective platform for Nigerian ICT products and service providers to enhance their industry and public ratings through their active participation in this pan-industry event.

The timing of this event in the last quarter of the year is to enable corporate customers decide on the latest ICT solutions to procure in the coming year and make adequate budgetary provision for the required solutions.

Theme:

               ICT for Development

Date:  November 3 – 4, 2009: 

Venue:  Exhibition Hall, the Lagoon Restaurant, Victoria Island, Lagos-Nigeria)

Focus:

• To showcase vibrant and reliable ICT solutions providers in Nigeria, Africa and leading nations of the world offering the latest and reliable technologies, systems and services in the global information and communications technology market.

• To expose the abundant investment opportunities in the Nigerian and African ICT sector with the aim of attracting more local and foreign direct investments in the sector.

• To create opportunities for establishing strategic alliances and partnerships amongst local and foreign investors for the purpose of expanding the ICT infrastructure and services in Nigeria and Africa.

• To afford corporate and individual consumers of ICT products and services ample opportunity to meet with leading and credible products and services providers in order to enhance their decision on the type of systems or services to procure for their various needs.

• To further position Nigeria and Africa as one of the largest and fastest growing ICT market in the world as well as a viable investment destination.

For more details visit-http://www.combitonline.com/

As the global demand for energy sours, scientists have stepped up their quest to find sustainable and practical solutions to the problem. Other factors such as climate change, high oil prices and demands for CO₂-neutral energy production have all lent credence to these calls, hence the renewed interest in renewable energy technologies.

 In spite these calls, one form of renewable energy is often left out of the energy equation – hydrogen. The element hydrogen is the most abundant chemical element and constitutes approximately 75% of the universe’s elemental mass. In spite of this, hydrogen in its elemental form (H) is rare on earth but the gaseous form (H₂ – hydrogen gas) is produced extensively (95%) from fossil fuels and used widely in the production of ammonia for fertilizers and in hydrocarbon processing processes such as cracking.

Though this leaves much to be desired in terms of carbon emissions, hydrogen is till heralded as a future energy source. The question is why? Why do hydrogen energy pundits and scientists continue to call the implementation of a hydrogen economy? Answers to this question will form the basis for a case for hydrogen energy and economy.

There exists a lot of research going on in the world of hydrogen energy; however a lot of questions remain unanswered about the future of the world’s energy supply that is expected to come from hydrogen. It is has however been established that hydrogen is in fact not a source of energy but an energy carrier. This term has been adopted because unlike solar, wind and biomass, hydrogen has to be produced from another source(s) of primary energy – fossil fuels – and the production, use, and storage of hydrogen requires additional energy. These revelations pose huge problems for the adoption and realization of a hydrogen economy but it must however be noted that this is not peculiar to hydrogen as a renewable energy alone.

So the question remains why hydrogen? Why do hydrogen energy pundits and scientists continue to call the implementation of a hydrogen economy in spite of the problems associated with its production, storage and use? First lets us explore the problems.

Hydrogen Production

Currently 95% of hydrogen used in the world is produced from fossil fuels, since it is the most economic route to effectively for production available. This statement assertion alone eliminates hydrogen as a potential solution to climate change debacle and calls for CO₂ reduction and reliance on fossil fuels. Past debates have proposed the use of electrolysis of water using sustainable nuclear energy; however, the controversy behind nuclear technologies and the cost of electricity pose additional problems.  Currently much of the hydrogen produce from fossil fuels is via the process of steam methane reforming a process that not only produces CO₂ but also requires a lot of energy to sustain.

Hydrogen Storage and Use

Storage of hydrogen is still a major issue in the adoption of a hydrogen economy. Presently hydrogen is stored physically in cryogenic tanks and as pure compressed hydrogen in hydrogen tanks. Research is focused on producing materials that are lightweight, compact and can store hydrogen for long periods of time without consuming large amount of energy in loading and unloading – which is the major problem with chemical storage methods.

These include storage of hydrogen in metal organic frame works (MOF), metal hydrides – compounds that combine hydrogen and a metal usually Magnesium since it has the highest capacity of approximately 8wt%. Other methods include storage in carbon nanotubes which most scientists have long debunked due it is low storage capacities.

 The storage in cryogenic tanks and hydrogen tanks remains the most widely used but these also pose problems of boil off and safety issues especially in mobile applications such as cars which the solution is sort to replace fossil fuels. Fuel cells are another alternative.

These convert hydrogen by the principle of reverse electrolysis into electricity which can be used by cars. However even this has its drawbacks which include poisoning of the fuel cell catalyst by sulfur of carbon monoxide even at low temperatures in low temperature fuel cells or the excessive heat in high temperature fuel cells such as solid oxide fuel cells.

Possible Solutions

Due to the antecedent problems posed by the use of hydrogen, it may appear that the solution may not be in hydrogen. Alas this is not the case, but it must be noted that the adoption of hydrogen like many other renewable energy sources is prone to a myriad of problems.

The benefit of adopting hydrogen in the opinion of scientists is that a hydrogen economy will reduce the dependence of mankind on fossil fuels, reduce CO2 emissions and global warming. This is true, however the practicality of the ideas remain a problem.

 Many studies have shown that the future of hydrogen as a possible source of renewable energy will not be in mobile applications like cars but the problems mentioned above. Therefore current research efforts are directed at the use of fuel cells combined with gas turbines – a hybrid system which uses the excess heat from high temperature fuel cells to generate electricity via various thermodynamic cycles.

Therefore the consensus is that hydrogen will be a major player in the renewable energy equation of the future, however this will be employed more in stationary electricity generation applications like hybrid systems, high temperature fuel cells like solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), hydrogen generators a technology already operational; rather than the much desired mobile applications such as cars due the higher efficiency of such systems.

More over the efficiency of fuel cell as against batteries is much lower and hence the use of hydrogen and fuel cells in the future remains a doubt. With the adoption of these and future improvements in present technologies hydrogen will one day provide the energy the world needs.

In 1982 and 1983, the first desktop computers began to appear, many were equipped with operating system called Berkeley UNIX which includes Network Software – which allows relatively easy connection to the Internet. The personal computer revolution continued through the eighties, making access to computer resources and networked information increasingly available to the general public. 

The rapid growth of the Internet and other Telecommunications technologies are promoting advances in virtually every aspect of society and every corner of the globe. Most of these advances represent positive changes in our society.

Unfortunately, many of the attributes of this technology – low cost, ease of use, and anonymous nature, among others – make it an attractive medium for fraudulent scams, child sexual exploitation, and increasingly, a new concern known as “cyberstalking.”

 Cybertalking begins when 2 or more people communicate through emails or a chat room. You usually don’t know who is on the other side of the computer.

 Since people don’t usually know who that person is it encourages you to say things that you normally wouldn’t in person. The person or people you are corresponding with may be offended by your word or vice versa. The harassment may then start from that stranger you were chatting with.

Then the cyberstalking starts with the constant abusive emails, obscene or inappropriate pictures. Your life could be threatened or even your computer could be sabotaged.

 Identity theft occurs during some of these encounters. While some content of cybertalking maybe abusive, offensive and/or insulting, the content of cyber-crime e-mails are pretentiously camouflaged as friendly, business like and even loving – but the core trade is deceit and fraud. The resultant effects are “identity theft” in cyberspace and related crimes and socio-economic personal and/or corporate damages.

Can it be rightly said therefore that Man has become entrapped in its own techno-knowledge dynamics?  Some of the most critical cyber crimes are: Insiders, Hackers  (or “crackers”), “Hacktivism.” Or Political Hacking, Criminal Groups,  The Phonemasters’, Internet Fraud, Foreign intelligence services. Information Warfare, Virus Writers, Internet Fraud, Identity Theft, Child Pornography, Terrorists  Etc.

Recognizing this emerging problem, Vice President Al Gore asked the Attorney General on February 26, 1999, to study the problem and to report back with recommendations on how to protect people from this threat.

It is estimated that identity theft has become the fastest-growing financial crime in America and perhaps the fastest-growing crime of any kind in our society. Identity Theft: Is There Another You?: Joint hearing before the House Subcommittees. on Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer Protection, and on Finance and Hazardous Materials, of the Comm. on Commerce, 106th Cong. 16 (1999) (testimony of Rep. John B. Shadegg).

The illegal use of identity information has increased exponentially in recent years. In fiscal year 1999 alone, the Social Security Administration (SSA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) Fraud Hotline received approximately 62,000 allegations involving Social Security Number (SSN) misuse. The widespread use of SSNs as identifiers has reduced their security and increased the likelihood that they will be the object of identity theft.

The Internet has led to the emergence of the creative class. The expansion and popularity of the Internet to effect commercial transactions has increased the opportunities to commit crimes involving identity theft. The expansion and popularity of the Internet to post official information for the benefit of citizens and customers has also increased opportunities to obtain SSNs for illegal purposes.

1.0          INTRODUCTION

The Emergence of a Creative Class

The new economy’s demand for creativity has manifested itself in the emergence of what author Richard Florida has termed “the Creative Class.” He reports that some 58 million Americans, or 30 percent of the national work force, now belong to this class. Florida uses a broad definition of the Creative Class, considering a member anyone whose work function is to produce new ideas, new technology and/or new creative content. Hence, the Creative Class includes people in engineering and science, architecture and design, education, music, arts and entertainment. This class of creative individuals, Florida says, share a common creative ethos that emphasizes individuality, creativity, difference and THE CREATIVE COMMUNITY merit. As far as the members of the Creative Class are concerned, every aspect and manifestation of creativity, cultural, technological and economic, is inextricably linked” (Florida, Richard. The Rise of the Creative Class. New York: Basic, 2002).

Historically, communication technologies have played a key role in societies. The exchange of information through different means of communication among nations – newspapers, radio, television, etc., – have influenced human development by drawing economic geographies, shaping national identities and rebalancing the distribution of power within societies and among nations. Nowhere is this influence more evident than in the current information revolution.

                         1.1   Cyberspace and Cyberplace

We must be aware that technology is not neutral but indeed represents the values of the society where it is developed. For this reason, we need to channel our efforts towards disabling those factors (such as technophobia) that are limiting the potential for Information technology knowledge acquisition to provide sustainable solutions to the needs of Nigerians In order to reach the broadest range of minds, ideas from every discipline should be presented in many different forms.

There is no single creative technique or imaginative skill that is adequate for all thinking requirements. Every idea can and should be transformed into numerous equivalent forms, each of which possesses a different formal expression and emphasizes a different group of thinking tools. The more ways students are able to imagine an idea, the greater their chances of insight, and the more ways in which they can express that insight, the greater the chances that others will be able to understand and appreciate it. 

Michele and Robert Root-Bernstein, co-authors of Sparks of Genius, conducted extensive research into the minds of inventive people and showed that creativity can be encouraged and enhanced through the exercise of thinking tools coupled with a desire for what they call “synosia” —a unified understanding linking mind and body, sense and sensibility.

In less than 10 years, between 1994 and 2003, the mammoth global network of computer systems collectively referred to as the Internet blossomed from an obscure tool used by government researchers and academics into a worldwide mass communications medium. As we enter 2003, the Internet is now recognized as the leading carrier of all communications and financial transactions – this will impact on almost all forms of life and work in the 21st century.

Presently, communities and nations around the globe, often without being directly conscious of it, are beginning to design the initial blueprints for the so-called “cyberplaces” of the 21st century. Singapore has implemented its “Intelligent Island Plan”. Japan is working toward an electronic future known as “Technopolis” or “Teletopia”.  As early as 1976, the French launched an aggressive plan called “Telematique”, which sought to place computers on every desktop and in every residence in the country. In the United States in the mid-1990s, the Clinton Administration unveiled its ambitious “National Information Initiative”, or NII, with the goal of linking every school and school-age child to the Internet by the turn of the century.

Google is a double edge sword and you can use it either ways. if you choose to be a bad person then Google will be very useful to you , it can sometimes be a hackers best friend. You will be surprise on the amount of restricted info available and open via Google, by using the appropriate search strings one can have a lot of restricted access due to carelessness of system administrators. One thing to keep in mind is that people have been exploiting the Google algorithm lately, a lot of false positives get brought back and you end up with sites linking to other sites in a constant loop.

Try some of this stuffs

In the search box put in exactly as you see it in bold

Example 1:

allintitle: “index of/root”

result:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-…G=Google+Search

What it reveals is 2,510 pages that you can possible browse at your will…

Example 2

inurl:”auth_user_file.txt”

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en…G=Google+Search

This result spawned 414 possible files to access

Here is an actual file retrieved from a site and edited , we know who the admin is and we have the hashes, that’s a job for JTR (john the ripper)

txUKhXYi4xeFs|master|admin|Worasit|Junsawang|xxx@xxx|on qk6GaDj9iBfNg|tomjang||Bug|Tom|xxx@xxx|on

intitle:index.of + mp3 -asp -html -htm -php -pls -txt

In the above example, when entered into Google this search result looks for any index of MP3 files that does not contain the standard web pages like HTML, PHP, etc. or any other non-related pages. In the above example you can replace mp3 with avi or other file extension to search for these types of files.

intitle:index.of + mp3 “<artist name / track / group>” -asp -html -htm -php -pls -txt

In the above example you could replace “<artist name / track / group>” with the artists name, track, group, or name of the MP3 you’re looking for. Keep in mind when downloading MP3 that you should own the track or song you’re downloading otherwise it’s considered illegal.

inurl:”ViewerFrame?Mode=”

In the above simple example, Google will return results of insecure live web cams and with some of the services even allow you to control the cameras over the Internet.

Below are some other stringe and you can have many different permutations.

“Index of /admin”

“Index of /password”

“Index of /mail”

“Index of /” +passwd

“Index of /” +password.txt

“Index of /” +.htaccess

index of ftp +.mdb allinurl:/cgi-bin/ +mailto

administrators.pwd.index

authors.pwd.index

service.pwd.index

filetype:config web

gobal.asax index

allintitle: “index of/admin”

allintitle: “index of/root”

allintitle: sensitive filetype:doc

allintitle: restricted filetype :mail

allintitle: restricted filetype:doc site:gov

inurl:passwd filetype:txt

inurl:admin filetype:db

inurl:iisadmin

inurl:”auth_user_file.txt”

inurl:”wwwroot/*.”

top secret site:mil

confidential site:mil

allinurl: winnt/system32/ (get cmd.exe)

allinurl:/bash_history

intitle:”Index of” .sh_history

intitle:”Index of” .bash_history

intitle:”index of” passwd

intitle:”index of” people.lst

intitle:”index of” pwd.db

intitle:”index of” etc/shadow

intitle:”index of” spwd

intitle:”index of” master.passwd

intitle:”index of” htpasswd

intitle:”index of” members OR accounts

intitle:”index of” user_carts OR user_cart

There are codes I chose not to disclose for fear of abuse, and you would be wondering why I am exposing some of these codes. The bad guys already know of these codes centuries ago, it is the good guys and innocent users that don’t know them.

The important part here is not to show how to attack something, but to show how attackers take advantage of your mistakes. This will enable you to protect your network by avoiding the pitfalls attackers use. Let me make one thing absolutely clear: I neither condone nor will I ever aid or defend those who attack networks or systems they do not own or that they have not been asked to attack.

One of the greatest challenges the security community faces is lack of information on the enemy. Questions like who is the threat, why do they attack, how do they attack, what are their tools, and possibly when will they attack? It is questions like these the security community often cannot answer.

For centuries military organizations have focused on information gathering to understand and protect against an enemy. To defend against a threat, you have to first know about it. However, in the information security world we have little such information.

Our lives is about securing networks, not distributing tools to break them. In addition, to stop a criminal hacker requires the ability to think like a criminal. After all, the objective is to demonstrate what an attacker would do.

Most of us have been taught from a very early age to be good law-abiding people and are simply not good at thinking up very plausible and innovative criminal schemes.

I hold no responsibility for what you do via the information supplied here, this is for educational purpose only, use at your own risk. You have been warned.

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