Social Networking Sites : Its Threats to The Users

Originally called thefacebook, Facebook was founded by former-Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg (while at Harvard) who ran it as one of his hobby projects with some financial help from Eduardo Saverin. Within months, Facebook and its core idea spread across the dorm rooms of Harvard where it was very well received. Soon enough, it was extended to Stanford and Yale where, like Harvard, it was widely endorsed.

Before he knew it, Mark Zuckerberg was joined by two other fellow Harvard-students – Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes – to help him grow the site to the next level. Only months later when it was officially a national student network phenomenon, Zuckerberg and Moskovitz dropped out of Harvard to pursue their dreams and run Facebook full time. In August 2005, thefacebook was officially called Facebook and the domain facebook.com was purchased for a reported $200,000.

Many of its users do not know the threats of Facebook. They only think that Facebook is a place to exchange ideas and make new friends. Little that they know that by using the real name on Facebook increases the chances of strangers with bad intention to find them easily. These Facebook users uses their real names, uploads their real pictures, updates their whereabouts and personal information. It is easy for strangers to track them down. They know where the victims live, where they normally hang out and where they go to school. These users can become a kidnapper's target. They will lure these people by adding them into their friends' list, make up a decent conversation and try to set a date where they can meet. Oprah Winfrey, the host of Oprah's talk revealed that social networking sites have become a playground for child's predator. The victims normally will be very depressed and tend to attempt suicide.

Moreover, these Facebook users consists of many types of people, some of them are actors, actresses, politicians, and other celebrities. Who does not have a Facebook account nowadays? Facebook is a trend and a lifestyle. Who does not follow the trend will be considered as lame. These famous people have their own die hard fans who are more than pleasing to know their idols' whereabouts which the idols already openly tell the world through their facebook status. Who can blame the fans being stalkers when the celebrities themselves revealed their exact locations? Awal Ashaari and Scha Al Yahya openly talks about their love life in twitter and these conversations will used by the medias to humiliate them. You can find in http://www,izyan,com or http://www.ohartis.com where they copy paste the conversation of those two to be featured in their gossip websites. Do not declare wars with the medias when you, yourself give them chances to embarrass you.

Besides that, many culprits post death threats through facebook. The recent one is Mohd Safuan Mohd Hilmi who posted in his facebook that he said to be willing to face the death penalty if he couldkill Nik Aziz who is the Kelantan Menteri Besar. Facebook is no longer a place where you can meet new people or long lost friends. There is also many cases of posting death threats through facebook around the world. This also can be considered as cyber bully. There is a case in Britain where a teen had been jailed for posted a death threat in her facebook towards her classmate which has been bullied by her for almost 4 years already. Facebook also become a place to spread rumors about the government. These rumors can harm the society and made them skeptical and doubt of government's capability to run this country.

Since the Internet can reach larger potential prospects, the scammers are getting smarter. There is an increase in scams where people's login information is collected through sites and then their accounts are accessed without permission to ask friends for money. It is said that if the users log in their facebook account everyday they will get RM 100 which is totally absurd. Who is so stupid to give away cash just by log in to facebook? Facebook gives its users freedom to create applications which lead to scam applications such as "Who's glancing through my profile?" and "Who's checking out my profile?”. The app itself is designed to look convincing enough, but none of the many ‘Continue’ buttons it offers will activate some under-the-counter profile checking functionality – they will just push you into another Facebook app earning the scammer advertising revenue in the process.

In a nutshell, the governments, parents and authorities must work hands in hands in curbing the menace. The government should monitors the information flow in the internet that can harm the society and imposes punishment for those who spread the rumors. Parents also should monitor their children especially when they are using the social networking sites and advise their children about the threats that the sites can bring. The authorities should hold campaigns to expose the dangers of social networking sites to the society.

By : Nurina Marini Bt Alias (2009265102)

Achieving Competitive Advantage Through IT Support. A Story Of AirAsia

It is very essential for companies that operating in this globalization era to be competitive in order to stay ahead among the competitors. According to Heizer(2009) on his book about operation management, in order to achieve competitive advantage, a company must compete on differentiation, cost and also response. All these combination can be achieved through the used of IT support.

IT support can benefit and provide unique opportunities for entreprenuers of all ages to start up online companies and apply innovative business model. We look at AirAsia as an example for this article. AirAsia start it business at a time when travel industry was struggling from the impact of the 11 September terrorist attack. AirAsia offer differentiation through its service by providing budget airline that makes flying is affordable to everyone.

As a new business in the market, AirAsia facing challenges from the existing player in travel industry. One of the challenges is AirAsia not able to sell their tickets through travel agencies due to the latter's agreement with other national carriers. However, AirAsia accept the situation positively and turn the challenge to become opportunity. AirAsia used an alternative marketing channel that is via Internet. Their website known as www.airasia.com. This strategy seems to be successful with over three million hits a month. this company's website provide online booking services where passengers can books their seats check flight schedules and obtain latest updates on AiAsia promotions. Online booking also leads to ticketless trvel, where a customer simply presents his or her identity card or pasport for checking in to board flights. In this way, it makes travelling more convenient for passengers and help AirAsia to keep costs low and in turn enables AirAsia to keep its airfares low. In addition, understanding the competition on response, in August 2003, AirAsia became the first airline in the world that introduce SMS booking. this SMS booking systems also operating like online booking systems where passengers can book seat, check scheduling and promotions. With all of these IT support example, it enables AirAsi to place its name as the best low cost carriers in the world.

Rosliana Binti Ahmad Razilan

Google Street View Collected More Than Photos

You may not realize it but a picture of your own home is very likely available on the Internet thanks to the popular Google Street View map program.

But what if Google captured much more than a picture?

What if those special cars that drive around and take photos of your neighborhood also grabbed details of what you're doing online?

"There could have been enough data to steal someone's identity," said Robert Siciliano, a computer privacy and protection expert.

He's reacting to word that Google Street View cars passing by homes also collected information off unsecured residential wireless networks.

"This takes it to a whole other level. I mean, when they're peeking right directly at people's emails and instant messages, information on their hard drive, that's a whole other level of a privacy violation," Siciliano said.

Google says it was only trying to find wi-fi hotspots offered by businesses, but something went wrong.

The company admits this happened all around the world - from Europe to Silicon Valley in California.

Google is speaking to regulators in several countries including the United States about how to dispose of this data, which it claims it never used.

Siciliano says you can protect yourself by making sure your wireless router is protected with a password.

"When you have an unsecured wireless connection, it's just like leaving the front door to your home open and inviting the world to come inside to take a peek," he said.

Google says its Street View cars will stay in park until the problem is fixed.

MALAYSIA NEEDS MORE ETHICAL HACKERS

KUALA LUMPUR: The International Council of e-Commerce Consultants (ECCouncil) wants to increase the number of certified ethical hackers in Malaysia, and to boost awareness of such professionals.

"Keeping up with technology and understanding how firewalls or networks function is one thing," said Erik Laykin, EC-Council's honorary chairman. "

But a capable IT security professional should also know how a hacker thinks."

He said government agencies and corporations are always looking for talented IT professionals who understand security technology and hacking.

"When a professional is certified as an ethical hacker, it shows he knows what he's doing and that would definitely give an employer more assurance (of the professional's skills," Laykin said.

He is a former president of the FBI's (Federal Bureau of Investigation) Los Angeles Chapter of Infragard, and specialises in the investigation and analysis of security-related issues in cyberspace, such as digital theft and corporate espionage.

Laykin was speaking at an event to announce the Hacker Halted conference that will take place in the capital from Aug 13 to 16.

The US-based EC-Council is a global IT security certification authority that is known for its Certified Ethical Hacker courses.

According to EC-Council, IT security professionals should have practical experience with hacking but this should not involve illegal acts, of course.

People often misunderstand the meaning of the phrase "ethical hacking," said Sanjay Bavasi, president of the EC-Council. "In this context, it does not refer to the ethics of a person but to the processes and methods used in a hack," he said.

Ethical hacking, he said, involves operating within a certain set of rules and regulations, which includes getting permission from the owner of a network before attempting to hack into it.

This allows the owner to see if there are holes in his network security. "Since the concept is new, ECCouncil is often criticised for promoting 'legalised' hacking, but ethical hacking is necessary in security," Sanjay said.

"If you've just bought an expensive burglar alarm system, wouldn't you want to put it to a real test to see if it is actually effective?"

Playing host To raise awareness of ethical hacking as well as IT security issues and trends, EC-Council is hosting its Hacker Halted conference.

The conference, which is also held in other countries, is expected to attract 500 IT security professionals, captains of industry, government officials, as well as product and services exhibitors.

In addition to security talks, Hacker Halted will include a capture-the-flag (CTF) hacking competition, said Sean Lim, vicepresident of the EC-Council.

The first Hacker Halted conference in Malaysia was held in 2004.


COMMENTARY ABOUT THE ARTICLE

From my point of view, it can be conclude the article that there are a few thing we have to understand about hackers. The first is that popular media labels hackers as people that break into systems and commit computer crime. This is not true a hacker is a person with and interest in learning more about a system (this doesn't have to be a computer) and make it do things it was never intended to do. Most security professionals are hackers. The question that keep asking about is a cracker, a cracker is a person that uses a skill set to do malicious thing like break in to computer, write viruses, and commit crime for financial gain.

The motivation for a cracker is very different from that of a hacker. A hacker would not break into a system to do intentional harm. I am sure that have heard of software updates allot of times it is a hacker that finds a problem with a peace of software and will notify the vendor that there is a problem with their software and that it needs to be fixed. The same scenario with a cracker would be to take advantage of the problem and not notify the vendor and use what he/she has learned for financial gain or just to be malicious. The cracker is more like a criminal and they are motivated by the same things just like the guy who robs a store or someone who paints graffiti on a wall.

Therefore, it should be different between these two concept that always been misunderstood by certain people. The idea of International Commerce of Council shown that the tendency of our goverment to the other country that Malaysia can use the beneficial of the skills and experience that gain from the majority of professional hackers in Malaysia. Futhermore, Malaysia country can prove that we are not live behind as the "leap frog" especially in the advancement of information technology in our country.

Again, it should be stress here the key advantages of the professional hackers in our country shown that some of the talented people be born to use the professional techniques to enter the system in the legal way which are differ from the crackers that entered into the system as the illegal and manipulate the data that get through the wrong channel.

In the other way,some of the organization in Malaysia has provided the certificate for the ethical hackers training as I-World Technology Sdn Bhd. The main objectives of this training to ensure that the group of talented hackers been awarded the recognition as the skills and well trained in that organization. Besides that, the program will immerse the students into an interactive enviroment where they will be shown how to scan, hack and secure there own system. The lab intensive environment gives each student in-depth knowledge practical experience with the current essential security system. The students also will understanding how perimeter defenses work and then be lead into scanning and attacking their own networks which means no real network will harmed.

In conclusion, with the course training provided by the organization the need of more ethical hackers in our country can be fulfill the demand of the goverment in order to improve and create the awareness among the talented to fully utilized their own skill to the proper channel as it will keep going to our country development especially in advancement of technology system. Therefore, if any ideas that want to share with this article, do not hesistate to comment through this post.

That's all from me..thank you..

Syalina

Ice cream with (RFID) chips to go

FRAMINGHAM, 14 MAY 2010 - Businesses are using Radio Frequency ID (RFID) tags to track everything from large shipping containers, to livestock to tiny electronic components. It's unlikely though if any business is using the technology for the same purpose as Izzy's Ice Cream Cafe in St. Paul, Minn.
The shop, which epitomizes the classic mom-and-pop business, has concocted close to 100 flavors of ice cream and serves 32 flavors at any one time. Until this week, customers had little way of knowing if their favorite flavors -- Peppermint Bon Bon, Cherries Jubilee and Dulce de Leche to name a few -- were available until they arrived at the counter.
Not any more. On Monday, Izzy's started using RFID technology to give customers real-time updates on all the available flavors in its dipping cabinet, the glass covered case where the tubs of ice cream are displayed.
RFID readers stuck in the dipping cabinets scan tags attached to the signs that go above each ice cream tub to give customers updated information on available ice cream flavors. Each time one tub of ice cream is replaced with a new flavor, an employee swaps out the RFID tag in front of the tub with the one corresponding to the new flavor.
RFID readers in the dipping cabinet scan the tags 22 times every second and send the information to a system which then projects a series of dots representing different flavors onto a wall in the store.
Customers glance at the colored dots projected on the wall, or on the plasma TV behind the counter, to find out what flavors the store is serving at any time. No more anxious moments of uncertainty. No more even having to come to the store to get the scoop on what Izzy's has available. The information grabbed by the RFID readers is pumped to Izzy's Web site where a new Web page lists all the flavors the shop is serving.
Those willing to risk missing out on their favorite flavor can even tarry a bit on the Web page and play a memory game with the dots. Or they can hover over the dots to discover that Izzy classics, such as its Dark Chocolate Zin, is made from Italian balsamic vinegar and Ravenswood red zinfandel, or that perennial favorite Salted Carmel is almost always available. Customers who sign up, can get e-mail updates (and soon text messages) when their favorite flavor is being served. Izzy's also sends updates to its Facebook page and Twitter account.
If all this seems like a bit much for an ice cream shop, it isn't for Jeff Sommers, the English major and fine arts grad-turned-tech nerd who, along with his wife Lara Hammel, runs the store.
"If you live in the world of selling ice cream, the problem you run into on Day One of opening is how to tell your customers what flavors you have in the cabinet," Sommers said.
With limited space in front of the cabinet, most ice cream shops resort to listing available flavors on display boards behind the counter. It's a system that is manually intensive and prone to errors, especially when a shop sells as many flavors as Izzy's does, Sommers said. And it results in too many crestfallen customers at the order counter after they learn their favorite flavor is sold out.
With RFID tags on its ice cream tubs, customers can track the flavors available at Izzy's Ice Cream Cafe in St. Paul, Minn., by checking the shop's Web page.
Sommers, who professes a fascination with technologies involving sensors and sensing networks, decided to try RFID to solve the problem.
"I just love consuming innovative ideas," Sommers said. Getting technology companies interested in his scheme was tricky, he admitted. Finding an RFID systems integrator interested in such a small project and a software company willing to implement the Web interface was challenging, Sommers said.
"In hindsight, it was a bit like walking into a fancy car dealership and asking to buy a car for $1,000," he said.
Technology companies were initially skeptical about working with such a small client. "So I had to put on a real full court press to get them inspired by it," Sommers said.
Steve Haben, a senior engineer with AbeTech Inc., the Rogers, Minn.-based company that helped Izzy's deploy the RFID technology, admitted to being wary about the project when Sommers first approached the company.
Izzy's was by far AbeTech's smallest RFID client. The ice cream shop's proposed application of the technology was also very different from the usual fixed asset tracking applications for which most AbeTech clients use RFID. Most of AbeTech's clients, which include some Fortune 500 companies, use RFID to track the movement of assets in their manufacturing facilities, warehouses and distribution centers.
Sommers wanted to take the technology in a "new direction," by using RFID to provide real-time visibility of his products, Haben said. "In his world, this really was the big challenge," he said.
The task took a year to complete and has had its share of challenges. The original plan was to stick RFID tags directly on the ice cream tubs, but the tub surfaces turned out to be too smooth. So the tags had to be stuck on the signs in front of the tubs, after first having them laser-cut to size and shape. Sticking RFID antennas in the dipping cabinet to read the tags was also tricky. That issue was resolved with the help of a neighbor who works in the prosthetics industry and suggested trying materials used in orthotics to affix the antennas to the cabinet.
Less than four days after rolling out the project, it has already hit its first glitch. Too many Facebook updates caused some "frustrated chatter" among followers and prompted Izzy's to disable the updates to the social networking sites while it works out the kinks.
So how does one measure ROI with an effort such as this? Sommers has little idea beyond hoping that some "generous economist" will help him figure out that one. For the moment, he is happy measuring success in terms of customer satisfaction. Sommers figures that if he can make customers happy by making their experience in the store a smoother one, the effort is worth it.
"I want to make customers really proud to be spending money at my store. I want them to say. 'I want to be a customer in that place, ' " he said.


COMMENTARY ABOUT THE ARTICLE
As we realize, the using of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in businesses is not strange anymore. In this 21st century, the technology expansion is really moved forwards and had changed people’s life and the way of people’s thinking. Basically, the businesses are using RFID tags in order to track everything such from the large shipping containers and livestock to the tiny electronic components. Previously, RFID was using in healthcare industry such as in blood tagging and drugs tagging. In example, the using of RFID chips in blood tagging will ensure the transparency and accountability through logging, labeling, tracking of blood products via RFID technology. Furthermore, this RFID is also being used in other purpose monitoring animals (such as to track the animal’s habitat and movement), food supply, library, museum, supermarket, shopping complex, boutique and others. The technology such as RFID and other IT and IS tools was influencing and change the way of how people’s thinking and being more creative. RFID was helping the business people to manage and track their products properly, efficiently and also reducing costs to facilitating, automating, and streamlining identification processes.
According to that, this article is very interesting to be sharing here, it is about the ice-cream with RFID chips. Due to the expansion, Izzy’s ice-cream café was differentiate their business by creating new value proposition by using RFID technology in their business in order to give their customers real-time updates on all the available flavors in their café. Izzy’s was fixed RFID readers in the dipping cabinets (the glass covered case where the ice cream were displayed) scan tags attached to the signs that go above each ice cream container to give customers updated information on available ice cream flavors. Each time when one tub (container) of ice cream is replaced with a new flavor, the RFID tag in front of the tub will change with the one that corresponding to the new flavor. This shop has invented almost 100 flavors of ice cream and serves 32 flavors at any one time. Therefore, the customers had little way of knowing whether their favorite flavors were still available or not until they arrived at the counter. Therefore, the purpose of Izzy’s applying the RFID technology in their business was to updates their customer about all the available flavours in their dipping cabinets. But how the RFID works at Izzy’s Ice-cream Cafe? RFID readers in the dipping cabinet can scan the tags 22 times every second and send the information to a system, after that projects a series of dots representing different flavors onto a wall in the store. Then, the customers can look at the colored dots projected on the wall, or on the plasma TV behind the counter, to find out what flavors the store is serving. Next, the information grabbed by the RFID readers is send to Izzy's Web site, where the customers are able to get the lists all the flavors that the shop is serving.
As a result, with the RFID tags on its ice cream tubs, Izzy's enables their customers to track the flavors which are available at its ice cream shop by checking the shop's Web page. So, this article is shown that RFID will ease the customers and help the company to solve the problems, according to the purpose.

Thank You….

Microsoft upgrade aims to make Hotmail cool again

SAN FRANCISCO 18/05/2010— Microsoft Corp. is trying to makeHotmail cool again .

The free Web mail service soon will be switching to a new approach that Microsoft hopes will give Hotmail an edge over rival offerings from Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc.

The upgrade, expected to be available in July or August, will automatically sort incoming messages into different categories devoted to users' key contacts and Internet social networks. It will also provide previews of incoming photos, videos and other material without having to open an attachment or click on a link.

Other tools are being added to make it less cumbersome to send photos, videos, documents and other attachments to e-mail recipients. Another tweak is supposed to make is easier to sync Hotmail on mobile phones.

It's all part of the most extensive overhaul toHotmail since Microsoft bought the service 12 years ago, said Chris Jones, a Microsoft executive who is overseeing the renovations.

"Our service wasn't doing the best job that it could," Jones said during a Monday preview of the makeover.

The new features are supposed to enable people to spend less time managing their inboxes and more time enjoying and digesting what's in the messages.

Microsoft is hoping the added convenience will help overcome the perception that Hotmail was growing stale as Google and Yahoo added more bells and whistles to their free Web mail services.

Even as it made relatively few changes, Hotmail remained the world's most used service with 360 million users, according to statistics complied by comScore Inc. Yahoo ranks second globally with about 284 million users followed by Google's Gmail at 173 million users.

Now Microsoft thinks it might have shot of supplanting Yahoo as the top Web mail service in the U.S. (Yahoo's e-mail service has 95 million U.S. users compared to 47 million for Hotmail and 43 million for Gmail, according to comScore).

Hotmail's most significant changes will provide new ways to look at photos and videos sent through e-mail. Microsoft expects this feature to be particularly popular because it says 55 percent of Hotmail's storage is consumed by photos sent as attachments.

The new technology will detect when an e-mail contains a photo attachment and automatically display a thumbnail of the image (or images) at the top of the message. Hotmail will provide similar previews when it detects links to photo-sharing sites Flickr and SmugMug or to video-sharing sites YouTube and Hulu.

Other changes are designed to make it easier to send photos, video and other Web content. A new insert bar will allow users to send up to 10 gigabytes — about 200 photos each containing 50 megabytes — by uploading them to Microsoft's free online storage service Skydrive, where they can only be viewed by the recipients of the e-mail.

Videos and other Internet material can be found through a new panel that will connect Hotmail to Microsoft's Internet search engine, Bing. The videos and other Bing-generated content can then be inserted into an e-mail with a mouse click. The e-mail recipient will then be able to see the video or other material without having to click through a Web link.

As it spruces up Hotmail, Microsoft also will try to make it more secure. Embracing a change recently made by Gmail, Microsoft is adding a so-called "secure sockets layer" (denoted by "https" before a Web address) that encrypts e-mail to make it less vulnerable to computer hackers.

HOLO 2.0 wearable computer displays interactive holographic content

Touched screen technology can be regarded as one of the largest revolution ever happened in human modern life. This is because with the existence of this technology, more and more people increasingly inclined to participate in activity involving technology compared to the past.

Just take a look mobile phone example. In previous, it is enough to have a mobile phone with typical keypad to dial number or pass on message, however with the existence of touched screen technology, there are increasingly induce to have mobile phone with such facilities.

This touched screen technology has motivated people to involving their self in the use of modern technology. For example, elderly group feels that it is easy for them to use early version mobile phone which has less application as they only use it as a tool to communicate.

However, now it is become a common thing for us to see people are more obsess with mobile phone which equipped with touched screen technology.

Thus, the sophistication of technology today has encouraged the consumer involvement and shift the direction towards touched screen compared to previous. However for technology researchers, touched screen technology is just the beginning of much more future sophistication.

Hologram

They now have already developed watch technology which will able to project hologram that functions by touched on in screen beamed.

This technology called HOLO 2.0 is the latest concept that able to replace the function of today’s portable computer. HOLO 2.0 uses kinetic battery energy which the source are produced from kinetic movement from our hand. This watch is able to display hologram and have same functions as a portable computer.

This watch also can be renovated as desktop computer at the same time. This is because this watch is equipped with tool that can enlarge hologram display like we used to be obtained through desktop. It displays lengthways is up till 140 mm and can be broaden up to 20 mm.

HOLO 2.0 is the collective idea of Elodie Delassus, Pradeep Kamath, Rucha Shinde, Taha Poonawala and Asher Kandelar and it is developed by a company from India and this company plan to start enter world market in 2015.

At that time, touched screen technology is already owned by all and it is not too much to say that this technology is quite left behind. Thus as part of technology replacement, HOLO project 2.0 is seen as able fill time gap before another technology sophisticated take place.

Generally HOLO 2.0 is function by entwined in a person wrist and with a few touch in its surface, hologram will be transmitted. Through this hologram it will play a role such as a computer which most its function can be made with touched on the screen displayed.

This technology surely will attract all attention because it is a new alternative to portable computer users in future. This technology is easy to carry and in fact it also can be posed such as latest fashion for those who love fashion so much.

However, there still not much information on this technology and no clear specification of technology that will be used. The equipment that able to produce hologram is still unclear and what we only have now is only image display technique produced via projector.

We have been exposed to this kind of technology since the first Star Wars film create its phenomena but till now we has not find how to developed this technology clearly. Maybe this technology has been developed and use in military but whether it will be marketed for profit-making purpose the still in debate.

However we are really sure that technology will always keep on changing as tool in driving changes in human necessities to help facilitating their life.

It is not impossible this hologram technology can become as what being passed by touched screen and at that time this kind technology becoming another necessity to human who always thirst for a changes.