PostMan's Law of Desktop Creep

The number of icons on your desktop will increase to cover the screen.

Swipe To Irritate

Today's smart phones have a screen lock features - some use PIN, some screen patterns and couple of them face recognition. If you use PIN or pattern, how many numbers or simple a pattern would you choose? just simple enough so that the screen does not automatically unlock by accident or finger movement. Some people, it seems, are not even satisfied with that.

A person came to me with a phone and it had a screen pattern lock enabled. He also had a paper chit on which the pattern to unlock the phone was given. Quite safe to say that I had never seen anything lke that. It had all the arrows guiding pattern movement steps and it seemed more like a treasure map. It took three of us people to keep trying to unlock it but to no avail. I somehow figured out that the pattern should follow something else - a slight change from what was written on the chit. Anyhow I managed to open the screen lock. Now let me share with you the swipe pattern. It goes like 1,5,7,5,3,5,8,6,9,8,5,4,2. Unimaginable seriously. Why would anyone do that?

You think you have seen it all but it keeps coming and coming.

Pakistani Cellular Companies and Scam

Umm. No. I do not mean that they indulge in scam (the way the use hidden charges might tempt people to call it so though). I am more concerned with how they condone those acts which come under the category of scam. Consider this.

The other day I received a message from 'Coke' in my inbox that my number has been chosen to be a winner and that I will get GBP500,000! My joy knew no limits...

'Your Mobile number have won 500,000 GBP on 2012 Coca-Cola Intl Mobile Draw UK. To claim your prize send your name, No, email and address to cokelive5@live.com'

The dumbnut in me urged me to check anyways on net whether it was a scam because the logical one in me was telling me it could not be wrong! It was from a pre-identified number having 'Coke' as ID - surely my cellphone provider must have done the homework, it cannot be that careless. Turns out, the dumbnut in me won. It indeed was a scam and I was left ruing my GBP 500k.

Sigh.

But this begs a question. Why did my cellphone operator provide an ID to this number? (provided my assumption is true that they are provided by them). I get transaction report SMSs on my number from the bank whose financial services I avail and they too are with the Bank's ID. I did not create a contact. So a message is sent by a number which basically is a scam having ID of a reputed company which my cellphone operator provided? That does not sound right. Right? My cellphone company might not be part of this scam but they surely provided some legitimacy to it. 

I contacted my cellphone operator and surprise surprise... they did exactly as they were supposed to. They did not reply me back. I don't know how many people woul have sent in their particulrs and then be told to submit xxx amount of fee for processing of the case and then left them dry.

Poor us.

Data Privacy & Pictures with Geo Tagging

There is this news of a very weird fellow in US who did not act nice to someone else's food and then had the gall to take picture of it and then post it online. Good thing was that the perpetrator of this act was located and report suggests that the management intends to fire him. It is not the news that interesting but how the users located this guy. As it turns out, there is this thing called Geo Tagging.


Digital cameras have long been in the process of being ditched in favour of Phones with good cameras. They are handy and are much readily available when you need to capture 'that' particular moment. In today's world of smart phones, camera usage, its quality and functionality is increasing day by day. One of the feature is Geo Tagging.


With this feature, whenever you take a picture, the software applies the Latitude and Longitude information obtained from your smart phone's repository of GPS coordinates  which is gathered by various apps for example Google Maps, Google Sky, Navigation etc. When you upload these photos on a picture portal like Picasa, this information is maintained in Exif area of the image file. Exif also maintains information regarding the camera, lens settings, ISO etc as Meta Data of that particular image.


The thing about Exif area of the image is that it can be utilized. Digital cameras have been maintaining this information for a quite a while now. Most of the data in Exif is informational material and is really helpful. Some of it might be useful in a way not really intended, The guy in the above referred news was located by GPS location maintained in Exif.


So why am I telling you this? Because we live in Pakistan and its a very interesting country :p We all take pictures and post them on online social sites like FaceBook and Twitter etc. The males in our society are a touch more interested in female info. So if you are at your home and you took a very beautiful picture of a bee sitting on a flower and shared it with your friends and the 'whole god damn world' (assuming you are not aware/ concerned with privacy) then someone can extract the information from that picture and can actually locate your home. Totally fine with me if you are comfortable with that scenario and the perverts that lurk out there.


So what can be done?


1 - Disable the Geo Tagging feature of your smart camera. This will ensure that no GPS location is fed in Exif area of the file.
2 - You can dig out the Exif area through editors in which case you might be compromising on the data quality.
3 - Use Exif software to edit out information. A good read and tool is here to remove Exif info.
4 - Use security settings of your social site to maintain privacy.


Any other idea? Please share.
Regards

Data Privacy in Pakistan

Check the following image.



This is a call information of a customer subscribed to one of the leading cellular services of this country. It contains information regarding customer name, the phone number, all the numbers that the customer dialed, when and for how long. I have edited the information of course.

Now. How did I hack into the Mobilink database and got meself all the confidential data? How many people did I connive with to release this information (which could be yours too)? In fact I got this from the local bread-maker (tandoor wala) who had to give me something to wrap the bread in. Well I was not surprized as earlier, once, I got a central bank inspection report of a financial institution from a paan-wala. He had made small paper bags of it.

Startling? Appears so. Your complete calling record is in open - anyone who wants to exploit something - sellers selling you their ware, some nut case compiling a whole CD of contact numbers and then selling it! social engineers and perhaps terrorists? I get all sorts of items for purchase as spam by sms on my cell phone: travel agents, tuition, medicine, plots and homes etc - even get offers to buy the CD that has all sorts of contact numbers to be used for spamming for Rs.1,000 only. So your number, and all the 'genuine' contacts on this piece of paper have a market of their own and people are willing to pay for it.

Why we Pakistanis are so aloof of information privacy? Well frankly our tele-marketing environment is very nascent in Pakistan. We had, and still have, the good old Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) , the state owned telecommunication company to provide us with the voice services. They still send the customer bill printed on paper, not in envelope, for the view of everyone that is interested in knowing about you. Yes private companies are careful but they will show lax controls in other areas. For example how did a whole bunch of documents related to customer calls lands in restaurants which is a mere 4 months old. We have had instances where call center's representatives 'shared' data with each other and you'd be receiving call from someone who wanted you to subscribe to the latest credit card offering of a financial institution. You might think where the hell did this guy/ gal get my number? The answer lies somewhere in the wrapper that you are holding while munching on the popcorns in it.

Some serious attitude change is required by the Pakistanis. God Help.

Find Your Friend! Damn!

Warid telecommunication company has recently introduced a new feature for their subscribers through which they can find the location of the target number through sending a simple SMS. The company has launched this feature stating that you can find your friends through this facility. Fun eh? :)

No!

There is a huge privacy issue involved here. At the start of this service, it will be fun and later it will become the tool of stalkers! wives will be keeping a watch on their husbands, girls and guys on each other, morons on their victims, criminals on wealthy businessmen! what the hell is going on?! This service sounds more of a trouble rather than blessing. Security personnel or people who like to have their location secret - they are in trouble I think. No VIP is going to use Warid I suppose! (Ok I am stretching here a bit I know because it wont be real time online position monitoring.. but still!)

I think Warid has played a gamble here and it might cost them. Nobody likes the idea that they been stalked or snooped up on. I do not know how much accurate information the system will provide but cellular phones are traceable by their nature and the resultant location can be considered specific enough.

Lets see which way the dice rolls.

SMS - The Opinion Maker

I just received a joke on SMS and it is again about PML-Q, the erstwhile goons of Musharraf. Tell me, if you have received political jokes recently, how many relate to PML-Q? I can safely say 90% or more of the times its about the same party. The 'ridicule' factor is most prominent in these jokes.

Its this type of politics-based joke that interests me. (Yes I do receive other jokes as well that interest me even more :p) You read the joke, you laugh and you forward it to someone else. Was it just simple as that? What you did as simple an act of laughing and forwarding was that you formed an opinion about PML-Q as well! What is the image of PML-Q in your mind now? Idiots most probably! And that is most important. I am not saying that its only the SMS that formed your opinion like that but it certainly is a build up on the earlier information.

SMS and cellphones are ubiquitous these days. Its such an important element in the modern day of communication but we do not give it due importance rather take it for granted. Yes we are aware of the 'nuisance' factor of it but do we really appreciate the timeliness of information received? Remember Benazir Bhutto's assassination? You read it on blog first or got the SMS first? Do we know how can it be utilized to further your cause?

Talking about political jokes, Propaganda has now taken on new form. I do not know whether it was by chance or some deliberate attempt but this is certainly working. The majority of the users of cell phone are young aged-middle aged Pakistanis. They can sms - not just receive and send calls. They are the ones that are more aware of the changing scenarios of the country and perhaps would want to do something about it. They are the decision makers and they are the recipients of these messages.

The usual medium of information like Newspapers, Radio and TV still play an important role in forming an opinion. The information they provide is portrayed as balanced and accurate. You cant really blame them because they are working in boundaries of ethics and fair-play (at least they say so). But when it comes to SMS, the language is more straight forward than the draped-thing that you get from other media. A joke is short, precise and to the point! Conveys what the meaning is and helps do it in less cost! Forget about expensive advertisement campaigns against opponents which sound sleazy anyway! SMS will spread much faster, will cover great distances, will have impact and you will not have to bear the expenses too! What an effective propaganda tool!

Blogs come close to quick opinion-forming information dissipation. Bloggers are usually more aware of the events that are going on whether political or apolitical. SMSs even outshine them in the sense that you do not spend that much time on computers. If you do, you would go to your favorite places on the internet including blogs and newspaper sites. You will not visit every site to get information. On the other hand, with SMS, the destination of the information is the 'recipient'. You get a message and you 'read' it! You will even forward it to your friends. A network of opinion was generated.

Perhaps you can clearly see the results of the next elections if SMS popular sentiment is to be believed. PML-Q will find it very difficult because the most powerful element of 'information' is not on their side! Pakistani politics is peculiar in the sense that dynasties, feudals, 'biradri' play more important role than the voter conscience. Would it be any different this time?