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Our very own Shapshak telling the world the difference between Angry Birds and true innovation

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There is a new colour in the South African cellular market space. Orange. Nashua Mobile and Orange have announced a partnership today that will enable Orange to expand activities in South Africa by opening several physical retail outlets in the country.

France Telecom-Orange is one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators with a presence in 32 countries. Orange is one of the main European operators for mobile and broadband internet services and, under the brand Orange Business Services, is one of the world leaders in providing telecommunication
services to multinational companies.

Togethere with retail stores, Orange has developed a South African customised online store : http://store.orange.com/za where customers can purchase their items and have them delivered anywhere in South Africa within  three working days.

Both the online and physical stores offer SIM cards from the global Orange network but will initially start with France and Botswana. This will allow travellers to be able to better prepare their journeys, like having their local phone number before their trip. This is a world first and whilst this sounds simple, the logistics of making this a reality is a seven month process.

South Africans going to France will be able to purchase:

• “Mobicarte Holiday” package, which is a prepaid SIM card that functions on Orange’s French network. This offer is valid for 14 days after activation, includes 2 hours of calls and 300 SMS to any destination in the world from France allowing South African customers to stay in touch with home at an affordable price;  data access including 500 Mb of mobile data and unlimited access to the 30,000 WiFi hotspots in France allowing customers to surf the Internet and social networks while travelling; unlimited access to Orange Maps and GPS. Cost:R590 + R100 transaction fee
• Prepaid SIM cards and top-up vouchers to be used in France at Cost: R115 + R15 transaction fee.
• “le domino”, a mobile hotspot allowing customers to connect up to 5 devices to a personal WiFi network giving full Internet access over the Orange 3G network in France, with 500 Mb already included over 1 month. Cost: R520 + R75 transaction fee

The first Nashua Mobile stores to incorporate Orange products and an in-store
Orange-brand presence will be in Sandton City in Johannesburg, Brooklyn Mall
in Pretoria and both Icon Centre and Canal Walk in Cape Town.

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You have a new Facebook Friend request from someone that you are pretty sure you are already friends with on Facebook. Strange but you click on Accept Friend thinking perhaps its just an update. You think nothing of it. Days later you start getting request for money from your friend along with a soppy sad story. You ignore it. You then start seeing more posts on your wall asking for money and when you don’t reply,your friend starts to abuse you online. Naturally you confront your friend and they have no idea what you are talking about.

This is the scenario that is plaguing many South African Facebook users according to timeslive.  

So what is going on ?

The phenomenon is called “Facebook Cloning”

Lazy scammers look for Facebook profiles that are open and not set to private. More active scammers, try to make friends with anyone on Facebook. The sole purpose of both types of scammers is that once they access your profile they start make an exact replicate of that profile, including pictures posted and recent wall posts. They then create a new Facebook account using your name and a fake email address. From this point, they pretend to be you on Facebook complete with your Facebook Profile picture. They send out Friend Requests to your current friend list and wait to see who would accept. Then they start using Facebook to try extort money.

This scam is not new. It is a twist on the usual 419 scam where we get SPAM mails saying our great aunty died and left us millions of dollars or we won a competition and just need to send some “handling fee” money. The Facebook cloning scam takes the same scam to a new level as the “send money” request comes from a friend. Afterall, how can you ignore a friend in need who is desperately asking for money after being retrenched and now cant afford to pay school fees?

How do you protect yourself ?

Here are 5 simple tips that can help protect you both from being cloned and from being scammed:

1. It is important to know who can access your Facebook info. Click on the padlock on the top right of your Facebook page and click on Who can see my stuff ? If it is set to PUBLIC change it to Friends.  Do it now.

2. Whenever you upload anything or post on your wall, make sure that the info is only shared with your friends.

3. Make sure your password is not a simple one. Password123 is not a password. Click on the “gear icon” on the top right, click on General, and click on Edit next to password. Now set a decent password with Capital Letters and Numbers and make it a long one. Tip: you can use a sentence as a password such Ilove5CATs

4. When you get an email with a friend request, don’t just click on Accept. Do you really recognise the person who is asking to be added? a simple rule to follow: if they are already your friend, then don’t accept a new request – there is no need. New requests should only be accepted not from the friend-request-email but by going onto Facebook webpage from your web browser and then accept the friends there. This way you not only get a chance to vet the friend but also ensure that you don’t click any link that can take you to a site which looks like Facebook but is actually a Phishing site and you give away your password.

5. Beware of programs that request permission to access your Facebook. These often ask for too many permissions in the hope that people will simply accept these (which they usually do). To check which app has access to your Facebook click on the “gear icon”, Account Settings, Apps (on the left) and on the right will appear a list of apps that you have granted access to your Facebook. You can click on EDIT next to any app to see exactly what they can access. You can remove any app that doesn’t need to be there.

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Once again, South Africa has taken centre stage showcasing technology that is forcing the global community to take notice. This time the tech is in the Banking sector where Nedbank presented their banking solution at the Global CIO Forum in Rome, Italy.

The Global CIO Forum, is an exclusive and by-invite only event that is hosted by Accenture where only CIO of major world corporations are invited to attend to discuss and unpack the major technology trends shaping various industries. Cloud, analytics, Big Data and mobility will have a major impact markets in the next three years and the CIO Forum allows the attendees to understand the challenges and opportunities that could prove to be a game-changer.

When Accenture sent their consultants to Nedbank they were so impressed with what Nedbank has achieved that they invited Glenn Smith, Nedbank’s Group Technology Divisional Executive: Mobile and Digital, Nedbank Limited, not only to attend the Global CIO Forum. Glenn was also given the honour to present the Nedbank technological journey as a keynote speaker.

 

Glenn presented a highly engaging keynote that outlined the banking opportunity in South Africa and Africa recalling how Nedbank has always identified trends and delivered solutions. Nedbank was the 1st bank to offer internet banking, the 1st major banking institution to recognise the power of TCPIP and the 1st to install Microsoft at the front end replacing the old green/ orange screen terminals.

When the mobile app revolution hit, Nedbank initially lagged behind deciding to focus their attention on not just copying what everyone else is doing, but rather focusing on how to create a delivery mechanism to deliver solutions to mobile customers. Nedbank recognised that mobile apps are here to stay and so they focused all their attention on security first. Glenn recalls that “this is the one area that it can’t be “good enough” but has to be perfect.”

Approve-it was born after Nedbank sourced its technology from a local South African company Entersekt. This technology has one single function – to allow the bank to know for a fact that the person they are dealing with on the other side of the mobile device is indeed the client. Approve-it gives Nedbank that ability as it has sophisticated (and confidential) methods to ensure that no information can be stolen or manipulated between the mobile device and the Nedbank system. Proving its effectiveness, since its inception in March 2012, there has been 23 million transactions with the value exceeding R15 billion via the Nedbank App Suite with almost zero fraud. This is a remarkable feat in an industry rife with constant Phishing attacks where hackers try to steal people’s banking details and access their accounts.

Through Nedbank’s platform, they were able to deploy solutions to Android phones and tablets, iOS phone and tablets, BlackBerry phones including BlackBerry 10 and even feature phone app. All these deployments occurred in three month between the 27th August 2012 and 23 November 2012.

Glenn’s keynote included in-depth discussions of their infrastructure and detailed learnings which were shared with the various CIOs who also got a sneak peak at  Nedbank’s future plans. Something that Glenn is not sharing with us just yet ending with only a clue that “the next evolution of our system and Approve-it is truly amazing”

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Sick again. It must be this change in weather or pollen in the air or that man you sat to on the plane that was coughing which made you sick. Right? The truth is that we just never know where we picked up those pesky germs that keeps coming back again and again and again. But have you noticed that over the past couple of years we tend to get sick more often than we used to ?

Once again we can blame the mobile device. According to the DailyMail Hygiene expert Jim Francis, who carried out the research has revealed that the average mobile phone handset carries 18 times more potentially harmful germs than a flush handle in a men’s toilet.

Some phone handset had 39 times the safe level of enterobacteria, a group of bacteria that live in the lower intestines of humans and animals and include bugs such as Salmonella. It boasted 170 times the acceptable level of faecal coliforms, which are associated with human waste. Other bacteria including food poisoning bugs e.coli and staphylococcus aureus were found on the phones but at safe levels.

We handle our phones constantly, even whilst we are eating. So bacteria and germs travel easily between the phone and the food and who know what else. Whilst we dont live in a sterile environment, the mobile phone is the one device that we constantly handle and wave it near our nose and mouth offering the germs an immediate way into our bodies.

We can minimise the germ-attack by obviously washing our hands, using hand-sanitizer and cleaning our phones with bacteria-killing wipes.

I received a product called Wireless Wipes which is specifically designed to target those germs on mobile phones and tablets. The packaging states that “mobile device has more germs than a New York subway seat” and that is pretty yuk!  Having seen the New York subway, I better arm myself with these packets…

[note: this is not a paid-for post but did get Wireless Wipes packets to use]

Want to know how many germs are on your phone ? take this test now

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According to the all knowing-oracle Wikipedia: “Gamification is the use of game thinking and game mechanics in a non-game context in order to engage users and solve problems”  Gamification can be used to as a fun game where through game-play the player learns about real-issues.about It is a great way to take an otherwise boring topic and make it fun, interactive and thereby educational.

No matter how you spin it, “Privacy of Information” is never going to be an exciting topic – especially when you step outside the tech world.  Whilst people may hear what has been drummed into them for years about their online information by the Info Sec people, the ramification and consequences are simply not getting through.

So how do you get people to really understand what is happening to the information they are posting online ? You play a game – Data Dealer !

Data Dealer is online game that was developed by a small team from Austria which aims to raise awareness of personal data and online privacy issues in a completely new, ironic and fun way.

The player’s aim is to collect personal information about millions of people – and then ruthlessly sell it to clients of all kinds.

Players obtain data from a variety of sources – whether legal or illegal – and ruthlessly sell it to insurance companies, human resources departments, banks and other clients of all kinds. Players in the game run various companies and online ventures – from dating portals and loyalty card systems to search engines and their own social web.

By playing the game, the developers aim is for people ask questions such as:

• what kinds of personal data exist?
• Who is collecting this data and what are their intentions?
• What could this data be used for and what are the possible impacts on individuals?

The game teaches the player at every step about what seemingly benign information can really mean:

Most of the stories in the game are based on real life. The game developers stats that “In the digital age virtually everything we do is recorded, monitored or tracked in some way. As a result, the quantity and the value of personal data of all kinds being collected today is vast: our profiles and demographic data from bank accounts to medical records to employment data. Our web searches, the sites we visit, our likes and dislikes and purchase histories. Our tweets, texts, emails, phone calls and photos as well as the coordinates of our real-world locations.

In addition, today’s everyday services relying on aggregated personal information are becoming more and more complex – even if they look simple on the surface. When using today´s information technology it’s more difficult than ever to estimate what the long-term consequences might be.”

Data Dealer is a great initiative to get people to really think about their data.  By switching perspectives and becoming ruthless data dealers, the motivations and concerns of data brokers can be experienced from the other side.

Check out the game here: http://datadealer.com/

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Security Breach. Hacking. Cyber Warefare. Industrial Espionage. These make headlines across the world as any high profile website or social network accounts are breached.

One could think that there are armies who deploy sophisticated technological weapons across the Internet with missile-like-precision finding their intended target.

Whilst this does happen, the arsenal of weapons that exists doesn’t have to be so sophisticated. In fact they are so common that anyone, with no programming skills at all, can now buy these system online for a couple of dollars. This was one of the key underlying elements that speakers included in their presentations at the recent ITWeb Security Summit. Yes, there is an element of technological defences that need to be deployed at home and at work, but there is still one weak link that no technology can assist with – the human being.

We have been told countless times not to click on any email that looks suspicious and certainly not to click on links inside emails that ask us for username and passwords. Yet every day, thousands of people do exactly that and then find themselves in hot water as they realise that they have fallen victim to cyber crime. This is kind of attack is known as a Phishing and is a favourite tool amongst the attackers.

How does Phishing work ?

Phishing is based on a couple of components. The hacker purchases a mailing list of email address, then the hacker creates an email that mimics a popular websites such as LinkedIN or Facebook. Inside this mass email there is an invitation to click on a link that takes the recipients to a “landing page” which is where they are asked to enter the sensitive information such as usernames, passwords. This information is sent to the attacker and a “sorry we are offline – try again later” message is displayed to the user so they simply switch off thinking nothing of it. 

Why does Phishing work ?

Phishing is successful as it is based on sheer numbers. Sending out millions of emails will results in some people revealing their information for the hacker to do with as they please. There is even a market for selling active username and passwords.

What is Spear Phishing ?

An advanced version of Phishing is known as Spear Phishing. This is where the attacker targets specific set of people instead of a blanket mass mail. The attacker will create a webpage that is common to the selected group eg. mimic a specific Banking Site web page or a company web mail login page and then send their mass mail to those specific people such as those people with a .co.za in their email if the bank is in South Africa.

This kind of attack is successful as the recipient visually identifies with the website that they constantly access and therefore they don’t think twice about logging in thus revealing their sensitive information.

The Spyware

As an added “bonus”, as part of the phishing attack, the attacker may wish to add spyware software that is installed on the recipients’ computer. This is done be embedding the malicious code on the landing page and manipulating the victim to install the “software update” or “security patch”. This allows the attacker to access  that computer via a Backdoor that the software creates. The malicious software may also replicate itself on the network to other machines and may even send keys pressed on the keyboard to the attacker (known as keyloggers).

The Reactions

There are two typical reactions that people have when we hear about these attacks.

1. “I am safe, I have an anti-virus!” and 2. “who would be so stupid at to fall for this?”

The “I have an Anti-virus” reaction is common but unfortunately this is not good enough. Even those people who are diligent and update their software regularly are still susceptible. There are many “services” on offer that for R600 will guarantee that a attacker’s hacking-code will bypass all the anti-virus systems. Even when there is an update, this service will develop the work-around for the code to work. They give you a Service Level Agreement !

The “who would fall for this” question, this is something you can answer for yourself. thinkst has developed a tool called Phish5 that allows you to “attack” your own company and see if you are vulnerable to Phishing attacks.  Simply sign up, add some members in your company, use the template to build your fake phishing email, use the template to create a fake landing page and launch your attack. You will be notified as soon as people fall victims – there are even graphs and reports.

Haroon Meer from thinkst confirms that “Despite spending many years on extremely cutting-edge hacking, it’s pretty clear that corporations across the board are still getting taken with phishing attacks.”  The Phish5 tool was built as way for administrators to test their ow system “This way they phish departments just prior to training sessions and get to talk real numbers during the training.  Over time, they are then able to spot departments or people that never learn and are able to reward people who do react well.”

So in summary:

Phishing is just one tool in the arsenal and falls under the bigger umbrella known as Social Engineering – the way attackers will manipulate people into helping them get the information they want.

No amount of technology can fully protect your business. There has to be constant training of the people using the system. Speaker after speaker after speaker confirmed at the ITWeb Technology Summit repeated the same mantra: If your business has something worth stealing, chances are that the hacker is already in. Only the “bad” hackers are caught, the “good ones” run a business – selling your information.

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Distimo is an analytics company that aims to bring transparency to the Apps market across all platforms. They track over 3 billion downloads per quarter for major developers worldwide. Distimo AppIQ helps developers and financial services companies to make well informed strategic decisions in the global app market.

Using this data,  Distimo has revealed the top performing apps during May 2013 on the Google Play store and the Apple App Store.

It is interesting to note how the two platforms are different when it comes to applications.  The Apple Apps are mainly games whereas the Google Apps are mainly utilities.

Two apps that stand out: SwiftKey seems to be the must-have app as a replacement keyboard for the one that is pre-installed on the Android device.

WhatsApp is the one common app for both platforms even if Apple people have to pay for it, it still ranked as the number 1 paid-for app.

For more info head over to : http://www.distimo.com/blog/2013_06_top-global-apps-may-2013/

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We all know that the future is in mobile and specifically in applications. Sounds simple. Have an idea, develop an app and sell it around the world retiring to your Mauritius Island.  In reality, not so much.

Developers usually begin at the same spot. Download some Software Developer Toolkits, download some sample code and start coding the mega-bux application. As a problem is encountered, the online forums is where the search browser heads to find answers. Very quickly developers discover that it tends to be a lonely world as more and more errors are encountered and frustration sets in resulting in many giving up.

BlackBerry has recognised this as a major stumbling block for anyone trying to enter the mobile development world. Whilst the BlackBerry development tools are simple to use, developers still require certain amount of hand-holding especially when starting out.

The solution: BlackBerry Labs. BlackBerry has opened its third app in South Africa – this time in the heart of Joburg at the JoziHub located at 44th Stanley, Milkpark. It is a hip and trendy part of town which fosters entrepreneurships thinking, community and an all round feel-good factor – this is where great ideas will be converted into reality and BlackBerry is here to help.

The aim of the BlackBerry apps labs is to accelerate mobile application development in South Africa and create new opportunities in the mobile space. The labs provide local developers, including students, start-ups, entrepreneurs and others, with access to resources in development, marketing, sales and training to help them expand their ideas and business opportunities. It is not just about the app itself but recognising that apps are a business which need to abide by rational business practices if it is to survive. BlackBerry has this world-wide knowledge that any member of the BlackBerry Lab can and should tap into.

Annie Lopes, JoziHub Community Manager said that “We look forward to working with BlackBerry to mobilise our resident developer community, including students, researchers and faculties adjacent to our premises, the universities of Johannesburg and Witwatersrand” and Alexandra Zagury, MD for South Africa and Southern Africa at BlackBerry confirmed that “JoziHub is a perfect location for the country’s third BlackBerry apps lab and we are looking forward to fostering mobile innovation in Johannesburg by supporting even more training and support for South African application developers.”

Various students from other BlackBerry Labs presented their story and each expressed gratitude to BlackBerry for the opportunity that litrially changed their lives. 85% of the students did not know how to program at all before joining the labs and yet with BlackBerry’s help and tuition, there are many success stories.

So if you are thinking about mobile development, or just want to find out more, head over to http://www.jozihub.org or email info@jozihub.org

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“and the winner for BlackBerry Achievement Awards App of the Year goes to…PriceCheck !” those were the words that Charl Mocke, Product Owner: Mobile PriceCheck and Andre de Wet PriceCheck General Manager of PriceCheck were hoping to hear. And they did.

PriceCheck was selected as the winner of the prestigious award held at the annual BlackBerry Live event in Oralando, Florida where the best BlackBerry apps from around the world compete to win the coveted recognition.  PriceCheck beat 100,000 other competing BlackBerry 10 applications from around the world after making the BlackBerry Achievement Awards shortlist of 3 apps, after which the international public had the chance to vote for the app of their choice.

I spoke to Charl when he returned from BlackBerry Live about his experience and what does this award mean for PriceCheck.

“We are very proud of our award” says Charl “we have proven that world-class app development can come from South Africa and we can compete with the best in the world and win” It took two years of research, development and subsequent fine-tuning to get the app to where it is today.

When people think of PriceCheck they assume it is only to compare prices for electronic goods such as new TVs, Cameras and Phones. However, this is not the case. “Whilst consumer electronics make up the majority of our searches, we have over 30 million products in 6000 categories ranging from consumer electronics, to groceries” Charl explains.

I searched for gloves and sure enough over 85 pages of results were returned. From leather gloves to boxing gloves to LED gloves (?).  I could then narrow down the search.

PriceCheck even had managed to find comparison prices for “office stapler” and “paper” and “heater” and “coffee beans” and even “organic vanilla”.

Like most people, I didn’t realise that PriceCheck is also able to do price comparisons for various services too including : Flights, Insurance, Car Rental and Accommodation.

As for what the awards have done for PriceCheck, the numbers speak for themselves.

• The lead generation revenue went up 17% in the week in which the award was won compared to the week before.
• Unique Visitors (people using the app) increased by 10% in the same period.
• The BlackBerry 10 app downloads increased by 135% in the same period.

PriceCheck is not sitting back. Charl had hinted at future developments of the application and its capabilities such as coupons system which is yet another incentive to use PriceCheck and save more money as well as further market expansion to tackle Africa.

Alexandra Zagury, Managing Director, South & Southern Africa at BlackBerry said: “We are delighted that a South African app won this prestigious award, which is a true example of mobile-first innovation on BlackBerry. Congratulations to the PriceCheck team.”