The number of internet users in Nigeria’s telecommunications networks declined to 91, 274,446 in January, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said.
The NCC made the disclosure in its Monthly Internet Subscribers Data for January 2017 on its website on Tuesday in Abuja.
According to the data released, internet users dropped to 91,274,446 in January as against 91,880.032 users recorded in December 2016, showing a decline of 605,586.
The data also showed that the GSM service providers lost 605,586 internet customers after recording 91, 274,446 in January as against 91,880,032 users in December 2016.
The data revealed that MTN had 31,015.45 subscribers browsing the internet on its network in the month of January.
It explained that MTN recorded a drop of 737, 964 internet subscribers in January after recording 31,753.369 in December 2016.
Airtel had 19,618.485 internet users in January, adding 254, 94 customers to its December record of 19,363.545.
In Etisalat, the data showed 13,564.284 customers who browsed the internet in January revealing a decrease of 188.656 users against the 13,752.940 users recorded in December 2016.
The data showed that Globacom had 27,076,272 customers browsing the internet on its network in January.
This amounted to an increase of 66,094 users from the 27,010.178 users of the internet on the network in December 2016.
The Federal Government’s target of 80 per cent Internet and 30 per cent broadband penetration by 2018 may become elusive as about five million Nigerians have dropped off the Internet radar in the last one year.
Specifically, the number of Internet users in the country fell from 97 million in December 2015 to 91.8 million as at December 2016.
Except things get better and government gets more serious with the implementation of the National Broadband Plan (NBP), more subscribers may not eventually have access to the Internet. The situation has also led to a fall in the Average Revenue per User (ARPU) by 15.7 per cent.
ARPU is a measure used primarily by consumer communications and networking companies to calculate revenue made from a subscriber. It is defined as the total revenue divided by the number of subscribers.
The Guardian learnt that the ARPU, which dropped in 2016, fell in response to the economic realities in the country. An operator said that subscribers were generally spending less than they used to.
Investigations have shown that about 40 million Nigerians, residing in some 207 communities in the country still don’t have access to basic telecommunications services.
While these gaps persist, the aggressiveness of the states in charging exorbitant fees as Right of Way (RoW), against the collective agreed levy of N145 per meter, is another challenge observers projected may hamper the progress being made.
But the Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, while speaking with The Guardian, assured that the country would meet next year’s target, stressing that some efforts were already ongoing to ensure success.
The country has in the last few years attained a 14 per cent penetration, but relying on a UNESCO report, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Danbatta, put the mobile broadband penetration at 20.9 per cent. Market observers have, however, posited that even at the acclaimed 20 per cent penetration, data services remain very poor. They observed that for both 2G and 3G connections, not to talk of the much-touted 4G/LTE service offerings, “it is still a snail speed across all the networks.”
Indeed, subscribers who have migrated to the 4G/LTE services in the country have expressed dissatisfaction with the offerings from the mobile network operators.
Since October 4, 2016 when indigenous service provider, Globacom Networks launched the service, shortly followed by South Africa-based MTN on the 6th, and the United Arab Emirates’ Etisalat on the 14th, subscribers have been trooping to the nearest shops of their service providers to migrate to the new wonder generation fast speed network, but their expectations have not been met.
The Guardian learnt that the service may not even get perfected in Nigeria until 2020. The reasons adduced for this are that the 4G/LTE is still evolutionary, and that the infrastructure to run it is still very much inadequate in the country.
Nigeria is home to four submarine cables, including MainOne, Glo1; WACS and SAT3, with all having about 11 terabytes bandwidth capacity, but last mile infrastructure, multiple taxation, vandalism, among others, have continued to limit expansion of broadband services to other parts of the country.
Going by the NBP put up under the pioneer Minister of Communications Technology, Dr. Omobola Johnson, to which the current administration promised commitment, by 2014, the country was expected to have built fibre infrastructure across the country, introduced incentives for building of last mile wire line infrastructure to homes, estates, and commercial premises and extended international cable landing points to other coastal states. But The Guardian reliably learnt that only 15 per cent of this plan has been achieved with one year to the 2018 date.
Nigeria was also expected to have, between 2014 and 2015, ensured all new cell sites become LTE compatible; spread 3G services to at least 50 per cent of the population; completed digital dividend spectrum migration; and released more spectrum for LTE.
But because the country failed to migrate from analogue to digital in June 2015 due to lack of fund and the needed political will under the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, the digital dividend spectrum in the 700/800MHz could not be transferred from the broadcast industry to telecoms operators.
Furthermore, in 2017, the NBP timetable showed that the country was expected to have wireless broadband infrastructure upgrade and expansion in phase two, and expected to spread 3G/LTE to at least 70 per cent of the population, but information at the disposal of The Guardian showed that lack of access to foreign exchange by operators will limit their ability to order equipment needed to enhance roll-out of services.
According to the President of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Olusola Teniola, the steep devaluation of naira versus the United States dollar is serious and impacting negatively on the Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) programme of many operators in the telecoms industry.
Another target of the NBP for 2018, was the provision of wireless broadband infrastructure upgrade and spread of 3G/LTE to at least 80 per cent of the population, but there are skepticisms about the possibility of achieving this, especially because of the exorbitant levies by states and their agents on telecommunications operators, as it relates to RoW.
According to a document obtained by The Guardian, titled “The Resolution of the National Economic Council (NEC) on Multiple Taxation, Levies and Charges on ICT Infrastructure in Nigeria”, dated March 21, 2013, the states had agreed to an administrative charge of N145 per meter for every build and N20 per meter yearly recurring fee for existing duct with five years of review on RoW.
While the Lagos State government allows an operator to pay N500 per meter for RoW, prices from other states totally differ. Ogun, Oyo, Osun and Delta charge N6, 500, N5, 200, N4, 748 and N4, 600. They remained the highest. Anambra, Kano, Bayelsa, Niger, Ekiti, Sokoto, Kaduna, Ondo, Cross River charge N1, 270, N1, 200, N3000, N1, 000, N3, 500, N3, 000, N1, 130, N3, 000 and N2, 250.
According to the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), these charges are high and they will definitely affect fast broadband penetration.
On the way forward for telecoms operators, ALTON’s Head of Operations, Gbolahan Awonuga, said service providers’ request that duty tax waivers should be given to them should be given consideration. “We are finding things tough due to the current naira status and Nigeria ecosystem situation, we are not isolated from the impact. Telecoms operators should be allowed access to forex at lesser rate,” he said.
The Gambian government has switched off its telecommunication gateway from the outside world ahead of Thursday’s Presidential elections. Gamtel’s the nation’s main telecommunication company has turned off its international call gateway. International calls have been blocked. No one can call The Gambia from Europe, Asia, the Arab world, America, and Africa at this hour.
Local and international outcry greeted Gambia’s move to disrupt international calls. A Gambian living in New York, told the Freedom Newspaper he has phoned ten different lines in The Gambia without success. All the lines he dialed were off.
Another Gambian based in Denmark said he has spent over two hundred Euro to reach his family in The Gambia without success.
“I am disappointed at Jammeh’s move to disrupt international lines. This is outrageous,” he said.
A Gambian living in Sweden, said his wife also dialed five different lines in The Gambia, without success. He said his wife was trying to reach her parents, but the phone lines were switched off.
Gambia’s unhinged dictator Yahya Jammeh, has given directives to the country’s main telecommunication company Gamtel, for the Internet to be shut down on Thursday morning, marking election day in The Gambia, the Freedom Newspaper can reveal. International phone calls would also be blocked on polling day, sources said. Gambians on the ground will not have access to social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Viber, Tango, and snap chat.
The intercepted circular spelt out a game plan designed by the dictator to keep Gambians both at home and abroad from reporting happenings on elections day. Our trusted and dependable sources at Gamtel have alerted us about Jammeh’s plans to rig the polls and cover up the atrocities he intends to wage against the opposition.
Mr. Jammeh is seeking a fifth term re-election. He is one of the most unpopular candidates in this race.
Gamtel insiders said the order to yank the Internet from the outside world will commence in earnest at 7:00 AM Gambian time. Gamtel engineers are on standby to implement Jammeh’s order, sources said.
There are reports also circulating that on the spot counting might be abolished. The dictator wants to resort to his old trick of escorting ballot boxes to Governors offices for counting. The rigging usually occur during the transportation of ballot boxes.
In the meantime, some police men were seen around the vicinity of the Amadiyaa hospital carrying ballot boxes of Jammeh. There is growing suspicion that the dictator is going to rig the polls.
In another development, armed soldiers assaulted supporters of the opposition alliance, and Mama Kandeh’s GDC party. Some causalities have been recorded during the soldiers assault waged against the opposition followers late Tuesday evening, Some opposition supporters have been detained ahead of the polls.
The Postmaster General of the Nigeria Postal Service, NIPOST, Mr. Bisi Adegbuyi has said that the organization would be re-positioned to ensure better performance and be in a position to compete effectively.
Addressing NIPOST workers in Anambra Territory at its headquarters in Awka, Adegbuyi, who was on a familiarization tour of the area, said he has set machinery in motion to put NIPOST in a position where its services would compare with similar organizations in the world.
He said that one of the problems hindering the performance of NIPOST was financial leakages, assuring that he would do everything humanly possible to block the leakages in line with the zero tolerance for corruption of the Buhari administration.
Adegbuyi said: “I came in at a time the ship of NIPOST was drifting. There must be complete turn-around in the establishment and mine is to show the right way. We will reposition NIPOST and the starting point is to find the right path in which the right staff are put in the right places.
“I have gone round many NIPOST offices in the country and the problems are the same. We therefore have to start from ground zero because my objective is to move NIPOST to a position where the workers, the stakeholders and those we serve must be happy.
“One of the greatest problems we have is that the money we need is going into leakages and we have to block these leakages and plough the money back into the system to improve our services. Once our revenue improves, every worker in NIPOST will be happy.”
He said that he had already visited the National Salaries and Wages Commission for the purpose of reviewing workers’ salaries and payment of promotion arrears, advising the workers to change their attitude to work so that the country could have the kind of NIPOST it desired.
Liberia has been repeatedly cut off from the internet by hackers targeting its only link to the global network.
Recurrent attacks on November 3 flooded the cable link with data, making net access intermittent.
Researchers said the attacks showed hackers trying different ways to use massive networks of hijacked machines to overwhelm high-value targets.
Experts said Liberia was attacked by the same group that caused web-wide disruption on October 21.
Those attacks were among the biggest ever seen and made it hard to reach big web firms such as Twitter, Spotify and Reddit.
The attacks were the first to send overwhelming amounts of data from weakly protected devices, such as webcams and digital video recorders, that had been enrolled into what is known as a botnet.
A botnet variant called Mirai was identified by security firms as being the tool used to find and compromise the insecure devices.
The source code for Mirai has been widely shared and many malicious hacker groups have used it to seek out vulnerable devices they can take over and use to mount what are known as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.
“There’re multiple different botnets, each with a different owner,” security researcher Kevin Beaumont told the BBC. “Many are very low-skilled. Some are much better.”
For more than two weeks, my internet has not been working properly. At first I thought it was a problem with my internet provider, which often suffers from slow speeds. But this feels more serious.
Even when you do get online, the connection repeatedly cuts out. I’ve spent the past week trying to upload some photos and audio to send to London, without success.
A woman who runs a computer club for young people in the capital, Monrovia, tells me that they have been having trouble getting on to Facebook and that their connection has slowed in recent weeks.
The hotel I am staying at in the north-eastern town of Ganta is right next to the network tower of a company that provides my internet service, but the connection is still coming in and out.
The hackers behind the “huge” network that attacked Liberia, dubbed botnet#14, were “much more skilled”, Mr Beaumont said.
“The attacks are extremely worrying because they suggest a Mirai operator who has enough capacity to seriously impact systems in a nation state,” he wrote in a blogpost.
Network firm Level 3 confirmed to tech news site ZDNet that it had seen attacks on telecoms firms in Liberia making access to the web spotty. Other reports suggested mobile net access was affected too.
The attacks varied in length with some lasting only 30 seconds and the longest being sustained for a few minutes.
Net access in Liberia comes via an undersea cable whose capacity is shared with many other nations in West Africa.
“They’re trying a number of different techniques for short bursts, against the companies who own the submarine cable to Liberia,” said Mr Beaumont, adding that commands to botnet#14 seemed to originate in the Ukraine.
Mr Beaumont said the controllers of botnet#14 were refining their control of the attack system but it was not yet clear who it would be turned against next.
A Twitter account, called #Miraiattacks has been set up by a security company to monitor the many different attack targets hit by Mirai botnets. Earlier targets included computer security firms, schools, food-ordering services and gaming sites.
When Maria Grette first discovered that the 58-year-old Danish man with whom she had fallen in love was actually a 24-year-old Nigerian 419 internet scammer, the 62-year-old Swede was distraught. But, soon, her feelings changed.
“The most terrible thing was not that he had cheated me, but that he had lost his innocence,” she said.
She became consumed with what she describes as “a profound need to make a difference to the people of Nigeria”.
Ms Grette’s relationship with Johnny (not his real name) began after an evening of fun and games with her girlfriends, during which they playfully created a profile for her on an online dating website. A few years before, she had gone through a traumatic divorce, and her friends teased her about finally starting a new relationship.
But when the fun of creating her profile was over, Ms Grette, who works as an arts teacher, painter and arts therapist, didn’t give much further thought to the website.
“I received messages telling me that people had contacted me, but I never looked at them,” she said.
Then, one day, she did.
“I still don’t know why,” she said. “It was like a sudden impulse happening before I could stop it.”
That particular message was from a man who described himself as a Dane raised in South Carolina, USA; a civil engineer working on a contract in England; a widower with a son in a Manchester university.
“I was caught up by the atmosphere and by something in his words,” she said.
The pre-amble
Johnny: “I wish I could see through your eyes and see what you like to see”
Maria: “I like to see the truth, and often the truth is more beautiful and greater than people dare to realize”
Johnny: “You talk in parable´s. I can´t wait to see you”
Maria: “I cant understand how you can think so dedicated of me, when you have never met me. That scares me.”
“We spent some time writing, then he called from a UK number.”
Ms Grette, who had lived in different countries across Europe, was surprised that she could not place the man’s accent. She mentioned this to him but didn’t give it too much thought.
He told her that he was planning for his retirement; had Sweden in mind for a place to settle; owned a house in Denmark inherited from his parents; wanted to leave that to his son, Nick, who was very attached to it, while he looked for a new home for himself in Sweden.
“I wanted to meet him because I liked him,” she said. “He had a way and a sweetness I had never known in a man before. And he was innocent in a way that puzzled me.”
Ms Grette put all these qualities down to “an old fashioned upbringing and an isolated life – living in hotels and spending his free time on golf courses owing to much travelling”.
After three months of communicating, the man agreed to come over and visit her in Sweden. But before that, he and his son needed to make a quick trip to Nigeria for a job interview, he said.
Johnny called to let her know that he was at Heathrow Airport. And to say that he had landed in Nigeria. He also got her to speak with Nick. The next phone call was to tell her that he was in a Lagos hospital.
They had been mugged, his son shot in the head, and they were without money and papers.
Unfortunately, his bank did not have a branch in Africa, he added, so it would take time to transfer money from his UK account. Meanwhile, the hospital management was requesting €1000 to proceed with treatment.
The request
“Honey, I am in the hospital right now using the doctor´s laptop to send you this message so you can know my situation. Honey, if Nick dies I will also die with him, I have been crying, I wish I could call you, I wish I never came here, I will never forgive myself for bringing Nick along with me. I will call you with the doctor´s phone and send you an email later if I have the chanse.
“Honey, I am happy to hear from you and I am still at the hospital. The doctor said we where lucky we where not kidnapped. The bank does not have a location in Africa, so it will take time to get money and the management are requesting 1000 euros to proceed with treatment. Nick is all I have got and I will not forgive myself if anything happens to him. I am confused, and I do not know where to turn at the moment……”
“I will never forget how I rushed to the Western Union office, trembling while I did the transfer,” Ms Grette said.
“All I could think of was to get the two persons in Nigeria out of danger.”
The plot developed after that initial transfer. Medical complications called for more money. The doctors demanded more advance fees.
Several thousands of euro later, in what she describes as “coming to her senses”, Maria realised that something was amiss.
She stopped responding to his messages
Three weeks after her silence, he called her and confessed. He told her that he was not who she thought he was.
“I said I already knew that. I asked him to tell me his true identity and he did.”
He was a 24-year-old Nigerian 419 scammer. He had finished university two years earlier but had no job.
He further described himself as a “devil” who had wronged “a lovely woman”.
“He said he had never met anyone like me before, that he had been fighting his feelings for me for a long time. He said his scamming mates had warned him about falling in love with a ‘client’, that he had ignored them because he trusted me and did not want to lose contact with me.”
The reveal
From this point on, their communication took a new turn. There were no further requests for cash.
“The attraction I started feeling was to the person who was revealing himself to me… It was still him, but with a new name and different age and circumstances,” she said.
Johnny sent her a photograph of himself, but Maria was not satisfied with that.
“I wanted to meet him,” she said. “I could not live with this relationship unless it was adjusted to reality in all senses.”
Unable to get him a visa to travel to Sweden, she made up her mind to go to Nigeria.
In October 2009, Ms Grette travelled to Africa for the first time in her life.
“When I saw him at the airport in Abuja, tears fell over his face, and I knew I had known him all my life.”
Ms Grette described her two weeks in Nigeria as blissful, a period during which she and Johnny succeeded in transforming their romantic feelings for each other into a good friendship.
She met his friends, many of whom were also scammers. It was while enjoying their company one night in a local bar that she began to wonder how she could make a difference.
“I asked myself what I could do to prevent a situation where healthy, good young men fall into this trap,” she said.
An idea came to her two years later, in 2011, after she saw an article on a Nigerian news website about an arts exhibition.
Over the past six years, Ms Grette has arranged for a number of African artists to visit Europe for arts exhibitions, workshops, conferences and competitions.
She has assisted them to source international grants and other funding to advance their work.
She has also visited Uganda to give talks on art, and is looking forward to another visit to Nigeria scheduled for later this year.
Ms Grette, now 69 and living in Norway, is elated at the opportunity to improve the lives of these young artists.
“Johnny has given me more than he took,” she said, “Without him, I would not have met Africa.”
When she’d visited him in Abuja, Johnny promised Ms Grette that he would give up scamming.
With her assistance, he left Nigeria shortly afterwards, to study in America.
Although they have not met each other again since, she continued to provide him with financial assistance until he completed his degree a few years ago and got a job in the American oil sector.
They still communicate frequently, updating themselves on each other’s lives; and last year, he bought one of her paintings which she shipped over to him in America.
“He is very dear to me,” she said.
“He has asked me so many times to forgive him and I told him that the most important thing is to forgive himself.”
Someone in North Korea is in a lot of trouble. The secretive state somehow accidentally opened access to all the websites hosted on its servers, revealing that it only has 28 registered domains.
On Monday at around 10 p.m. Pacific time, North Korea’s nameserver – that contains information about all of the “.kp” websites – was misconfigured, allowing it to be accessed. This meant Matthew Bryant, a researcher, was able to access the domain names and some of the file data about the site.
Bryant dumped all of this on Github – a site that hosts computer code. It’s the first real look into the secret online world of the hermit state North Korea.
Some of the websites take long time to load and some are inaccessible. Among the 28 sites listed is one called Air Koryo, a flight booking site, and one named Friend, presumably some sort of social network.
One website that has always been accessible outside of North Korea is the Korean Central News Agency – the state-run propaganda site.
Justice Kudirat Jose of the Lagos State High Court, Ikeja yesterday convicted and sentenced a 25 year old man, Ibobo Frank alias James Simmons to two years imprisonment for defrauding two American women of various sums of money by posing as their white lover.
Frank, who was arraigned before the court by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on a two-count charge of possession of documents containing false pretence, pleaded guilty to the charge.
The EFCC counsel, Ade Adebayo had told the judge that the commission received a petition from “a concerned Nigerian”, who refused to disclose his identity, that a group of small boys living at different apartments located at Westwood Estate, Lekki, Ajah, Badore in Lagos, were living far beyond their means of livelihood.”
Adebayo also stated that after carrying out preliminary investigation, some EFCC operatives swooped on Westwood Estate on January 7, and arrested Frank.
The lawyer further disclosed that at the time of the arrest Frank had in his possession, with intent to defraud, email conversations sent between September 24 and December 18, 2014, containing false information wherein he represented himself as a white man to one Nancy Rooley.
He said Frank was also found in possession of email conversations sent between December 15 and 27 “containing a false pretence wherein he represented himself as James Simmons, a white man purportedly in love with one Shirley Davis.”
A worker at a Tennessee pet business set off a fierce online debate with a picture of a “bear” brought in for doggie day care.
The picture posted to Reddit was captioned, “Somebody brought this bear into doggie day care,” and the photo sparked a fierce debate — in the grand tradition of pointless Internet debates — about whether the animal was a young bear or a cleverly disguised dog.
The debate went on for dozens of comments before being settled by the original poster.
Ryan Horn, a worker at the Dog Spot in Nashville, unmasked himself as the picture’s original author and revealed the animal is in fact a dog — a Pomeranian mix. The Reddit poster admitted he knew the dog’s identity when he started the debate.
On the first day of the new year, anyone who has a cell phone that’s more than five years old will not be able to use it to access the encrypted web, BuzzFeed News reports. That includes accessing sites like Google, Facebook, and Twitter.
This Internet cutoff is part of a plan to keep encrypted websites secure. According to Ars Technica, these encrypted sites use SHA-1, a cryptographic algorithm, to protect themselves against hackers. Most of these major sites intended to upgrade their security in January 2017 regardless, but because hacking threats have become more imminent, they are upgrading them sooner. As of Jan. 1, 2016, only SHA-2 certificates will be accepted, which people who have older model phones don’t have.
CEO of CloudFlare Matthew Prince recently conducted research with Facebook showing as many as 7 percent of the world’s Internet users might be affected by this SHA-1 cut-off. “It is important to remember that the Internet is not just guys with the newest laptops and an iPhone 6,” he told BuzzFeed.
Of course this isn’t as big of an issue in the United States as it is in developing countries, Prince elaborated: “We didn’t want to be hyperbolic. We wanted to be realistic. For the developing world, on average, 4 to 5 percent of visitors will simply be cut off.”
The European parliament will take a key vote on Tuesday on rules affecting how internet traffic is managed.
MEPs are considering a new set of rules for telecoms companies inside the EU.
The plan could have major implications for net neutrality, where traffic is not slowed down or priced differently because of its content or origin.
Some people fear the plan may lead to such restrictions but others argue that first it would have to be turned into specific regulations.
Some tech companies, campaign groups and the inventor of the web Sir Tim Berners-Lee have all called for the adoption of amendments to the rules, which they believe would better safeguard the principles of net neutrality.
However, this would mean rejecting the plan in a form to which EU governments have already agreed.
Another part of the legislation, which would abolish mobile roaming charges within the EU, is popular with MEPs, so enthusiasm for rejecting it in its current form and further delaying this move is low, according to some analysts.
What is net neutrality?
The idea that data should be ferried from place to place as quickly as possible, regardless of what it is, is how most people assume the internet works.
That’s the essence of net neutrality.
However, it’s possible to decide to prioritise certain types of data over others – perhaps, for example, by charging the producers of such data a fee to make sure their content gets delivered promptly.
For big video streaming sites, the prospect is worrying. They could find themselves coughing up lots of money in fees simply to give their users the same experience as before.
Some argue, however, that such fees are fair since it costs internet service providers a lot of money to keep providing such content, no matter how popular the streaming sites become.
The United Nations Broadband Commission, an arm of the United Nations has said that growth in the number of people with access to the Internet is slowing, and that more than half the world’s population is still offline.
According to UN, Internet access in rich economies is reaching saturation levels but 90 per cent of people in the 48 poorest countries have none.
The body said the access growth rate is expected to slow to 8.1 per cent this year, down from 8.6 per cent in 2014. Until 2012, growth rates had been in double digits for years.“We have reached a transition point in the growth of the Internet,” the UN report said.
The commission, set up in 2010 by the International Telecommunication Union and UNESCO, the U.N. scientific and cultural agency, said the milestone of four billion Internet users was unlikely to be passed before 2020.
Shortly after New York Magazine unveiled its attention-grabbing Bill Cosby cover story entitled “Cosby: The Women,” from a painstaking result of six months of interviews and careful planning, their entire site was abruptly taken offline by an anonymous hacker. Soon afterwards, critics began pointing some accusing comments on Cosby, alleging his conivance with the hacker who took down the site.
However, The hacker, known only as ThreatKing, said he did not care about Bill Cosby but hates the “many stupid people” of New York.
While in an interview with an online media, ThreatKing said he “overwhelmed the site with a distributed denial of service attack” which overloaded its servers with traffic.
On his hatred of NYC, ThreatKing maintained that he found so many things wrong in New York, hence, his choice of the city for attacks.
News reaching Us says He also claimed that his hatred of New York was based on some jeers and intimidations he received from the people when he visited New York city. “I’ve seen many pranks gone wrong at new york. That got me pissed. That’s why I chose New York,” he said.
“I went to new York 2 months ago. It was really bad. Someone pranked me. Everyone started laughing and shit. The first 10 hours being there. Some African-American tried to prank me with a fake hand gun,” lamented ThreatKing.
He further maintained that he plans to continue instigating similar attacks on other New York media outlets. “I’ll try my best to keep [New York] offline for 14 hours,” ThreatKing said, adding, strangely, that “we would control the Internet if we had enough money. Because each server costs money.”
Everywhere you turn these days, you hear this strange analogy;
“Data is the next crude oil”. Some even say, “Data is the next Gold “
Spoiler alert, data is not the next crude oil, or Gold or Unobtainium! Having tons of terabytes of data will not save a dying company or organization. Like everything big tech these days, there is a coordinated strategy to get businesses buying into this concept, even if it is not needed.
Don’t just take my word for it, lets do a little digging together. What is data? Why is it all of a sudden big? Data is facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis. So big data is also big facts, big stats, big reference and/or big analysis. So what’s new? Why the fuss? Well, before social media and smart phones, we didn’t have much data to give. That’s all changed now. We now emit data doing the most basic of tasks! (It’s possible to generate data when we sneeze! Yeah, it’s possible! Your phone just needs to feel the vibration, analyses the sound, compares it to some database of ‘sneeze sound’ somewhere, confirms it’s a sneeze and store all the details about the sneeze!) We are now data machines. I am sure we would all cringe if we knew the amount of data we can or do generate. So lots of data and like crude oil companies are to just simply mine and refine this to hit the jackpot? Well not so fast. The gathering and storing of data is a tedious and painstaking job and although businesses need data in one form or another, it’s not the sole need of a business. Proponents of big data give various use cases of how it will drive your business and give you better insight but they fail to stress the fact that its implementation and execution requires very skilled sophistication. Companies like Facebook and Google have mastered the art of gathering and storing data in gigantic volumes and they have based their business model on selling products and services based on data. They have also invested heavily in technologies, software and personnel to constantly improve their processes.
One of the end products of data is reports and when refined further we get insights. Currently most companies that don’t use big data technologies generate enough reports and insights but still struggle to implement or take actions. Why? Reasons vary from firm to firm, but one factor common to most companies is the need to innovate and that has been interpreted to an investment in new technology. Using the financial services industry as an example, Banks are haemorrhaging fines for crimes to their clients and customers, but are also investing in big data technology so they can have more access to our wallet. Data gathering is about trust and/or benefits. Facebook and Google can directly gather data about us because they render a service to us while most Apple customer simply trust the company. Although banks indirectly have data about us, through credit agencies, there is a law that guides what they can do with it. Insurance firms are investing in big data, to gather pricing information that would be used in calculating a customer’s policy. Customers are now getting smarter and switching insurers every year.Some insurers, Axa for example, have decided to be more open to their customers, instead of relying on complex pricing models. They hope to retain more customers by simply telling the truth. There is also a drive for smaller businesses. Lots of entrepreneurs want to target a niche and stick to it. We can’t place a value on personal service and until there is an algorithm or robot that can sense a prospective customer’s mood and manage business conversations better than humans, smaller businesses and openness will be the way for new and established businesses respectively.
So are you a business thinking of investing in big data? Well if you are not a team of data scientist consulting for some of the big tech firms, I will suggest you turn your focus to other problems. Embrace being open and social. Let your customers know where you are, where you want to go and how you want to get there. Show them the exact cost of your services and why you charge what you charge. Don’t try amassing data indirectly. Customers will give you the data you need if they see a benefit or if they trust you. And don’t analyze such data for profit, analyze it for service, use it to give a far better and superior product or service. Data is not the next crude oil. Think of it more like engine oil. You only need oil change after a few thousand miles, so get to work.
Views expressed are solely that of author and does not represent views of www.omojuwa.com nor its associates
If you think you are tech savvy all because you know what “LOL” means, let me test your coolness.
Any idea what “IWSN” stands for in Internet slang?
It’s a declarative statement: I want sex now.
If it makes you feel any better, I had no clue, and neither did a number of women I asked about it.
Acronyms are widely popular across the Internet, especially on social media and texting apps, because, in some cases, they offer a shorthand for communication that is meant to be instant
So “LMK” — let me know — and “WYCM” — will you call me? — are innocent enough.
But the issue, especially for parents, is understanding the slang that could signal some dangerous teen behavior, such as “GNOC,'” which means “get naked on camera.”
And it certainly helps for a parent to know that “PIR” means parent in room, which could mean the teen wants to have a conversation about things that his or her mom and dad might not approve of.
Katie Greer is a national Internet safety expert who has provided Internet and technology safety training to schools, law enforcement agencies and community organizations throughout the country for more than seven years.
She says research shows that a majority of teens believe that their parents are starting to keep tabs on their online and social media lives.
“With that, acronyms can be used by kids to hide certain parts of their conversations from attentive parents,” Greer said. “Acronyms used for this purpose could potentially raise some red flags for parents.”
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But parents would drive themselves crazy, she said, if they tried to decode every text, email and post they see their teen sending or receiving.
“I’ve seen some before and it’s like ‘The Da Vinci Code,’ where only the kids hold the true meanings (and most of the time they’re fairly innocuous),” she said.
Still, if parents come across any acronyms they believe could be problematic, they should talk with their kids about them, said Greer.
But how, on earth, is a parent to keep up with all these acronyms, especially since new ones are being introduced every day?
“It’s a lot to keep track of,” Greer said. Parents can always do a Google search if they stumble upon an phrase they aren’t familiar with, but the other option is asking their children, since these phrases can have different meanings for different people.
“Asking kids not only gives you great information, but it shows that you’re paying attention and sparks the conversation around their online behaviors, which is imperative.”
