Activists on Facebook need protection: senator

Facebook has become an important tool for democracy and human rights activists and it needs to do more to protect them, including allowing the use of pseudonyms, a US senator said Thursday.
"Recent events in Egypt and Tunisia have again highlighted the significant costs and benefits of social networking technology like Facebook to democracy and human rights activists," Senator Dick Durbin said in a letter to Facebook co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.
"I commend you for providing an important tool to democracy and human-rights activists," the Democrat from Illinois said.
"However, as millions of people around the world use Facebook to exercise their freedom of expression, I am concerned that the company does not have adequate safeguards in place to protect human rights and avoid being exploited by repressive governments," Durbin said.
"Facebook has facilitated efforts by activists to organize demonstrations and publicize human-rights abuses," he said.
"At the same time, the Egyptian and Tunisian governments have reportedly used Facebook to monitor activists, which is surely aided by Facebook's refusal to allow activists to use pseudonyms," the senator said, citing Belarus, China, and Iran as other countries using social networking to track activists.
Durbin repeated a call for Facebook, which has nearly 600 million users, to join the Global Network Initiative (GNI), which has drafted a voluntary code of conduct to protect human rights and whose members include Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!
Responding to the senator's letter, Andrew Noyes, a Facebook spokesman, said "the trust people place in us is the most important part of what makes Facebook work.
"As demonstrated by our response to threats in Tunisia, we take this trust seriously and work aggressively every single day to protect people," he said.
As for pseudonyms, Noyes said: "Facebook has always been based on a real name culture, and we fundamentally believe this leads to greater accountability and a safer and more trusted environment for people who use the service."
Referring to the appeal to join GNI, Noyes said, "as Facebook grows, we'll absolutely be considering which groups we can actively participate in but it's important to remember that our global operations are still small, with offices in only a handful of countries."Activists on Facebook need protection: senator

Cyber crooks targeting smartphones: McAfee

Smartphones have become prime targets for hackers and spammers, computer security firm McAfee said in a report released Tuesday. The number of pieces of malicious software, referred to as "malware," surged 46 percent last year as compared with 2009, according to a McAfee Threats Report for the final three months of 2010. "Cybercriminals are keeping tabs on what's popular, and what will have the biggest impact from the smallest effort," said McAfee Labs senior vice president Vincent Weafer. "We've seen a significant shift in various regions, showing that cybercriminals are tapped in to trends worldwide," he continued. "McAfee Labs also sees the direct correlation between device popularity and cybercriminal activity, a trend we expect to surge in 2011." McAfee has seen software threats to mobile devices steadily increase in recent years as the popularity of smartphones and tablet computers has climbed. "Threats to mobile platforms are not new," McAfee said in the report. "However, as more consumers use mobile devices and tablets in their daily lives and at work, cybercriminals have taken note." Geinimi malware slipped into legitimate games and other applications for Android-based mobile phones was listed by McAfee as "one of the most important threats of the quarter." As greater varieties of smartphones, tablets, televisions, and computers link to the Internet, hackers are likely to resort to "poisoning" Internet search results with links to websites booby-trapped with malware, according to McAfee. "Web-based threats will continue to grow in size and sophistication," McAfee said. Hacker tactics include luring people to bogus websites and then tricking them into downloading malware or revealing valuable information. Adobe software products such as Flash and Acrobat were the "clear choice of malware authors and cybercriminals" when it came to compromising computers or networks, according to McAfee, In good news, spam in the final quarter of 2010 hit is lowest level in three years, the report indicated.

The Missing E-Factor

E commerce or electronic commerce is an evergreen medium. It not only has transformed the conventional commerce and trading, but Internet has also opened hundreds and thousands of new businesses for millions of people belonging to the any part of the world.

To be very honest, the Internet has redefined everything that belongs to businesses and trading pursuits. World Wide Web, as it happens, transmutes failing businesses into Fortune 500 companies and this virtual kingmaker may also turn a period of absolute economic decline into a massive financial boom for slow growing SME’s, companies and business firms.
Online world is a quite specialized, separate and unique field involving meticulous business strategies, policies and planning just like offline conventional world. Unfortunately, most of the businessmen in our country take the Internet just for granted. Disregarding the advantages and benefits this online world offers to both local and global business communities, here our local businessmen in Pakistan mistakenly consider the online world as a mere source of fun and pleasure meant for the underage groups and good-for-nothing gadabout.
Businesses are flourished at the Internet. Businesses may also die at the Internet if not given the due attention. This particular Internet becomes a place of reincarnation for many businesses whereas, at the same time, Internet serves like an undertaker for some unfortunate trading entities.
In spite of the benefits and blessings offered by the Internet, this unique and very cost-effective communication medium can be easily regarded as most abused medium of communication in Pakistan. Where a majority of visionless young souls waste their time and energy in finding explicit content and images, the other side consisting of businessmen also considers the Internet as a secondary source of marketing and promotion, thus giving less importance and value to World Wide Web unfortunately.
Several countries like India, Bangladesh, China, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand etc. are really generating sizeable revenues by using these online resources. As far as online trading is concerned, Pakistani businessmen and traders are still far behind whereas our neigbouring country has experienced a phenomenal growth by utilizing online business channels and web portals.
For example, www.worldoftrade.com is a leading business-to-business portal on the web and hundreds and thousands of leading manufacturers and corporations including a great number of small, medium and large enterprises (SME’s) from all over the world are using this website to make contacts with global business communities. Apart from generating millions of revenues, www.worldoftrade.comnow is supposed to be an international gateway to enter in the international market and the same online portal, originally operated from Arab territory, has also become trade mark of Islamic region itself. Pakistani exporters, manufacturers and business people can easily utilize this great portal to make contacts with rest of the business world without putting lots of efforts.
When offline traditional trading is hit by severest recessions, this is the Internet which is, in fact, beyond any kind of economic recessions and online businesses get flourished here on the web despite economic slumps in conventional markets. Businessmen of Pakistan need to realize that Internet is not just the medium to energize mindless teens as, in actual fact, Internet is an alternative revenue-generating resource for real businesses.
While most of Internet literate Pakistani youth know nothing than using this speedy medium for ordinary things like needlessly chatting with opposite gender even by making fake online identities, Internet offers a number of untapped business opportunities to genuine businesses as well. Make your website in a way that brings exceptional traffic, concentrate on social marketing of your products and services, and also participate in leading business portals and websites to meet with rest of the businessmen like you living in other parts of the world.
Skipping the web may just result in your total isolation brining your businesses to a level of further saturation or, better to say, your complete diminution from the corporate picture. Not only junk messages automatically sent from rated websites, your inbox may also receive genuine business inquiries from your prospective buyers and suppliers from all over the world. Most of the ignorant people seem to be concerned about receiving malicious virus via misleading emails. But in reality, the actual virus is rooted in our constipated minds prohibiting us from using the Internet, a great form of speedy communication, for the greater benefits of our businesses and trading activities. You can still express your long kept love to your sweetheart through a prolonged email written with alluring emoticons and love symbols, the even better option is to allure rest of the online business towards your own business and products.
Facebook is downgraded into an online trash-box where we regularly dump our emotional garbage and also share others’ trivia in the name of social networking. On the other hand, there are also many other businessmen and trade opportunists who utilise Facebook for leveraging and facilitating their entire social marketing initiatives and campaigns in a very cost effective way.
Having made all essential arrangements to promote your business offline, why don’t you now make an online showroom now? Here are the many business portals and websites especially created for this purpose. The most interesting fact is that you don’t need to recruit a separate staff or other human resources at your online showrooms as this virtual existence only requires one man’s attention, dedication as well as meticulous utilisation of online resources to make sizeable money out of the Internet.
Most of the local businessmen in Pakistan consider that making a website is just enough to mark your organisational presence on the web. Business development is an ongoing process which despite earning the entire fortune never finds a killing word like ‘enough’. Making a website is definitely a praiseworthy step taken by any businessman but just think how many websites are daily launched on the web and how many of them get viewed by visitors. We can never expect receiving considerable traffic on our websites without making additional efforts as this online medium contains millions of websites wherein all of these websites and portals continuously strive hard to get top listings in search engines like Google. There must be a solution which may bring you on top in the search results.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the name of this solution which not only helps your website come at top at Google but also paves the way for your whole corporate and business growth on the web. After launching a website, just spend a few more rupees and get your site optimized by a professional SEO expert and see the difference. In fact, all big companies, mega corporations and business tycoons get their websites optimized on regular basis so that they can get the top space in search engines like Google. Whether you company belongs to SME’s category or your organization looking for immediate business expansion, let’s get started right away.
The fact is that people now know about ecommerce or familiar with this term but their overall knowledge and expertise on this booming phenomenon of ecommerce is relatively low than traders operating their businesses in modern countries.
Earlier said, Internet is supposed to be a whole new world offering loads of business and trading opportunities to businesses, and has become a distinctive profit channel  generating billions of dollars for various industrial, banking, financial and services based sectors of the world. Those traders who know this medium effectively have already generated exceptional profits and earnings but what about rest of the traders and entrepreneurs in our country who are still reluctant to utilize online medium for the greater benefits on their own businesses.