“Nicee! YYour ass lookss greatt on thiss video!!” How to prevent these  unsolicited and aggravating messages that are spreading among Facebook users

The past few days I have received messages from family and friends regarding links to videos on FACEBOOK. Some of the content found in these links include: “Hidden cameras, booty calls, Phattt Asss, can’t fall asleep after viewing videos, and so on. First of all, I live in the South which is referred to as the repository of booties. So, I don’t need to look at a video to see booty! I see it all over the place: Wal-mart, the beach, heck even in church!  For the record, I have retained my innocence!

But these messages that continue to circulate Facebook and other social networks are not from the alleged senders. Assuming a lot of you don’t know why they are getting those messages, I have taken the liberty to acquaint you with this existing threat. I presume that if you are reading this post and have received one of those messages, your computer is already infected. So by all means, read on!

For those of you who do not know or have not heard by now, this barrage of messages is a result of a computer WORM known as Koobface. Koobface was discovered and reported sometime in 2008 and is extremely aggravating. What Koobface does basically is tricks you into responding to a message “supposedly” sent from one of your friends. When you click on the link, you are routed to a FAKE YouTube Web site where you will be asked to install a plug-in to be able to view the video. Clicking on the plug-in triggers an installation of a Trojan horse, this subsequently gives the writer of the WORM control of your computer. The WORM subsequently “commandeers” or hijacks your Facebook account and/or those attached to other targeted social networks. Subsequently, it begins sending additional INVITES to your friends. And this goes on until everyone gets infected.

I am not going to bore you with technical details on Koobface, but what I will do is “beg” you to take several actions to save us all further aggravation. The “advice” I give below may not be the ultimate panacea, but they do help prevent being infected by malware. Please continue reading!   

1. BE CAUTIOUS – Watch what you click on or should I say, investigate before clicking.
2. ALERT YOUR FRIENDS – If your name appears in a post that you didn’t initiate, send an alert to your friends and family and let them know that you are not the one sending those posts and that they should DELETE it immediately.    
3. INSTALL AND FREQUENTLY UPDATE YOUR ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE and run a virus checker always. If you don’t have antivirus software, look online and find a FREE one although you should investigate the conditions of “FREE” before proceeding to installation. AVG Antivirus from www.Grisoft.Com works for some people; you might want to try the free one.       
4. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DELETE YOUR FACEBOOK ACCOUNT IF YOU ARE A VICTIM OF THESE MESSAGES.  If you discover that you’ve been infected by KoobFace, log out of FACEBOOK and clean your computer. Logging out of Facebook prevents the worm from having the ability to keep posting more links.

1. IF YOU SPEND LONG HOURS ON THE INTERNET, USE A COMPUTER WITH A DIFFERENT OPERTING SYSTEM (Linux or Mac) – IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT.  This way, you can save your important files on a back up computer that does not connect to the Internet frequently. Here’s why I suggest this: I run a total of 7 computers at home; only two of them have Microsoft Windows operating system installed on them (Server2003 and XP>>now piloting Windows 7).  The others run various distributions of Linux (Ubuntu Server and client, Mandriva, and Slackware). And then of course there’s my Macintosh OS X. Obviously, by now you think I am crazy running all these systems. No, I am not; this act of eccentricity as my unique REDUNDANCY solution. If you don’t know by now, Cyber-criminals/Crackers/hackers usually target Windows-based operating systems before they attempt to attack other operating systems. Besides, who has time to write malware for a Mac?  Anyway, whenever a computer virus that targets Windows emerges, and everyone gets infected, five of mine remain online……! Trust me, I do scream when I get my electric bill!!

1. Timeo danaos et dona ferentis-(Fear the Greeks even when they bear gifts). BE CAREFUL OF “FREE” THINGS. Just as the Internet educates, entertains and serves us, so too can it bring harm to us. And this can happen when we dwell on getting “FREE” things off the Internet without investigating whether there’s a catch. You see, I am an Open Source guy; I believe in the word “Free” especially when it involves collaborative genius. Knowledge, I believe, should be shared and not monopolized – my opinion of course.  Yet, even in the Open Source community where the word “Free” is so freely used, there are some conditions involved.

Finally, I am not asking you to run 7 computers and a plethora of operating systems. NO! Absolutely NOT! What I am asking is that you exercise some level of caution and intellectual curiosity while on the Internet. ASK, ASK, and ASK, before you click!!!!!

As a kid, my siblings and I vacationed in Weasua, Gbarpolu County, where my father owned his diamond mining business. In those days, whenever we got sick, we would have to cut short our vacation and fly back to Monrovia because the local clinic did not have the equipment to treat our illnesses. In 2007, while in Haiti on a study of that country’s telecommunications industry, I developed a slight stomach illness which led me to the nearest clinic. While at the clinic I was instantly reminded of the clinic in Weasua which I had visited several years ago. But what was seemingly different about the Haitian rural clinic was that it had several portable electronic devices which I immediately recognized. I discovered subsequently that those devices were part of a telemedicine (the use of ICT to provide clinical care at a distance) program which had been initiated by a group of foreign health workers. At that point, thoughts of being sent back to the United States had evaded my mind since the telemedicine program was set up to prevent unnecessary travels to the main city for illnesses that were considered minor. As I expected, the nurse did her preliminary diagnosis, entered the results into a handheld computer, and sent the information to the main hospital in Port au Prince (the capitol of Haiti). In about two hours, a courier entered with a delivery which happened to be my prescription. By evening time that day, I was discharged and sent back to work with my team. That experience is the basis on which today’s article was written. I will discuss the injection of ICT in the health sector by implementing a telemedicine program, especially in rural areas. Although I firmly believe that the appropriate telemedicine applications can improve the health sector and save more lives, there are many aspects of the health system that require a shift in paradigm in order to provide viable healthcare.

While the number of doctors may be growing in Liberia, health workers, especially nurses who serve the rural population are isolated from specialists’ support, up-to-date information, and opportunities to exchange experiences with colleagues. This situation presents the same situation with which I was faced in Weasua several years ago. As our partners (NGOs and other organizations) make available their resources (helicopters, vehicles, etc), the unavailability of the much needed technology to facilitate healthcare in rural areas presents a challenge for nurses and other healthcare workers. With telemedicine, some of these challenges can be alleviated and lot of lives could be saved because information will be shared effectively and promptly. So, what is telemedicine?

Telemedicine is the use of telecommunication technologies to provide healthcare services over long distances and can be used to improve healthcare as well as enhance economic development in a developing country like Liberia. It allows physicians to provide consultations, collect and share uniform laboratory data and medical records to provide health care. The introduction and implementation of telemedicine technologies in Liberia has the potential to change the course of healthcare delivery, especially in the rural areas. Telemedicine will allow doctors at the John F. Kennedy hospital to be able to diagnose and treat a patient in remote areas like Weasua or Yekepa without having the patient visit the main hospital in Monrovia. This can be done in real time! It is ideal for a counter-response to the threat of national disasters by ensuring that real-time medical care is available to victims of disasters despite the location.

With Liberia at such critical stage in the recovery process, the implementation of a national telemedicine program will provide a solution for the scarcity of a specialist, the lack of an effective media of communications, as well as provide up-to-date information and education for health workers. Telemedicine allows doctors to perform several tasks remotely and seamlessly; tasks which in the past, required patients’ visits to hospitals in the main cities costing them huge sums of money for transportation. Pregnant women will also benefit from this because doctors will be able to perform fetal monitoring remotely and consult health care workers to examine “prospective” mothers in order to keep apprised of their pregnancies. This will save a lot of babies as well as the “prospective” mothers. Telemedicine can make a difference in how healthcare delivery to the poor in implemented. Statistically, rural areas have been listed as those areas with high population and the poorest of citizens. If we implement a national telemedicine program that can reach that population, we will greatly improve our healthcare system.

Telemedicine has been successful in several African countries including Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Niger, Guinea, Tanzania, Kenya, just to name but a few. I am absolutely confident that telemedicine will work well in Liberia because of our booming mobile telecommunications industry which has changed the way Liberians communicate. GSM technology has brought affordable and easy access mobile phone access hence, facilitating any initiative to implement telemedicine. WIMAX can enable video conferencing and high speed broadband connections will allow the use of interactive media that will allow doctors and health workers provide quality health care for all Liberians.

It must be noted that the success of telemedicine in Liberia does not fall solely in the hands of the government.  The initiative must involve all stakeholders otherwise the benefits will never be reaped. There must be an effective partnership among all stakeholders to ensure the success of this endeavor. Furthermore, there may be fears about the costs of telemedicine but what is more important; the lives of our citizens or a few dollars that might most likely end up in the wrong pockets?

Another issue that needs to be addressed is the education of health workers to enable them to provide better care for their patients. Nurses, who along with teachers are my most revered professionals, must be given the best education and tools to keep up-to-date on the changes that are occurring in the health field. New technologies continue to change the way things are done, hence they need to have access to current information relating to their profession. Also, apart from having nurses attend “nursing schools or colleges” our health system should provide technologies that give them access to the internet from where they can gain a wealth of information and resources to better themselves as well as connect, collaborate, and communicate with other health workers in the global community. Below are a few of the approaches I would suggest to the health care authorities:

• Allow nurses to travel to Western countries so that they will attend training programs and bring back some of the best practices of their profession and spread it across the health care spectrum.

• Give nurses PDAs (Personal Data Assistants) containing up-to-date basic reference materials as part of their continuing medical education.

• Provide all necessary technologies to healthcare professionals so that they are informed about trends in healthcare and the practical impact, positive or negative, that new standards, technologies, and products will have.   
• Provide access to Email, chat, and instant messaging to healthcare workers. These tools can be used on PDA’s (i.e. Palm Pilot).  Email, chat, instant messaging and now video conferencing are very economical solutions to support healthcare in remote areas because of their store and foreword functionality. All of these tools are very user-friendly and they can be found in the Open Source environment which is free or obtained as COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf) solutions.  They allow the sending of e-mail attachments such as image files, thereby permitting a form of low cost telemedicine. Video conferencing can also be done in a low cost way by using the appropriate application with cheap hardware (Webcam). SKYPE is an excellent tool that is ideal for health workers. Its video conferencing features are great for communications between doctors in the main city and nurses in the rural areas.           
• Extend broadband capacity to villages. This has to be done through or in collaboration with LIBTELCO
• Purchase vehicles that are equipped with telemedicine technologies to be used for to travel to rural areas and to help train rural health workers while also providing health services         
• Setup an HIV AIDS helpline to allow individuals report illnesses anonymously. Some individuals, for the fear of disgrace, may not want to publicly report their illnesses. If a medium for anonymous reporting is established, cases will be reported and hopefully, there will be a decrease in the number of Liberians dying from the disease.  

Now, while I advocate the use of ICT to improve our healthcare system, we should not be tempted to emulate Western healthcare system which is no doubt different than ours. Without considering the sustainability aspect, telemedicine could have a negative impact on the continuity of the system. And unless we understand the technological and cultural readiness our country and its health care practitioners, embarking on this initiative will be fruitless and may even cause more problems

The advent of ICTs has unleashed new opportunities for the delivery of health services. Yet, despite these new opportunities, the Liberian healthcare sector is still faced with several challenges in meeting the healthcare requirements of residents in rural areas of the country. Some of the challenges are little or no access to emergency treatment in rural areas, inadequate information dissemination, inadequate infrastructure, to name but a few. With so many inadequacies coupled with increased demand for improved health care delivery, telemedicine applications tend to be the ideal solution to address the challenges of healthcare delivery in Liberia. I know my critics will say that I am proffering solutions that have the reconstruction of basic facilities as a prerequisite for implementation. But I disagree with them all the time because their idea of the construction of basic facilities do not subsume the use of creative energies to identify and pioneer new and innovative solutions to problems that we have experienced from before the time I was born. Liberia needs visionaries; people who can think outside the box; people can dare to explore the unfamiliar for the betterment of the country. Liberia does not need individuals who espouse the status quo because it benefits them. We are in a new world, with new ideas and new ways of thinking. My philosophy which has been buttressed by demands from my employers is that there is always a solution to a problem. You just have to be creative and willing to explore the unfamiliar. That’s how new innovations emerge!

Plugging into the “Cloud”- How Cloud Computing can enhance ICT penetration in Liberia

By: Darren Wilkins, MS, MBA, MIS

Several factors have been identified as barriers to ICT penetration in Liberia and most developing countries. The lack of capacity and the lack of infrastructure are two of the most frequently mentioned factors in discourses relating to ICT penetration in developing countries, especially in Liberia. I have been told – on several occasions – that the mean reason for Liberia’s slow pace toward a “digital revolution” is the lack of low cost, high-speed Internet/Telecommunications access. This basically refers to a connection to an underwater fiber optic cable (the controversial SAT3/WASC/SAFE submarine cable) which is located around the West and South coasts of Africa. Granted this is the main reason, what then are we doing in its absence (submarine connection) to prepare for the “digital revolution that will take place when we finally achieve a connection? Do we wait until we get connected before we start preparing? Or should we use the little resources that we currently have to prepare for the future? Are we going to continue saying: “Liberia is not ready yet” for the next 10 years?

Whenever I hear the statement, “Liberia is not ready for ICT yet”, I often argue that Liberia became ready from the day the first email was sent across its boarders into the global network. And of course, the Internet and technological advancements have further propelled Liberia’s readiness for the inevitable digital revolution that is soon to come.  In fact Cloud Computing, which is the topic I have chosen to discuss today, is a quintessential technological advancement that negates any form of argument that claims the lack of capacity and infrastructure is the reason for Liberia’s slow progress toward ICT penetration. The problem, as I have come to surmise, is that Liberians often tend to underestimate our own capabilities; or could it be we are just too complacent with the status quo? I feel much better believing the former than the latter!

So, what is Cloud Computing? How can it be applied to or how can it benefit Liberia? In the following paragraphs I explore a relatively new computing paradigm which I believe can be applied in Liberia. The application of this form of computing to Liberia was initially explored by Mr. Kamara Watson Jr., another Liberian ICT professional. I chose to further expand on it in hopes that it will be embraced when knowledge of it is disseminated across the Liberian spectrum.

Basically, Cloud Computing is computing over the Internet using Web services and applications. It involves a lot of scalable and virtualized resources and everything is virtually provided as a service. It introduces new computing paradigms such as: Software as a service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), and my favorite, Platform as a service (PaaS). Cloud Computing eliminates the need for a customer/user to spend resources on assets such as software and hardware. For example, if you open a small office, you would need capital to purchase computers, software licenses, etc. This can cost a lot and have a humongous impact on your capital investment. With Cloud Computing, you would not need to purchase software or a lot of hardware (servers, etc) to run your own ICT infrastructure. While you will need a few low cost hardware (computers or terminals), your entire ICT infrastructure will be provided by “the Cloud” (which is the data center of a provider), and be billed for usage, storage, security, and so on. This means your ICT needs will be provided as a service.  You see Cloud Computing applies a model known as utility computing which parallels the model used by companies like the Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC) or COMIUM in which the customer is billed on a subscription basis.

Cloud Computing can be perceived in many ways depending on the individual. It can be perceived as an amalgam of Web-based applications, as the renaissance of the thin-client or centralized computing (used in UNIX computing), as Utility Computing (UC), as Parallel Computer (PC) and so on. To me, it is the future of computing! It is the new computing paradigm that will shape the digital revolution, not only in Liberia, but in Africa. Cloud Computing is the latest catchphrase in companies like Microsoft, IBM, Google, Amazon, and many other companies and has now become the new “revolution” in the IT industry.

What makes Cloud Computing ideal for Liberia is that it (the country) is still struggling to rebuild its infrastructure, lacks the resources (money and capacity), but is making efforts to garner global attention for economic development. Below I have inserted a diagram in which I use a hypothetical situation to describe how ALL geographical regions in Liberia will be able to ubiquitously compute by plugging into the “Cloud”. In the diagram, the cloud represents a “state-of-the-art data center to be erected in Monrovia (or any chosen location) which will house servers that can be accessed from every geographical area of Liberia. This will minimize, if not eliminate capital expenditure for stakeholders. It will also reduce storage footprint, the cost of power, and the number of required staff to run ICT infrastructures in the 15 counties. There will however, still be a need for other utilities which I presume are being explored or implemented.

Cloud Computing levels the playing field for small companies and countries to compete with bigger ones in terms of IT infrastructure and capacity. It allows the poor computer programmer who does not have a programming platform to use a “Platform as a Service (PaaS) such as Google App Engine to compete with programmers at large companies like IBM or Microsoft. It will also allow a student in Maryland County to be able to access online books or resources even though her county does not have an ICT infrastructure. The county health officer in Weasua or other rural areas will have direct access to the Ministry of Health’s database as well as to doctors at the John F. Kennedy Medical Center. These are some of the things “plugging into the Cloud” will do for Liberia.

As an indication of Cloud Computing’s impact on the future of computing, large companies have already begun making strides with this amazing technology. Microsoft, a giant software company, claims that for more than 10 years, millions of its clients have been using its Cloud-based services, which include Hosted Exchange, Outlook Web Access and Live Meeting, and Office communicator-a messenger service resembling Yahoo! Messenger. IBM and Canonical (developers of Ubuntu Linux) are introducing a new, flexible personal computing software package for netbooks and other thin client devices to help businesses in Africa bridge the digital divide. Apple Computers has also joined the bandwagon of Cloud Computing by launching its MobileMe service that can be used on the company’s iPhone device. Dell Computers has also joined the “Cloud party” and is involved in the creation of hyper-scale environments or private Clouds for firms. The list of companies involved with Cloud Computing keeps continues to grow exponentially.

Finally, the progress being made by the Liberian Electricity Corporation is unsurpassed. Hopefully, this progress will transcend the capital city into rural areas. On the other hand, the Liberian Telecommunications Corporation (LIBTELCO) has also made great achievements in its capacity as the country’s national operator. The recent implementation of CDMA2000 1xEVDO is a step up from the GSM technology that is currently being used by local mobile operators. CDMA is a technology initiated by Qualcomm to be used in North America. It is more secure and efficient than the GSM technology. By implementing this technology, LIBTELCO moved a step above ISPs in Liberia. LIBTELCO’s next move would be to create a fiber ring around the country which will connect to a landing point from one of the many submarine cables (hopefully the ACE instead of SAT3/WASC cable) running around the West African coast. This connection will lead to high-speed, low cost, and quality Internet connection which will enhance the implementation of the Cloud”. It will therefore galvanize ICT penetration in Liberia and expose the country’s economy to the global community. It is then that Liberians will experience the official beginning of the digital revolution in Liberia. And when we get there, there will be no turning back.