Ostensibly in retaliation to Western media’s coverage of anti-Chinese demonstrations in Europe, the Sports Network website was hacked last Sunday. The site was defaced with the image that you see here (captured by ChristineLu.com). Repeated attacks, most probably serious denial-of-service assaults, have caused the site to be taken down. After a few days, the site was still inaccessible.
Two of CNN’s websites were also hacked, presumably by the same group. Or if not the same group, then other groups who share similar objectives, and that is to attack Western media organizations.
China has been under fire from American and European groups for its crackdown on Tibet. Recently, the Chinese government quashed a Tibetan uprising, the aim of which was to clamor for independence and self-rule. This Communist country has also been embattled lately due to highly publicized government-endorsed censorship policies covering the Internet.
In reaction to China’s strong-arming, thousands of protesters repeatedly attempted to extinguish the Olympic torch during its journey across Europe last weekend. In Paris, it was almost snuffed out five times during the torch run. (For more news on this, do a search for ‘China Olympics protest’ on cnn.com)
The hacking incident – which might only be one of many to come, some fear – was a form of retribution, although a misguided one. According to the media’s intelligence sources, the online attacks were perpetrated by private citizens eager to show their nationalistic verve. If you read the English statements in the hackers’ message, you’ll get a glimpse of what’s in their minds. It is possible they’re thinking that the anti-China protests are a one-way thing.
Do the Chinese people actually know why many Westerners are remonstrating against their totalitarian government? (Does the average mainland Chinese even realize that their government is totalitarian?) Knowing that Beijing censors the national trimedia – and the Internet, courtesy of Google – can we be certain that the Chinese are fully aware of what’s truly going on around them? It is conceivable that what the people are allowed to absorb are no more than finely-filtered news reports.
And yet, there are not a few expert programmers in China, and the West is beginning to fear that there might just be more than enough hackers around for comfort. CNN has reported in the recent past that there could be thousands of hacking-capable young Chinese in the capital alone. These are restless youth who could very well be eager to prove themselves worthy of the national honor.
China has vehemently denied supporting hacking activities by its nationals. But there have been half-rumors permeating through the Internet that successful hackers who’ve been able to infiltrate Western websites have been remunerated by their government ex post facto.
With their sheer size, the hosting of the Olympics this year, plus their unapologetic incursion into the global capitalist market, China is indeed formidable. It is a force that cannot be ignored at all. In our generation’s increasingly wired world, what could be more scary than a technologically advanced population that has no scruples against hacking? Not to mention digital piracy.
I’ve been using entrecard for a few months now to drive traffic into my website. Entrecard is a FREE advertisement (or card) exchange program. Members earn entrecard credits by sellings ads on their site or by dropping cards on other member’s site.
Recently, Smorty, a paid to blog service in the internet, has release a new interesting product. It may be known to us that companies pay media buyers, like Smorty, so their products and services can be promoted in the internet. This scheme is limited on to those who has the capacity to pay the advertising cost of the media buyer.
Being aware of this limitation, Smorty created its Post Exchange program wherein writers and bloggers can advertise on blogs (on other blogs) their own sites and blogs without having to pay for an advertising fee. Similar to entrecard, for a user to create an advertisement with other blogs, he/she must use points or credits to pay the advertisement fees. A blogger earns a point when he writes for someone and in return, he can use that point to make someone write for him.
This technique, or feature, whatever you call it, is very helpful most specially to those who use their blogs for SEO purposes. It’s a win-win situation in fact. “I’ll do an SEO for and you do SEO for me.”
As a conclusion, this new program offered by Smorty now offers a wider range of blog advertisement possibility. It also breaks the boundaries set by money. It’s an innovation in the methods used for internet marketing. I might as well try this service in the future.
Two of my friends, Kuya Andrew and Kuya Blogie, who are both using OpenDNS and PLDT myDSL encountered an annoying problem this afternoon. PLDT myDSL subscribers who uses OpenDNS blocks their access to search engine sites like Google, Yahoo and MSN.
The odd thing about it is the presence of the PLDT myDSL logo below the Site Blocked message of OpenDNS.
Did OpenDNS mistake Philippines as China?
I hope they (PLDT and OpenDNS) can check this one.
You may read their posts below:
Just now I got a text message from Bob Martin, who’s wondering why he can’t access Google’s search pages. Then, he said he can’t access his Google AdSense account pages as well. What happens, according to Bob, is he gets redirected to a landing page whenever he tries to access www.google.com. Take a look at this screen capture of Bob’s browser.
He’s connected to the Internet via PLDT myDSL. Why is PLDT seemingly blocking Google? In fact, it’s not just Google but AltaVista, Yahoo! and MSN as well. And on that landing page is PLDT’s own search engine, with advertisements.
If you notice, Bob’s using OpenDNS, but when he turns it off, he says the resulting page comes out the same. I use OpenDNS too, but I’m not having this problem.
To verify this, my other friends who are on PLDT myDSL confirm this strange development. A backward development, if you ask me.
Is PLDT blocking search engines and portals so that they can offer their own online services? If that’s the case, that is very much akin to the Gestapo tactics of World War II Nazis.
But there’s more. Check out this next screenshot.
This is a journalist’s blog, Istambay sa Mindanao, which is being blocked by PLDT, because it’s categorized as a blog. Other Davao blogs being blocked so far are Councilor Pete Laviña’s, Taga-Davao, Village Idiot Savant… My friend Bob thinks his blogs will fall into this black hole as well.
Are we in China here? Or Saudi Arabia? If this is indeed the doing of PLDT, do they think such deceitful devices will stand for long in a free and democratic country? (Where there are a lot of bloggers, I might add!)
I’m on SmartBro DSL, which is also part of the PLDT ilk. Are they going to follow suit as well?
This just in: Gmail is also being blocked by PLDT. In my estimate, tens of thousands of Filipinos use Gmail. What’s next?
Upon seeing the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, the first question that came to me was “where do I place my SIM card?”. But sorry Nokia cellphone fans, this gadget is not a cellphone nor it has any mobile phone capabilities.
At first it was very odd and confusing that a $350 gadget from a leading cellphone manufacturer is not equipped with any phone capabilities. It was even more surprising since Nokia’s N-series boasts a line of feature-packed mobile phones. Since the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet is not a mobile phone, but it does not intend to replace them but to complement them instead.
According to TabletBlog.com,
The Nokia N800 Internet Tablet is not a PDA, ultra-mobile PC, smartphone, or eBook reader. It is an Internet Tablet…the device was built from the ground up to focus on Internet functionality.
The Nokia N800’s main purpose is to provide its end-users Internet functionalities such as web browsing, email, instant messenging, internet radio, and internet calling.
Physical Design
The Nokia N800 is a classy and elegant-looking device. I love the combination of black plastic and metal. The material used in this gadget is also rigid. You can be assured that the device won’t creak or break with ease.
The limited number of buttons gives the Nokia N800 a clean and uncluttered look. The ergonomics of the over-all design is also good. The position of the buttons were also appropriate.
When browsing, the Nokia N800 can utilize both the stylus and the navigational button to navigate across the page. When using the navigational button, what it does is to change and high light the active item (or link) which is a bit stressful when viewing pages loaded with links or pages with a very long vertical length. Though the problem can be solved when using the stylus, but it can sometimes leave annoying scratches (can be wiped off) when dragging the stylus across the LCD screen. It would have been better if the device is equipped with a jog dial (similar to Sony Ericsson’s).
Operating System and Interface
The Nokia N800 runs on a Debian GNU/Linux distribution called Maemo. This makes the Nokia N800 more robust in terms of software functionality. A lot of software binaries for Maemo are distributed online for FREE.
The interface is also easy to navigate. The home screen features an interface where you can mount different applets on your tablet’s desktop. Navigational buttons are also available for web browsing, internet communication and for installed software applications.
Built-in Software Applications
The Nokia N800 is pre-installed with an e-mail application, instant messenger which can accommodate text, audio and video, skype application, and an opera web browser. Most of these applications are easy to use. The Nokia N800’s Email application can support both POP and IMAP email communications. I tried using GMail and Google Apps Email on the N800 at it works fine.
The instant messenger used by the N800 supports GTalk and Jabber. Since I’m using the Google Apps’ Jabber feature, I tried connecting to my service using the Jabber option. It can be used to chat with your contacts using text and voice. It also retrieves your contacts list and automatically integrates it with your contacts application and email application.
The web browser uses Opera as its engine. For the firefox fans, you can also try replacing the Opera engine with a Mozilla distribution for Maemo. You may see it here.
The Skype application can support both audio and video chat. I have not figured out yet how to operate the video feature but the voice chat is quite good.
Speakers
The Nokia N800’s stereo speakers are also good. The sound doesn’t have distortions at high levels. The maximum volume level is also loud enough to be heard on a public place. (Of course this evaluation is relative to one’s hearing capacity and environment). The device is also equipped with a 3.5mm Audio Jack socket where you can plug your earphones, unlike with other mobile phone models which use a different connector for the earphone.
Display
The tablet’s screen is 4.1″ which is big enough for browsing. It operates at an 800 x 480 screen resolution. The thing, it can only 65k colors which is very small compared to other devices available in the market. My mobile phone alone can display 256k colors.
Camera
The gadget is also equipped with a VGA camera hidden at the upper left corner. The camera is not that good. Distortions and noise are visible on the image taken by the VGA Camera. I hope Nokia can work on this one.
Connectivity
The N800 can connect using WiFi and Bluetooth. The device can support both 802.11 b/g types of WiFi networks. Aside from the WiFi, it can also connect to the internet using your bluetooth connected phone as a modem for internet communications.
I also tried using Microsoft’s Internet Sharing feature to share my wired internet connection from my laptop and it works fine.
Conclusion
The Nokia N800 offers better Internet experience compared to other mobile phones available in the market. The N800 is also robust that it can be used beyond its internet functionalities. In terms of mobility, the N800 is comparable to an office computer on top of your palm. It can perform basic PC operations while you are on the go. This gadget is best suited to those heavy internet users like me.
Good news to all Globe Subscribers. Globe launches its new mobile internet browsing rates today. Similar to Smart’s mobile internet charging scheme, Globe will charge its users P5 for every 15 minute use of GPRS, 3G or HSDPA.
Globe gives its users two options on how internet rates will be charged. First option is the KB charging wherein users are charged P 0.15 for every kilobyte transfer made. This option is best suited for info-based browsing such as movie scheds, dictionary service, sport statistics and the like.
The second option, the new one, is a time-based charging. Users will be charged depending on how long they used the mobile internet services. Users are charged P 5.00 for 15 minutes. This service is best suited for users who use their mobile phones, PDAs, or 3G/HSDPA devices to surf for multimedia content.
Thankfully surfing the web on your phone is way easier than catching the perfect wave and hanging ten. Globe Prepaid and Postpaid subscribers are by default on the KB Charging scheme. If you want to try out Globe’s new TIME charging scheme, all you need to do is to text TIME to 1111 for free!
To shift back to KB Browsing: text KB.
To check the charging scheme that currently applies to your account: text STATUS. Send the keyword to 1111 for free.
With Globe’s new charging scheme, users are given options which best fit their needs.
