Children can be taught to make simple code
You don't have to be a genius to code
So say all of these extremely talented individuals
Schools can introduce the basics of coding to children as young as 11 years old. Even teachers who don't have Computer Science degrees could get their heads around simple coding.
Why is this so important you might ask. It is not simply important it is crucial because Britain has fallen way behind other countries as far as creative talents in the field of IT is concerned.
John Naughton writing in The Guardian newspaper last year said:
What we forgot was that cars don't run the world, monitor our communications, power our mobile phones, manage our bank accounts, keep our diaries, mediate our social relationships, snoop on our social activities and even – in some countries – count our votes. But networked computers do all of these things, and a lot more besides.
A debate in The Mission Critical Systems Forum on LinkedIn this week included this statement:
The President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, has called on businesses, governments and education providers to work closer together to boost employment in the IT industry.
He said that by 2015, 90% of jobs would need "at least basic computer skills", adding that despite the "plague" of youth unemployment, employers were struggling to find people with the right skills.
According to the European Commission, the number of "digital jobs" – jobs based around IT – is growing by around 100,000 every year, yet the number of skilled IT graduates is failing to keep pace.
What it boils down to in my opinion, is that we have an obligation to ensure that our young children grow up to 'think' for themselves. It will improve Britain's ability to compete with countries like India and China in terms of computer innovation if our schools deliver people to the market-place equipped with the right skills.
Teaching children simple coding certainly does two things:
- Develops their powers of intelligent thought, and
- Nurtures their ability to make informed judgements about the highly sophisticated world of networked systems, cyber security and online commerce.
This lack of creativity in ICT isn't just a problem in Britain it seems the same problem exists in US. There gurus and celebrities are supporting an initiative to expand the knowledge base and the number of young people becoming involved in coding.
The Oracle Corporation is joining the debate and vows:
to bring together ICT industry representatives, Ministries of Education and relevant association and certification bodies to support the teaching of computer science.
What do you think? Have you bought your 7 year old their first computer yet? And I don't mean an iPad, I mean a Raspberry Pi …… Connect with me on Facebook, or on Twitter.
LinkedIn faces hacking attack in its Groups
Many LinkedIn Groups will fall foul of this phishing strategy
Here's something you will need to be very alert to within LinkedIn Groups: it's happening in the larger groups where the 'hit' rate will be higher.
The setting up of bogus profiles is not a new phenomenom. Marketers have been doing this since the word go. There are now 175 million users of LinkedIn so this is a wonderful hunting territory for Inbound Marketeers.
Wikipedia says:
LinkedIn also supports the formation of interest groups, and as of March 29, 2012 there are 1,248,019 such groups whose membership varies from 1 to 744,662.
Marketeers are one thing, but hackers are something else.
Hackers go trawling the largest groups on LinkedIn and randomly spray their 'Likes' throughout discussion topics.
Ok, where's the harm in that you're asking? It's here …. in the 'Profile name space', they add an 'Infected URL' so that the name will look like this:
“Sally http://************************** ”
and if you click on that link you will make yourself vulnerable.
Best-case scenario is that it is simply a strident marketer wanting to get as many eyes on his/her product in the hope that people are tempted to buy. In other words a through-and-through spammer.
Worst-case scenario it’s a ‘filthy-dirty link’ that will leave a bot on your machine to collect data … personal data …. financial data.
LINKEDIN GROUPS
Imagine in a medium sized group of 25,000 members if just 1% of people actually click the infected URL and it contaminates the PC/Mac. Can you guess what type of haul or ROI these malicious spammer will have gained? It will be good enough to make it very worthwhile repeating the activity, that's certain.
If they are phishing for banking logins then there are huge monetary rewards to be achieved.
This type of crime is usually highly organised crime … but you yes little-old you, can subvert this action by staying alert and not being a silly-billy and clicking the links.
OPEN GROUPS IN LINKEDIN AREN’T LOOKING LIKE A GOOD IDEA ANY MORE
LinkedIn, at this moment in time, do not have any means to help you with this problem. Nor do they give any powers to Group Owners/Managers to moderate the LIKES feature. Once upon a time open groups were considered a brilliant idea, because they allowed people access rights to look at content with a view to enticing them to join. As time has gone by spammers have realised they can manipulate this to their benefit. They don't even need to join the group, they can now litter it with their 'likes' 'droppings'… which are akin to time-bombs that sit there waiting to attract careless individuals, who have 'Click-without-thinking' syndrome.
The phishing attack can happen in an open group and it can also happen in a closed group if the phisher is a member.
Now you’re asking me “how a phisher can penetrate a closed group”, aren’t you?
To get into a closed group the phisher will set up an innocent looking profile, usually with a photograph of a young attractive female. Others might comment on the origins of these profiles from Asia, but I won’t.
It will have very little in the experience/history sections of the profile that would 'flag' it in the eyes of the moderation panel.
Once they've been allowed into the group they change the name on the profile and stick a dirty link to it. Next step: A bot takes over from there on in and leaves the 'DIRTY LIKE' on as many discussion topics as possible.
The 'Like' function in LinkedIn Groups is a huge security loop-hole.
Could LinkedIn do more to help?
Perhaps they could if they were prepared to place an algorithm on the ‘Name Section of Profiles’ and track any attempts by people to change their names.
They might also look at the structure of the name info. Anything which contains ‘http://’ is an obvious sign, isn’t it?
It didn't take too much brain power to find these:
What are the options for owners of LinkedIn Groups?
If you are a Group Owner or Manager/Moderator you have very few options available to you in an attempt to protect your membership.
Take these steps to demonstrate due diligence. You won’t be able to prevent some members from the dangers of clicking ‘dirty links’ but at least you will have tried to alert people.
- Brief your Managers and Moderators
- Post a newsletter to your membership alerting them
- Post a discussion about this danger and make it a Managers Choice discussion
- Check the discussion stream more frequently for 'DIRTY LIKES'.
Be Proactive
There is only one thing you can do if yours is an open group and that is to go to each discussion topic displaying a ‘DIRTY LIKE’ and ‘like’ that discussion yourself, or get a nominated member to do this on your behalf.
It won’t make the ‘DIRTY LIKE’ disappear but it will take it away from the ‘stream’, and thus away from the eyes of the membership population. That action will lessen the risk.
If you own a closed group you must ‘kick the bogus member out’, and then take the steps I’ve mentioned above.
Finally, carry out an advanced search on your database of members and look for URLs.
Keep Safe Online
Have you noticed how TV programmes are picking up the issues involved with identity theft and data protection more and more these days?
Last night's UK airing of the BBC 1 programme 'New Tricks' (24th September 2012) got to grips with the world of hackers and hacktivists. It was good to see such a normally bland programme grappling with the dangers of the online world. And, who knows whether the lines came from the pen of the script writers or from the minds of specially engaged web gurus, it was a pretty good watch in my opinion.
Anything that helps to bring home the dangers of the Internet is crucial nowadays.
Popular media such as TV is one way into the minds of the masses and I congratulate the TV companies for attempting to reflect what is happening 'out there in the real world of cyberspace'.
When writing about such like I cannot pass by without mentioning the brilliant BBC1 programme 'Spooks'. Interwoven throughout the 10 successful series we've seen glimpses of the sophisticated world of cyber-security and threat defense.
The first instance of this 'popular' form of internet security awareness education came in front of my eyes in 1995 when 'The Net' was released by Columbia Pictures. There may well have been earlier instances, and I welcome you to add them in the comments section below. For me this was a major opportunity to talk widely within and without of my personal and professional network, about the issues associated with online security threats: to individuals, corporate bodies and indeed governments.
The topic isn't an obvious one for the dinner party table but following this movie which was very popular in UK, it became a necessary and acceptable one. It seemed to hit home just how malignant this threat to our lives could be.
Almost 20 years later we are still battling to stay safe online.
Those who would threaten us are more advanced and sophisticated than they ever were, and our protectors struggle to keep one step ahead.
If that isn't a good reason to take responsibility for our own online safety nothing is.
This video demonstrates how some other agencies are attempting to bring the message home to people.
I wonder if my expert E-Crime contact in Belgium was in the mix for the filming of this event in Brussels?
Hashtag Guide
What is a hashtag? If you are a newbie to Twitter you might have wondered what all those #'s are doing sitting in people's tweets. Some people love them, some hate them. I find them useful.
Using a hashtag is not a device for making your tweet stand out from the crowd.
There is a solid reason behind using the hashtag: it makes navigating the Twitter Universe just a little bit easier.
There are approximately 340 million tweets made evey day on Twitter and roughly one-third of those are going to be of interest to you in your sector. So that leaves a huge volume out there that are of no interest at all. Navigating the ones that might be of interest is made more practical if you employ the use of #'s.
So simply-speaking it is a way to gather subject-orientated tweets together. In other words it is a way to mark KEYWORDS OR TOPICS.
So, this is not a valid hashtag:
#asifIdidn'tknowthat
How many times have you seen people throw a string of nonsense words together and place a hashtag before it? It drives me crazy, #howaboutyou?
Gather Topics of Interest
I know that you know that gathering topics of interest is a valid use of hashtags. Remember #Egypt and the Spring Uprising 2011, never in the history of mankind was news disseminated so quickly and spontaneously.
These groups of Interests are gathered in silos which compete. Thus the term trending enters the conversation. When hordes of people use the same hashtag the topic of interest is seen to compete with other topics of interest. Trending results: the competing topics of interest are recorded by Twitter and published in lists of Top Trending Hashtags.
BBC news reported that:
In the food category the McLobster took top place after it trended on rumours that fast food chain McDonald's was to roll out the crustacean-based sandwich across the US. Previously it had only been available in Canada
Trending topics vary in subject from educational to political, and scientific to environmental.
Everyone loves the hashtag in all it's glory.
Businesses wake up to hashtags
Platforms that now support hashtags are:
- Google+
- Tumblr
- YouTube
- FriendFeed
- and a few others too
By using hashtags relevant to your business topics you can connect to even more people and grow your network exponentially.
Here's a good example of how someone uses hashtags while attending events/conferences. Marian Schembari describes how she keeps ahead of topics and conversations people are having about topics of interest to her.
This works. I guarantee by the end of an event or conference you will have picked up lots more followers who are interested in the same business topics as you.
The team used this strategy to great effect when attending the annual e-Crime Wales Summit.
Here's how we used hashtags in that instance:
- Check the main Twitter Account for e-Crime Wales to identify what the hashtag looks like for the event – e.g. #ecrimewales or #ecrime11
- Set up a search column in Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to collect the traffic using this hashtag
- Follow or extract those people into a special Twitter List
- Monitor what the people are saying and join in the conversation
- Streamline the topic. Why? Because it's too broad a converation to handle, so setting up a sub-hashtag helps to extricate more relevant chat. So a relevant sub-hashtag might be #malware, #securitytraining #smallbizhelp and such like.
And, click through here if you would like to see some of the Live BlogFeed, showing exactly how those strategic contributions impacted on the conversation.
I think you'll agree this is a powerful tool for honing into what the important conversations are touching on, and who is actively speaking on the topic concerned.
This is why business people need to be 'au fait' with the use of hashtags.
Business Scenario
This is how a coffee shop or bistro might use hashtags.
Things that should concern the business owner:
- Their Brand Reputation
- Customer Service
- Popularity of the locality in the eyes of visitors
- Loyal Customers
- New Customers
Searching the various platforms, not least Twitter, it will soon become evident who is talking about those points I list above.
The business owner needs to hear what is being said about their business brand and suitable response needs to be made. Searching with the hashtag #name-of-the-business will bring back all types of delights and may be some disappointments too.
Searching on the hashtag #customerservice or #UX (userexperience) and the #locality might also be enlightening. It could also provide an opportunity for educating the business owner because he/she might not actually be aware how much their business success depends on word of mouth – negative and positive sentiment. Recently I read a statement that said customers will defect to another brand after only ONE bad experience – so no second chances to get it right – business owners have to take it on the chin, customer service has to be right first time round.
There are many intelligent and creative ways in which to track sentiment via hashtags. It's common place to the team at Peninsular Business Services (Virtual Assistants in Wales) who handle this kind of work day-in-day-out on behalf of clients.
So the message is clear Hashtags Rule!
If you are a business owner, a national Brand or a global enterprise, you have to stop wasting valuable time and get right to the heart of social media – employ the use of hashtags and a targetted approach. Only collect the data that matters.
Needlesstosay we coach individuals and train teams of business users how to do this effectively. Just yell (via the comment box below or via those Buttons over on the right >>>>>>) … we'll hear your calls for assistance.
Mobile Phone Security – Password Protection
One more step to take to strengthen your security status
Set a password for your mobile device
I can't really imagine just how bad I'd feel if my phone was lost and all my contact details were placed in the hands of malicious individuals. I know I'd be mortified that I'd put my contacts at risk of being spammed by a low-life thief.
Then there's the risk of identity theft to consider.
I think it's pretty easy to identify which individuals in a persons contact list are those that are very close friends or family members. All that is needed is a quick look through the SMSs to see the tenor of the engagement.
Now the cybercriminal is just one short step away from scamming my nearest and dearest and robbing them … they send them a quick message to this effect:
"I've done a really stupid thing … I'm on a [short break/conference in US/whatever ....] I've lost my credit cards so the bank has frozen my account … this is the new account sort code/ acct number … could you please transfer a couple of hundred quid so that I can survive the next few days … I'll pay you back immediately I'm home, promise …"
Why would anyone want to risk this happening to them?
They wouldn't would they, it's just that they've forgotton to set security on their mobile device.
It takes 2-3 minutes to set a password on a phone: it's child's play … do it now.
Thanks to eCrimeScotland via eCrimeWales for prompting me to write this short blog for my readers.
Photocredit: Authors own photo not for distribution