The Next Web

The First Country in Cyber War is “Arming” its Computer Users

Written on September 30, 2008 – 2:02 pm
Toivo Tänavsuu, Next Web Estonian Web Tipr & founder of TigerPrises.com

A remarkable “Oh Shit” campaign has launched in Estonia, aimed at educating ordinary computer users.

Many of you probably remember Estonia survived what has been called the world’s first Cyber War last year. It was launched by Russians and made headlines around the world. Thanks to The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) Estonia, led by the chief security officer Hillar Aarelaid, Estonia was successful in defending itself against the so called DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks.

A couple of weeks ago, Aarelaid’s team launched a somewhat controversial campaign in Estonia, aimed at educating the computer users in Estonia. The campaign is called “AssaPauk”, which can be translated in English as “What a hell?” or “Oh Shit”! There’s a good chance this is your first emotion after discovering that you are in some sort of a criminal “cyber mess.”

The campaign, that should guide people how to use the Internet safely, is focused on three lessons: which links are OK to click and which are not? What kind of passwords to use? And how to avoid an unpleasant identity theft.

“I am a pedophile! How about you?”

Actors telling real stories are used to get the lessons across. For example, there’s a guy who says that he was made a pedophile inadvertently. He used short easy-to-memorize password (his wife’s name) for many different Internet applications. When suddenly finding that someone had guessed the password and uploaded nasty porn images into his weblog. (Take a look at his YouTube video, the poster below is saying “I am a pedophile! How about you?”)

“I am a thief! How about you?”

Or there’s a woman claiming that she had made a thief against her will. She clicked on an unknown link and apparently a virus downloaded into her computer. So her computer was used to steal credit card data of other people. And now she has become a suspect of serious crime. (YouTube video, the poster above is saying “I am a thief! How about you?”)

Member of an international gang

Another woman received an e-mail saying that she should update her Internet banking passwords immediately or they will expire. For doing that she was asked to fill in her existing passwords and sent them to “the bank”. She ended up sending her passwords to strangers, who used her bank account for transferring stolen money. So without knowing it, she became member of a international thief gang. (YouTube video)

CERT gives many different hints to avoid such unpleasantness. Hillar Aarelaid says that the days where viruses only harmed files are over. Today criminals are infecting people’s computers to take control over them and use them for criminal purposes, while remaining undetected.

If you understand Estonian, take a look at how Estonia educates its people, by clicking here.

I hope you like that post!

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campaign, Estonia, government, Hillar Aarelaid, identity theft, privacy

2 Comments »

Sitez n the Hood

Written on December 14, 2007 – 3:47 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Clearly, quite a few Web 2.0 start-ups aren’t relevant to the mainstream audience. They just fulfill the need of a – rather geeky - niche. Nothing wrong with that, I mean, most of those start-ups look ready for a very profitable future, but every time when I bump into a start-up that is also relevant to Average Joe, I get really excited.

It proves that Web 2.0 can improve just about anybody’s live, even the one of a 78-year old grumpy lady. Just imagine that she has to avoid a seriously dangerous pothole in the pavement right before her door, every day again. She once almost broke her hip when she forgot about the darn hole.

Where is this going, you wonder? Well, let’s just assume she is the neighbor of Paul Oldham. He IS interested in Web 2.0 and recently found out about FixMyStreet (FMS). That’s a website where citizens from the UK can report, view, or discusses local problems like graffiti, fly tipping, broken paving slabs, or street lighting.

Paul also noticed the pothole, and reported it on FixMyStreet. Two minutes later, FMS sent it to the Cambridgeshire County Council. With a bit of luck, the old lady won’t have to worry about potholes anymore.

The site is run by a registered charity, which received money from the British government. It’s a simple and brilliant idea: use the advantages of Web 2.0 to improve people’s wellbeing. And people use it on a big scale: just last month already 365 problems were solved.

It’s most likely a matter of time before this efficient concept will be introduced in other countries as well. And just think of other ways this idea can be implemented in our societies. My suggestion: give people a place where they can say what they’re missing in their neighborhood: “When do we get a swimming pool around here?!”. I think it’s a great way of making opportunities visible to entrepreneurs.

UPDATE: Paul Oldham himself told us in the comments that the pothole has been filled.

fixmystreet, government, web 2.0

6 Comments »