Kenyan Presidential Elections War taken to the Cyberspace!

It is annoying when you try to follow the Kenya political landscape. But even more annoying is when the meaningless political squabbles as to who is the best presidential candidate is taken to the new frontiers - the cyberspace!

I am sure by now most Kenyans who use PCs either at their offices and homes and have some Internet connectivity might have heard of the Kibaki Tosha and Raila Tosha viruses that are very frustrating when it infects your computer.

First on the scene was the Raila Tosha virus, then the Kibaki Tosha virus which all copy themselves to your hard disk and display campaign messages for both presidential campaigns every 20 minutes. This seems to be the work of a few programmers, and very smart at that, compiling and distributing the virus with their installers and programs. It appears that IMs such as Yahoo! and MSN with their security vulnerabilities are the entry points into the network.

And it seems the standard anti virus programs like Norton do not detect the virus.

For tips on how to remove them, see the links below from some other bloggers who have had a similar experience and succeeded to remove it.

Seems the new age cyberspace wars are here to stay, remember the Raila and Musyoka websites?

http://www.advance-africa-forum.com/showthread.php?t=3046

And for the satirical commentary on the Raila and Kibaki viruses, visit the Diary of the Black Man blog below.

http://mweusi.blogspot.com/2007/07/raila-virus.html

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GSM Nobile Car Alarms: A cheaper alternative for guaranteed security against car theft?

We have had interesting arguments on the merits and demerits of installing a GSM car alarm. For those in the dark, this is a relatively new (though not so new globally) anti-theft car alarm system based on mobile phone technology.

And all you need is a SIM card for your car and a mobile phone to "call" the car, sending instructions to the alarm and receiving signals from the alarm. This gives the car owner control of the car, literally anywhere on earth and anytime! The possibilities of such application are wide when compared to other conventional car alarms.

With such a system installed in the vehicle, the alarm will call you on any intrusion, and after receiving such "calls" or signals, then speak and warn the intruders in the car through your mobile phone anywhere via the speaker that comes with the alarm! Imagine telling the car thieves pumbavu! I would love to see their reaction when the car speaks to them. Anyway, the system allows you cut the engine power or fuel supply so that the car is undrivable. You can close the car windows and doors through the mobile phone.

And where emergency hot lines such as the police work, even make calls to the cop station to alert them of the event.

Our argument which never came to it conclusion, was, if given a choice between GSM mobile car alarm systems and TrackIt! Car services for lack of money, where would you place your bet?

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Safaricom against prepaid subscribers?

If you were to ask me to vote the company with the worst customer care service, I would not hesitate in selecting Safaricom, Kenya's largest mobile phone provider and the most profitable business in East Africa.

For the whole of the weekend, it has been an exercise in futility trying to reach their customer care desk through the designated 100 support line for prepaid subscribers. And today, trying to call their landline on 020-427 3272 is equally more frustrating, with the service provided by their staff leaving a lot to be desired of such a company.

What I have been trying to request for was activation of my line so as to enable me use GPRS to access the Internet. For reasons given to me, and which I found to be unacceptable, was their system seems to have 'decided' to lose my settings, whatever that was. Try and call their line and mention that you are prepaid, you get patched through to their customer care department that behaves like the 100 call line. No service plenty of lip service.

After my 10th attempt today, I have resigned to the fact that there is no assistance forthcoming from them.

What a better option! Wish they had that good and reliable customer care of Celtel, who unfortunately seem to always get their tariffs wrong with hidden charges.

Where is the third option for us Kenyans with our peculiar calling habits?

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Kenyan Farmers using Mobile Information Exchange(MIX)

I was googling the Net, interested more in the benefits of Safaricom’s M-Pesa service, when googled search item was on DrumNet.

It is a project of the NGO Pride Africa and was launched in late 2002 with the objective of delivering a set of critical business support services directly to the African smallholder
farmers.
It is designed as marketing, financial and information services for mainstreaming resource-poorfarmers and combines information,commodity transaction services and financial linkages into a single business service model that provides access to markets, market information and credit for the rural poor to support sustainable agriculture and rural development.
What is interesting apart from the traditional approach of providing the poor farmer access to credit lines,market intelligence, buyers and farm inputs is the use of mobile phones. They have set up support centres equipped with a PC and a GSM-phone to link up with the central hub in Nairobi which is the main server/database and provides an access centre for the storage and retrieval of information. Each support centre is managed by an Agent, who collects and disseminates information, assists in forming farmer groups, and arranges buy and sell deals. By combining sophisticated information technology with an on-the-ground presence in rural communities, DrumNet hopes to fill the current void in the provision of critical business information and financial services for small-scale agricultural producers in East Africa.
For more information, check this link to the White African’s blog on how the technology works

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