Of phishing emails and sms smishing

The Cape Argus (8th October 2009) and The Star (22th October 2009) newspapers carried stories about bank electronic fraud that is becoming increasingly worrisome to South African Banking Risk Information Centre (Sabric). Fraudsters send either email messages or smses to randomly targeted bankers requiring personal information so that they may gain access to the bank accounts and "steal" their money. What caught my attention was the advice Sabric gave such as urging customers to ignore emails of those nature even though they read exactly like those coming from genuine banks. Another piece of advice from Sabric is never to respond to any sms requiring personal details. Rather call your bank.

What's intriguing about the pieces of advice is that, more often than not, when any customer get such correspondences the first thing on mind is 'let me act quickly before anything happens'. That will be panickingly responding to the email or sms only to regret it later when you go to your bank only to discover that you have been cleaned out! My word of caution therefore is let's think carefully before we act.

Latest on Bafana

Did you hear the latest developments on Bafana Bafana coaching situation? SAFA has dismissed the coach from the post yesterday because they are not convinced he is the right man to lead South African soccer into the World Cup next year as hosts. Apparently a new coach will be announced this Friday. In the meanwhile his assistants will be holding the fort. It is interesting that his technical team remain while he goes even though the logical thing will be to sack the whole bench because they all contributed to the teams performance. Has SAFA always been out for Santana's head? One wonders!

On My Mind

Sometimes I wonder how life works. Media reports are that inflation has been dropping in the recent months in South Africa but to my surprise basic groceries prices seem to be picking. I am missing something? Now I hear Eskom proposes to hike electricity charges by 45% in next three years. Things are not getting any better, are they?

Apologies

Good day Prof

I have not been able to neither attend the class today nor hand in hard copy of my assignment, but I have emailed it to you. Please check you mail for the assignment.

I am soory to have not come. I was held up by something so I didn't make it to class.

You student

Gosiame

Question 3

Good day Prof!

I sent question 3 through your email but posted questions 1 & 2 on the blog because I read your email saying should sent question 3 answers directly to you before posting on the blog.

ASSIGNMENT 4 - DEADLINE 27 August 2009 16h00

Question 1

The writer of the blog is Patrick Thornton but the owner of the blog is King Kaufman

Question 2

Summary of "Let's Be Honest About J-School"

Patrick Thornton is of the idea that journalism schools (J-schools) are not that important in producing modern day journalists if they do not offer latest Web technology instruction. He believes that all J-schools do is to equip their learners with academic skills rather than trade skills. In particular, he favours hands-on learning especially learning using latest Web tools. He argues that journalism lecturers must make use of latest modern technology in their teaching, hence the need that they must have own websites or be part of social media.

His greatest concern is for graduate students whom he believes do not need programs that promote academic skills over trade ones. He posits academic skills are good for any undergraduate program because that is where scholars are grounded. To him, trade skills are entrepreneurial and therefore very important for graduates. Trade skills can be acquired through the Web by using free sites such as BeatBlogging.Org. Besides free sites one can also make use of places like Poynter.Org's News U, or Lynda.com and MediaBistro. He believes trade is more important than academic skills because trade gives one the necessary experience.

Thornton further asserts that latest Web tools like blogging and social networks produce better journalists than J-schools. He posits traditional J-schools produce writers while the (social) Web produces reporters. The later succeeds where the former fails because it offers its users with repeated practice and besides that it is a far much cheaper form of learning than the former. When studying over the Web one gets an opportunity to write over and over again and on the process gain the necessary know-how of the job. This repetition gives invaluable practice and experience whereas traditional J-school learning gives theory. That is why he believes the Web is important in graduate programs. Over and above, he argues that J-schools only offer more education which only leads to improved writing but poor reporting.

In short, Thornton believes that the future of journalism lies in the Web and any modern day journalist must go this route if he or she wants to be a successful reporter. He urges journalism lecturers to have own sites so that this may afford learners hands-on experience. This will do a lot of justice to journalism now because he sees journalism making more and more use of the Web especially these days and ones to come.

Assignment 3

Question 1

Site 1: Blogger - Different Mail&Guardian newspaper contributors
Site Owner - Mail&Guardian newspaper
Writers - Contributors and readers

Site 2: Blogger - Anjana Ahuja
Site Owner - Times Newspaper
Writer - Anjana Ahuja

Site 3: Blogger - Different sport codes writers
Site Owner - Guardian newspaper
Writers - Sports fans

Site 4: Blogger - Daryl Grove, Laurie and Roma Chris
Site Owner - BootsnAll Travel Network
Writers - Soccer fans from around the globe

Site 5: Blogger - Anthony Kaufman
Site Owner - IndieWIRE Blog network
Writer - Anthony Kaufman

Site 6: Blogger - Surewa Ekanayake
Site Owner - Indie Film Blogger Road Trip
Sujewa Ekanayake


Question 2

One of the bloggers I have come across in these blogs is Sufewa Ekanayake. He is a film maker, distributor and cinema fan from Brookyln, New York, USA who has been a blogger since October 2004. His blog, Indie Film Blogger Road Trip (IFBRT) is a feature length documentary film about people who blog about independent movies, the scene/industry, and related matters. IFBRT was shot, directed, and edited by Sujewa. This blog gives a short description of the documentary. Since he is a film maker and long time blog writer he is well qualified for the job he does. His blogging is insightful and carefully arranged. One doesn't have to work hard to get around to the site. Sujewa's experiences as blogwriter are well documented in the site and he seem to be gaining inspiration and encouragement from fellow bloggers as he often travel to the US to share gains, pains and losses with them.

WEEK 2: Freedom of Speech : Freedom of the Press

1. The limits of state censorship that have been made clear by the recent events of state oppression in Iran include blocking of Internet; publication about election protest forbidden; foreign journalists banned from the streets or expelled from the country; filtering of social networks like facebook and twitter, by government; and banning opposition rallies

2 a) The two aggrieved people, i.e. Dave Carroll and Amanda Bonnen decided to use social media to express their displeasures.

Dave tried complaining to the airline, United, but was not given the sort of answer that satisfied him after his guitar was destroyed by baggage handlers. So he decide to protest through music. He came up with three songs, each with a video criticising the airline and the intention was to post them all on the Web. The first video, "United Breaks Guitars" was posted on YouTube and within 23 hours it has attracted 461 comments. Most of the them were maligning the airline. This huge response prompted United to quickly contact him and make things right.

Amanda on the other hand was a tenant of Horizon Group Management who posted a comment on Twitter about mould in her Chicago apartment. The landlords later realised that there was never any mould in the apartment except for that her unit was one of those that experienced linkages during overnight roof repairs. However, all tenant grievances were quickly and amicably resolved, ultimately.

b) A person or institution that feels defamed by the new technologies can seek legal redress in the courts of laws since there are legislation that govern the use of these technologies. The injury to their good name can be repaired by the offender giving public apology in the same media and explicitly state the reason for the apology. Furthermore, monetary benefits in the form of law suits can give some feeling of satisfaction.

Week 1 Task

Introduction to Blogs

Hello, fellow bloggers!This is Gosiame Setlogile Masimega. I am doing structured masters in linguistics at UWC. I am on blog and I understand it to be a type of website, which is usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics, or video. The BBC news website fines a blog as “a regularly updated online journal” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/5283248.stm). It is a contraction of the term "weblog", which was first used by Jorn Barger in 1997, according to the same BBC news site. Some call blogs online dairies.The most recent content is put at the top of the blogs. This is emphasized by ABC news website when it says "the entries are typically listed in reverse chronological order where the most recent entry is on top and older ‘news’ or musings can be found by scrolling down the web page" (http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=889289&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312). The entries could be in the form of text, images or linkages to other blogs. They are fairly easy tools to use as I have noticed with mine because there are step by step instructions on what to do and not to do.

Most companies use blogs to announce breaking news. Blogs are useful because they afford users, not only to be consumers of content, but creators as well. This means one does not only get to read what others have posted but he or she can post something to be read. Institutions of learning can use blogs as interactive sites where lecturers can meet with their students and share information. This is how I will be using mine, i.e. to primarily interact with my Critical Media Issues lecturer, as suggested at the beginning of this entry.

I hope it will be a nice and exciting experience for me because I will be learning about both the blogs operation and my module.

Introduction to Blogs

Hello, there!

This is Gosiame Setlogile Masimega. I am doing structured masters in linguistics at UWC. I am on blog and I understand it to be a type of website which is usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.It is a contrction of the term "weblog". Some call blogs online dairies.

"The entries are typically listed in reverse chronological order where the most recent entry is on top and older "news" or musings can be found by scrolling down the Web page" (http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=889289&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312) I will be using this blog primarily for interactive learning of my Critical Media Issues module this year, 2009. I hope it will be a nice and exciting experience for me because Iwill be learning about both the blogs operation and my module.