TOM YUM Soup for the Soul

The world of binary codes of 1 and 0, 0 and 1 has drawn such fascination from people that it has even became a channel for crime for personal pleasure and gain. It was uncanny when just yesterday I was at a sec school in the East about hacking and cracking; of how it has evolved to a crime that is more then just targeting the device but one that targets the person; that the papers published a true story of the US vice presidential candidates Sarah Palin becoming the victim of an online prankster. Her email was hacked and some of her private information got leaked out to public.

Snippets of the articles:

"The 44-year-old Alaskan governor's personal Yahoo e-mail address was hacked on
Wednesday by the online pranksters, who are well-known in cyberspace by their group
name, Anonymous."

The hackers posted several screenshots of Yahoo e-mail messages, Mrs Palin's contact list
and some family photos to Wikileaks.com, a website which hosts leaked government
documents. The screenshots showed Mrs Palinmay have used her Yahoo e-mail
account for official business as Alaska's governor.

The McCain campaign reacted strongly to the hacking, saying in a statement: 'This is a shocking
invasion of the governor's privacy and a violation of law."

To read the whole story, please click here http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,177294,00.html??

Precaution

Online security expert Aloysius Cheang told The New Paper that there are precautions that
users of web-based e-mail programs like Yahoo and Gmail can take to prevent their accounts
from being hacked.

He said: 'Users should change their passwords regularly, and make sure their passwords
contain a combination of numbers and letters.

'They should also try not to log into the e-mail accounts on shared computers, or computers
they aren't familiar with.'

He added that it is especially risky to log into web-based e-mail accounts on public computer
terminals, such as those provided for passengers in transit at airports.

'These computers may have been installed with malicious software which log passwords,
then send them to the hacker,' he said.

Looks like we better be on guard with our emails. Even though we may not be the vice president but you never know when someone will do something just for fun at your expense. (",)

Yesterday went for a PROJECT CRuSH lesson at a boys school in the East to talk about cyberwellness. That school always reminds me of my secondary school days. Though I am not from an all boys school but the noise level, the hyperactivity does remind me when I was still a secondary school boy. I think one distinct thing I always like to do was go around my class to "peddle" sweets as I was the major supplier. Although of course I don't do it openly in front of teachers. I will still show some basic respect for the teacher regardless of whether I found the lesson interesting or if I liked the teacher's style and the ability to comprehend. (Although I confess to sleeping in some of the classes therefore being caught by teacher)

To my dismay, I find that students nowadays have this tendency to just rant on and on among themselves, totally oblivious to teachers or higher authority during official school lessons. For e.g. in the class yesterday, the students were literally chatting their way through the whole lesson if not for my intermittent stops to quiet them down. Despite a few warnings, they will compromise for perhaps less then 5 mins and it'll all begin again. Nonetheless, I am thankful that there are still many students who will do the

"Oei !!!! SSSSsshhhhhSshhhhhh! QUIET LAH!"

But to quote a famous saying:

"Boys will just be boys. Wait till they become MAN."

Anyway, having a fun time teaching in school. Maybe will go back soon.

WwwoooohhhhhhhhOOooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!