Author Archive

One of the HEC subdomains – apps.hec.gov.pk – appears to have be compromised for the last few weeks. Google reports it as an “Attack site” and shows this warning:

The sub-domain contains a few hundred pages with important information (the one below is supposed to have a list of all HEC-approved universities), and so, the website should ideally be available to the world minus any malware or spyware.

An example infected URL: http://app.hec.gov.pk/universityfinal2/RegionUniversity.aspx  (please make sure your browser is appropriately protected before copy/pasting)

If you click the “Why was this site blocked?”, Google tells you that

Of the 476 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 124 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2008-10-27, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2008-10-27. Malicious software is hosted on 6 domain(s), including 81dns.ru, mnbenio.ru, berjke.ru. 2 domain(s) appear to be functioning as intermediaries for distributing malware to visitors of this site, including 81dns.ru, mnbenio.ru.

Emailing HEC about it has not worked so far. Even if it is a false-positive, somebody in HEC should wake up and fix their servers – they can even ask an HEC scholar in the network security field who gets their funding.

(This page appeared during a Google search to help out a researcher friend who wanted a list of our universities)

After a week of online protest due to  an inappropriately worded warning about  working with Pakistanis, the owner/CEO of the web firm RentaACoder.com finally came out on the official RAC forums to announce that the message has been removed, and apologized for any loss of business. He said:

All,

This is from Ian Ippolito, the owner of Rent a coder.  My sincere apologies if your business was negatively affected in any way.  The message had been removed.

A number of Pakistani coders had claimed that the electrical situation had recently gotten out of hand and asked to be excused from their projects without a poor rating.  We researched the situation on the internet and it appeared true and did so and then posted the warning on the site.  After posting the warning, we then received a number of emails saying that the electrical situation is no different than it used to be for many years, and that competent coders have already made other arrangements and are not affected. Since there is a big conflict between what different people in Pakistan are telling us, we have removed all messages until we are able to sort out exactly what is happening.

Again my apologies.

Ian Ippolito

RentAcoder did the right thing to finally take notice and and take the notice off – hats off to them for creating a happy ending – but Ian’s post raises an important question. RAC are looking for precise information on the infrastructure available to the Pakistani IT workers, which is not the same as the one available to the general Pakistani population. Lacking any official source of information, they had to rely on a couple of generic news sites. Shouldn’t it be the responsibility of a body like the PSEB to act as a watchdog and make sure that a truer picture is available to the world regarding the current energy crisis and how we are dealing with it? They don’t need to lie, just acknowledge the fact that even though we have an energy crisis going on, we have enough practice to effectively deal with it.

PSEB should get involved in incidents like this one, and start the re branding process by updating their website’s “Why Pakistan” section, which is very outdated. They should also add a regularly updated source of news on the current infrastructure situation in Pakistan, so that solo IT workers and the smaller IT shops can point their clients to it to verify the existence of the small bubble of relative stability that we are successfully maintaining in the middle of this crisis. Such a measure would also help in retaining existing business streams and alleviating the concerns and apprehensions of potential clients when it comes to Pakistan. After all, PSEB has the slogan: “Promoting the IT Industry Locally and Globally”.  They can start with getting in touch with Ian directly. Any PSEB person reading this?

If you are a RentACoder.com client or service provider, you will notice a ’site wide message’ on most of the RAC pages today warning its users about Pakistan and Pakistanis:

Site Wide Message: (current site time 10/24/2008 8:22:02 AM EDT)

Are you working with a Pakistani? If so, you need to know that most parts of Pakistan are experiencing severe electricity rationing, and electricity is unavailable more often than not. Click here for more important information.

While it is totally fair for the company to inform their customers about the potential pitfalls of ‘renting’ Pakistanis, I was disturbed by RAC’s choice of words and the potential negativity (pun intended) that such words usually generate against Pakistan and Pakistanis. IMHO RAC should try to be politically correct and more sensitive towards its service providers. Some would call this nitpicking, but the news is wrong on more than one levels.

First of all, a Pakistani may be a non-resident Pakistani, and lots of people abroad are “working with Pakistanis”, so it is infact the brand perception of Pakistan that is affected here.

Secondly, though we are facing electricity rationing, electricity is still available at least 14 hours a day from the standard providers (the *ESCOs) contrary to the RAC claim of “more often than not”. Now 14 hours a day may seem like hell to a CA resident, but it is plenty of time to get things done (GTD), if scheduled properly.

Thirdly, if a RAC client is already “working with a Pakistani”, I would expect that client to be aware of this constraint already, after all, you can’t fail to notice if your service provider is unavailable more often than not – I think what RAC meant to say was “Are you considering working with a Pakistani?”.

Most importantly though, I think that a “Pakistani” whose primary source of income is RentACoder (and there are hundreds of such Pakistanis) already know about the power crisis through first-hand knowledge, and he how to deal with it! – after all, load shedding is virtually a part of his Pakistani culture by now! The ‘Pakistani’ in question probably owns a Japanese UPS, a desi UPS (A very cheap UPS developed in Pakistan that uses wet batteries originally meant for LTVs) or a gas generator. Our powerless Pakistani has solved this energy crisis one way or another before attempting to earn his bread on RAC!

I don’t know if RAC realizes or cares about the effects that such deterring official messages can have on Pakistani coders earning their income on RAC, but I do sincerely hope that there is a vigilante Ministry of IT somewhere out there who is keeping an eye on the buzz, who realizes the consequences of such irresponsible news, and who works officially with entities like RAC to make sure that Pakistan is being marketed properly, despite it being the “Most dangerous country of the world”.

PS. I do not have a RAC account. Credit goes to Sohail Abid, a “Happy Freelancer”, who shared this news with me on Twitter. The post was written on my laptop, the one that has a functional battery but is still hooked up to my Pakistani UPS, during the 6th load-shedding spell of the day.

I have received variations on this SMS message a dozen times since the beginning of this month of Ramadan. It says

Apjo koi ho plz mere is num 03xxxxxxxxx per15rps send kr do main hospital main musibt man hun plz tumko alah aur rasol k waste mera yakin kro plz10rps plz.

which translates roughly to:

Whoever you are,  please send 15Rs. to this number of mine I am in the hospital in trouble please for god’s sake believe me please 10Rs. please.

SMS spam is nothing new, but this well-executed ‘campaign’ comes in a flavor exclusive to the land of green & white, and takes the cake.