| Thursday, May 11, 2006 |
| Between the GoogleVideos and the rest of the Web |
Is this alarmist caption,
Kumbe all along we are being watched and monitored.
Yet another advantage of being Kenyan:
1. Post Boxes.
I cannot imagine the kind of mail spam we would be getting if we had actual addresses. Microsoft and Co. would be raining fire on our A$$es for advantage No. 2
2. Piracy:
I recently was in dire need of some graphics software. As per kawa my friend knew a place where we could find it. In the space of a few minutes we had a whole collection of software at only a paltry Ksh 500/= Adobe will be kulaing waya videadly.
How many of us are using genuine software in our private machines?
Sisemi kitu!
Scenery at 2am, in a building near Roysambu petrol station
"Knock! Knock knock!"
S, rubbing his tired eyes with the back of his hand, mutters, "Bloody Nani huyo saa hii?" (said in the bluntest kyuk: Brarrry)
From outside, American accented Swahili replies, "Tafadheli Funguwe mulengo."
Sensing danger, he cancels his download window, closes all 13 tabs of his Mozilla Firefox browser and shuts down his computer, "Ngoja kidogo." and puts on his t-shirt while looking for sandals chini ya kitanda.
S opens the door to be greeted by blinding flashlights. He is roughly pushed in by some shades-wearing jung'z. Kawaida pleasantries are exchanged,while his dry face is gently pushed to the ground, hands are cuffed.
"Who are you people?" S asks in his most authoritative tone, while he's trying to compose himself.
He knows.
You see for the past seven months, since the discovery of this portal known as Blogspot.com, S's life has been one constant whirl. Google in conjunction with Blogspot have radically changed his view and wallet. You see, now
S IS A SOFTWARE PIRATE!
Before the blogspot revolution, S had been relying on unreliable sites such as Crackdb.org warez.org and astalavista.us for software cracks and appz. He had long since stopped downloading shareware from akina download.com, tucows.com and Jambo.
FTP had been a way of life, especially at the office where he pretends to work as a consultant, until one fateful morning when he tried to accesss ftp://219.95.16.42:8080 and got a "server has refused CONNECTION" error.
Blogspot.com came to the rescue when he happened to secure himself a land line through the "some person who knew somebody" thing. Some field work assigned to S meant that he got a year's subscription to Wananchi for his internet. As he sat on the bed, facing the computer, his days work completed, he happened to google some info on mental problems. Site number 7 on the list was Mental's site. He was hooked. Further investigation of the links revealed that he was a part of the Kenyan Blog Webring, KenyaUnlimited.
S joined the blogger revolution, and found a way to make money. You see, in kenya, I.T Books are a hard find(go to any bookshop and see the prices). S therefore headed out to the blogosphere, where viruses, trojan downloaders, spyware and rootkits are virtually non-existent to look for affordable education. Sites like giuciao became a way of life, a source of income from "Handing" out the latest Testkings and e-books.
Until that night.
"Isn't it amazing how simple this shack is?" One of the jung'z booting S' computer remarked, laughing. sarcastic pig!
The contents of the room were a sight indeed. One computer, a beat-up playstation, three cartons of cd's, and wires everywhere. Clothes, dirty utensils, pencils and pieces of paper were not the kindest of sights. Indeed,those tu-moms for "How Clean is your House" would be cartwheeling in joy, like the other tenants of S': The 'Roache's do in the wee hours of the night when the delicate hum of the computer is punctuated by the trumpets of DAP and Nero Burning software announcing the download and burning successes, in alternate order.
They were here to arrest S.
You see, Microsoft, together with the other software vendors, were wondering why all of a sudden most people who did their MCSE, CISCO, ORACLE, CompTia exams in Nairobi were suddenly scoring at 98%, why 24 and the other videos aren't making any hard sales. Therefore, together with the local detectives, under the direction of InterPol (who, incidentally, cannot even spell Kenya correctly, check url), decided to mount a raid on S' property.
The computer, once it fired (referred to as the VW henceforth), was as innocent as a kid caught with his hand in the jar. S was wishing he had an E.M.P bomb to set off at a time like this. (24 style). There was nothing S could do, as he was still staring down the Roache's homestead, his head nestled between garlic-smelling, greased cartons, courtesy of a big American Boot.
These boys knew their stuff, and it did not take long for the VW to sing.
Like a bird, It sang
Strumming my pain with its keyboard (one time, one time)
Singing my life with its files (two time, download time)
Killing me softly with its song
Killing me softly... with its cookies
Telling my whole life, with its history
Killing me softly... with its files
The VW's hard drive was ghosted chap-chap and the image file was uploaded to Interpol's site. You see, here in Kenya, these people believe that we can make anything disappear, Haki ya Mungu it's true! and with the kind of operation that S was running, a lot of big companies and colleges here would want to pay good chumz to have a route 44 back-seat woofer "inadvertently" placed on the hard disk at CID Hq's.
And they struggled with the computer and S' cartons of software, while S was busy squeezing his hands purple with the handcuffs.
And after they led him out, the constant hum of the computer could still still be heard in the silence of the night.
Sidebar
 A team of bloggers from all around the world are teaming up to create a special blog about Alaa's detention. Therefore, bloggers from all around the world are asked to link to this page using the text Egypt. (Due to the way that Google's PageRank algorithm works, a page will be ranked higher if the sites that link to that page all use consistent anchor text.)
Please create this and show your solidarity with the Egyptian cause.
Sidebar 2
There have been some tiffs up in KBW of late, as evidenced by Poi's blog and KG's. Seems that the happy family thing is irking some bloggers.
Again, Sisemi Kitu! |
posted by Sammie @ 3:51 PM  |
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| 6 Comments: |
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ai how? eh ati am using a ..and my Isp is..
its big brother in here
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Yep. Better believe it.
Thanks for visiting.
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Eeeh sitasema kitu pia mimi..
Am telling you we ca be smoked wengi...
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Wewe sammie, yani this ka storo is familiar...but you know I am always on the wrong side of the law...
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can you validate this storo?
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Events potrayed in this storo are purely from Sammy's imagination.
But all descriptions of artwork, documents, and secret rituals in this story are true.(Copyright, Dan brown, The Da-Vinci Code)
By the way:
Can anyone get me the full pdf of Dan Brown's book. I know you know someone who has it!
@Kritik:
Unless you jua a person who fits this profile, you have nothing to worry about........
for a while, before the ICT policy is set up and THEY COME FOR YOU!
@Potash:
Welcome back.
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ai how? eh ati am using a ..and my Isp is..
its big brother in here