China started censoring certain parts of WhatsApp, according to <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40651951" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reports</a>. Though there was no comment from the state, many presumed it came as part of a broader response to outcry over the death of political prisoner and Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo.
Using the so-called Great Firewall of China, or another part of its vast censorship apparatus, China managed to stop users sending WhatsApp video messages and other multimedia. But, given Facebook&#8217;s added security, including its <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2016/04/06/whatsapp-brings-full-end-to-end-encryption-for-all-one-billion-users/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">end-to-end encryption</a> of WhatsApp messages, how could the Chinese censor images and video while allowing the app to otherwise function as normal?
Turns out, it&#8217;s very simple, according to computer science student and security researcher Frieder Steinmetz. He put together a video showing the possible method China is using, just on a massive scale. It simply redirects a phone&#8217;s access to the media files server used by WhatsApp, causing video and photo downloads to fail.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="How to block WhatsApp media file transmission" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kcdJL2FbJ6g?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
He redirected connections trying to reach &#8220;mmg.whatsapp.net&#8221; and &#8220;mms.whatsapp.net&#8221; &#8211; the servers for downloading multimedia content &#8211; to the IP address 10.0.0.1. This was done with his own firewall. Afterwards, he removes the redirection via the web interface of his firewall. That&#8217;s when the images can again be downloaded.
Obviously, this is a small-scale experiment. But it&#8217;s likely China could simply expand it using their control over the country&#8217;s internet. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know the first thing about China&#8217;s censorship infrastructure but I imagine it is pretty easy to accomplish,&#8221; Steinmetz added.
Could WhatsApp do more to fight such censorship? Possibly. WhatsApp&#8217;s encryption is based on that of another popular messaging app, Signal. The creators of that tool have a neat trick for preventing forms of censorship. A source familiar with the app&#8217;s workings said Signal chooses to host services on Google servers alongside a lot of others. No one can see which service is being used by a particular user as the connection is encrypted.
That means that if a country wanted to sensor a unique service, like Signal videos, then they&#8217;d have to block the whole Google server, knocking out all those others running on the same machine. Even for China that&#8217;d be a risky move, causing all kinds of international outrage, beyond that already felt over its latest censorship broadside.
WhatsApp declined to comment for this article. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Thomas Fox-Brewster</a>, FORBES STAFF

Why It’s Really Easy For Anyone To Censor WhatsApp

A House subcommittee approved critical legislation for the fast-developing driverless car movement this week that sets specific rules for how many such vehicles can be on U.S. roads and the federal government’s role in regulating them. While it would give companies developing the technology the national framework they want, it also raises questions over who is best-suited to ensure this cutting-edge technology is safe.
Under <a href="http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF17/20170719/106309/BILLS-115pih-HighlyAutomatedVehicleTesti-U2.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">proposed rules</a> that will come before the full House for a vote in September, manufacturers could put up to 100,000 autonomous vehicles per company on U.S. roads every year, with a requirement that they certify the safety of those vehicles with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA. If approved, the proposal would preempt the current patchwork of state-level rules for operating self-driving cars and trucks. They build off a basic set of guidelines <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2016/09/19/u-s-gives-green-light-to-self-driving-car-push-setting-federal-ground-rules/#672c0ad13652" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">issued by President Barack Obama’s Transportation Department</a> last September.
“The need for this legislation was laid out by the Obama Administration,” said Rep. Bob Latta, the Ohio Republican who chairs the House Subcommittee on Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection. “From the front bumper to the back bumper, whether it is a car, a pickup truck or a van, how the vehicle works and is designed should be the province of the federal government as has been the case for more than 50 years.”
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/07/11/workplace-future-now/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Workplace Of The Future &#8211; Or Now?</a>
California, which has <a href="https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/testing" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">issued permits to 36 companies</a> testing about 200 autonomous vehicles in the state, would no longer be able to set its own guidelines if the federal proposal becomes law. But whether federal safety officials ultimately are better-suited to validate manufacturers’ safety claims for the artificial intelligence, algorithms and next-generation vision and sensing technologies that go into self-driving cars remains in question.
“There’s this whole gray ground about who is in the best position to regulate these new cars, which go beyond the traditional car into almost driving a computer and software,” said attorney Sharon Klein, a partner in the autonomous vehicle practice for Pepper Hamilton LLP. “There’s been this debate about whether NHTSA as an agency should continue to be involved in deployment as well.”
The new rules rely on companies to certify the safety of their systems. The concern is that NHTSA, the country&#8217;s primary auto safety regulator, lacks the software and computer science expertise needed to validate their technical claims, Klein said.
“It comes down to a question of who is going to be watching the manufacturers?” she told Forbes.
Along with the growing number of robotic vehicles in California, states including Michigan, Massachusetts and Nevada are home to ever larger test fleets. Waymo, the Alphabet Inc. unit created last year to commercialize Google&#8217;s self-driving car technology, has already begun a large-scale public test in Arizona that may eventually grow to hundreds of driverless vehicles <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2017/04/25/waymo-taps-phoenix-for-a-big-public-test-of-google-self-driving-car-tech/#3769032c6141" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ferrying people around Phoenix</a>.
General Motors, Uber, Lyft, Ford companies are following suit, and Tesla intends to give its electric vehicles full autonomous capability within the next year or two via over-the-air updates.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/homepage/2017/07/07/tesla-loses-valuable-u-s-carmaker-crown-stock-takes-12-billion-hit/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tesla Loses &#8216;Most Valuable U.S. Carmaker&#8217; Crown As Stock Takes $12 Billion Hit</a>
In 2016, NHTSA and the Transportation Department <a href="https://www.transportation.gov/AV/federal-automated-vehicles-policy-september-2016" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">defined 15 areas</a> that manufacturers need to comply with when they put self-driving vehicles on the road. That basic framework will put the agency in an administrative role, ensuring certain benchmarks are met, despite lacking specific knowledge of the software and algorithms powering autonomous systems.
“There’s no way NHTSA has the technical capability to do this right now,” said Mike Ramsey, an automotive tech analyst with Gartner Research in Detroit.
“NHTSA is really the arbiter of ‘does it appear that you have done all the things you need to do?’ It’s counting on the fear of deaths and lawsuits that could arise to prevent carmakers from doing something egregious,” he said.
Insurance companies will also act as a “shadow regulator” to keep manufacturers honest in their technical claims, Ramsey said. “The fact is unsafe (autonomous) technology would quickly become uninsurable.”
<a href="http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Consumer Watchdog</a>, a safety advocacy group, called on congress to give NHTSA more resources to better address this major technological shift and opposed the reduced role of individual states to regulate robotic cars and trucks.
“Lost in the hyperbole over robot cars is a realistic assessment of the likely costs to both consumers and taxpayers particularly over the coming decades, when robot cars and human drivers will share a ‘hybrid highway,’ John Simpson, director of the Santa Monica, California-based group’s privacy project, said in a <a href="http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/newsrelease/consumer-watchdog-calls-california-representatives-oppose-congressional-robot-car-legisl" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">statement</a>.
“Pre-empting the states’ ability to fill the void left by federal inaction leaves us at the mercy of manufacturers as they use our public highways as their private laboratories however they wish with no safety protections at all,” said Simpson, who called on California House members to oppose the subcommittee proposal.
For its part, the California DMV said it doesn’t comment on pending legislation. The department has been tasked with setting regulations for the testing and deployment of autonomous vehicles on state roadways since 2014. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Alan Ohnsman</a>, FORBES STAFF

Push For Self-Driving Car Rules Overlooks Lack Of Federal Expertise In AI Tech

In a crowded market for recruiting software, Google has helped play hitmaker as strong search results and ads helping differentiate among a field including a host of startups and legacy players. Now Google&#8217;s taking on a new role of competitor.
With a new application announced on Tuesday called <a href="https://hire.google.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hire</a>, Google is taking aim at the small- and medium-sized business part of the recruiting market. Its pitch is simple: for recruiters who already spend much of their day in Gmail and Google Calendar, they can schedule interviews in Hire much faster and with a lot fewer clicks. &#8220;For people scheduling interviews, that&#8217;s all they do, day in and day out,&#8221; says Dmitri Krakovsky, a vice president at Google Cloud. &#8220;We believe this will save recruiters multiple hours a day copy and pasting things from one application to another.&#8221;
When Google studied how its G Suite customers were using recruiting software, they found that G Suite typically operated in a &#8220;parallel universe&#8221; to the third-party or homemade tools a company used for its recruiting functions. Companies would end up speaking with applicants by email and perform interviews using Google Voice and Hangouts, then log the activity on those tools. But in the interests of saving time, data would get lost routinely in that transfer, causing headaches as applicants moved through the system, Krakovsky says.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/07/11/workplace-future-now/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Workplace Of The Future &#8211; Or Now?</a>
The alternative solution to doing it all in Google would be to schedule calls and conduct more business within the third-party apps themselves. There are plenty of options in the market, from Forbes <a href="https://www.forbes.com/cloud100/#5d523ce75f94" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Cloud 100</a> companies iCIMS and Greenhouse Software to Bamboo HR, part of Utah&#8217;s <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2017/07/11/how-utahs-silicon-slopes-became-clouds-new-capital/#1072c1013310" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fast-growing cloud computing scene</a>, as well as Jazz HR, Lever, Workable, Zoho and public companies such as Cornerstone OnDemand, Oracle and SAP SuccessFactors. Google is betting that despite all those options — or even because of how many there are — a big chunk of its 3 million business customers for G Suite will find it easier to put everything in the same place as their work email.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2017/06/28/mayday-mayday-ive-hacked/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mayday! Mayday! I&#8217;ve Been Hacked</a>
Hire syncs up to keep emails in one thread in Gmail and attach info such as room availability, contact numbers and interview questions within a Calendar invite. The app is for sale separately as a premium add-on to G Suite, initially just in the United States and for businesses of under 1,000 employees. More than 100 customers are already using Hire, Krakovsky says. The company plans to announce machine learning tools later this year that will allow, among other use cases, for recruiters to resurface strong candidates for previous positions when new ones open up.
The app is the first role-specific attempt of its kind for Google, which <a href="https://www.blog.google/products/search/connecting-more-americans-jobs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">announced a Google for Jobs initiative</a> at its I/O conference to tackle job boards and listings. The closest comparison may be Google for Education as a set of tools, though that offering is specific to a vertical, not a function. Krakovsky says other role-based applications aren&#8217;t imminently planned.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2017/06/29/understanding-real-innovation-behind-iphone/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Understanding the real innovation behind the iPhone</a>
For startups in the recruiting software space, the Hire app may limit growth opportunities within Google&#8217;s sphere. For customers who are happy with their existing providers, Hire may be intriguing more as an add-on or extension than as a full replacement.
If the result is happier G Suite customers, Google probably wouldn&#8217;t care. &#8220;Two days ago I was talking to a customer, and she said, &#8216;when I saw what you were doing with the calendar, I wanted to cry,'&#8221; says Krakovsky. &#8220;She had to open 7 different tabs, look at availability, write that down and go back to the app to try to make sense of it all. If we can do that in 30 seconds, it&#8217;s a huge boost.&#8221; &#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Alex Konrad</a>, FORBES STAFF

Google Takes Aim At Recruiting Software Market With New App Called Hire

The time for an intervention of the workplace has arrived. The traditional office as we know it, bound by a desk with set working hours, being present for meetings, and processing paperwork, is no longer functional. Technological advancements have changed the way people work so that it’s no longer where it gets done but that it gets done. These are some of the key insights shared by Deloitte in a series of reports released towards the end of 2016.
One of the reports revealed that the work place of the future will be mobile and not bound by location; it will be independent (contractors); more people will be working from home; and co-working spaces will be an alternate to working from home; all this ties in with a traditional workplace no longer being functional.
The future is mobile
Technology such as laptops, tablets, smartphones; wireless connectivity; and networking software will be a key driver to this paradigm shift. Mobile manufacturers are catering to this – the new Samsung S8 offers a “Dex” mode that lets you switch to a desktop mode by attaching a few peripherals to its smartphone. According to Deloitte, many workers may still have a designated office space for themselves but they are treating work as something they do rather than where they do it.
Not bound by location
The combination of portable devices, WiFi and modern software solutions, means employees can work from anywhere and don’t necessarily have to come into an office, or sit in traffic to get there – an issue South Africans can identify with. As more companies shift to cloud-based or custom solutions, it means one can work from any location yet still collaborate via shared documents in the form of Google Docs, Office 365 or Dropbox, to name a few.
Co-working spaces
There has been an increase in co-working spaces in South Africa with companies renting out ‘hot-desks’ to freelance individuals. These spaces come with desks, phones, high-speed internet, boardrooms, meeting areas, coffee, and whatever other amenities are required to work from ‘anywhere’. Provided one isn’t bound by specific machinery; one could find themselves sharing office space with individuals from varying industries. Access to a set-up with all amenities is usually tied to a daily/weekly/monthly/annual fee, offering greater flexibility for contract work.
Gig economy
The gig economy is one of the major elements of the workforce of the future. It is where independent contractors and freelancers will be used for short-term projects, and also ties in with not being bound by location. If a job can be done remotely with the right hardware and software, a greater pool of employees are available for the picking. With people changing jobs more frequently, the gig economy is said to be an evolution of this. Additionally, businesses save on other costs such as office space, training, and employee benefits.
No more paperwork
Going digital or moving to the cloud means no more unnecessary paperwork, saving businesses a huge chunk in costs. All it takes is moving to smarter solutions such a digital HR software; electronic contracts; accounting software; online project management tools; collaborating via shared documents, and online video chats instead of face-to-face meetings.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2016/02/01/inside-house-future/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Inside The House Of The Future</a>
Could this work in a South African context? Forty-year-old Daniel Calbacho, Managing Director of RED Marketing based in Illovo, Johannesburg, took an interesting, non-traditional approach with his company. He “fired” all his staff and re-hired them as independent freelancers.
Calbacho manages a team of young writers and recognizes that people are all different, have a life outside of standard working hours and want to pursue their passions as part of their lifestyle.
“Each person in the business is encouraged to see themselves as an entrepreneur, and focus on their predominant skillset, which is linked to their passion to earn a living.” His team comprises of individuals who are motoring journalists, photographers, writers, bloggers and even a pop singer.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2015/02/01/is-there-a-future-in-cellphones/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Is There A Future In Cellphones?</a>
They are also encouraged to grow at their own pace, and if they’d like to earn more, they don’t have to wait for an annual increase.
“Millennials are about instant gratification – ‘I want this now’. If someone in the team would like to earn a specific amount, we work towards that. Obviously this means taking on more work, much like earn-as-you-go.”
RED Marketing has offices with all the mod-cons, allowing the team to use its facilities at leisure. Cost saving for the company has presented itself in the form of equipment, bonuses, and benefits. As independent contractors, the team supplies their own laptops, cameras and smart devices, which they’ve insured. “Bonuses are no longer a cost consideration albeit we do believe in sharing the company’s profits for outstanding work, and there are no costs for medical aid or pension.”
Skills development has not stopped, says Calbacho. “Every three weeks the team gathers and a person within the group presents knowledge or a skill they’ve been elected to share.”
Leave has also become a secondary HR issue, with each team member allocated 18 days a year to take off completely. “Days are logged, not scrutinized; and most of them don’t take all of it because they are free to manage their time without the construct of a nine-to-five job.”
Calbacho says what they are doing currently works for the business. “The company is successful because the team is happy. Our main focus is delivering the best product to our clients.” &#8211; Written by Nafisa Akabor

The Workplace Of The Future – Or Now?

When the iPhone emerged in 2007, it came with all the promise and pomp of a major Steve Jobs announcement, highlighting its user interface and slick design as key selling points. We know now that the iPhone transformed the mobile phone business, the internet economy and, in many ways, society as a whole. But technically speaking, the iPhone was not very innovative.
Its software and the interface idea were based on the iPod, which was already <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/itunes-10th-anniversary-how-steve-jobs-turned-the-industry-upside-down-20130426">reinventing the digital music industry</a>. Touchscreens had appeared on earlier phone and tablet models, including <a href="http://oldcomputers.net/apple-newton.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Apple’s own Newton</a>. And <a href="http://nokiamuseum.info/category/launching-year/2007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">top-line Nokia phones</a> had more memory, better cameras and faster mobile connectivity. What made the iPhone transformative was the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/13/15782200/one-device-secret-history-iphone-brian-merchant-book-excerpt" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">shift in concept underpinning the entire iPhone project</a>: Its designers did not create a telephone with some extra features, but rather a full-fledged hand-held computer that could also make calls and browse the internet.
As a <a href="http://www.internationalinnovation.com/how-digitasation-is-changing-the-working-world/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">scholar of management, design and innovation</a>, I find it hard to predict what the next truly revolutionary technological development will be. In the 10 years since the launch of the iPhone, <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/when-iphone-met-world-7-years-ago-today/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">so much about modern life, commerce and culture has changed</a>. In part that’s because the iPhone, and the smartphone boom it spurred, created a portable personal technology infrastructure that’s almost infinitely expandable. The iPhone changed the game not because of its initial technology and cool user interface but rather as a result of its creators’ imagination and courage.
<h2>Inventing mobile apps</h2>
As the iPhone took shape, its designers found themselves <a href="http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brian-merchant/the-one-device/9781478915836/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">torn between making a phone or a computer</a>. Engineers and marketing executives alike worried the new device would kill the iPod market that had <a href="http://business.time.com/2012/09/14/without-music-apple-would-be-nothing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">driven Apple’s corporate resurgence for five years</a>. Nokia, <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/263438/market-share-held-by-nokia-smartphones-since-2007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the biggest player in the cellphone market at the time</a>, had similar technologies and prototypes, and also <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304388004577531002591315494" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">feared outcompeting</a> its own successful mobile phone product lines that used a simpler and more old-fashioned software platform than that on which iPhone was built.
Apple took the leap, however, by installing a fully capable computer operating system on the iPhone, along with a few small application programs. Some were phone-related, including a program that handled making and receiving calls, as well as <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2007/01/09Apple-Reinvents-the-Phone-with-iPhone/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a new way to display voicemail messages</a>, and a system that kept different contacts’ text messages separate. Others were more computer-like, including an email app and a web browser. Of course, the music-playing features from the iPod were included too, linking the phone with the emerging Apple music ecosystem.
Initially, that was about it for apps. But <a href="https://www.cultofmac.com/164137/meet-geohot-guy-who-unlocked-the-first-iphone-and-hacked-the-sony-ps3/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">skilled computer engineers and hackers</a> knew they were holding a palm-sized computer, and set to work writing their own software and <a href="https://www.cultofmac.com/213904/how-far-weve-come-the-original-iphone-jailbreak-took-74-steps-jailbreak/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">getting it running on their iPhones</a>. That was the dawn of the now-ubiquitous app. Within a year, these apps were so popular, and their potential so significant, that <a href="http://www.macworld.com/article/1134503/iphone2update.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Apple’s second version of the iPhone operating system</a> made it easy (and legal) for users to install <a href="http://www.phonecruncher.com/features/00942/the-first-ever-apps-on-the-app-store-gone-but-not-forgotten/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">apps on their phones</a>.
<h2>Shifting priorities</h2>
The prospect of making a fully functional hand-held computer changed how users and manufacturers alike thought about mobile phones. For Apple and every other phone company, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-android-smartphones-2011-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">software became much more important than hardware</a>. What apps a phone could run, and how quickly, mattered much more than whether it had a slightly better camera or could hold a few more photos; whether it flipped open, slid open or was a bar-style; or whether it had a large keyboard or a small one. The iPhone’s <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-reaction-first-iphone-2015-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">keyboard was on-screen</a> and software-generated, making a function that had required dedicated hardware into one running on generic hardware and dedicated software.
At the time of the iPhone launch, Nokia offered about 200 <a href="http://nokiamuseum.info/category/launching-year/2007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">different phone styles to meet all the different needs</a> of its hundreds of millions of customers. There was just one iPhone model at the start, and in the ensuing decade there have been only <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iOS_devices#iPhone" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">14 major styles</a> – though today they come in different colors, not just white and black as the original did. This is the power of software functionality and related simplicity.
The heightened importance of software on a mobile phone shifted the industry’s economy as well. The money came now not just from selling devices and phone services, but also from marketing and selling apps and in-app advertisements. <a href="https://www.recode.net/2016/6/8/11889298/google-apple-subscription-app-revenue-share" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">App developers must share revenue</a> with the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/16/14634656/android-ios-market-share-blackberry-2016" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">companies that control smartphones’ operating systems</a>, providing serious earning power: Apple holds <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/16/14634656/android-ios-market-share-blackberry-2016/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">about 15% of the mobile phone market</a>, but reaps <a href="http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20170308000345" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">80% of global smartphone profits</a>.
Whatever the next tech industry game-changer is, and whenever it arrives, it will likely have some connection to the smartphone and related infrastructure. Even today, <a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/10/13/virtual_reality_is_made_o_smartphones/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">exploring virtual reality</a> requires only installing an app and connecting just a bit of additional hardware to an existing phone. Similarly, smartphone interfaces and cameras already <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2410889,00.asp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">monitor and control intelligent and automated homes</a>. Even as devices are developed to operate all around us, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/alphabets-new-plan-to-track-10-000-people-could-take-wearables-to-the-next-level-76620" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">even in our clothes</a>, many of them will be able to point to the iPhone as a conceptual ancestor and inspiration.  &#8211; Written by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kalle-lyytinen-336943" target="_blank" rel="author noopener noreferrer">Kalle Lyytinen</a>, Iris S. Wolstein Professor of Management Design, Case Western Reserve University
Originally published in <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Conversation</a>
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Understanding the real innovation behind the iPhone

The world suffered another <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/06/27/ransomware-spreads-rapidly-hitting-power-companies-banks-airlines-metro/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ransomware nightmare </a>on Tuesday, with pharmaceutical companies, Chernobyl radiation detection systems, the Kiev metro, an airport and banks all affected. One U.S. hospital also <a href="http://amp.wtae.com/article/cybersecurity-incident-heritage-valley-health-system/10228015" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">appears to be a victim</a>. Worse is expected, thanks to some pernicious features in the ransomware sample.
The malware widely believed to be responsible is a version of Petya which security researchers are calling &#8220;NotPetya&#8221;. It&#8217;s similar to Petya, but different enough to qualify as an entirely new form of ransomware, researchers say. Backing up NotPetya is an exploit method borrowed from a leaked <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/05/12/nsa-exploit-used-by-wannacry-ransomware-in-global-explosion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">NSA hack called EternalBlue</a>, the same which WannaCry used to infect hundreds of thousands of computers and take down hospital networks. Though with the new strain, only computers on a local network are scanned, not the entire internet, as WannaCry attempted.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2017/06/28/mayday-mayday-ive-hacked/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mayday! Mayday! I&#8217;ve Been Hacked</a>
That&#8217;s cause for embarrassment among infected companies: Microsoft <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/leemathews/2017/05/13/microsoft-update-wannacrypt-ransomware/" target="_self">released a patch</a> earlier this year which prevented any EternalBlue hacks, even pushing out updates for older, unsupported Windows systems like XP. Businesses should have patched by now, especially given the carnage WannaCry caused.
<h3>Extra powers</h3>
NotPetya has some extra powers that security experts say make it deadlier than WannaCry. While EternalBlue has allowed it to spread via a weakness in Windows&#8217; SMB, it has other tools for moving at speed across networks. For instance, according to former NSA analyst and cybersecurity entrepreneur David Kennedy, the ransomware finds passwords on the infected computer to move to other systems. It does that by extracting passwords from memory or from the local filesystem, he explained.
<blockquote>&#8220;This is going to be a big one. Real big one,&#8221; Kennedy added.</blockquote>
Another proliferation technique is NotPetya&#8217;s abuse of <a href="https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897553.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">PsExec</a>. The tool is meant to carry out limited actions on other systems, but in this case its  spreading the infection by executing malicious code on other computers. For instance, if the infected PC has administrator access to the network, every computer can become infected. A similar method is used by NotPetya with the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) tool, <a href="https://twitter.com/GossiTheDog/status/879761465061904394" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">according to security expert Kevin Beaumont</a>.
&#8220;This dangerous combination may be the reason why this outbreak has spread globally and rapidly, even after the previous outbreaks have generated media headlines and hopefully most vulnerabilities have been patched,&#8221; said ESET researcher Robert Lipovsky. &#8220;It only takes one unpatched computer to get inside the network, and the malware can get administrator rights and spread to other computers.&#8221;
Perhaps most crucially, thanks to all these added features, the new strain will infect even patched Windows PCs, including those with Windows 10, as one IT professional <a href="http://colsec.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/petya-outbreak-june-27th.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">noted</a> in a blog, whereas WannaCry worked largely on older systems.
A Microsoft spokesperson said the company was aware of the reports and was investigating, adding: &#8220;Our initial analysis found that the ransomware uses multiple techniques to spread, including one which was addressed by a security update previously provided for all platforms from Windows XP to Windows 10 [the EternalBlue vulnerability <a href="https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/security/ms17-010.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">MS17-010</a>]. As ransomware also typically spreads via email, customers should exercise caution when opening unknown files. We are continuing to investigate and will take appropriate action to protect customers.&#8221; It also claimed its anti-malware product, Windows Defender, detected and blocked the malware.
<h3>Pro ransomware</h3>
This latest attack appears to be the work of a professional group, unlike WannaCry, which was full of bugs and had a killswitch. which a British security researcher accessed and turned off (though more infections occurred just last week). There is no obvious killswitch with NotPetya, which Kaspersky <a href="https://twitter.com/kaspersky/status/879749175570817024/photo/1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">said</a> has infected at least 2,000 organizations across the globe, including Ukraine, Russia, the U.K. and the United States.
NotPetya&#8217;s professionalism might come from Petya&#8217;s birth in the bustling, highly technical cybercriminal underground. Jakub Kroustek, Threat Lab Team lead at Avast, said: &#8220;One of the perfidious characteristics of Petya ransomware is that its creators offer it on the darknet with an affiliate model which gives distributors a share of up to 85% of the paid ransom amount, while 15% is kept by the malware authors.&#8221; This kind of &#8220;ransomware-as-a-service&#8221; has been a growing concern of late, given it opens up the crime to a non-technical audience.
Whatever the class of criminal behind today&#8217;s outbreak, they&#8217;ve had a good pay day, though not an astounding one. At the time of publication, 22 payments had been made to 2.39818893 Bitcoin, worth around $5,515.
Anyone even considering paying hackers to unlock their computers should reverse course, however: the email account set up to provide keys has been <a href="https://posteo.de/en/blog/info-on-the-petrwrappetya-ransomware-email-account-in-question-already-blocked-since-midday" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">shut down</a> by the provider, Posteo. Thanks to that, there&#8217;s no obvious way of recovering files without backups. &#8211; Written by <a class="link preload-hidden ng-binding" href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Thomas Fox-Brewster</a>, FORBES STAFF

Petya Or NotPetya: Why The Latest Ransomware Is Deadlier Than WannaCry

For years, security experts warned Africa&#8217;s slumbering companies of cyberattacks. On May 12, many woke up. On this day cyberattacks struck 150 countries,  infecting more than 200,000 computers and holding multi-billion-dollar businesses, like France’s Renault, Britain&#8217;s National Health Service, Spain&#8217;s Telefónica, the United States’ FedEx and Germany’s Deutsche Bahn, to ransom.
<a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2017/06/28/petya-notpetya-latest-ransomware-deadlier-wannacry/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Petya Or NotPetya: Why The Latest Ransomware Is Deadlier Than WannaCry</a>
Behind it is <a href="https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterlyon/2017/06/22/cyber-attack-at-honda-stops-production-after-wannacry-worm-strikes/&amp;refURL=https://www.google.co.za/&amp;referrer=https://www.google.co.za/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">WannaCry</a>. This malicious software (malware) encrypts your computer files until a ransom of $300 is paid in the virtual currency, bitcoins. In simple words, it spreads like worms in a bag of rotten apples.
Experts say the reason why this malware squirmed easily into so many companies is that they see cybersecurity as a joke. Many hadn&#8217;t updated their security in over two months.
This made it easy for hackers to exploit Microsoft Windows XP operating systems by bypassing security checks. Once into the core, the malware can search for other files to exploit.
&#8220;Africa, in fact the whole world, is woefully unprepared. Traditional security measures aren’t keeping up with the emerging threats. And it’s becoming increasingly difficult, economically, to keep throwing money at the problem, when [top level management] doesn’t necessarily understand the difference between defending against attackers versus defending against auditors, all the while, tightening the purse strings and treating security as a grudge purchase or necessary evil,&#8221; says Tim Morty, Cyber Security Specialist at Information Security Architects (ISA).
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2012/02/01/web-vigilantes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Web Vigilantes</a>
When your computer is under attack, Morty is the kind of guy you want at you back. For 10 years he has battled cyberattacks on the frontline in Africa, from Botswana and Namibia to Mauritius, Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa.
&#8220;Until not too long ago, the prevalent opinion was that only the big corporate and financial institutions had a need to protect their data against corporate espionage, which many considered the main external threat over and above the usual defences against spam and malware. That has changed in recent times. Cybercriminals have not only expanded their reach, they have also found a ready market in our personal data,&#8221; says Morty.
Often it can be your employees and their cell phones that make you vulnerable.
&#8220;Careless posting on social media is a major concern, as is the use of corporate resources on non-corporate networks. Let’s face it, we all love free WiFi! However, do you really know who is behind the connection, and what are they doing with the information that you are transmitting or receiving?&#8221;
One reason why Africa is so vulnerable is many of its people are still learning how the internet works.
&#8220;We need to begin learning how to survive in the virtual worlds we have created. Cybercriminals have rapidly adapted to the virtual world and are using the advantages they have developed to thrive, while others are still taking their first tentative steps in this new frontier.&#8221;
It was not long ago that businesses, according to <a href="https://home.kpmg.com/xx/en/home/campaigns/2016/06/ceo-outlook.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">KPMG&#8217;s 2016 Global CEO Outlook</a> study, considered cybersecurity as an afterthought. The study found cybersecurity has become a major concern for many CEOs. One in five business leaders now list information security as the risk they are most concerned about, while a third sees cybersecurity as the issue with the biggest impact on their company.
<a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2016/03/01/making-millions-paranoia/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Making Millions From Paranoia</a>
The study is made from the views of nearly 1,300 CEOs from companies across 11 industries in 10 countries. Cyberattacks loom larger in Africa when many businesses are on the cusp of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the age of machine learning, cognitive computing and artificial intelligence, play over the internet.
&#8220;Cyberattack is like cancer, there is not one form of cancer and cybersecurity has a lot of different areas. It&#8217;s one thing for somebody to steal your Mastercard and cause you aggravation, but stealing a vaccine for something like a virus, could be worth billions,&#8221; says J. Patrick Michaels Jr, the founder at Communications Equity Associates (CEA).
Michaels founded CEA in 1973 as a US Cable TV brokerage firm.  Nearly half a century later, it has investments of $1.3 billion in private equity wealth across 60 countries.
Known as a globetrotting investment banker, Michaels learned of cybersecurity in his days as Vice Chairman of the Board of Visitors of the U.S. Naval Academy. Michaels believes small businesses in Africa are prime targets for cyber blackmail.
&#8220;Hackers are starting to target the smaller companies to freeze up their businesses. A lion isn&#8217;t going to attack an elephant, when maybe a water buffalo or springbok is easier prey,&#8221; says Michaels.
&#8220;If you hijack the IT systems for a corporation, the impact on that company&#8217;s shares would be crippling. We could be sitting in Prague, sending a message to this company that to unfreeze their systems, the payment of $100 million to various bank accounts around the world would be appropriate. $100 million would be nothing compared to how much they would lose on the JSE stock markets if they were shut down for just 10 minutes.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2013/09/01/industrial-thief-line-can-rob/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Industrial Thief On The Line, How Can I Rob You?</a>
On the ground in Africa, Morty warns cyberattacks are on the rise because businesses can’t foot the bill.
&#8220;South Africa is, on average, ahead of the curve, in terms of Africa, although we’ve still got a lot of room for improvement… Economically, it is sometimes prohibitively expensive to keep up with the latest and greatest technologies. For those that can afford it, the next challenge is staff upskilling and, often, retention, in a market where skilled individuals are always sought after,&#8221; says Morty.
&#8220;There have been a few occasions when we have documented some major security concerns while working with a client; from open wireless access points and often basic networking flaws at one financial institution to simple lack of visibility and understanding of the client’s environment, with the security role being taken care of by networking staff with minimal training or understanding of the technologies in use.&#8221;
External threats are only part of the problem. Disgruntled employees or moles find it easy to expose weaknesses from within.
&#8220;The typical image, often conjured by media, of hooded figures hunched ominously over a laptop keyboard, is quite misleading. Threats from within are a reality; sometimes with intent, sometimes through neglect, often by accident, especially due to poor user education about a topic that isn’t always user friendly,&#8221; says Morty.
&#8220;Rapid adoption of social media has contributed to security woes, as its users willingly provide attackers with a wealth of information to use against both organizations and individuals alike, making reconnaissance, planning and execution of social engineering attacks that much easier.&#8221;
According to the 2017 Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO Survey, the world’s largest survey of IT leadership, cybersecurity vulnerability is at an all-time high, with a third of IT leaders (32%) reporting their organization had been subject to a major cyberattack in the past 24 months – a 45% increase on 2013.
Only one in five say they are very well prepared to respond to these attacks, down from 29% in 2014. Despite very visible headline-grabbing attacks, such as the recent WannaCry ransomware attack, the biggest jump in threats comes from insider attacks, increasing from 40% to 47% over the last year.
So should we be spending millions on encrypting our phones and protecting computers from hackers?
&#8220;Oddly enough, I’m inclined to say no. Throwing money at the problem will only help up to a point. What we need to do is change the way we work. Educate our users about what it means to be part of the connected world; illustrate what the risks are as well as what can be done to protect themselves, and teach good security practices rather than dictate an intimidating list of do’s and don’ts,&#8221; says Morty.
It will take a while yet for online security to become second nature. Until then Africa&#8217;s blind spot could be expensive.
Relentless rise of organizations being subject to major cyberattacks during past four years:
2017: 32%
2016: 28%
2015: 25%
2014: 22%
Source: <a href="https://www.hnkpmgciosurvey.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The 2017 Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO Survey</a>

Mayday! Mayday! I’ve Been Hacked

When <span class="quotecard ng-isolate-scope" data-ticker="FB" data-exchange="NASDAQ" data-type="organization" data-naturalid="fred/company/15317" data-quotes-closing="153.91" data-quotes-now="153.4011" data-link="/companies/facebook/" data-name="Facebook"><a class="ng-binding" href="http://www.forbes.com/companies/facebook/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Facebook</a> filed to go public in early 2012, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/profile/mark-zuckerberg/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mark Zuckerberg</a> noted that the social network wasn’t originally designed to be a company. “It was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected,” Zuckerberg wrote in Facebook’s S-1 filing, presenting the business as an engine supporting this goal.
Now, five years later, the social network’s CEO still believes Facebook’s primary purpose is a social one, but he’s ready to update this mission for the first time. At at time when Facebook has come under scrutiny for not adequately curbing the spread of false news and extremist activity on the social network, Zuckerberg is committing to making the world closer. On stage on Thursday at Facebook’s first Community Summit, a gathering in Chicago of leaders from 120 different Facebook Groups, Zuckerberg unveiled Facebook’s updated purpose: “Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.”
Facebook’s new mission, Zuckerberg said in an interview at the company’s Menlo Park, California headquarters last week, doesn’t mean that the company is shifting away from connecting friends and family, but rather, that it’s broadening its focus to enabling people to connect with meaningful communities, too. Why do these communities matter, Zuckerberg’s case goes? They help users find common ground, which helps people engage with new perspectives and become aware of different issues. Groups also offer individuals personal support, which gives them bandwidth to look outward and address the biggest human problems, like climate change and global health issues. Being exposed to common information and ideas isn’t enough to bring individuals together, the thesis continues &#8211; they need to identify with people who seem different from themselves to adopt new perspectives.
<blockquote>“For 10 years, we focused on doing everything around connecting people with their friends and family,” Zuckerberg said. “Now I think that there is a whole lot of similar work to be done around communities: Meeting new people, getting exposed to new perspectives, making it so that the communities that you join online can translate to the physical world, too.”</blockquote>
Zuckerberg described the new mission as an extension of Facebook’s original mantra, as opposed to an entirely new direction, and a focus that will guide the company over the next decade. The new mission is intended to reflect that Facebook’s responsibility has “expanded,” Zuckerberg said.
“We’ve been thinking about what our responsibility is in the world,” Zuckerberg said in an interview. “Connecting friends and family has been pretty positive, but I think there is just this collective feeling that we have a responsibility to do more than that and also help build communities and help people get exposed to new perspectives and meet new people &#8211; not just give people a voice, but also help build common ground so people can actually move forward together.”
A Decline In Community
The new mission was inspired by a shift that Zuckerberg said has become more pronounced over the past few years. When Facebook started, the idea of connecting the world wasn’t controversial. But increasingly, some movements in the world work against globalization, whether the exchange of policies, goods or ideas, and prevent the globe from coming together. Simultaneously, Zuckerberg noted, participation in communities has been declining around the world, in some places by as much as one quarter.
The decline in community activity is concerning, Zuckerberg noted, because while people can get personal and economic support from families and governments, people’s needs have historically also been filled by participating in other networks, revolving around everything from religion to sports, neighborhoods, health or shared values. Zuckerberg said the importance of community groups and leaders, like pastors and local advocates, and the impact of declining community membership, has been visible to him on his “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/25/technology/zuckerberg-harvard-commencement-road-trip.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">50 states tour</a>,”  which will ensure he meets people in every U.S. state to better understand how social networks affect their lives.
“I’ll go talk to people in a church, and a pastor will say, &#8216;I know that when a factory closes down in town, I’ll be doing marriage counseling with a lot of people in a month&#8217;,” Zuckerberg said. “Someone needs to do that, but that’s happening less and less. People’s support structures are going away.”
Common Ground
One of the primary benefits of being part of “meaningful groups,” Zuckerberg said, is the potential for that network to help members from a range of backgrounds and perspectives connect over shared values. Access to information alone isn’t a cure-all to helping people care about a broader set of global issues, Zuckerberg said. People often hone their perspective and become interested in new causes as a result of personal relationships.
Research suggests, Zuckerberg said, that in order for people to productively debate an issue, they need to first find recognize their common interests or beliefs. As the world’s largest social network with nearly 2 billion users, Facebook could have an unprecedented opportunity to promote these connections.
“People share more information, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that understanding is shared &#8211; that doesn’t mean the perspectives people have are getting closer together,” Zuckerberg said last week. “We can help you connect over things that you share before exposing you to debates that are really important to have productively.”
Community Tools
Currently, 1 billion Facebook users are part of groups, but only about 100 million are part of groups they would describe as meaningful, Zuckerberg said. For many, these groups can range from support networks for people experiencing or recovering from drug or alcohol addiction, like Affected by Addiction Support Group, to religiously-focused groups like Original Free Will Baptist Church group, run by a minister in Decatur, Georgia, who uses the app to chat with congregation members and share live videos of sermons to allow people to watch from their homes. Zuckerberg said Facebook has set a new goal to help 1 billion people join meaningful groups.
“A billion is a pretty important number in that, if we can do that, that will essentially reverse the whole decline in community membership around the world and start regrowing it to a point where it will have positive social effects,” Zuckerberg said.
Moving forward, a major new area of emphasis in Facebook’s product roadmap is building features that encourage users to find and join more groups that will be meaningful to them, as well as to make it easier for community leaders and Group admins to run groups and create new ones. It isn’t unusual for admins of large groups to spend several hours per day managing tasks like vetting requests from users to join, approving posts or addressing flagged content.
Facebook debuted a suite of new tools for Group admins on Thursday, including a new panel of real-time metrics called “Group insights”; a membership request filtering tool, which allows admins to organize requests through categories like gender and location; a “Removed member clean-up” tool, which makes it easier for admins to make groups safe by automatically deleting former users’ content; a post-scheduling tool to save admins and moderators time; and “Group-to-group-linking,” which allows admins to recommend similar or related groups to their members, aimed at helping sub-communities interact.
“The admins themselves are so critical because each group needs someone who’s going to look out for people,” said Zuckerberg, who noted that Facebook plans to continue rolling out additional tools to support admins over time. Facebook has also adjusted its algorithm to suggest Groups to people based on how meaningful the user will find the Group, as opposed to how likely that user is to join a particular Group.
As Facebook’s user base and the size and number of Groups continues to grow, Zuckerberg acknowledged that the company will need to continue improving its tools and policies for addressing bad actors and harmful activity. Addressing issues around harassment, discrimination and issues like recruiting by terrorist groups, requires a combination of human policies and moderating as well as artificial intelligence.
“There are boundaries,” Zuckerberg said. “Hate speech is certainly not allowed, terrorism is absolutely not allowed.”
Tackling Global Problems
Zuckerberg&#8217;s focus on community building ties back to the nearly 6,000-word manifesto he shared earlier this year, which pitches Facebook as digital social infrastructure that can be leveraged for good. Although the company&#8217;s new mission emphasizes community, Zuckerberg seems to view the individual as the immediate, critical unit for change at scale. Communities are important, Zuckerberg said, in large part because they help give people more bandwidth to look beyond their immediate surroundings and concerns.
“A more connected world is going to be necessary to take on the greatest opportunities and challenges for the next generation, everything from stopping climate change, to stopping pandemics, to funding research,” Zuckerberg said in an interview. “These are not fundamentally national problems anymore. In order to get there, you need to build a world where every person has a sense of support and purpose in their life so they don’t just focus narrowly on what’s going on in their lives, but can think about these broader issues as well.” &#8211; Written by <a class="link preload-hidden ng-binding" href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathleenchaykowski/" target="_self">Kathleen Chaykowski </a>, FORBES STAFF

Mark Zuckerberg Gives Facebook A New Mission

Google&#8217;s <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/03/22/google-android-government-surveillance-fight/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">proud of its track record</a> in protecting more than one billion Android phones and tablets from malevolent hackers. But in the last 12 months, it&#8217;s been dealt a few blows, including the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/05/26/google-shuts-down-massive-ad-fraud-on-play-store/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">biggest ad fraud to ever hit its mobile operating system</a> and the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2016/11/30/gooligan-android-malware-1m-google-account-breaches-check-point-finds/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">most significant single theft of Google accounts</a> thanks to an Android malware called Gooligan.
Those alarming events were set off via networks of cybercriminals focused on the platform, where coders combine their technical skills with the will and financial backing of organized gangs. Sometimes, the latter group don&#8217;t even have to pay for the former&#8217;s digital tools. Sometimes, the technically-savvy types open their minds for free.
That&#8217;s just what a character calling himself Maza-In did just before last Christmas, when he or she posted an in-depth guide on the Exploit.in hacker forum for creating Android &#8220;bankers&#8221; &#8211; malware designed to steal bank login details from users of Google&#8217;s platform. The post not only included directions, but source code for a banker too. There was also a description of the required backend infrastructure, all of which combined could deliver realistic-looking bank pages designed to trick victims into handing over their usernames and passwords.
And now, Android security experts have <a href="http://blog.checkpoint.com/2017/05/16/the-mobile-banker-threat-from-end-to-end/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pinned</a> a spike in banking malware on Maza-In and that post. They claim that Maza-In, in one fell swoop, caused a sudden leap in Android banking fraud, as cybercriminals took that open sourced code and adapted it to spread both in and outside Google’s official Play store. According to an independent researcher going by the moniker <a href="http://b0n1.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/tracking-android-bankbot.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">b0n1</a>, as many as 60 variants of malware containing the Maza-In banker have been pushed out into the wider world by hackers hoping to make some easy money.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2016/03/01/making-millions-paranoia/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Making Millions From Paranoia</a>
Check Point, which has been tracking the mini-explosion in Android bank fraud with ElevenPaths, a Telefónica security unit, told Forbes it had records of several dozen servers operating Maza-In&#8217;s malware, the largest of which controlled close to 3,000 bots. ElevenPaths said that, from Google Play alone, downloads of apps based on Maza-In&#8217;s code stood at above 10,000 and expected to rise, not to mention the number of downloads outside the store.
Those aren&#8217;t massive numbers. But what Maza-In and those who adapted his work for their own machinations have proven repeatedly are flaws in Google Play&#8217;s security, namely the Bouncer technology that&#8217;s supposed to keep bad apples out. Just two weeks ago, a sample of BankBot, based on Maza-In&#8217;s creation, was seen inside Google Play initially disguised as a video downloader tool. On June 13th, a very similar looking video downloader was up on the market; underneath was, again, a banker using Maza-In&#8217;s work. Going further back to April, a malware called Charger, which also borrowed heavily from Maza-In, was doing much the same, but masquerading as a flashlight app inside the official store, <a href="https://www.welivesecurity.com/2017/04/19/turn-light-give-passwords/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ESET reported</a>. All were removed from Google Play as soon as the tech giant was alerted, but not before thousands were infected.
&#8220;Before this Maza-In code, there were a lot of Android banking Trojans, for sure,&#8221; said ElevenPaths security researcher Sergio de los Santos. “But accessing the source code was not easy and this helps all kinds of people create variants and even get into Google Play. Giving a very simple and effective framework to create and manage your own banking Trojan opens the door to hundreds of profiles of attackers that want to get into business the easy way.
&#8220;Maza-in made it very simple to add different banks to attack, so you may see people from Latin America with their own samples focused on banks in there, UK people, Russians.&#8221;
A hacker responds
Maza-In says he is no cybercriminal, though. (As Maza-In uses a profile picture of Bob Marley, Forbes has chosen to refer to the hacker in the masculine). In an interview over encrypted chat, he said he only wanted to highlight weaknesses in Google’s operating system, not spawn a spike in Android cybercrime. He claimed, for instance, that despite security firms&#8217; claims he was behind the BankBot banker, another individual was responsible.
Yet he was aware of the criminal use of his code, revealing others, whether they&#8217;d given the malware additional features or not, were selling it for between $2,000 and $3,000 a pop on the web&#8217;s underground markets. &#8220;I did not expect it to work out that way, that it would spread so much,” he told me in Russian (translated by Google Translate).
&#8220;I did not write an article to harm people… I&#8217;m interested in studying the holey Android, since Google is not able to make a good operating system… by this I wanted to show the vulnerability of the Android and thought that Google would take care of security.&#8221; Unlike security pros who disclose bugs in return for credit or monetary reward, Maza-In said he didn&#8217;t contact Google.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2013/09/01/industrial-thief-line-can-rob/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Industrial Thief On The Line, How Can I Rob You?</a>
In describing just what he thought was wrong with Android security, he added: &#8220;The biggest problem is that the device can install any application, get full access to the device and can be substituted for fake banking applications [that can] intercept SMS [and] manage the device. In general, everything is possible.&#8221;
As for Check Point and ElevenPaths&#8217; assessment he was a malware creator supporting criminal operations, Maza-In said they&#8217;d exaggerated. He even claimed to be working on an Android anti-virus application.
But whilst analysts from both firms agree there&#8217;s no evidence he&#8217;s actively exploiting Android devices, they say it&#8217;s clear he is a malware creator who&#8217;s not followed best practise in highlighting security issues. &#8220;The blog contains explicit evidence that Maza-in is indeed behind the malware. He also boasted about his malware not being caught until January on one forum,&#8221; said Daniel Padon, mobile security researcher at Check Point. According to Lookout Mobile Security researcher Michael Flossman, Maza-In is just one handle used by a crew of Android fraudsters running all the aforementioned fraud malware.
&#8220;If you really want to show how unsecure Android is, you write an article about it, you code a proof of concept, you contact the right people to spread the word,&#8221; said de los Santos, explaining his disbelief at Maza-In&#8217;s claims to innocence.&#8221;But creating a Trojan? Oh, come on.&#8221;
Whatever the hacker&#8217;s involvement in the murkier parts of the internet, he and those who took advantage of his guide have given Google a headache. The company didn&#8217;t respond to requests for comment. But with the frequent appearances of these bankers on Google Play, it&#8217;s apparent the company has some work to do to keep ne&#8217;er-do-wells out of the market and users&#8217; Android devices. &#8211; Written by Thomas Fox-Brewster, FORBES STAFF

‘I Want To Expose Google’s Mistakes’: The Russian Hacker Blamed For A Big Android Fraud Problem

United States-based speaker, author and futurist Jack Uldrich was in Johannesburg recently for the 2017 Future of Health Summit held by FORBES AFRICA and Philips. Amid all the talk about AI eye robots, virtual nurses, the potential for blockchain to transform electronic health records, and even the inception of ‘uber-ambulances’ as one doctor in the audience proposed, Uldrich spoke some more to FORBES AFRICA about what the future holds for technology, healthcare and life:
Technology companies will lead the future of healthcare. Tell us more. 
From my perspective, it’s all about data. Amazon, Google, even Facebook, know so much about us, they are going to figure out how to use data to keep us healthy, and they are going to figure out how to make money keeping us healthy, using data.
Which means people will probably live a lot longer – how is technology going to aid longevity? 
Longevity is a wonderful problem to have but it is going to impose serious societal pressures on government. In the West, our social security systems are geared for a life expectancy of below 80, but we are going to be living to a 90 and potentially a 100. Africa might not be that high yet, but society is going to have to deal with this; public policy-makers will have to deal with thinking about this issue yesterday. 
What will be interesting is we might begin to rewrite social contracts, in the sense that if we live to be a 100, maybe it will make sense for young parents to spend a lot more time, when they are in their 2os and 30s, understanding that they will be able to work full-time from 40 to 90 years of age for example. There will be a lot of different potential solutions to this and we have to get creative.
8,000 days of the internet; what will another 8,000 days mean for the internet? 
This is where people have to understand exponential growth. Without a doubt, the internet has been transformative, but we are still in the early days of this revolution, and we are next going to move to the Internet of Things, and the transition is as though we are looking in the internet. Information and data is going to be all around us and we are going to be able to leverage that data to understand our health better, and to use that information to engage in healthier behaviour that keeps us healthy.
<div id="attachment_32467" style="width: 253px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32467" class=" wp-image-32467" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Jack-Uldrich-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="243" height="364" />Futurist Jack Uldrich</div>
What next after the Fourth Industrial Revolution? 
Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things are, in my mind, interchangeable terms, but we are just at the beginning. Today, 20 billion physical objects are connected to the internet, by 2020, an estimated 50 billion, and by 2030, a trillion. But that means our wearable devices, our electronic health records, our rooms, are all going to be connected, and we are going to be able to leverage that data to do, think and act differently about our health in the very near future.
Will robots ever replace us fully? 
I don’t think they will fully replace us. The way I think about technology and humans is this: we just celebrated the 20th anniversary of a computer beating the world’s best chess player. Computers have gotten significantly smarter in the last 20 years but there is still one thing that can still beat the world’s most powerful computer in chess, and that’s an average chess player using an average computer. Human experience, intuition, plus technology take us to a higher level and when I think about the future of physicians, other healthcare professionals, those that thrive are going to be those that leverage technology and let technology do what it does really well, and then we will focus on the more human aspect. And for healthcare, this is really important. People don’t just want the best treatment; they want to be heard, they want to understand their options for disease and treatment. Could a computer do that? Yes, but I think that humans for the foreseeable future will be significantly better.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2017/06/13/create-jobs-age-robots-low-growth/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">How To Create Jobs In The Age Of Robots And Low Growth</a>
Are virtual nurses considered far more effective than real nurses?
<blockquote>If I have any advice about the future, it is to learn how to embrace ambiguity.</blockquote>
We frequently like to think the world is going to happen one way or another way. And virtual nurses are a wonderful example. In the West, many patients prefer being checked out by virtual nurses, and that’s because they don’t feel judged, they can ask as many questions, and because of that, they are getting better information. So let’s allow the virtual nurses to check people out of the hospital, which then frees up the nurse to spend a lot more time on the human aspects and taking care of patients. The human touch is really important to the recovery process and if we can have more healthcare professionals engaging in real human activities, that’s a wonderful thing.
What about the new <a href="https://www.wired.com/2017/06/googles-ai-eye-doctor-gets-ready-go-work-india/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">AI eye doctor</a> that Google has come up with, and putting to work in India? 
Google has collected millions of images of the eyes of patients with diabetes, and from those images, we can now engage in preventative actions that will prevent potentially hundreds of thousands of people from going blind. They are going from India to Africa to the entire world.
Your take on <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2017/06/13/in-the-race-toward-self-driving-cars-gm-has-something-apple-and-googles-waymo-lack-a-car/#7b9c2196764f" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">self-driving cars</a>…? 
In every city around the world, the average automobile sits idle 22 hours a day so that is a waste of capital resource. In a world of driverless vehicles, we are going to be able to have fewer vehicles, but we are still going to be able to get people from their destinations, and what this means is people will start trading ownership of cars for access. But these vehicles will be clean, safe and cost a fraction of what we spend on transportation. 
In the future, transportation is going to be thought of as a service much like electricity, in the sense that you will just pay for the transportation that you need, for the kilometers you drive or are driven.
Will the seat configurations change in a driverless vehicle; do we still sit in the front? 
If you own a driverless vehicle, you can sit wherever you like, and for the near future, you will sit where you traditionally sit, but as you grow more comfortable with it, you might sit in the back and then we are going to start redesigning, and instead of all of the seats facing forward, we might actually face one another and have conversations with our peers, but here’s where it gets interesting. People will still own vehicles, but because of blockchain technology, they might be able to share that vehicle with strangers and rent out that vehicle when they are not using it, and make money off of that vehicle.
Objects that will alert us to heart attacks before it happens; is this technology available now? 
The idea of a heart attack ringtone is being worked on. There is a doctor in San Diego named <a href="http://www.mddionline.com/article/ringtone-tell-you-you-are-having-heart-attack-thats-no-joke-heart-doc-tells-stephen-colbert" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Dr Eric Topol</a> who has spoken about this idea for a few years. Computer chips are becoming small enough that we can already put them in the human body, and those computer chips have sensors and we can now detect the proteins that float around in our bodies that are indicative that you are about to have a heart attack. So that computer chip will be able to alert you and your healthcare provider even before a heart attack happens, and you will be able to take preventative action. 
It’s not science fiction, it is science fact.
What is the zaniest thing you have heard about the future, say five years from now? 
Within the next five years, the possibility that we are going to be able to begin 3D-printing human organs is a possibility. In 10 years, the odds increase even more. But in five years, there is a chance it may happen. What is crazy is today a car can be a 100 years old, but you can keep it operating because you just get it a new motor or a new pump, but we might begin thinking about the human body that way. Your part might go, but we might just print you a new one using your stem cells that we know will work in your body. But we need to begin to think that just because we can, is this necessarily a wise path that we can take, and this is where we need philosophers, citizens and politicians, etc to engage.
Do we really need to live that long? Is it going to be economically viable? 
At this stage, what I tell people is let us give up on answers, let us just stick to questions for the time being. We need to ask better questions about the future, and this idea of longevity and 3D-printing human body parts… we need to ask a lot of questions about these and many other issues.
Where is Africa in terms of advances in tech? 
Africa is behind today but the potential to rapidly catch up to the US is a real possibility because virtually every technology is not only getting better, it is getting more affordable. In many cases, counter intuitively, the infrastructure of the West and our powerful political organizations might actually slow down some innovation. And I think the opportunity for Africa to not only catch up but to also potentially leapfrog in some areas is a real possibility, and I think the West should have some humility and begin looking to Africa for innovations that I think are really going to surprise us, just as the way <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/news/east-africa/2017/01/04/mpesa-economic-impact-on-kenya/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">mobile payment took off in Kenya</a>. I think the West might need to catch up to Africa in some cases as well.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2016/07/01/industrialization-ditched-tech/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Industrialization Ditched For Tech</a>

‘Not Science Fiction, But Science Fact’

The growth economy suffers from a productivity paradox. Corporations compete to reduce the time and effort that goes into production processes, which is generally seen as a sign of efficiency, but in reality has a troubling outcome.
Unless more stuff is produced and consumed, people lose their jobs as the same output can be achieved with fewer workers. This is why so many well-meaning people around the world fear the prospect of low growth, even when they recognise that the current form of industrial development is destroying the social fabric and natural ecosystems of societies.
Such a structural unemployment problem is further compounded by the real prospect of massive automation replacing humans in production chains. A <a href="http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/view/1314">study</a> by Oxford University predicts that robots are likely to displace no less than 50% of jobs in the US and Europe in the next 20 years.
Machines are putting people out of work in emerging economies too, including in <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36376966">China</a>, which has long been the global job creator. According to Martin Ford, bestselling author of <a href="https://www.amazon.de/Rise-Robots-Technology-Threat-Jobless/dp/0465097537">The Rise of the Robots</a>, most routine jobs are becoming obsolete. As Ford says:
<blockquote>We must decide, now, whether the future will see broad based prosperity or catastrophic levels of inequality and economic insecurity.</blockquote>
Unless societies change their approach to growth and development, they will not only end up with a broken planet and conflict-ridden communities: they will also face massive unemployment. There is no way the vertical structures of production dominating the current industrial system will generate enough jobs, let alone good jobs, to satisfy our needs.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2015/10/01/teslas-secret-formula/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tesla&#8217;s secret formula</a>
As I describe in <a href="http://panmacmillan.co.za/catalogue/wellbeing-economy/">Wellbeing Economy: Success in a World Without Growth</a>, the only way out of this predicament is to empower people to become producers and consumers at the same time. Or what I call “prosumers”. They must be capable of making most of the things they need through local systems of co-production and networks of small businesses.
And certain technologies can help develop a new form of post-industrial artisanship. Thanks to <a href="http://www.eweek.com/pc-hardware/eve-v-uses-open-source-concepts-to-take-on-microsoft-s-surface-pro">open source hardware</a>, small business networks are building computers. With the assistance of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/richkarlgaard/2011/06/23/3d-printing-will-revive-american-manufacturing/#19f194e12548">3D printers</a>, artisans are taking on big business in a way that may challenge conventional assumptions about the efficiency of economies of scale.
<h2>Changing the focus</h2>
Rethinking work is crucial for industrialised economies as well as emerging economies, where job losses are being felt even in the presence of substantial, although diminishing, economic growth.
For instance, Africa is <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/region/afr/publication/africas-demographic-transition">expected</a> to achieve a record<a href="https://qz.com/878513/university-education-is-still-a-dream-many-in-africa-are-yet-to-attain/"> 2.8 billion people by 2060</a>, becoming the largest continent in the world. Most of these people will be young and thirsty for work. There is no way the continent will create decent employment opportunities by adopting an industrial model that’s already eliminating jobs globally.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2014/11/01/the-nerd-herd/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Nerd Herd</a>
A new approach is needed. The well-being economy forces us to rethink the nature of work by shifting the focus from the quantity of the production-consumption cycle to the quality of the relations underpinning the economic system. The growth economy pushes for mass consumption through an impersonal relationship between producers and consumers (which can be more efficiently performed by robots). The well-being economy must embrace a customised approach to economic exchanges, in which it’s the quality of the human interaction to determine the value.
Take a doctor as an example. From the perspective of the growth economy, the best doctor is the one that visits as many patients as possible in the shortest period of time. In theory, this function could even be performed by a robot. By contrast, in the well-being economy, the personal attention invested in the doctor-patient relationship becomes the key to value creation.
Intuitively, all of us associate the value of good health care with the personal attention that comes with it. The same holds true for education: any reasonable person would frown upon a school that asked teachers to teach faster and faster to an ever larger number of students. Common sense tells us that value is being lost through the mass consumption of these relationships, even when profits (both for the clinic and the school) may increase.
<h2>Rethinking productivity</h2>
Productivity is certainly a good thing, but it should not be embraced blindly. Above all, we need to ask what productivity is for.
The economy is nothing else than a system of social relations. If productivity undermines those relations, the economy itself crumbles, even when profits (at least for someone) may go up.
Many professional activities based on the quality of the performance cannot, by their own nature, become more productive. Asking an orchestra to play faster would not increase productivity: it would simply turn a melodic experience into a nightmare. The same applies to painters, dancers, barbers, teachers, nurses and the like.
This is why it still takes the same number of people to play a Mozart opera today as it did when Mozart first composed it. So, what about extending the same intuition to the rest of the economy?
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2016/09/01/young-jobless-angry/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Young, Jobless And Angry</a>
What if the mechanic of the future won’t be a robot churning out new spare parts every second, but rather a qualified artisan that helps us fix, upgrade and upcycle our vehicle for the entire duration of its life? What if the engineer of the future won’t be a remote computer taking care of our house appliances but a personal advisor helping households produce their own energy. They would help optimise the use of natural resources, from water to vegetable gardens, and make sustainable use of building materials?
A circular economy in which production is optimised and no waste is produced can be achieved in two ways. It can be achieved through robots-dominated production chains or by a horizontal network of qualified artisans and small businesses operating as a collaborative organism. In the first case, a few people will dominate the global economy. In the second case, everyone will be empowered.
A well-being economy cannot exist without empowerment, access and equal opportunities for personal and collective fulfilment. Developing countries can now leapfrog to such a new trajectory without being held back by a model of industrialisation that’s increasingly unfit for the 21st century. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/lorenzo-fioramonti-176997" rel="author">Lorenzo Fioramonti</a>, Full Professor of Political Economy, University of Pretoria
Originally published in <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Conversation</a>.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79202/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />

How To Create Jobs In The Age Of Robots And Low Growth

Apple is finally jumping into the smart speaker craze.
At Apple&#8217;s Worldwide Developer Conference held in San Jose on Monday morning, the iPhone giant announced HomePod, a 7-inch tall speaker for $349.
Apple is facing some serious competition from the likes of tech rivals Amazon and Google in the race for voice-powered computing. While Apple was an early entry into voice assistants with the introduction of Siri in 2011, voice assistants from Amazon and Google have largely surpassed Apple with the launch of Amazon Echo and Google Home speakers. This new breed of speaker presents a tantalizing future powered by voice, where computing is not tied to a screen.
<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/miguelhelft/2017/06/05/apple-live-blog-everything-you-need-to-know-from-wwdc/#783e41637982" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">WWDC Wrap-Up: Apple&#8217;s New HomePod, iPad And All The Other News You Missed</a>
Similar to Google and Amazon smart speakers, the HomePod has an intelligent voice assistant baked in. Siri can be activated using the command &#8220;Hey, Siri.&#8221; Apple said HomePods can pick up the commands from across the room with a 6-microphone array (compared to the Echo&#8217;s 7 microphones and Home&#8217;s 2 microphone). Like other smart speakers, audio information isn&#8217;t sent to Apple&#8217;s cloud until this voice command has been issued, Apple said.
<div id="article-0-inread" class="inread ng-isolate-scope inread-active">Users can ask the speaker to read them the latest news, play podcasts, set reminders &#8211; everything that&#8217;s already possible with Siri on other Apple devices. And with Apple&#8217;s HomeKit, Apple&#8217;s proprietary wireless protocol for controlling third-party smart home gadgets in iOS, HomePod serves as a hub that can control connected lights and thermostats.</div>
But none of that is much different from what Amazon and Google speakers already offer. Where Apple is really focusing on differentiating the HomePod is in pure audio quality.
The speaker has 7-beam forming tweeters and a 4-inch woofer facing upwards.  The speaker comes equipped with the A8 chip, the same processor found in the iPhone 6 from 2016. The chip does all the fancy audio engineering &#8211; real-time acoustic modeling, audio beam forming and echo cancellation.
<div class="vestpocket"> &#8220;It&#8217;s the biggest brain inside a speaker,&#8221; Apple marketing head Phil Schiller proclaimed.</div>
Apple said the speakers have &#8220;spatial awareness&#8221; that adjusts the speaker&#8217;s sound levels to the acoustic conditions of the particular room. This is very similar to Sonos&#8217; Trueplay feature, which similarly tunes its speakers to any room.
Schiller said the HomePod will be deeply integrated with the Apple Music streaming music service. Users can ask HomePod to do simple things like play a song or a Apple&#8217;s Beat 1 Radio, or even ask who is singing or playing drum on a track. Users can tell HomePod that they liked a song or to play more songs like the one they&#8217;re listening to. One issue here is whether the HomePod will play nice with other music streaming services like Spotify.
The introduction of a high-quality smart speaker from Apple puts some serious pressure on Sonos, an early leader in the connected speaker market. While Amazon Echo and Google Home began stealing some market share from the Santa Barbara-based speaker company, Sonos prided itself on the excellent audio engineering that went into its speakers as well as the fact it played nicely with almost every streaming music service out there. Sonos also has ambitions on integrating with every intelligent voice assistant out there. At WWDC, Apple announced the speaker category for HomeKit, so other speaker makers could more tightly integrate with iOS. Interestingly, Sonos was absent from the list of early speaker partners.
Regardless of whether consumers care enough about audio quality, there are enough Apple fans who are likely hungry for a product like this as rivals Amazon and Google have come out ahead. But the real competition between Apple, Google and Amazon in smart speakers may come down to the quality of their intelligent assistants. And fortunately for Google and Amazon, Apple&#8217;s Siri is widely seen as lagging behind the competition in both its quality and capabilities.
The HomePod starts shipping in December and costs $349. Pricier than the Google Home at $129 and Amazon Echo at $180, but the speaker quality may justify the higher price.
&#8211; By Aaron Tilley, FORBES STAFF

HomePod: Apple’s Smart Speaker Differs From Amazon And Google With Focus On Sound Quality

Matime Nchabeleng’s business helps patients with burn wounds, but there is no bandage to heal the pain of not being paid on time by its biggest client, the government.
Nchabeleng is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Maisha Medical at a small industrial park within the busy Gateway Industrial Park, in Centurion, near Pretoria.
This is where he stores his product, Drawtex, a hydroconductive wound dressing that is supplied to most South African hospitals and exported to 11 countries.
His office has pictures of patients with terrible burn wounds that are not easy on the eye.
“My heart sinks when I see others suffering; I always want to help where I can. I care about others security so that they could live better lives,” says Nchabeleng.
Nchabeleng, a husband and father of four daughters, founded Maisha Medical in 2013. He has no medical background but his strategy in life is to broaden his knowledge in a field that interests him.
<div id="attachment_31427" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31427" class="wp-image-31427 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/DSC_0042-1024x678.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="678" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_0042.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_0042-300x199.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_0042-600x397.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_0042-768x508.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />The Bandage Business Waiting Game</div>
“The key, is working very hard. I don’t have a medical background, but I have employed people with a medical background. What I thought I needed to do was to read and educate myself so that when I talk to a CEO of a hospital or a doctor, I at least make sense and  have some understanding of their language,” he says.
While growing up in Thabampshe Village, in South Africa’s northern Limpompo province, becoming the CEO of a R20-million ($1.5-million) company was a far-fetched dream.
Maisha Medical negotiated and acquired the rights to manufacture, market, sell and distribute Drawtex globally in 2012. Nchabeleng identifies distributers for his product outside of South Africa.
“I believe the nationals understand their government and challenges, much better than I do,” he says.
When Maisha Medical started, it was worth R38 million ($2.8 million), but the value has decreased annually.
He blames this on the government which 80% of his business caters for.
“[There are] a number of businesses like us, which 80% of its business depends on the government and they go down, because the government fails to pay on time,” says Nchabeleng
“It’s not good. Sometimes I have to pick up the phone and call the MEC or the Premier of the [province] and that is not good, because you are not in business because you know the MEC or the Premier. What about those people that are not Matime, who don’t have their numbers to call and say: ‘Hey look, the Gauteng Government has not paid me since November and they owe me millions and I have 22 [salaries] to pay?’ he says.
“There are also the wrong people appointed in wrong positions. There are procurement problems as well, where buyers will exclusively look at the cost or price of the product, to the exclusion of the value of the product.”
“I believe that government must protect South African manufactured products, as these companies add value to the South African economy.”
He calls on other black entrepreneurs with pharmaceutical and medical companies to work together and have a stronger voice in the sector. This will give them a better chance of fixing what his bandages can’t.

DSC_01111

The Bandage Business Waiting Game

For the past decade, AB de Villiers has been achieving records on the cricket pitch. Now South Africa’s ODI captain and world number one ODI batsman, is set to achieve yet another milestone off the field. Renowned for his innovative batting and sharp fielding, De Villiers is now setting a trend off the field. The innovative batsman has partnered with US-based tech company, FanHero, to become one of the first sportsmen in South Africa to develop a personalized fan engagement app. This will allow fans from around the world to interact with him on a more personal level.
<blockquote>I have been looking for a way to engage on a more authentic level with my fans across the world and FanHero has offered me the perfect platform to do that.</blockquote>
It will be my life in a bundle, something that I haven&#8217;t been able to get across on traditional social media, says De Villiers before the launch of the app. FanHero, a tech start-up that has been running for just over a year, has already produced several apps in North and South America. They specialize in sports teams and celebrities, allowing them the opportunity to engage exclusively with fans without the constraints of other social media platforms. FanHero allows the fan to get closer to De Villiers. Supporters will get access to De Villiers&#8217;s personal and professional life. With live streaming, pictures, videos and updates from the global cricket star, fans will be able to see De Villiers behind closed doors, learning what it takes to be a professional cricketer and what makes him tick. In addition, fans will be able to ask questions, which AB can respond to.
<blockquote>I want to give away as much as possible, and allow people to understand exactly what it takes to be a professional cricketer.</blockquote>
While South Africa is still a developing country in terms of technology, AB de Villiers is a superstar both on the field and online. He is one of Africa&amp;#39;s biggest sporting brands and represents everything we were looking for in terms of a partnership,” says Johan van Wyk, Director of FanHero South Africa. The app launched at the end of March, just before De Villiers set off for England to play in the upcoming Champions Trophy. De Villiers has temporarily stopped playing Test cricket so he can focus on ODIs. Nearing the end of his career, the South African is looking to win an elusive ICC international trophy with South Africa. Fans can look forward a direct line to one of South Africa&#8217;s favourite sportsmen, bringing the fan and hero closer together.

CRICKET-SRI-RSA

AB de Villiers Uses App To Connect With Fans

Over the past decade, Kenya has taken considerable steps towards deepening financial inclusion. This is reflected in the 2016 FinAccess Household Survey which shows that slightly more than three-quarters of Kenyans are now formally included by the financial system, which is a 50% increase over the past 10 years.
According to the report, the percentage of Kenyans relying on informal services providers decreased from 32.11% in 2006 to 7.2% in 2015. Thanks to technology, 18% of Kenyans now use new mobile banking services such as M-Shwari and M-Pesa, a scenario that has pushed the proportion of bank account users to 38%, up 10% from 2013, while traditional bank accounts have decreased.
Despite the significant progress seen towards enhancing financial inclusion, there is much less success in the use of investment products, such as shares, mutual funds and treasuries. The study showed that the use of investment products decreased to 10.6% in 2016 compared to 11.6% in 2013. Findings by the same survey also revealed that the number of Kenyans familiar with the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) stood at only 38%. It seems that a lack of awareness could be why less than 30% of daily market transactions at the NSE are attributed to local individual investors.
But there is hope. Mobile phone platforms are being used to increase awareness and participation. Data shows that 26% of Kenya’s adult population own a smartphone or other smart devices. The uptake of mobile banking services has led to an increase in the banks’ penetration in the past 10 years, from 14% in 2006 to 38.4% in 2015. Investment managers, stockbrokers and insurance companies will also be buoyed by market studies that show that 71% of the population uses financial services provided by mobile financial service providers. This is a clear sign that mobile phones are the best way to encourage investments.
In light of this, the Kenyan government is launching the mobile-traded government security, M-Akiba. Kenyans with as little as $30 will be able to bid for the upcoming five-year income tax-free bond using their M-Pesa accounts. Investors will rejoice; M-Akiba returns are expected to be better than the current fixed deposit rates and most money market accounts. Stockbrokers have not been left behind either – at least three of them have recently launched mobile apps aimed at retail investors looking to buy shares, monitor their portfolio holdings and check account balances via their mobile phones.
But, the road ahead is not without obstacles. One is the low incomes among Kenyans. According to household survey, 75% of adults earn less than $150 per month. This may hinder most Kenyans from taking up financial products. A lack of trust among women towards formal financial institution is another major challenge. According to the latest quarterly report by the Capital Markets Authority (CMA), women account for merely a third of the total number of investors. Low levels of education in the country are also an issue, with 60% of the population not completing a secondary level of education. With this in mind, it could be daunting when it comes to selling sophisticated financial products, such as derivatives and exchanged traded funds. Even among the educated, stakeholders will have to fight to shake off the persistent fascination with real estate.
At least Kenya is showing resolve to deal with the challenges. There is a big chance to make real changes to how people invest; all that is needed is a phone.

Category: Technology

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