http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I7pR5vYe1Q

To get started, go to

http://www.scheduleonce.com

and signup with your Google or Facebook ID – ScheduleOnce has a great entry-level free plan and no registration is required!

https://market.android.com/details?id=org.theway&feature=search_result

Introduces the app… and

http://goldenripe.org/

reveals even more. There’s a lot there — but at a minimum, it allows reveals eye-opening content (including content from both the Qur’an and Injil) from discussions with Muslim and Christian friends and associates regarding life now and life after this life. To me, this kind of application has huge potential. (Thanks for the tip, Michael!!!)

Technology, and most particularly the Internet in its very social incarnations (e.g. Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc.), were all the rage during the uprisings in the Muslim world (and elsewhere) of 2009 and after. Yet there are distinct limitations to the power of technology which we would do well to remember. In this post we’ll look at the influx of technology, where it has been useful, and where hard non-technological work remains.

1. Internet usage is growing explosively in the region, and will continue to do so.

a) In the early part of the 2000s, Internet usage was available but not prevalent:

• Nowhere was the Internet accessible to more than 10% of the population.
• Only in Morocco and Tunisia was it available to more than 1%. Everywhere else, the total population with Internet access was typically between 0.2% and 0.5%—although in Egypt, this equated to about half a million people.
• However, the number of Internet cafes began growing: Egypt, 400; Libya, 700; Sudan, 150; Tunisia, 300; Morocco, 2,150; Algeria, 3,000. The growth in cafes indicated both that there was some appeal for personal access (and perhaps private, not linked to an individual), and also that most people could not afford the cost of personal access.

b) Between 2003 and 2009, access grew exponentially.

• By 2008, some 85 million people across the Middle East and North Africa had personal access to the Internet, equating to about 5% of the world’s total users.
• These users are mostly young (under 35) and male, but the gender gap is beginning to narrow (as noted briefly in “Women in North Africa,” 7/21).
• Perhaps most intriguingly, the biggest user by far is Iran—with 41 million Internet users in 2008, it has half of the total Internet users in the combined area of the Middle East and North Africa. (One’s mind immediately springs to the would-be “Green Revolution” of 2009: “The revolution will be tweeted.”) Egypt was then second with 12.6 million. Saudi Arabia and Morocco each have over 5 million users, while the rest of North Africa’s countries come in with less than 5 million.

c) Part of the reason for the surge is the youthfulness of the region and the spread of media in general.

• The region is extremely young—between a third and half of the populations in each of these countries is under the age of 25. This “Net generation” often access the Internet to practice English, perhaps look for work, or to get in touch with friends—but then starts to learn about the world and becomes politicized.
• Further, the cost of access to the Internet is dropping as mobile phones proliferate. They are now a standard household item in many nations of North Africa: the typical new phone costs about $100 to purchase and about $10 to use (as of 2005), and there is a substantial discount market for used phones. Slightly less than half of all MENA Internet users access the Internet via the mobile phone, and nearly three-quarters rank email as their biggest activity. Half said in January 2011 that they planned to buy a tablet device before the end of February.
• Also spread throughout the Middle East: satellite television.

d) The end of the growth of the Internet in North Africa is nowhere in sight. Market penetration is still in the single percentage digits, and as the youth of the region grow up with the Internet, there is nowhere to go right now but up.

Nell Green (Cooperative Baptist Fellowship) journals about the impact of globalization on her life. What she’s experiencing is the reality of the daily life of many of us involved in missions – or who know people who are involved in missions. Globalization and the technology that assists it can be overwhelming at times: do we use this social network? do we stay on that one? Where do we portion out our rather pitiful amounts of time? Yet these tools can be very empowering, as Nell notes in her example of how technology is being used to launch an anti-trafficking prayer network centered around Interstate 10.

It is difficult and challenging to stay engaged, to fully think through not just what tools we are using but why we are using them and what we hope to accomplish. But shrinking back from engagement is like taking the talents God has given us–and burying them in the ground.

Rest & Relaxation are important – we should take full advantage of the Sabbath. But the remaining six days of the week, we need to get our heads into the game.

Yesterday I wrote about how secure passwords can easily be cracked no matter how seemingly secure they are (e.g. random letters and numbers). This is primarily true insofar as I am aware for devices that a hacker has physical access to. Brute-forcing a password for a computer within a few seconds or a few minutes means having access to try lots of passwords quickly.

The same of course cannot be done with a cloud-based service (e.g. Gmail or Facebook). There, you have a limited number of tries before someone notices something. If you try brute forcing a 1,000 password combinations in Gmail, you’re going to run into a problem.

Hacking a cloud service therefore requires knowledge of the password, or the target. For example, you might be able in some situations to trigger a password reset if you know enough about the target to guess their security passwords. Lacking either, you’re probably not going to get into their system.

This is one reason why it’s necessary to use services that lots of other people use – I use Gmail because both Fortune 500, small businesses, and Chinese dissidents use it. That seems like a pretty good combination to me. Second, use strong passwords that are easy to remember but not quickly guessable.

One problem with a random 6-character password is that it’s hard to remember and therefore difficult to use when you are, say, in Singapore wanting to use a local computer. (But wherever you are you’d better trust that there aren’t any keystroke recorders). One suggestion I’ve recently read is to use a phrase, even if it involves dictionary words, because the special characters are difficult to guess.

For example, consider:

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.

This is a standard typing phrase which used in typing drills. The spaces actually increase security because they are “special characters.” Using multiple words also increases security, even though they are dictionary words. But this is a very long password and perhaps too long for some systems. Plus none of the words are unique. So, let’s try some variants:

Now is the time for all to come to Moscow.

Now is the time for Moscow.

Now is the time for Moskva.

Now is the time 4 Moskva.

2011 is the time 4 Moskva.

2011 is the kairos 4 Moskva.

Presto. An easily remembered password that offers reasonable security against hackers. The main line of reasoning in this argument is that a reasonably strong and not easily guessed password on a cloud service that provides a limited number of tries should offer you “virtually” unbreakable security. “Virtually” is not the same thing as “cannot happen” yet your primary goal here is to reduce the odds.

If you are a fairly typical person in a fairly typical community, not enough hackers are going to spend enough time trying to break your password for it to ever happen. If you are a dissident targeted by an oppressive government, you might need to take some more heroic measures. But this is the approach I use (not this password, of course) and I have never, ever had my email hacked. (Although now that I say this, it of course probably will be.)

Additional Reading

• Windows password myths, Symantec.

- They say they encrypt everything on their American site.

- Many orgs who do communications as a business from inside those areas feel that Skype is their most secure communications channel

- China has its own version of Skype, called Tom-Skype:  It’s clearly marked, does not encrypt at least the IM part, and is only downloaded when you download from inside China and don’t use the VPN.” (Thanks Greg)

So my conclusion is — we’d better not totally trust the instant message portion of Skype. It would be more easily filtered, searched, and monitored. And once someone had a bumped-up profile, sensitive lands could possibly choose to listen in on Skype too – and here’s the really weird part: If the listener has a deal worked out with the execs in the national leadership of Skype (e.g., like China), then even if you operated within a VPN, the conversation might not be entirely secure because the listener might be operating from within the circle of security (i.e., from within the Skype firewall). Bottom line: Better not pass out all the family secrets on Skype. Trust a POP3 inside a VPN before you trust Skype. That’s my conclusion.

If you know someone who fits that description, encourage them to email Robby at

RobbyQButlergmailcom

Robby says thanks!

http://wedoist.com

There are free start-up options, so you can ‘try before you buy.’ But you can’t beat the subscription deal — For a mere $25/month for a key facilitator, your whole team can come together on an infinite number of projects, and each project can contain up to 5 gigs of files, viewable by everyone you’ve added in that project. So this is a file storage solution without limits, essentially. For example, you might create one project to serve as a kind of “intranet” for your team or community, then create another one for each team you’ve sent out. There’s a “status” page, where folks place updates (like status updates in Facebook). There’s another tab for Tasks, where you can assign tasks, “complete” them, and do discussions about them. And then there’s the “Files” tab with which you can store documents. Everything is “needle-in-a-haystack searchable, so you’ll never lose things again. And the document storage also has lightweight ‘versioning.’ There’s even a “chat” built-in for use with those who are registered. Use “labels” to tag ideas (also unlimited), and mark tasks with due-dates and label-based priorities. Each project is encrypted and separated from the other projects with a “wall” of separation, so you can invite as many guests into one project and they’ll never see the contents of the “project next door,” so to speak, so you can maintain security. Give it a try. Keep in mind — There’s no affiliate discount or kick-back being given here. This is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.

http://typewith.me

Ask 2, 3, or 4 or more members to bring their laptops along to the planning session. The first guy sets up the “TypeWithMe” page, then sends the link to the others. Before you know it, you’ll all be typing together on the same webpage — and all for free! When you’re done, import or print the page, then produce as many others as you want.

http://www.shopetoncorp.com

Check out the Rover, which combines an LED flashlight with a radio that has AM, FM and weather bands. If the power runs low, pop out the hand crank (or have your 12-year-old do so for you ) and start whirring. One minute later, you’ll be good to go for another 15 minutes or more. What’s more, you can use a USB charger in place of the 12-year-old (if you’re fresh out). What’s more, you can also *charge* anything that runs on a USB plug, including a cell phone. As one reviewer observed, if the electric stays out for more than a few hours, these days, you’re going to want to tell all your Facebook friends anyway. The Rover will set you back about $50, but it might be the last flashlight you’ll ever have to buy, at least for power-loss-emergencies.