Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Be careful with using bypass proxie : Indonesian blocking many sites

As the title above,
Currently, you can't access many sites (youtube, multiply, rapidshare, etc) directly in Indonesia. The solution is easy, you can use bypass proxie websites to access those sites. Just google "bypass proxie website" then you'll get a whole bunch of sites providing the service.
But, just be careful!!! They can exploit your personal data..... so be wise with your password, username, personal details, etc....
When you request a page via those bypass proxies websites, your request will be saved in their server, not only "bypassing" your request and then provide your requested page.
In a request, often you need to supply username or password, for example to login to multiply. This type of request (even it's encrypted), will always valuable for some peoples.
For what they save your request?
firstly, it's a common for a website developer to save all the log and any information that you have. This is very important to do the analysis of the website (performance, traffic, marketing, etc).
Secondly, they have all of your details.. If Im a bad guy, then I'll try to mining all the personal data... then use it to get all your valuable things.

Bypass proxies is a kind of social engineering.
So, be wise..... !!! Don't use bypass proxies to supply your personal details... particularly for net-banking, email, etc....

So what should you do? If you want to access multiply for example? Make sure that you don't have the same password (at least) with your other login details.... Then, don't forget to change your password shortly after the government unblock those websites.

written in class.... after a friend told me that he had problem with his net-bank (even I don't know whether the problem is caused by the bypass proxies or not, but after this guy login to the net-bank via bypass proxie website, next day the bank closed the access (just like if you try to login with wrong login details three times).....)

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Indonesia.go.id error???


Many Indonesian website have been hacked recently regarding to the new electronic information and transaction law. This week, youtube also has been blocked in Indonesia since it contains inappropriate content. Is it the right way? Uhm... what about education?
Hey... youtube is owned by Google... Google is the biggest search engine in the world... more than 70% of what people do when they want to look for something is open google.com. 
I just thinking how if then google then blocked or under ranked any website from Indonesia... waw.. this can be dangerous... as many websites mainly depend on the search engine to be known by others. Is it possible? Technically yes,  but I think and I hope they won't.
Just trying to see the rank of some websites with the common keyword (including combination of my name, hehe)... I found that keywords "Indonesia" brought no authoritative websites from government or tourism department, etc.... The first was a page from wikipedia, the second was FBI fact page and the third one is lonely planet page. Hem... where is www.indonesia.go.id?
This leads me to search keyword "Indonesia goverment" and here was it.... In the first page and the top of the list. Glad to see that. But wait.... When I click that link, oh... I got an error message, waw.... Is it the professional correct message? How many millions has been spent for building the website and I got this error (see screenshot)? For a cracker or other bad people, this error can lead to other valuable informations to let them enter the server.
IT team should spend more time to improve our beloved nation's website, including providing better error message and way to report if there's an error.
Improving the search engine performance also needed so keyword "Indonesia" will lead users come to the desired sites. It's not easy, but there is way to do that... and I believe, millions Rupiah must be capable doing this (it should).

I'm wondering why it's easier to find my blog using my name rather than find www.indonesia.go.id using keyword "Indonesia" (it's on the third page of google.com) .....

Come on.... Indonesia has a lot of IT experts.... If government provide media to elaborate them, surely... IT in Indonesia will grow faster and sure... cheaper.... they will be happy to be volunteers.... (Including me? Sure I will, hehe but I'm not an expert.....)