Rising Number of IT Companies in Bohol

Who says nature and technology can’t mix? According to a post from Boholweb.com, my home province of Bohol has increasingly attracted small IT Companies; most of which are owned or financed by foreign nationals. Already based here are firms that specializes in software development, drafting services, web development, and several call centers.

I won’t fail to mention a Boholano-owned tech company called Auza.net which has a main office located at Tagbilaran City. They provide dedicated Internet access service for call center operations, develop and maintain free information web sites, resell web hosting services, give IT consulting services and offer training on Linux and other open-source software.

This has definitely been a welcome development as more jobs are created in effect and thus improves the economic state of the province. Bohol is known as a great tourist destination due to its pristine environment and white sand beaches. This could be one of the key reasons why foreign companies are attracted to invest here. The other possible main factor for this surge of interest is the low cost of manpower.

I hope Bohol will continue to attract more foreign investors for the good of those who are living here and for our country. However, I do hope that the preservation of this beautiful island of ours should be considered first and foremost.

Clear and Present Danger: Chinese Military Hacked into Pentagon

The Chinese military hacked into a Pentagon computer network in June in the most successful cyber attack on the U.S. defence department, say American officials. Read more from FT.com for details.

Now that was some serious Chinese hacking, showing the whole world that the U.S. is not invincible. I remembered watching Die Hard 4 while reading the news. A movie for the geeks, it depicts a group of American super hackers taking over several U.S. technology infrastructures thus endangering the whole world. Thanks to Bruce Willis with the help of other über geeks, the movie had a happy ending.

But unlike the movie, a disastrous ending could happen in real life. The suspects were Chinese, in particular their own People’s Liberation Army. Think of the potential chaos that could happen if these people can take control of the US nuclear warheads. Now I don’t mean to bad mouth China but I’m talking here of possible US enemies that might have the capability to do what these smart Chinese have done.

This is certainly a very clear and present danger.

Tubigon, Bohol’s Official Website Vandalized

A hacker or rather a system cracker, known as S4udi S3curity T3rror lamely defaced the official government website of Tubigon, Bohol. As of the time of writing, tubigon.gov.ph is still down. You will be redirected here when you try to visit the site.

The cause of the intrusion was definitely a result of the system administrator’s failure to maintain the server security of the website. It could have been easily prevented if necessary security measures were made.

Click on the image for a larger view of the defaced tubigon.gov.ph site.

Some words of advice to the defacer: Do something useful next time. If ever you break into a web-server again, please report the vulnerabilities to the system administrator rather than doing lousy cracking or vandalizing.

Some words of advice to the system administrator: Better luck next time. Learn your lesson. And please fix the defaced site as soon as possible.