After piles of delays and then affirmations, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has finally received the directive from Ministry of Information Technology (MOIT) to make preparation for auction of third generation cellular licenses, said a statement issued by PTA itself.

Statement said that PTA is now planning to Auction Frequency Spectrum for Cellular Mobile Broadband Services and license will be technology neutral and the licensees be able to deploy any technology including 3G / 4G / LTE / any other upcoming technologies.

The information Memorandum (IM) for auctioning process is being prepared by PTA. The auction will be held tentatively in March 2012 for which exact schedule will be issued later.

The auction process will be overseen by a joint professional group (Auction Supervisory Committee) comprising of public sector stakeholders, including representatives of Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Information Technology, PTA and FAB etc.

PTA has constituted a special committee for making preparations to conduct the auction in the most possible transparent manner.

For the awareness and information of potential investors, PTA is also planning to hold Investors Conferences in Karachi and Islamabad. International Road Shows will also be organized. The exact schedule for this auction would be made available soon, said PTA.

It is pertinent to mention that the introduction of Cellular Mobile Broadband services in the country will initiate a new economic cycle in the country and accrue great benefits for the national economy. It will also usher in new era for proliferation of a number of new applications for data intensive value added services. This will greatly fulfill the requirement and demands of Cellular Mobile Phone subscribers and professionals who are eagerly waiting for this service.

via ProPakistani.PK

Never Ever Give Away Your Pictures / Videos [Especially if You are a Girl]

Most of us already know the seriousness of a situation when our private pictures or videos land in fraudulent hands. Still, we make mistakes – and are often embarked with this condition when suicide becomes the last option to save ourselves.

Night packages (the root cause of above mentioned problem) have bought our nation on the verge of social destruction. Every other mobile phone subscriber has a list of friends (of opposite gender) with whom they spend nights, every night in fact. Soon it becomes a habit and then a mental dis-order, depression, irritation, increases annoyance and what not.

Let’s forget the mental and physical health for time being and talk about even greater problem.

Lately, thanks to significant increase of Camera Phones, and almost zero MMS charges (with SMS/MMS Packages), the number of such incidents have increased where pictures and videos (at times with objectionable orientation) are shared with partners over internet and MMS.

Based on few incidents I recently came across, here are few recommendations:

Now Remember Following:

• Never send your pictures to ANYONE, WHO EVER he/she is – no matter what relation he/she has got with you, or whatever level of trust you guys have between each other. (This doesn’t apply to your family members).
• Never keep your private pictures in your phone – save them in your PC/laptop and delete from mobile phones. Your phone can easily get stolen/lost.
• Make sure that privacy settings of your Facebook aren’t revealing the information you would not like to reveal otherwise. (Go to Facebook –> My account –> Privacy Settings –> customize setting)
• Make sure you don’t have casual acquaintances mixed up with your family members or close friends on Facebook. Make proper lists with different level of privacy settings for each list.

NEVER EVER shot objectionable pictures/videos – because they will remain in your phone even after deleting them.
Never Trust Phone Friends: This is for those who make friends over phone and talk to them indefinitely. Never trust them. There are organized groups targeting both girls and boys to attain intimate information/pictures/videos to later blackmail them.

Deleted Pictures/Videos are Recoverable: If you think you have deleted a photo/video and you safe, then unfortunately its not the case. A deleted video/photo or any data is recoverable. So never shot videos / pictures at first place which you may not want to keep without self for ever. View this unfortunate video example for more details on this.

Fear Voice Recorders too: So if you are good with not giving photos, videos, you are still prone to voice recorders. Please make sure that you are using your mobile phone without any risk and with utmost care.

What to Do if pictures/videos are exposed? God forbid, if your pictures/videos are somehow in someone’s hands who is blackmailing you (for money or at times with some other demands) then do following:

• Tell everything to your parents, they are going to be your best buddies in this bad time.
• Lodge FIR at your nearest police station
• Though Police station, lodge a complaint with FIA

Disclaimer: I highly recommend you to talk to your parents, however, approaching Police and FIA should be considered based on your circumstances. (Considering our police’s performance) I fear,that approaching police (if you don’t have high-level contacts) may ruin your life.

We need to be extra careful, especially, when there is no cyber law in our country.

At the end, I would say: Bad deeds meet bad consequences, so be sincere to your self, your parents and to your life.

via ProPakistan.PK

KARACHI: After rumours of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) imposing a ban on porn sites in the country, a new PTA letter floating online orders the imposition of a “system” to ban select words in mobile SMS messages.

A set of two extensive lists in English and Urdu have allegedly been compiled by the PTA. The list of English words crosses the 1,000 figure, while the Urdu list contains over 550 words.

A scan of the letter (dated November 14, 2011) sent from Muhammad Talib Doger, Director General (Services) PTA, states that the filtering of content through SMS must be considered under the scope of “Protection from Spam, Unsolicited, Fraudulent and Obnoxious Communication Regulations, 2009″ and the SOPs laid down to control spamming. The letter is written with reference to a meeting held with mobile phone operators on October 18, 2011 in Islamabad.

PTA has ordered the implementation of the system within seven days of the issuance of the said letter. All operators have been asked to submit a monthly report to PTA regarding the number of blocked text messages.

“Spamming” has been defined as:

The transmission of harmful, fraudulent, misleading, illegal or unsolicited messages in bulk to any person without express permission of the recipient, or causing any electronic system to show any such message or is being involved in falsified online user account registration or falsified domain name registration for commercial purpose.

Download Complete Words List:

English: Click to Download PTA Banned English Words List
Urdu: Click to Download PTA Banned Urdu Words List

PTA SMS Spam Words List

Pakistan Today has reported that Lahore High Court Justice Sh Azmat Saeed yesterday ordered ministry of information and technology to block Facebook in Pakistan for spreading religious hatred on internet world.

This news is not being covered by any other media outlet so far (which is strange and hence isn’t that convincing) plus we don’t have any official confirmation from ministry of information technology or from PTA as of now.

According to Pakistan Today, during hearing a petition requesting a permanent ban on Facebook for hosting competition featuring blasphemous caricatures, Lahore High Court ordered the government to make sure that Facebook is blocked in Pakistan and to submit a compliance report by October 6, 2011.

The judge, however, made it clear that no search engine including Google would be blocked, reported the paper.

It maybe recalled that Facebook got banned in Pakistan last year for hosting Draw Mohammad Day and for not removing blasphemous pages from it’s server.

This fresh petition in Lahore High Court is filed by Muhammad & Ahmad, a public interest litigation firm, through chairman Muhammad Azhar Siddique advocate praying for a permanent ban on access to Facebook for hosting a fresh blasphemous caricature drawing contest world over under a title “2nd Annual Draw Muhammad Day on May 20, 2011″.

Facebook is a social network and users from around the world are free to post anything, however, it content is moderated based on Facebook terms which state:

You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.

Facebook became controversial and was condemned for not removing Draw Mohammad Day page from it’s server despite it was reported (as abuse) by hundreds of thousands of Muslim users. While on other hands Facebook tends to remove any anti-Jews or Anti-Israel page in only few minutes.

Update:

We just got confirmation from PTA officials that they have not received any such order, at least as of now, for Facebook blockade.

This is a developing story and may get updated when and if we get any further information on this

Silicon Valley legend Steve Jobs, who has been on medical leave for an undisclosed condition since Jan. 17, resigned as chief executive of Apple Wednesday, saying he could “no longer meet my duties and expectations.”

Interim CEO Tim immediately elevated to CEO, while Steve, 55, will stay on as chairman of the board.

“I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know,” Jobs said in a letter to “the Apple community” that was released by the company. “Unfortunately, that day has come.”

While the move was stunning, it was not entirely unexpected.

Steve Jobs had been seen only rarely this year, including at a San Francisco event in March where he unveiled Apple’s iPad 2, the hugely successful follow-on to its hugely successful tablet computer.

“His health clearly wasn’t’ improving and there was going to come a time when he was going to have to set aside,” said Rob Enderle, longtime technology analyst with Enderle Group