Tension In SSS Over Leakage of Staff Data To Boko Haram


There were strong indications on Thursday that the State Security Service, SSS, have embarked on a secret probe of those behind the leakage of its personal data of over 60 current and former staff of the spy organization, for the benefits of terrorist groups.

The records of the affected staff and their immediate family members were reportedly posted on a website suspected to have links with the Boko Haram sect, raising fears as to whether the information was given out by insiders or through hackers with sympathy for the dreaded sect.

The SSS spokesperson, Marilyn Ogar, could not be reached for comments on the development as calls to her phone were not answered. However, a competent source acknowledged that the agency was aware of the development and had begun investigations into it.

The security source, who described the development as strange and embarrassing to the agency, said that those behind the act would be apprehended and made to account for their misdeeds.

Another source familiar with the agency, said they were suspicious that the staff data were sourced from the data submitted by the affected personnel to a federal government pension agency, which the SSS recently broke away from.

It was learnt that the pension agency might have taken offence and thrown away the data from its archive following an approval by the Presidency that the spy body should set up and run its own pension scheme due to the peculiar nature of its assignment.

“We have a strong suspicion that this information leaked to the website in question was taken directly from the pension agency.

“A cursory examination of the information including the staff records and their family members bear semblance to that which we filled with our former pension managers. “We are still investigating the source of the information,” the source said.

It was reported on Thursday that the personnel records of some past and present SSS staff members including home addresses and names of their immediate family members were leaked onto the Internet in a threatening message that claimed to come from a radical Islamist sects

Win A Dinner Date With Stephanie Okereke – Idahosa!


 

Gosh!! Stephanie is definitely a beautiful woman!!

And just in case you know someone who would like to go out on a date with her, Stephanie just announced she would like to host 10 people on a dinner date this September.

All you have to:

Tell Stephanie, in not more than 20 words…

“What is your life ambition?”

Then send in your responses/comments on her blog – www.StephanieDaily.com, and her team will pick 10 from the pack.

World’s First Sex School Opens in Austria Sex Education


Most Brits think it’s an activity best learned behind closed doors.But an enterprising Swedish schoolmistress thinks otherwise.Ylva-Maria Thompson has opened the world’s firstinternational sex school to teach its students how to be better lovers.

The Austrian International S*x School in Vienna offers ‘hands on’ lessons in seduction for £1,400 a term.
The ‘headmistress’ says anyone over the age of 16 can enroll at ‘the world’s first college of applied sexuality’.

Students live in a mixed s*x dormitory block where they’re expected to practice their homework.

And at the end of the course, they are awarded a qualification.
The new school head said: ‘Our core education is not theoretical, but very practical. The emphasis is on how to be a better lover.

‘Sexual positions, caressing techniques, anatomical features. And we teach people hands on.’

School spokesperson Melodi Kirsch added: ‘We are confident that the school will be a great success.

‘Ylva-Maria has worked for a long time on this idea and has received much encouragement and interest.’

The school has already been controversial in Austria.

Raunchy adverts showing a couple making love have already been banned by Austrian TV.

One protester said: ‘This is wrapped up in a very stylish way but it is just sellingsex.’

2012/2013 ChampionsLeagueDraw


It will be first meetings with Ukrainian and Danish champions Shakhtar and FC Nordsjælland for the Blues, though Italian champions Juventus were opponents in the first knockout round back in 2009. On that occasion we were narrow winners at home before a 2-2 draw in Turin sent us through to the quarter-finals. The competition begins in a little over two weeks, with the first matchday taking place on Tuesday 18 and Wednesday 19 September. The remaining five fixtures will be played throughout October and November with the final game on December 4 and 5. The final will be back at Wembley on May 25. Finalised fixture dates to follow. The complete draw is:
 Group A Porto Dynamo Kiev Paris Saint-Germain Dinamo Zagreb
Group B Arsenal Schalke Olympiacos Montpellier
Group C AC Milan Zenit St Petersburg Anderlecht Malaga
Group D Real Madrid Manchester City Ajax Borussia Dortmund
Group E Chelsea Shakhtar Donetsk Juventus FC Nordsjælland
Group F Bayern Munich Valencia Lille BATE Borisov
Group G Barcelona Benfica Spartak Moscow Celtic
Group H Manchester United Braga Galatasaray CFR Cluj

Opinion: Wonder promos – Are GSM companies taking Nigerians for a ride?


Nigerian mobile telecommunication companies are in a 100 meters race for the Guinness Book of World Records. The recent bizarre advertising frenzy to outdo one another in promoting the most outrageous of promos in order to win customers will be a record first if eventually they get listed in that book of spectacle and the absurd. These recent promotions are the jokes of the century. It is the stuff scams are made of. And it is also not a secret anymore. The promos are in the public domain. So we can name names. First, it was Etisalat that started it all. The company, which prides itself as a truly “Naija” network is urging its customers in a recent promo which it tags “Etisalat unbelievable Promo to “Win a Country.” The offer is truly implausible.

In the promo, Etisalat customers are offered mouth watering but weird perks which come with “winning the imaginary country”-they will have full control of the country and its natural resources like-wait for this-crude oil! Etisalat subscribers will, if they play the promo, have access to the imaginary country through air, land and sea. The country, unlike Nigeria, their present “backward” country is technologically advanced. But there is an option. Lucky winners can get the money equivalent of this country in case they are not interested in living in that fantasy country! Now if you consider the Etisalat offer ridiculous, MTN, another mobile network giant, has joined the drama of the absurd. The company is offering one lucky subscriber out of millions that will enter its recent promo an airplane! Can you beat that? With a paltry sum of N200, an impoverished man or woman in any part of Nigeria would soon be flying around with an aircraft even when he has not entered one in his life time or when he does not even know how to move an okada! But the smart Alecs in MTN, just like their Etisalat counterparts, have added the well-worn condition. In case the subscriber finds the aircraft unattractive, he could walk home with the Naira equivalent of the giant flying bird. Did I hear you gasp? Now what do you call that offer by MTN?

The details of the incredible promos from the GSM companies will reveal how these multinationals are playing on the intelligence of vulnerable Nigerians, making billions of Naira, while our government lets them get away with blue murder. In details gathered from MTN website, to participate in the MTN Ultimate Wonder promo, new and existing customers are to recharge with a minimum of N200 to qualify for weekly draws. Multiple entries are allowed for increased chances of winning (emphasis mine). Recharges of minimum N3, 000 over the duration of the promo will qualify for the grand prize of an aeroplane! The promo will run for three months. These are strange times indeed. Now pray, where else in the world can this madness play out except in our country? That these companies can even contemplate these offensive promos says a lot about how low our country has descended. A country where anything goes; a country where businesses can do whatever they like without any fear of sanction.

Now we can all see why our country is rated as investors’ haven! Let’s even examine the economics of the MTN offer. The promo is slated to run for three months. For three months, gullible Nigerians will be in a mad race to win an elusive airplane. The contest is on already. Knowing ordinary Nigerians’ gullibility and quest for “miracle” and ambition to achieve the good life no matter how crooked, MTN has hit the gold mine with their new promo this time. In a country where the “new craze” is to own private jets, the company is feeding into the new craze and taking advantage of it. It is indeed a smart thing for MTN to make millions with the promise of an aeroplane. I can imagine millions of my countrymen buying recharge cards like groundnuts in their bid to own a country or fly a private jet as promised by Etisalat and MTN. Imagine the millions MTN will rake home in the next three months. How can regulators in the telecom sector allow these bogus promos in the first place?

What is the job of the National Communications Commission and the National Lottery Regulatory Commission? Are they not aware of these promos? What is even annoying is the manner in which networks and their collaborators disturb us with incessant texts messages promoting one bogus offer or another. As soon as one procures a mobile line one loses one’s privacy to unsolicited text messages bearing incredible promos. It is startling how mobile telecommunications companies allow their networks to be used for advertising or promotion without recourse to the convenience of their subscribers. There is no let up in messages and automated calls.  One network also has a habit of calling subscribers in the middle of the night! As soon you as one picks the call, a pre-recorded voice sells an unwanted product!

This certainly cannot be the case in other climes. The subscriber should be able to subscribe or have a choice of whom or which product invades his or her network. Mobile telecommunication companies in Nigeria are taking us for granted and we should blame the government and the regulators for the chaos in the sector. Public complaints against the telecoms operators is on the rise. The incessant unsolicited messages that drop into subscribers’ handsets regularly inviting them to participate in one promotion or another is an intrusion of privacy. In Nigeria, product promotion has become the preferred marketing strategy among many companies and the telecoms operators have keyed into this to make more money from hapless subscribers. Often times, telecoms subscribers receive unsolicited messages informing them that they have won a certain amount of money or gift and to claim the gifts they need to text certain code to certain number.

Subscribers are also told that they have won free numbers of SMS and to activate them they need to text a certain code to a certain number. In the process, their credits are deducted. In other instances, subscribers are invited to participate in promos through text messages and under this arrangement they are charged certain amount of money daily until they decide to opt out of the competition; and some do not know how to discontinue. The media blitz unleashed on mobile handset users by telecoms firms through frenzied sales promos, game shows, and misleading text messages has continued to catch unsuspecting subscribers.