August « 2009 « Hackers For Charity

When Dennis introduced me to Mugisha Fred, I was really drawn to his story. (See Fred’s intro video here). This guy sounded a lot like me. My first thought was that this guy was a hacker. He had that glint in his eye, and a passion for computers. He told me:

"When I have power, I forget to eat, I forget to sleep. There is only this machine."

But Fred didn’t own a computer. He repaired laptops for people and when they were fixed, he would just jam on them until the person wanted it back, and then he would find another customer. He surfed from borrowed machine to borrowed machine, learning a little bit here and there. He had all the passion and none of the resources. So I put together this video and I shared Fred’s story at my Blackhat USA 2009/DEFCON talk. I explained that I wanted to buy Fred a laptop (a refurbished 120GB Acer Aspire One netbook) and I was looking to raise $200 to do that.

I posted a little chipin event on our bulletin board and people responded. “TXB” posted a matching challenge, and within two weeks, we had raised more than double the amount I needed to give Fred his netbook. After a bit of consideration, we decided to buy a monitor, keyboard and mouse as well as a power strip and regulator so that Fred would have more than enough gear to get started in his inevitable computer career.

Spending that money was so much fun. I couldn’t wait to give Fred his gear, but it felt too much like charity to just call him up and give him a bunch of gifts. Strange, I know, but that’s how I felt. I was beginning the staging for St. John’s classroom (for the Honorable Migereko) and I needed some manpower, so I called him up and asked if he would mind coming by to help me image machines. He was thrilled and he arrived at the house minutes later after what must have been a very fast and dangerous boda (hired moped) ride.

Fred was a quick study, and before long, we were imaging machines for the classroom, and I found myself giddy over the fact that I was able to have more than one thing going on at a time. The stress over my workload has been pretty intense lately.

Imaging with Fred in the HFC office!

At the end of the day, I presented Fred with his donations on behalf of Hackers For Charity and the donors that supported the chipin event. I’ve captured the whole thing on video (which I’ll upload when bandwidth improves) but suffice it to say that Fred was absolutely ecstatic. He jumped up and down and cheered and laughed and was genuinely blown away at the gift. He was thrilled and so was I. This was a really big event in Fred’s life, and something most of us may never experience.

Fred's reaction to the news!

I could say it’s like one of us getting a new car from a complete stranger, or a suitcase of cash, or a day of CPU time on the Pixar server farm, but none of this is life-changing stuff. Because we have cars and enough cash, and a day on the Pixar farm would only get us in trouble. But this system has the potential to be life-changing for Fred. It opens the door to learning and training. It marks what could be the beginning of a career that could sustain him, his family and even his children.

I dropped Fred off at his house after a long day of work. It turns out Fred lives in the office of a small church.

Fred's home / church

He lives there with his Mom, his older brother and his little sister.

Fred's family

They all live in this tiny room, but by Ugandan standards, it’s nice. It’s clean, it’s secure and it’s comfortable. The problem was, Fred didn’t have any power. I remember him saying that “when he had power, and there was the machine” he would jam all night, not sleep, not eat, etc… But I didn’t know that meant he had no power. I thought that he had spotty power, or dirty power, or anything but not no power. I mean no power is bad like a double negative.

This bugged me to no end.

It drives me nuts when I see Americans (Europeans, whatever.. westerners) tromping around in underdeveloped countries with their big boots “helping” the locals. It’s not for lack of good intention that many of them fail, it’s just that they don’t take time to listen to the needs, to hear the story behind the words.

And now, here I was, being a well-intentioned but slightly dumb Westerner. I gave a monster pile of computer gear to a guy that had no power. Because I thought that would be helpful. That would launch his career in warehousing, or heavy lifting. But not in computers. Because computers require power, bonehead.

I asked Fred about the power situation, and he told me that he was planning to rent his own place and that he was saving up his money.

“But a rented place is expensive,” he explained, “like 15,000UGX a month.”

Seven dollars and fifty cents a month.

My first impulse was to just pay his rent. But that’s not sustainable. That’s charity. And it dries up when we leave. He needed training. He needed some work. And I needed lots of help. After talking to Jen, the solution became clear. We would let Fred live with us. We have a massive guesthouse, and with Dennis (his long-time friend) living back there already, he wouldn’t be alone. He could have his own room (rent-free) and he could work with me, take a huge load off of me and learn something in the process. Eventually, we could even start paying him a salary (not appropriate quite yet according to local custom.. too many gifts at one time).

I pitched the idea and Fred was all for it. We picked up his stuff the same day.

I was nervous about the whole thing, because I am, after all, a “rich” Mzungu, swooping in and snatching up poor Fred to work in my labor camp. (Painting the worst picture for you, gentle reader). But his family blew away all the misgivings. Not only were they not worried about the situation, they were overjoyed at the prospect. In fact, they were happier than Fred was at receiving his gifts. This was a big deal for the whole family.

So like everything else here, this is an experiment. So far, it’s worked out very well, and Fred works so hard that I have to kick him out of the office every now and then to go chill, hang out with Dennis and focus on analog stuff.

It’s great to have him here. I’ve gotten so much accomplished in the past two days that I just don’t know where I’d be without his help. Of course, as I write this, my family’s watching a movie (10:30pm) and I’m blogging. I gotta go. I need to focus on the carbon-based lifeforms in my living room.

Dennis, Fred and Johnny. HFC Team Uganda!

Just a typical day really. Frantic phone calls, lots of meetings, a new housemate, a blown tire and no milkshakes.

I was called to ameeting with the folks at St John’s and I asked Fred to go with me to get a feel for how things work. He was happy to go. I find him to be very excited about anything that has anything remotely to do with computers. It’s a sickness, his fascination with computers. Completely unhealthy, and exactly the way I started off, which I guess means that the ends justify the means. (Because I’m well adjusted and mostly sane). =P

We took measurements of the classroom and talked about what kind of furniture we’ll need to fit 30computers into the little computer room.

I spent hours tonight measuring computers, figuring out how much area a typical student needs (24″ deep, 27″ wide) and translating all that into Keynote so I could mess with the room layout and order proper tables.

I made everything to scale (120pixels=1foot) and it was cool seeing it all come together (on paper at least). There’s plenty of power (lightning bolts), and assuming I can get 4′x9′ tables made instead of 4′x8′, the classroom should come together quite nicely.

Here’s the final reult: St Johns Layout.

Ronnie (cargo agent, not thief) called and told me the tax issue had been sorted out and I needed to pick up this shipment today or they were going to charge me like 680,000UGX (like $340) for storage fees. Per day. Oh, and the taxes were going to be $350, and the processing and handling charges were going to be another $150. Spending $500 for a shipment of 30 donated laptops and tons of donated network gear is one thing, but $340 for a day of storage is just insane. Looking  at the clock and realizing it was 1:00, I did the math and realized I could just make into Entebbe by 4:00, get the shipment and be back by 8:00, which was well after dark. Driving at night is risky (“dark road”) and doing it with thousands of dollars of computer gear strapped to the roof is even riskier.But I was determined to avoid the storage fee, so I set my mind to the task, leaned into the accelerator, and feeling the truck’s turbo kick in, I just knew

*POP*

*HISSSSSSSS*

*thup thup thup thup*

*HISSSSS*

It was a sign. Or a spiritual joke. Like

Satan: “Let me spear a six-inch piece of metal through his tire. That’ll send him off the deep end.”

God: “Fine. Go ahead.”

I know. Not funny, but the fact that my tire blew right next to a kind-hearted mechanic who worked for the Ugandan army is pretty darned funny. Jon-Paul was a mechanical wizard. He really knew how to change a tire. He used leverage and fulcrum techniques and a big rock and between him and Fred, who insisted on helping as well, we were back on the road in no time, but I knew Entebbe would have to wait. We really needed to fix the tire. Heading off on a six-hour drive in Africa without a spare is dumb.

So I called Ronnie and asked him to repeat the storage charges (I’m masochistic that way) and he told me it was 80,000UGX, or like $40. Not 680,000UGX. Either I need Q-Tips, or we got the frequent importer discount.

Either way, we’re headed to Entebbe tomorrow for shipment #2! I’m pretty excited! Thanks for the donations!

I woke up this morning with nasty stomach cramps. Declan (our 6-year old) was in bed with us and I didn’t want to wake him up with my panzy whimpering, so I headed out to the living room and whimpered by myself in the pre-dawn glow of an impending African sunrise. I read a bit (“This Present Darkness, Frank Peretti) and after 30 minutes my cell phone started blowing up.

I answered and it was none other then Hon. Migereko. For those of you that haven’t been keeping up, this is like getting a call from the Vice President. This gentleman gets things done in Uganda, and because of his zeal, he’s one of the President’s most trusted associates.

Back in May of last year, I offered to try to build him a computer classroom at St. John’s in Bugembe. Since then, the school has been eagerly anticipating their new computer room. The room has been built, the power has been run, security has been installed (iron, not silicon) and the senior students have been walking 5+km to a nearby community center to learn basic computer skills.

But the classroom never came together. No corporations swooped in to fund the project, and I had no idea where exactly I would get the machines or the money to do what Hon. Migereko wanted done. But I knew it was something I had to do.So I made it a priority this year. While in UGanda I was going to figure out how to build classrooms for the Minister.

Thanks to some monster donations by “Dean” (49 corporately-depreciated Compaq N610C P4 laptops) and shipping services donated by Chris Duke at Navis Shipping (http://www.gonavis.com/nc1030) we had the machines for the classroom.

Things were looking good for the students at St John’s and for the deal for the Minister, but then he called, asking how things were going and I realized that this project has been on hold for far too long. I had slipped past the “thanks for the favor” phase right into the “where’s our stuff?” phase. The clock was ticking. If this classroom was to have the added benefit of being a relationship builder, I needed to move.

But this morning I had two distinct problems. The first was that I only received 23 power supplies for the 30 machines I committed to St. John’s. They weren’t lost in transit; Dean just didn’t have enough. My first thought was to install 30 laptops with 23 power supplies and have the teachers alternate power to the machines, running a few off battery every other class, but this just feels wrong. I want to make a good impression on our fledgeling classroom for the Minister, and this ghetto solution doesn’t quite fit the bill.

We have another shipment that’s waiting for us at Entebbe airport from Keith Parsons over at impnet.org consisting of 30 Compaq M300 laptops and a TON of networking gear, which is another huge donation. While these aren’t the performers of the  N610′s, I understand there are 30 power supplies in along with the laptops, which seems like a sign that these are destined for St. John’s. Or maybe ten of them will go along with 20 of the N601′s, but whatever the solution, I had to move.

So I’ve been building the student master and teacher master machines over the past few days. The basic build is:

• Windows XP SP2
• Office 2003
• AVG Anti-Virus
• Net Support School trial (to allow the teacher to take over stuent workstations… negates the need for a projector)
• Deep Freeze (trial version to freeze the student builds to keep kids frm messing up the systems by doing something… kid-like.)
• Foxit PDF Reader
• Firefox

With the builds in place, I was all set to start leisurely imaging the machines when Hon. Migereko called. That put a fire under me and I realized that between trips back and forth to the airport to secure our second shipment and everything else I was juggling, I was hard-pressed to image the 30+ machines. I needed manpower.

My wife suggested I call Fred to help with imaging. I thought it was a great idea. So I spent the day showing Fred how the systems were set up and we tried our hand at imaging the final master builds. Unfortunatly the Imaging softare I ‘m using (Acronis) is failing to read my flash and USB drives and even DVD’s (it hangs browsing for backup images on external drives) and I burned two hours trying to get a standard Linux imaging system to fly (dd is my friend). But the dd solution was dumb and bloated (Free space can be skipped, dd, kthx bye) and in the end it failed to successfully re-image back to a laptop (dd if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/sda1/tmp/student.dd; dd if=/dev/sda1/tmp/student.dd). (Big inhale).

So at the end of a long day, I am faced with having to manually build the student machines (I hate this option.. too many variables), I’ve got a shipment stuck in Entebbe being valuated which may or may not contain laptops we will use for the Minister, and I have said Minister wondering about things, which makes me nervous that I’ve gotten off on the wrong foot already. I feel like I’m in WAY over my head here.

But tomorrow’s a new day. I’m picking up Fred at 8:30, heading over to St John’s to talk to the staff and scout and measure the room, and I’m hopeful that I’ll hear from Ronnie (my cargo agent in Entebbe) that he (or Hon. Migereko) worked some magic on the taxes and we’re clear to pick them up. If that shipment clears, we’ll have more options and annoying things like failed imaging solutions will matter less.

Days like this make me miss Tim and Dwight. Things really cruise when a team of fellow geeks is in country jamming on problems ith me. Anyone up for coming in November? October? September? Next week? Emails me. Puh-leeeeeaze?

Gotta sleep. Long day ahead. More tomorrow.

The problem is that because there are computer peripherals and support gear in this shipment, we’re supposed to pay tax. (Systems are exempt, but not parts). Tax valuation takes time, and the packages only arrived a few short days ago.

After quite a bit of uncertainty, Robert (or Ronnie, as he’s called, and yes, those are both his accepted names) came through! We now have a cargo agent, and we’re in possession of 50 HP NC610c laptops, along with the batteries for the Aspire Ones and the Dell Vostros, which are headed for the AOET Rehaboth Primary and Rehaboth Integrated Secondary Schools respectively. The ride to Entebbe was brutal as ever, and I’m thoroughly exhausted. More later.

Kampala traffic is SWEET!

Ronnie (foreground) and Dennis (behind)

a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing =)

The HFC truck REALLY has come in handy!

Clever caption space for rent

Gorgeous! Now to test them, clean them and prep them for St. John's

So there’s this shipment.

It’s an experiment, but a rather important one.

When I tell people I’m going to Uganda to teach people how to use computers because it will change their lives, the number one thing they say is.. “I got old computers for you.”

Of course they do. Everyone has old computers. But from day one, I’ve had no flipping idea how exactly to get old computers to Uganda. Some computer are so old they’re even boat anchors on Zanzibar (the island, not the Halo map). But those good, old computers… Yeah, I could use them. But how?

Well because I know nothing about cargo shipping, the answer was to carry them over in suitcases, which isn’t bad except for the $2,000 per person plane ticket, and the 16+ hours in the air, and the excess baggage fees, and the chiropractic bills.

But, hey it worked for the short haul. We built a nice classroom for AOET in ’07 on a family trip, thanks to Jethro’s laptop donation. But I’m tired of lugging computers that way. Back to cargo shipping.

I met this guy Chris. Well, I didn’t exactly meet Chris. I was e-introduced to Chris by a guy named Kevin who I met for a few minutes at a conference once. Kevin was a pastor. So that counts for a lot in the honest category, and Kevin said that Chris was a guy that could “ship stuff when others couldn’t”. That got me thinking.

I had two problems before I left for Uganda, and Chris held the solution to both. The first was that Tim and Dwight (Whitewolf) were coming with 50 laptops as checkin luggage. The batteries had to be removed (cuz they can asplode or sumpin) and I needed to get them to Uganda. That was problem one.

Problem two revolved around the 50 Compaq Evo N610c laptops (hey! don’t laugh! They aren’t Alienware, but they’re perfect for us. And besides, what have YOU donated to us? Where was I? Ah yes..) to our cause like RIGHT before we were leaving for Uganda. That was problem two.

The solution was to have Chris cargo ship both shipments and have them meet our team on the ground on August 5th.

So thanks to amazing logistical work by my friend Nathan, we got Chris the batteries and the laptops to ship to Uganda for us.

So that’s over 50 brand new laptop batteries (18 Dell Vostro 1000′s, 32 Acer Aspire One’s) and 50 donated laptops sent blindly to an unknown person on the recommendation of another kinda unknown person. Sent to an underdeveloped country to be driven about as far away from civilization as you can get in an unarmed vehicle so the machines can be put in a school and used by people who just might possibly learn some life-changing skills to help pull them out of poverty.

You heard right. A long shot. That’s how we roll, baby. My pastor calls this “faith”. My lawyer calls this “a liability”.

So after all this insanity, I’ve certainly set you up for a happy ending, right? Hrmm… well…

The laptops were set to arrive on August 5th with Tim and Dwight, but the shipment was bumped because… wait for it… some produce took precedence. PRODUCE. Stupid vegetables. Took precedence over COMPUTER HARDWARE!?!?!?

The indignity. I know.

But I’m a realist. I understand that produce spoils slightly faster than computer hardware, and that’s fine. (Vegetables still suck).

So the first shipment gets bullied by a bunch of bananas and is now set to arrive August 10th, then busted by some broccoli and bumped back again to the 17th, but (vegetable hatred aside) I’m still not pissed off or anything because this was the exact day Jenny was supposed to arrive. The second shipment (the batteries for the AOET computers) was due in on the 18th, so maybe just maybe we hit the trifecta and score a 3-for-1 when we go to pick up Jenny at Entebbe. She flies in, we take two steps over to the cargo area (which I picture as having a super-huge help-yourself luggage belt just like the ones the passengers flock to after a flight) and just like that we’ve shrunk 18 hours of driving down to six, and life is good. The happy ending. I know you can feel it.

Not quite. I met this nice young guy named Robert. Or was it Ronnie? He saw my confused Mzungu mug groping the cargo gate and asked, “do you have an agent?”

I explained that even though I was a best-selling (computer book) author and a massive rock star (on the Internet) and that I had lots of groupies (the ones I pay well) and I’ve been on TV a lot (didn’t mention that they were boring news programs) that I did not in fact have an agent.

After a few back-and-forths, I somehow had hired Ronnie (Robert?) to be my cargo agent. The guard at the gate seemed nonplussed. So, cool. My man. My agent. Welcome to the Hackers for Charity adventure.

After walking around to like ten different offices and getting this thing called an airbill and filling out customs forms, I decided that Ronnert knew what he was doing and I could never in a million years EVER figure out all this on my own.

So I flexed the world traveller Mr. Cargo Shipping ego muscle a little bit and explained that I was going to be doing quite a bit of shipping if this whole thing worked out. Robnniert seemed impressed and asked me for my passport so he could “have a copy to help me expedite future shipments”.

I politely refused, mentioning something about how the Embassy forbade (even dumb) Americans to give out copies of their passports (let alone paranoid security super-freaks like me).

After about an hour of mind-numbing paperwork, Ronn-bert asked me to sign the copy of my passport (it was for customs) and to write on it that I authorized customs to release the shipment to his company. I was still sketchy about the whole thing, and felt like I was signing a blank check for this guy to snag every single one of my cargo shipments from now until the Apocalypse so I got tricky.

I signed the copy of the passport, authorizing his company to access one shipment (by number) on today’s date. I intended, after all, to shadow Ronbnert all day until I had those laptops in-hand, but a phone call from my family said that it was time to head to the arrival gate to pick up Jenny.

At this point, Robbnniebert explained that we were still several hours away from getting the goods. He used words like “customs” and “inspection” and “valuation” and it was this last word that made me feel like it was a really good idea to leave him with the paperwork to run with this process. I mean after all, a guy in a country like this that uses the word “valuation” in proper context must be on the up and up, right?

But I still had a bad feeling about what this was going to cost me. Agents rob people. All the time. So I asked him what this all was gonna cost me. His answer was VERY exacting. He multiplied the weight of the shipment times 3 then times 1.8% (VAT), added a bank fee and a photocopying fee and his agent fee, and the bill came to like $150,000 UGX (like $75) which seemed pretty reasonable (FOR FIFTY LAPTOPS) except for the fact that half that was his agent fee. Still, this was it. No more hidden costs. No free gifts for calling in the next ten minutes, and no operators standing by.

“This is the final price,” I asked. Very specific.

“That is all,” he said, waving his hands in a convincing way. “No hidden costs.”

A light at the end of the tunnel.

I felt good about this, so I left him, and we got Jenny (yay! rejoicing! The family together again! I’m not meaning to minimize the joy of the event by putting it in parenthesis, but I’m focussed on the shipment in this post. Another Yay! for good measure before we continue, then.)

I called Robnnieobert (got his cell, I’m smart) and asked for a status. “Tomorrow,” he said. “By ten A.M. We’ll have both packages cleared for you. No problem.”

At this point, I was tired, confused and ready to tackle the three-hour trek back to Jinja. It was 3:00, and we needed to get home before dark because the only thing more insane than driving in Uganda is driving in Uganda at night. So we left.

Now, back at the house, basking in the glow of my laptop, I’m fully exhausted after 7 hours of driving (traffic, inches from me in every direction, psycho moped drivers and suicidal pedestrians that take certain joy in riding the wave of air my speeding aerodynamically challenged truck makes) and facing another return trip tomorrow, and my brain’s playing tricks on me.

Did I really just hand a complete stranger a copy of my passport, and sign away the shipment to his company? Well, yes. I did, but it’s not like that.

Look, this cargo thing is complex. There’s a lot to it. I mean I’ve heard lots of horror stories. Gangs, pirates, crooked agents..

That’s not helping my case. Let me put it this way. In a country where corruption is rampant, and is compounded by abject poverty, things happen a certain way….

No, that’s not the angle I’m going for either.

I just called Robnnieobert. He picked up on the first half ring.

“Hello, Jon,” he said in about the most difficult tone to analyze I’ve ever heard a human use. He’s either an honest guy or he’s stunned that the guy that he just robbed is actually calling him with second thoughts.

“Hi,” I began. I skipped the name and continued, because I’m net really even sure his name starts with an R. “So is everything still OK? Will we be able to get both shipments tomorrow? What time does the second shipment land? What time should I come to the airport?”

My interrogation skills suck. Man. That’s horrible. When I’m on a gig and I need to social engineer a help desk droid out of their social security number and underpants, I don’t break a sweat. But this guy… this guy’s got midichlorians up to there or something. My chi is all chumbled. My mojo’s all mangled. And just like that, I fire off twenty questions.

He answers only one; the last one. “Tomorrow you come at eleven.”

Stone cold. No flubs. This guy’s got confidence man. His game is solid.

I’ve got a really bad feeling about this. I’m pretty sure I’m driving to the airport tomorrow to pick up a super-size package of 100% pure owned.

For the record, this is not what we do. =)

This is samuel from liberia,a west africa country, I would like you to teach meabout using googles to hack credit cards numbers with the full informations.i willbe glad is if my request is is replied or direct me to a link to make my dream come true.

thanks

It’s here! [download id="31"] Check out our first shiny newsletter. It took me five hours to upload it. Catch up with all that HFC is up to!

Over at Securosis we’ve been working on a big project (called Project Quant) with Microsoft to develop a rigorous patch management metrics model. We ended up with a 40+ page report including over a hundred metrics in a 10 phase, 40 step patch management process framework. You can read about it here. This was a community project, with participation from a bunch of different people and groups.

But, for this community, the more interesting part was the survey we conducted. We performed an open survey on patch management processes that included some of the biggest, and smallest, organizations around (and are keeping the survey open). While we released a summary analysis with the initial project report, we are now releasing the raw survey data.

This data has been anonymized, but otherwise unaltered. We had about 116 responses when I did this data dump, and keep in mind the results likely skewed towards more mature organizations (since they’d be more incented to participate). This data will be exclusive here at the Informer for one week before we release it to the broader community. The file includes the data in cvs and xls format, with an xls of summary results (the pretty charts).

[download id="30"]