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NYAIRO: Kenya's death may come from Internet pranksters and their boundless irony [Nation (Kenya)]
[July 22, 2014]

NYAIRO: Kenya's death may come from Internet pranksters and their boundless irony [Nation (Kenya)]


(Nation (Kenya) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) This week, Kenya woke up to a layered drama that surely underscores our position as the global headquarters of irony.

The idea of any account belonging to the Kenya Defence Forces – be it social, financial or otherwise – falling prey to cheeky con men would be enough to fill our mouths with ironic laughter if it did not point to what must be truly dangerous lapses in our systems.



Internet-savvy Kenyans have wondered out loud why the ICT Authority and the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) were not at hand to help KDF snuff out the stirring words of the garrulous hacker.

Before we touch on the follies of work-shopping, over per diem-ed commission(er)s and authorities, let us take a moment to laugh at mainstream media and the ways in which it chose to announce that KDF's Twitter account had been hacked.


Bang in the middle of an online story titled "Anonymous hacks Kenya Defence Forces Twitter account", sat a CCK advert "celebrating the dawn of a new era in communication". Seriously? Would that be an era of black humour or an era of unsecured connections and brazen identity theft? READ: Group hacks defence forces Twitter account - VIDEO What are we celebrating? That our nation's online and physical borders are porous or that our constitutional liberties extend to the point where no brakes can be applied on wayward Internet users because they claim, "account hacked by the people for the people"? Anonymous hacker provided further comic relief with this Tweet, complete with the poor spelling: "All of you who have stolen from Kenya, we are coming after you. Whether you are Kenyan or not. A theif is a theif. No matter your position". (Forget spell-check, do our primary school teachers of English still teach the old adage, " 'i' before 'e' unless after 'c' "? ) ROMANCE OF THE HASHTAG So "the people" are determined to catch all thieves regardless of their position? Ya, right! The less said about this hacker's inability to see the irony of his Robin Hood crusade to arrest and halt all those who pilfer from the State, the better.

For at a time when our very nationhood is under threat from an unholy alliance of hostile neighbours with local factions of disaffection and hate fuelled by real and imagined exclusions, the work of skillful social media hackers of this kind is no joke.

We must not make the work of our security agencies any harder with a cacophony of condemnations and lamentations; we should, nonetheless, stress upon them that in the battles all around us, they, of all institutions, cannot afford to be soft targets.

I am not sure what caused the ease with which the KDF Twitter account was hacked. I have heard that the President of Syria once used the password 1234 on his Internet accounts.

I should hope that flippant passwords of this kind or the failure to sign-out after use are not the source of KDF's woes, but some training in digital security seems overdue.

It appears that the agencies that should be busy securing the Internet have neglected their duties. Recently, we saw how the Director of Public Communications was distracted by the romance of the hashtag.

Instead of instituting workable policies, the ICT ministry is out preaching a "love thy neighbour" gospel that demonstrates no knowledge or appreciation for how popular culture works.

The hashtag is, by definition, anti-establishment and subversion can never be a tool for furthering government policies! This casual mix of band aid "solutions", laissez faire attitudes and staggering ignorance will surely drown Kenya one of these days.

Meanwhile, as a Kenyan friend who lives in Mozambique is fond of reminding me, we must not be discouraged by "the intestinal fortitude required to be an optimistic and proud African".

Our commissions might be staffed by brilliant Kenyans who are daily being tripped by the lethargic and rotten apples in their midst. They lack a sense of urgency over the innovative and quick Kenyans who remain on the outside peering in.

Frustrated by the loops they must jump to find recognition and gainful employment, the creativity of this disenchanted lot is daily being turned into negative energy.

Sometimes that negativity will provide us with self-deprecating laughter, but in every instance, and regardless of its site or scale, that negativity is a time-bomb.

Dr Nyairo is a cultural analyst ([email protected] Twitter: @santurimedia) (c) 2014 Nation Media Group. All Rights Reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

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