FarQuest

TakeBackTheTech: We are step closer!

It was the last day of the 5 day incredible journey that they call FTX (more on FTX later). I was feeling heavyhearted for the period I was surrounded by nothing but positive energy and pleasant people, was coming to an end. Cheekay Cinco from APC was conducting a workshop on Online Security and Privacy and what she announced in the middle of the workshop cheered me up completely. It gave me a new hope, a new motivation to move ahead with greater determination. Guess what? According to APC, the best TakeBackTheTech campaign that came out last year was from Pakistan Alhamdulilah.

It convinced me that what we have been doing since Novemeber 2009 is being read and people are benefiting from it and that’s enough for me to say that slowly and gradually we are moving ahead - one step at a time towards changing attitudes!

I thank all those who have been following this campaign an/or have been part of it directly or indirectly. Hope the momentum continues and together we keep bringing about a positive change!

A quick recap of the major events that we have so far organized under the banner of TakeBackTheTech are:

1. P@SHA and Bytes4All introduced TakeBackTheTech in Pakistan in Novemeber 2009
2. In January 2010, Jehan Ara of P@SHA and myself conducted a workshop for the legal community in Lahore. We shared about Cyber Crimes, PECO and TakeBackTheTech with a group of 80 Lahore High Court lawyers including 2 senior judges.
3. In February 2010, National Strategy Workshop was conducted in Karachi.
4. In June 2010, first ever Feminist Tech Exchange (Train the Trainer program) was organized in Islamabad.

Other than this since Novemeber 2010, we have been advocating this campaign online via Facebook, Twitter, Blogs - we tweet, blog,compose TBTT songs, create post cards, create localized logos ( a few can be seen above) and do everything that we can to raise awareness regarding ICTs and VAW.

We hope to do a lot more this year InshAllah. Will keep you all posted.

PS: For those who do not know what TakeBackThetech is? Check out my blog post:
Let’s TBTT!

PPS: To read all TBTT related posts I have written so far, please check out the “Female Harassment” category of my blog here.

Logos Customization Credit: Hinstance

technorati tags: takebackthetech

Posted in Personal, Female Harrassment, Social Good | No Comments »

Silly Facebook ignored my FRAIND!

So, Facebook is inviting people to test its new QA Service and in return selected beta testers will get a chance to tour Facebook Headquarters in California and meet the team (Source: BusinessInsider) But Facebook is soo silly, it’s spending so much to get a service tested while my FRAIND PTA has been doing it’s Security Testing for free for sooo many days! How can you be so dumb FB? You know for the past 2 weeks, we are managing to log in to random people’s account and take a free tour of their profiles(read their Facebook life) - trust me it’s much more fun than Facebook Headquarter tour - thanks to our friend PTA and their efficient team which is devising superb filtering and monitoring techniques that make us slowly yet seamlessly hack each other’s online life.

As an added advantage, our friend has given us rounds of random people’s Twitter Accounts as well, over the past couple of weeks, we have had the power of viewing people’s Direct Messages and hence get a good idea of their Twitter lives.

Btw dear friend PTA, if you are reading this, please let’s stop this fun journey here because I’m afraid what will happen if someday somebody manages to log in to Uncle Rehman Malik’s twitter account and reads his Direct Message conversation with Uncle Salman Taseer? :O I won’t be coming to help you if you get it trouble then so stop being naughty and fix the mess you have made.

PS: This is a random post sprinkled with a bit of sarcasm.

PPS: Just in case you haven’t figured out, it is also a call to take your personal and confidential conversations/information off your Facebook and Twitter messages because PTA might take forever to fix the blunder they have done to cause security breaches.

PPPS: This post by no means is questioning Facebook’s privacy which btw I know isn’t too good either but that we will test once we get to use it properly Facebook was mentioned because its news motivated me to write this post.

Posted in Tech Talk, Personal | 1 Comment »

Miss you and love you more than before!

You were a shield that kept me safe, you were the sunshine that kept me warm in bitter winters, your love, compassion and lessons you taught me will always remain with me yet what I will always greatly miss is having YOU around me. They say time is great healer but time hasn’t taught me how to stop missing you - my love and respect for you has grown over the years - I have seen fathers who beat their daughters, who deprive them of their basic rights, who sell them and while all this makes me feel sad for those unlucky daughters, it also makes me feel blessed because I had you as my father - you were nothing but love and happiness for me baba. You were my angel and I miss my angel!

Happy Fathers Day!

Lovely baba - I know you are reading this in heaven!

Posted in Personal | 3 Comments »

TakeBackTheTech: Stop having fun at our expense!

I was in grade 9 when few of my seniors presented a humorous stage play, on how women spend most of their time in finding the right cosmetics for them and then the rest of the time using those cosmetics. We laughed madly watching that play and expected that everyone would praise the group for coming up with such a funny piece; but the principal’s reaction was totally unexpected. She did not encourage the group of young girls at all and criticized the play severely - she had a valid reason to do so. The principal was of the opinion that if we being women do not respect other women, how do we expect men to respect us and not make fun of us?

At that time we felt the principal was over-reacting and there was nothing wrong in being funny but now after 11 years I have realized, she was right. Now I know what extent mere humor can go to, eve-teasing is considered humor too, eve-teasers think there’s nothing wrong in having a little fun, in a little name-calling, in a little whistling, in a little touching but their *little* humor and fun makes women end their education, their careers and even their lives. Don’t take my word for it, read this news from BBC and you will understand how heinous a crime it can become.

Just yesterday, on Facebook, a young guy commented on a group picture of women comparing women with footballs. He thought he was being funny but it seriously offended me and several other women. The sad part is, despite our informing him that he is being offensive, he didn’t apologize.He felt it’s our fault that we don’t have a sense of humor. It’s men like him who feel they can even walk over women, crush them under their feet and laugh out loudly because it would be great *FUN* !

It is for this reason that we need to continuously educate men on how disturbing their funny remark can be for women, we need to teach them that there is a fine line between humor and indecency and crossing that line can end up making them eve-teasers, rapists and killers!

technorati tags: takebackthetech

Posted in Personal, Female Harrassment, Social Good | 3 Comments »

Oh Lord, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood

Lately, I have been feeling really really cranky; not wanting to talk to anyone and ideally wanting to go hide myself somewhere or wear an invisibility cloak and hide myself for sometime. The reason is simple: I simply don’t understand this world and how things work here! My friend Hinstance probably sensed that I’m not in the best of my moods these days and shared Nina Simone’s this brilliant song with me. I’m totally falling in love with the lyrics!

You can listen to the song here and read more about it here.

Source of Lyrics: ST Lyrics

Posted in Personal | 1 Comment »