Internet Cafe 101

I've been an Internet cafe attendant during my college days. Its been my sideline during those trying years. One of the things I've learn is that there are plenty of things to consider before putting up an Internet cafe.

Working Capital

Just like in any business venture, you need to have a working capital to put up a business. Internet cafe business is not an exception.  On the current context the ideal working capital for Internet cafe is around 150,000 pesos or around $4,000. The said amount would give you around 10 workstations.

Good location

Good location would mean that your place is accessible to people on all walks of life. This is business 101 and getting a good location to put your business is one of the considerations you need to think before putting an Internet cafe.

Ambiance

Most of the Internet cafe I've been with is not quite conducive. We should take into considerations the space in between workstations

Fast Workstations with high video resolution

Most of the computer game nowadays requires high video resolution. Thus if you have a higher video cards and the latest CPUs gamers will promote your cafe.

Good Internet Connections

Ideally internet connections should be fast enough such that your clients will not be bored waiting for page loads. Since most of the games nowadays requires Internet connections you need to have fast connections for Internet gamers to stay on your cafe.

Good Quality LAN and on-line Games

In an Internet cafe business one of  the bread and butter is games. It has the lion share in the revenue of Internet cafe. Computer game enthusiast often comes to a certain cafe. Here they will going to share and enhance their skills. It would be advisable if you have some stats on what games they play. If you don't have the games they've requested you can ask them if they have one. If they don't try to purchase it online.

If possible have the same model of workstations

For maintenance purposes your workstations should have same models. With this, video driver are same all throughout you workstations and you will not have a hard time during maintenance days.

Web Server and Proxy Server

Internet cafe is notoriously known as virus haven. This is because most of the Internet cafe are poorly manage.  Most of the Internet cafe I've been with is not using proxy server at all. No wonder viruses and all forms of computer malwares are present Internet cafe. There are plenty of free linux server today. Some of the best are CENT OS which is clone of the well known RED HAT, UBUNTU LINUX, ORACLE LINUX.  Installation of these servers are quite straight forward nowadays.

Disable USB flash drive by default

Have a dedicated workstation with Linux box installed. Why Linux? Linux is quite immune to viruses and 90% of know virus variants only run on windows environment. Thus, you are quite safe if your dedicated workstation with USB enabled is running on linux. Linux is free OS and there taste – UBUNTU and its derivatives such as linux mint, KUBUNTU the KDE version of UBUNTU.  In fact, I've been using linux mint in posting this blog.

Deep Freeze in Windows OS

Deep freeze has the ability to reinstate your pc to previous state after reboot. Meaning, it can prevent virus in intruding your computer. The current release of deep freeze is in 7 versions and I recommend them.

Net Suite

There are plenty of net suite out in the market today. To mentioned a few easy cafe, cafe suite, netimo. Depending on your taste you can install one of them as your net suite

Virus Scanner for Windows Environment

There is a notion that putting up virus scanner in window box is a waste of time. Think again, if your pc will be hit with worms and you would lose money since reformatting your pc would take some time. And its quite a hassle to reinstall your OS. There are quite few number of good virus scanners that are for free. Here are some of them. Avira, Trend Micro, AVG, Panda, Norton among many others. You can also try others virus scanners such as Kaspersky, Macafee, Symantec these are household names when it comes to virus scanners.

Good Network Administrator

And finally, you need to have a network administrator to monitor the outbound and inbound data of the net cafe. Also, to monitor the health of your network. Remember, poor management would also mean poor cafe.

Windows 8 Release Date Announced

Microsoft announcement that Windows 8 will go on sale on October 26, 2012 is not a surprise.  The next flagship operating system of Microsoft is designed to work better with tablets.  It can be noted that the company also made a series of announcements last month. It announced that it will enter the tablet market with the introduction of surface, last week they've also announced the upcoming version of office will work flawlessly on tablets. Microsoft is trying to get some grounds in the booming tablet market which iPad has the current lion share in the market.

Current Windows users can upgrade their system with a minimal cost of ony $40. The charge is much lesser compared to its predecessors.  People who bought Windows 7 computer on June 2 or later can upgrade their system to Windows 8 for only $15.

Microsoft Office 2013 are for real

“The most ambitious release in productivity software’s history” This is how Steve Ballmer the Microsoft CEO described the new office 2013.

MS Office 2013 was designed to take leverage of the new Windows 8 operating system. It is compatible with touch screens used in tablets. It can be noted that Microsoft unveiled the new surface computer tablets which aims to compete against Apple iPad. Surface is expected to be available this coming October.  

MS office 2013 also incorporates the cloud Skype which Microsoft bought for $8.5 billion in 2011. Microsoft Office has the lion share for the company’s total profit. In 2011, Microsoft Office was worth $14 billion that’s according to Michael Silver, a researcher analyst at Gartner.  For the first time, Microsoft Office applications are now responsive to touch-screen control – taps, swipes and pinch-and-zoom.

Mr Ballmer said that the user-experience is designed to be more “immersive”, “visceral” and multimedia-rich when compared to earlier versions of the MS Office. It is estimated that MS office has more than 1 billion users worldwide. Microsoft hopes that the new office when paired with the surface tablets shall win business customers over time. 

Windows Tips and Tricks

Installing Microsoft Windows Vista (Photo credit: cocoate.com) Installing Microsoft Windows Vista (Photo credit: cocoate.com) In this article, I will share some tips on how to harden security of the computer running on windows XP and windows 7 as much as possible. The only true way to ensure the security of a computer is to remove its connectivity to any network altogether. However, this is quite understandable that method mentioned is impractical and sometime impossible to implement in practice. We will not going into the intricacies of Internet Protocols IPSec or a hardware firewall traffic rather, we will get into the Windows operating system and implement simple counter measures that are quite easy and can quickly be implemented to improve the security of any Windows XP and Windows 7 box on your network. This article assumes that you have administrative rights onto the pc. Tip number 1: Disable the server Services The server services also known as the File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks component can be very dangerous when enabled. In such a case, you would be well advised to open your network Connection folder and deselect or entirely remove the file and printer sharing for Microsoft. As added measures you also need to disable the server and computer browser services in services.msc in Microsoft Management Console. Tip number 2: Hide the Computer from network browse list This is a nifty windows registry hack that will ensure that your computer will never appear in “My Network Places” browse list. Here is the step by step procedure on how achieve it. 1.       Open the registry editor by typing “regedit” in the run prompt or you type in windows command prompt. In windows 7 you click start and type regedit in search programs and files and hit the enter key in your keyboard. 2.       Browse to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesLanmanServer registry key. 3.       Create a REG_DWORD value named “Hidden” and give it a value of “1”. 4.       Reboot windows. This procedure will effectively make your workstation invisible on NetBIOS browse list. Tip 3:  Remove administrative Shares Most network administrators know that they can access the root volume of domain workstations and servers by adding dollar sign ($) to the drive letter of each root volumes hidden administrative share. For instance I can use the Universal Naming Convention (UNC) statementmyServerc$ to connect to the root of the drive C of the windows server named “myServer” provided I have the proper administrative rights to the domain to begin with. This registry hacks that allows you to remove those administrative shares manually from a Windows XP and Windows 7 computer that should not have those shares enabled for security reasons. To enable this hack, follow these steps. 1.       Open the registry editor by typing “regedit” in the run prompt – the keyboard shortcut is window + R. In windows 7 you click start and type regedit in search programs and files and hit the enter key in your keyboard. 2.       Browse to the following registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesLanmanServerParameters 3.       Create two new REG_DWORD values: “AutoShareServer” and “AutoShareWks” and set each value to “0”. 4.       Reboot the computer. You can verify your work by opening the Computer Management Console MMC, expanding the Shared Folders node, expanding the Shared node and verifying that the hidden administrative shares no longer exist. Tip 4: “Mung” the Computer Name and Local Account Names Technically munging refers to altering ones e-mail address on web pages, so it doesn’t picked up by spam harvesters (nat at gmail dot com) for example. However, in this context I’ll use the term munging to refer to choosing a host name for your workstation that in no way, shape or manner serves to identify the computer on your LAN. That is, naming a computer “DATABASEBOX” probably isn’t a great idea to store confidential data or databases to begin with. On the other hand a workstation named “89XYZYX98” is interesting only to a mathematician due to its palindromic nature. A shopworn but always-cogent recommendation is to change the names of the two default local accounts: Administrator and Guest. Also throw in a plug for choosing strong passwords for both of these accounts. A Good strong password account meets the following criteria. 1.       Includes a healthy mix of letters, numbers and non-alphanumeric characters. 2.       At least eight characters long. 3.       Does not include any part of users birth name. 4.       Is not a word that appears in any major language dictionary. Finally, disable any local accounts on the computer that not regularly be used, and log on to the workstation as an administrator only when necessary to use administrative privileges. Tip 5: Secure the root volumes First of all, if you’re using windows 7 encrypt your root drive. Windows 7 has default encryption system with bit locker. If you’re still using XP and is still using FAT32 as file system, it is high time for you upgrade to NFTS. You can do so by typing convert.exe in command line utility that converts FAT to NTFS. Ensure that the NTFS permissions on all root volumes are configured appropriately. For instance, it is not wise idea to grant the “everyone” special group any permission on any disk volume on the workstations that stores confidential data. On the other hand, be careful not to set NTFS permissions too strictly. To wit, ensure that the system special account has allow full control NTFS permission, or you certainly will have problems with special services failing as you will preventing the operating system OS from accessing its own core files. Tip 5: Install a personal firewall Both XP and windows 7 has windows firewall preinstalled. However, it has limitations and one of them is that it can only protect incoming traffic not outgoing. If your systems happens to be infected with malicious code windows firewall will allow this malicious code to be deploy as many packets through your network interface as it wants assuming that all packets originates from inside your computer. The company I’m In is using Mcafee and is pretty much great. There are also some other great firewall out there such as Kerio, Sygate, ZoneLabs, Agnitum and Norton. Tip 7: Install Anti Virus Software It would be a great idea to install virus scanner in the windows operating system. There are plenty of antivirus software out in the market today. Tip 8: Audit early and regularly System auditing is perhaps the only way in which you can ascertain who is attempting to do what you system at any given point in time. The window Event Log services are pretty much impressive, and you can learn a quite bit studying the event logs by using the event viewer MMC console. Also, it is recommended viewing the virus logs from time to time.

Worst Computer Virus and Malware

English: A candidate icon for Portal:Computer security (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In 1986 Brain is the first PC virus that has the characteristic of replicating itself to circulate widely. Brain virus is being distributed via the now obsolete 5.25 inches floppy diskettes and spreads upon reboot. It is also the first stealth virus since the infected floppy disk appears to be not infected by the virus.

CIH –Discovered June of 1998. The damage incurred was almost roughly around $80 million worldwide, destroying huge amounts of PC data. It infected Windows Operating system (95, 98 and Me) executable files and a memory resident viruses. It has the ability to overwrite data on infected PCs on a short period of time. Other known capability is preventing the BIOS of the host, preventing boot-up after reboot. CIH is also called the Chernobyl virus since the trigger date of some of the strains coincides with the anniversary of the nuclear reactor accident.

MELISSA – Unleashed 1999. It was the front page news worldwide. The word macro script infected around 20% of all PCs, causing $300 million to $600 million damage. It spread exponential that Microsoft and Intel and other company that uses outlook had to shut down their email system to contain the virus. Melisa used the loophole in outlook to e-mail itself to 50 names in the outlook contact list. The famous line inside the email is “Here is that document you’ve ask for…… don’t show anyone else” and had the word attached in which the macro code mellissa hides. Upon opening the doc files let Melissa infect the host and replicate itself futher.

ILOVEYOU – It is also known as love bug virus. The author of the virus came from the Philippines. It was believe that love bug was a thesis that has been rejected since it contains malicious codes. However, it still managed to go out wild. Love bug was first detected in Hongkong on May 3, 2000. Transmission of the virus is thru email with subject Love-letter-for-you TXT.vbs a visual basic script file. Once opened, the virus will mail itself to all outlook contacts. It also has the ability to overwrite music, image, and other files. It also search for user ID and password and send them to the author. The estimate damage is roughly $15 billion. Interestingly, during that time Philippines had no laws against virus writing and the author was not charge of any crime.

CODE RED is also known as buddy. It is a virus that spreads over the network server or the Internet. It was released on networks servers on July 13, 2001. It targeted computer running Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) exploiting a vulnerability in which ironically Microsoft issued a patch in middle of June. It was designed for maximum damage and believed to damage an estimate of $3 billion and infected million of computer worldwide including 300,00 servers and the computers at the white house. Code red has the ability to lunch denial of services.

SQL SLAMMER – Launched on January 25, 2003 also known as sapphire it was a single packet 376 byte worm that specifically targeted Servers. It generates random IP addresses and sends itself to the generated IPs. If the computer is running a not patched Microsoft SQL server Desktop Engine, the computer would the begin firing off slammer to random IP addresses as well – seeing an exponential growth. Outrageous high amount of traffic overload routers across the globe. It hits 75,000 pc in 10 minutes doubling every 10 seconds. It carries no payloads but overloading the servers would also mean slowing the internet. Fortunately it erupted on Saturday thus dollar damage is a little bit small.

BLASTER WORM – It hits the net on August and spread rapidly peaking in just two days. Transmitted via network and Internet traffic, it exploited vulnerability in Win 2000 and XP and when activated it will inform the user with a dialog box indicating that shutdown is very eminent. Lovsan or MSBlast has the ability to launch distributed denial of service attack on windows update. It infected hundreds and thousands of PC and the estimated damage is roughly $10 billion.

SOBIG.F Sobigs worm most destructive variant was SOBIG.F which spread so rapidly on August 19 that set a record generating more than a million copies in its first 24 hours. It infected host computers via innocuously named e-mail attachments and transmitted itself to e-mail addresses discovered on the local file types, generating massive amounts of Internet traffic. On September 10, 2003, after doing $10 billion in damage and infecting more than a millions PC worldwide Sobig deactivated itself. Microsoft has put a $250,000 bounty for the identity of the Sobig.Fs author but to date the perpetrator.

BAGLE – a classic but sophisticated worm, made its debut on January 18, 2004. It infected PCs via an email attachment, then scoured windows files for e-mail address it could use to replicate itself.

The real danger of Bagle aka beagle and its 100 variants is that, when they infect a PC, they open a back door to a TCP port that can be used by remote users and application to access data on the infected system. The worm credited with starting the malware-for-profit movement among hackers, who before the groundbreaking worm, typically were motivated by notoriety. The beagle B variant was designed to stop the spreading after January 28, 2004 but numerous other variants continue to plague users to this day. In all, it has racked up tens of millions of dollars damages.

MYDOOM – For a few hours on January 26, 2004 the mydoom shock wave could be felt as this worm spread at an unprecedented rate across the internet via e-mail. The worm is also known as Norvarg, spread in a particularly devious manner as attachment in what appeared to be an e-mail error message containing the text “Mail Transaction Failed”. Clicking on the attachment spam the worm to e-mail address found in the address books. My-Doom also attempted to spread via the shared folders of users Kazaa peer-to-peer networking accounts. At its peak, MyDoom slowed global internet performance by nearly 10% and web load times by as much as 50%. Experts speculated that one of 10 messages sent during the first hours of infection contained the worm. MyDoom was programmed to stop spreading after February 12, 2004.

SASSER – Sasser began spreading on April 10, 2004 and was destructive enough to shut down satellite communications for some French news agencies and force the cancellation of several Delta airlines flights and the shutdown of some business systems. The worm exploited a security flaw in a no updated Windows 2000 and XP systems and would actively scan for other unprotected systems and transmit itself to them. The infected system experienced repeated crashes and instability, leading to tens of millions of dollars in damage. Sasser was written by a 17 year old German high school student who released it on his 18^th birthday. Because he wrote the code when he was still a minor, he was found guilty of computer sabotage but given a suspended sentence.

CONFICKER- Conficker is one of the most advance worm ever written. It its the most infectious malware ever written. It infected millions of computer worldwide. According to F-Secure the estimate number of infected computers are roughly around 10 million. It attacked vulnerability in Microsoft Service Service. The infected would be under the control of the attacker via remote control software. It has the ability to steal passwords too via brute force attack methods. Its spreads via thumb drives and shared network folders. Microsoft applied a patch to dodge the worm. Administrators are also given some guidance on how to stop the worm from spreading.