This post is a follow up to “Songs about Jane’s love for social engineering”.

So I was browsing the world wide web yesterday, a little bit of this a little bit of that as I always do when I discovered that two of my friends had had the “This is not my question” option removed from their Yahoo password helper feature while mine was still in place (Note though that both friends took action on their security questions after reading my last post).

My inner boys were subsequently not happy. Luckily though I discovered this link http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/acct/info/sqachange.html but ended up contacting Yahoo via this: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/edit/account_verification/acct-104.html . A little over 24 hours later Yahoo responded and I must say I’m now somewhat satisfied. The text in bold below did it for me.

On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 at 7:58 AM, Yahoo! Asia [asia -account-security@cc.yahoo-inc.com] wrote:
Hello,

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Asia.

We understand that you have updated your Security Questions and Answers
but you are still able to access your old Security Question.

This feature is in placed to allow a compromised account owner to regain
access to their account. The option to use your old Security Question
will only be available for a limited period of time.

We understand this can be a security risk for the account owner as well.
In order to prevent a potential hacker from accessing this option, you
will also need to change your zip code. We recommend you update the zip
code to something you will remember but is hard for someone else to
guess.

For additional information on ways to protect your information online,
please visit the Yahoo! Security Center at:

http://security.yahoo.com

Please let us know if this does not resolve your issue, or if we can be
of any further assistance.

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Asia.

Regards,
Sally
Yahoo! Asia Customer Care

Original Message Follows:
————————-

1. What is your name and Yahoo! ID?
————————————
Name:

Yahoo! ID: trae****

2. What is your Account Information?
————————————–

Do you have access to the Alternate Email Address?: This box was
checked.

3. Your Security Question & Answer?
—————————————-

4. Which version of Yahoo! do you use?
—————————————
Location: Other – Not Listed

5. What are you writing about?
——————————-
Subject: Sign in & Registration – Other not listed

6. Enter additional information here:
————————————–
please my friends xxx@yahoo.com and xxxx@yahoo.com were able
to get rid of their “This is not my question” option in this
link (https://edit.yahoo.com/forgot). please i want to get rid of mine
too to prevent unauthorized access to anyone that might have the answers
to my old questions which were quite easy to guess. i would really
appreciate a response. thanks.

7. What is the email address where we can contact you?
——————————————————-

But funny enough the zip code (or post code) thing did surprise me, as for my own Yahoo account it’s not a requirement for password recovery/reset.

As an explanation for those who might be puzzled the zip code advice was given because the one I use is Nigerian while my content setting on Yahoo is Asia. I affecting it so because apparently a preferred content setting set to Yahoo Asia is the only way to get POP/IMAP access for free Yahoo Mail accounts. It’s only with POP/IMAP that I can manage my Yahoo emails inside of Gmail or manage with email clients like Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird. Gmail by the way offers all these and lots more FOR FREE!

I had originally put these pictures up on my facebook profile on Christmas day and I’m sure this is no more new news to most people. Anyways a recap can be found here and here

I had found myself in the Gada Biu area on the morning of the 25th as I had to pass through on my way home. The night before I had received a call from family asking about my safety and it was only then I knew I was sadly finally going to get a taste of Jos crises, having by incidents of fate had my previous “residency” between the crises of December 2008 and January 2010.

The story was that on Christmas Eve at about 7.30 pm several bombs had gone off in Angwan Rukuba and Gada Biu areas of Jos, both predominantly Christian areas killing a number of people and injuring many others. Everybody was shocked considering the relative peace of the Jos metropolis in the past 12 months. Equally many people were angry, mainly made up of the natives and resident Igbo settlers who felt the attacks were targeted against them and sadly retaliation started. That was what I witnessed that morning as youths in annoyance burnt a truck filled with washing powder and some other small vehicles, all allegedly being driven by Muslims and battered small supposedly Muslim owned stalls. I even saw a man wearing a kaftan’s dead body in the gutter.

I left the area in a hurry and by 1.30pm when I passed through the area again in my bid to spend Christmas at my friends I saw that things had stabilized with security agents everywhere. Sadly though it became a very quiet Christmas in Jos as most people decided to stay indoors. Businesses were locked up and the streets were devoid of cars with most people trekking their way to their various destinations.

Rest in peace to those who lost their lives for merely being in the wrong place at the wrong time and I can only hope that things pick up in the coming days and restore itself to the state it was pre the bombings: I had gone for a little shopping at the Terminus market on the evening of the 24th around 5pm and the place was jam packed with everybody gearing up for Christmas day.