The Most Hated Company

Picture this about a laptop

It comes for as low as $299, ie Rs. 12K. Most expensive is $499, ie Rs.20k
Fully-featured laptop costs $69 less than the 16 GB Apple iPod Touch.
It’s $100 less than an Amazon Kindle e-book reader
It runs Linux (Xandros running KDE)- which is $30 less than Amazon.com’s discounted price for Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate
They first in market with flash based storage.

Now thats a laptop that i would buy soon. (Just dont ask how soon ’soon’ is, as i’m known for procrastinating)
This makes ASUS Eee PC hated by, well lets just say every major company. Now that includes – Microsoft, Apple, Dell etc. and Azuztek a.k.a Azuz the most hated IT company as of now.
Intel loves them coz they are running a Celeron processor.
Is this going to hurt OLPC after the Intel back-out? I dont know and frankly i cant just about predict or speculate anything about the OLPC project. Their $100 laptop is now priced at $200 and now without Intel … i just cant make out anything.
[Source of news - http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/]
[Image source - engadget]

Some reasons why you SHOULD use Free Software..

No before i get into the whole thing, by Free Software i mean the programs that follow the 0-3 Freedoms as stated by the Free Software Foundation. Or rather Copy-Left than Copy Right …
Why is that a Free S/w user is so good at fixing a system, trouble shooting software issues and fixes thing without even reading the manual.
Now these are the reasons

1) Free software users expect open licenses and no activation methods
2) Free software users expect regular upgrades and patches
3) Free software users expect to work the way they choose
4) Free software users want control of their own systems
5) Free software users explore
6) Free software users expect to help themselves
7) Free software users don’t fear the command line
Free software users learn software categories, not programs
9) Free software users expect access to developers and other employees

DOMPlayer and the Doom.

Creativity has no limits and the fact that people can go to any extend to infect you machine with malware, let me say comes as a total relief. After people has spend dollars securing their machine with the latest spyware remover, anti-virus, pop-up blocker and all the shit that you can get you hands on, there is no stopping a curious browser who downloads some thing and authorizes it to do some operation and ends ups in a deeper shit that he was before.

We all love torrent. The countless torrent files that you looked up on the net to download your favorite movie, would have at least made you thin, what you would have done with out those torrent sites. Its the same feeling you get when you thank George Bush for the oil that he is bringing in from Iraq and Kuwait.

So when some thought of the idea of infecting your machine with the help of torrent download and get paid $3 for doing so , has to be credited with the ingenuity of the idea. Here is the whole scenario.

You download a movie (most of the reports came up with the latest movies like Hitman, Beowuf, National Treasure : Book of Secrets) or an episode of your favorite series on TV. When you try to play it it says

“This video can only be played in DomPlayer, Visit Download.Domplayer.Com“

Like any other desperate downloader you visit their site :

Pretty neat site of a movie player, compared to VLC Player and Real Player. So you go and download the player, the Download button is right in front of you. So whats the big deal. Go ahead download the file… At this point i got suspicious and thought hey i never heard any of my friends talk about such a player, instead of installing it at the home PC (Windows XP), let me try to get an installer/player for Linux. That way its safe and its my Laptop, if anything gets screwd up i can just install all over again. Big Deal!!!

Web searches got me to couple of forums here and here. They talked about another player 3wPlayer by Wildman Productions(i have no idea who the hell they are).

In fact the real deal here is as reported from Best Security Tips is DOM Player says its clean but you call them up and pay them to activate the attack on your P. If that doesnt work they ask you to download 3wPlayer. Which is another piece of shit and load the malware to the PC free of charge.

Now that is a cool idea. You get paid to get infected like the way you paid to get protected. Over that you download movie files (AVI files) which might be renamed porno movies.

FTP problem in Fedora/RedHat

IF any one using Fedora with vsftpd service for FTP might have come across the issue while connecting via FTP

500 OOPS: cannot change directory:/home/xxxx

Login failed.

Then here is the solution. The problem is with SELinux. Go to System > Administration > SELinux Administration. Left side – Select : Boolean. On right side – FTP, check the box that says – Allow ftp to read/write files in the users home directory.

DONE!!! Close SELinux…

Power of Perl

Perl, over the past years has grown into my favorite scripting language. Infact its the one language that i’m most comfortable with. After almost 3+ years of Perl for simple scripting purposes, last day it really helped me get my team-mates just go WOW!!!

The fact that the script that i wrote, automated the 3 lengthy Automation processes is just the beginning. It starts off by FTP-ing the files to the non-stop servers, runs the 3 automatons, FTP-s back the log files of the run, analyzes and prepares the test report.

This was what i had thought of till i went to office yest morning. Then it struck me- Why not automate the mail send out through Outlook? Cool!!! Out comes the Win32::OLE modules for windows and BANG!!!

I have my application, that runs, analyzes and prepares the mail to be send. Unfortunately because of the security feature of Outlook 2003, i have to ‘click’ send before sending the mail.

Now thats why Perl is Practically Everything Really Likable … ha ha ..

Security of an IT Company and YOU…

Security is still a big issue in India. Since there are terrorists ready to blow up anything here, we must be aware of the fact that we are vulnerable and take all means in avoiding it. Of lately when the security measures in my company was stepped up, many employees expressed dissatisfaction and where highly irritated. Sadly they dont realize the threat. They all complained that the Security at the main gates and buildings scrutinized their belongings and treated them equally like terrorists. To a mail sent by my colleague to the Security in charge, part of the reply went like this

… We (the security and the company) are not bothered about what the employee takes unauthorized from the company(hardware and documents). But more worried about the a much more grave situation… The attack at IISc Bangalore was first planned against IT companies as they (Terrorists) realize that a well planned strike at the heart of the Silicon Valley of India, will send India’s market crashing and the country will be in a chaos in no time. Sadly our company was also in their list. They were outside our gates, looking at every move and they found the security tight even for a normal employee. Thus we were spared. Else the AKs would have gone in any of the leading IT company…

A normal Techie, works from 8-to-8 and is completely oblivious to much of the things shaping up in the outside world, spare may be Bipasha’s curves or SRK’s Abs. He doesnt realize that the Bad Guys have really turned ugly and they are recruiting Graduates and Post Grads, like most IT companies, to do the dirty job (both ways its true for the Terror Organization and IT Company). I was surprised one Monday morning when i was asked to stop at the gates and the security guy checked my ID to verify its me. After 2 years, that day i entered the campus a bit happy, coz i found the Security doing their job properly.

Sadly, the fact is, the Security at majority of the IT Companies are a bit inadequate. They in most of the cases doesn’t realize the force they are up against. Everyday i see the security at all the companies on my way to office and i bet i can breach their physical security. I dont know why i do that. But i like doing it. Every time i face a security at a gate, i think of a way of beating him without raising the slightest suspicion.

Leave alone the physical security, its the Cyber age and are we prepared against an attack via the net. No!!! Network security, if you look at most of the intranets, is getting internally compromised by the employees. Simply coz a fair number of people will click the “You won a million dollars“, flashing ad on a web page. In most of the case, that will lead to a pornographic site, at times they open up the pandora’s box for the network of the company. E-mails in particular can bring a network down. A well placed attachment asking the user to open it is more than required. Remember “I love you” or you dont coz you remember it as what your lover told you.

I have had friends approach me saying “I think my damn system is affected with virus. I have the latest in anti-virus updated everyday, the latest pop-up blocker (how did that ever block a virus), a bazooka and an entire army guarding my system… but still. Damn windows … its all because of Windows.” Let me tell you there is nothing wrong with Windows (may be not entirely and probably this will be the only time i’ll be talking for Windows and Microsoft), what is wrong is YOU. Couldn’t resist visiting the site that flashed “Sexy savvy teens… going dirty…”, or couldnt resist opening the attachment that told you how to increase what ever you have or may be had. Think before what you click on or open. They are out there to make money and they will make it any way possible.

Knowing all this what can you do … if u cant make that out by your self, then how lame are you???

“How lame are you???”, the words that lead the world’s biggest Hacker Kevin Mitnik to his fall.

FOSS.in 2007 is HERE !!!

The best event of the year – FOSS (Free and Open-Source Software) India 2007 is here.

Venue – National Science Symposium Centre, IISc, Bangalore, India 

Dates – December 04-08, 2007 (Tuesday-Saturday) 

 

See you there …

7#3 31337 741x … (The Eleet Talk…)

l33t What is it?
Ans : An Evil Programming Language By Stephen McGreal and Alex Mole

Thats the info given in the site, before getting into the details what exactly is an Leet? Or what is this 31337 or 1337 or l33t ??? Confused.
It was a form of language based on english developed so that the ‘elite’ geeks can have their way around on chats …

Wikipedia has a sample chart –

A	B *	C	D *	E	F	G *	H	I *	J	K	L *	M	N	O *	P	Q	R *	S	T *	U	V	W	X	Y	Z *
4 /\ @ /-\ ^ aye ∂	8 6 13 |3 ß P> |: !3 (3 /3 )3 ∞	[ ¢ < ( { ©	) |o [) I> |> ? T) |) 0 ð	3 & € £ ë [- |=-	|= ƒ |# ph /=	6 & (_+ 9 C- gee (γ,	# /-/ [-] ]-[ )-( (-) :-: |~| |-| ]~[ }{ ? }-{	1 ! | eye 3y3 ]	_| _/ ¿ </ (/ ʝ	X |< |{ ɮ	1 £ 7 1_ | |_ lJ ¬	|v| ]V[ //\\//\\ |\/| /\/\ (u) (V) (\/) /|\ ^^ /|/| //. .\\ /^^\	^/ //\\// /\/ [\] <\> {\} []\ // [] /V ₪	0 () oh [] ¤ 􏿿 Ω	|* |o |º |^(o) |> |" 9 []D |̊ |7 þ	(_,) ()_ 0_ <|	2 |? /2 |^ lz ® [z 12 l2 Я |2 ʁ	5 $ z § ehs es	7 + -|- 1 '][' †	(_) |_| v L|	\/	\/\/ vv '// \\' \^/ (n) \V/ \X/ \|/ \_|_/ \_:_/ Ш ɰ	% >< Ж }{ ecks × )(	j `/ Ψ φ λ Ч 7 ¥	2 ~/_ % >_ ʒ 7_
0 can be used for O or D 1 can be used for I, L or T 2 can be used for Z or R 6 can be used for B or G £ can be used for E or L 7 can be used for T, L or Y Please note this table is to be used as a guide and not a full translation tool. Leet is ever changing and not all replacements will, or can, be included.

Now talking about the Programming Language. Here is something ripped off right from the site which, errr explains almost everything needed.

l33t is an esoteric language based loosely on BrainF***, and influenced by Beatnik. Like other languages of its ilk, it was designed to be as brain-melting as possible to code in whilst still being Turing complete. The language has some interesting distinguishing features, such as the possibility for self-modifying code and for connectivity – it’s theoretically possible to use it to write viruses and other such antisocial software but the actual logistics of trying to write such a program put it well beyond the cognitive capabilities of the average script kiddie. Look here for the full language specification, here for some sample programs, and here for some interpreters and links to related sites.

1ph +#4= \X/a$ /\/0+ 3/\/0(_)6#, The following is the first ever functioning program written in l33t. It loops forever, printing all 255 ASCII characters, and takes the form of a short insulting rant about geeks:

ph34r my l3Et 5kIlLZ!!!!!!
nErDs 41n’t cool 3v3ry1!!!
y0u b1g g33kS r teh g33kY sux0rs!
PHE4R! LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!

Adding on here is the snapshot of Google’s H4×0r page

What’s in a SWAP?

Can we do with out SWAP partition on a linux machine? asked a friend of mine to me. The answer is simply YES, if you are ready to accept degraded system performance. He wanted me to elaborate and just one word summarized it – caching

Well a good explanation lead me to this article, which i recommend.

Why swap on Linux is always good, even with tons of RAM

Enjoy!!!

Here is Web 2.0 !!!

So digging about Web3.0, after hearing about that, I came across this definition of Web2.0 by Tim O’Reilly, the person who was responsible for all the versioning of web and complicating things.Something that will help you comprehend it without reading the whole thing (stolen from it word-to-word) -

In our initial brainstorming, we formulated our sense of Web 2.0 by example:

Web 1.0		Web 2.0
DoubleClick	–>	Google AdSense
Ofoto	–>	Flickr
Akamai	–>	BitTorrent
mp3.com	–>	Napster
Britannica Online	–>	Wikipedia
personal websites	–>	blogging
evite	–>	upcoming.org and EVDB
domain name speculation	–>	search engine optimization
page views	–>	cost per click
screen scraping	–>	web services
publishing	–>	participation
content management systems	–>	wikis
directories (taxonomy)	–>	tagging (“folksonomy”)
stickiness	–>	syndication

What he says and how you interpret is up to you.

For me, a simple Web will do and all these things come to pic, no need of Web2.0 or Web3.0 or WebX.0

(pic courtesy – wikipedia)