/me on the net! - world

Requiem for a Soldier

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 15:15:14 +0530

If you can read this, thank a teacher.
If you can read this in English, thank a soldier.

I spotted this on the comments page of Katherine Jenkins's live performance Requiem For a Soldier. Though it refers to English language, it applies equally to just about any country or civilization.

Nominations

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 03:00:44 +0530

Your votes are invited for selecting the best photos from this collection of pictures i took in year 2008. Last year was very eventful and i ended up with filling my flickr account like its no one's business.

To vote for the pictures you like, simply visit the Nominees collection and vote for the photo by marking it as a favourite or leaving a comment there. I'm biased, all food pictures got nominated automatically.

Trip to Goa - Devaaya resort!

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 14:42:00 +0530

End of May, the long pending get together happened. On 29th May evening we left for Goa in a Volvo. Night was spent sleeping and singing. After the long journey on Mumbai - Goa national highway we reached Goa next morning and headed towards Diwar Island. Checked in Devaaya Resort and relaxed. Had party whole night, with lots of chicken and booze.

Panjim, the capital city, is a city of churches and beaches and there are ample opportunities of photographing both. Next day a couple of us hired a few bikes and went off on a beach visiting spree.

All in all, a trip well spent. Goa is fun place to be at.

The new age Indian Railways

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:46:10 +0530

Railways is running in profits since last couple of years and the feel good feeling is coming soon to Indian Railways website too. The recent tender notification from IR attracted almost everyone from the industry to apply for tender and profit! With TCS/CMC, Accenture, SISL India, Satyam, Wipro, Infosys, BEA, Broad Vision, IBM, HCL, DELL, HP and of course Microsoft applying for the tender and planning to use technologies as diverse as TIBCO, Biometrics and BS 7799 compliance - this surely is going to be a major face lift to Indian Railways.

Die Sonate vom Guten Menschen

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 17:59:07 +0530

Got a chance to watch Das Leben der Anderen. Story is set in East Germany, around and before the fall of Berlin Wall about how the Stasi agents used to control the private lives of people. Very well made movie i must say. It reaffirms the human ability to do the right thing, no matter how much wrong has already been done.

article in times on foss

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 20:28:50 +0530

Tribal Instincts

author ketan tanna talks about the foss movement, in the weekly section tribal instincts in times of india. check out the 12th page or on timesofindia epaper

irc idlers meetup

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Mon, 14 May 2007 00:15:46 +0530

Lebanese delicacy

Some of the irc idlers met up today at *the* bookshop to buy some books. We browsed through several dozens of books, strolled over to churchgate, had a plate of combo pizza and talked about our world domination plans.

But the most interesting part of the day was dinner at this fine lebanese restaurant near regal. no more comments.

Please vote for pradeepto for figuring out next killer equation after E = mc²

[00:13] (pradeepto) Lebanese Chicken == ( Eagle ||Crow || Kite ) && !Chicken

censoring a number

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Wed, 02 May 2007 14:49:51 +0530

Ever since Digg decided to take down the articles containing the number 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0, which happens to be HD-DVD processing key taken from memory dumps of certain software dvd player, there has been a huge outcry about MPAA, DMCA and RIAA.

But what's most interesting, are the novel ways in which people are further spreading the number across the internet, and into the real world. There are domains http://09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63.com/, Tshirts with keys, Poerty about the Key, UserAgent strings containing the key, TXT records, and even babies named as a hex.

botnets

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 14:22:46 +0530

I had to change my DNS provider when last time zombie computers which were a part of huge BotNet attacked EveryDNS (Same organisation running the popular OpenDNS service). The news was slashdotted and it was said the attack was of around 1.2Gbits per second in total and lasted a week.

That figure is certainly huge, but we cant say if that DDoS attack was running on full throttle or was mere a demonstration of firepower. There have been other highprofile BotNet attacks in past, like the one on BlueSecurity half an year back, which essentially highlights how deep the rathole goes. BlueSecurity, a vendor of antiphishing and antispam solution called BlueFrog, closed shops since then and the BotNet herder is still at large.

BotNets are essentially a loosely knit group of computers infected with BotNet drones. These are modified IRC Bots which upon installation, join their owner's IRC channel and wait for commands. A typical medium size BotNet can easily span upto several 10's of thousands conputers connected to internet. Assuming a typical indian internet connection of 2Mbps given by MTNL/BSNL these days, that would give the BotNet a combined power of several Gbits per second. When the BotNet is not DDoSing someone, BotNet herders use their network for all kinds of uses like phishing, spamming, stealing corporate data and other sensitive details.

Now the picture seems little clearer to me. I remember seeing traces of IRC bots being downloaded by some way exploiting modules in apache running on a debian woody server. Thankfully the drones could never execute (i think so?) since it was a PowerPC machine and the binaries were all intel ones. The server was reinstalled due to several other reasons, but till today i can see falied attempts of BotNet drone installation in webserver's logs.

I have been reading several articles/whitepapers on BotNets and now Internet seems such a dreaded place all of a sudden.

siddhivinayak temple

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 19:25:15 +0530

today morning i went to Siddhivinayak temple after couple of years. the whole outlook of temple has changed drastically in the past few years.

now there are walls, cops, metal detectors, snifer dogs all around... if you dont want to stand in loooong queues then you can get yourself silver or gold entry passes, or you can make a donation - which enables you a direct entry into temple... or if you are female, you can stand in the shorter ladies-only queue.

for the rest of us, well we can always stand in the general queue by which you get to enter the temple in 4 hours..

strikeumbai

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 12:22:38 +0530

in the past couple of months, SBI employee union went on strike for their pensions, then BEST employee union went on strike for their bonus i think, and this week petrol pump owners union went on strike for high sales tax.

keep it up guys, way to go!! i'll support you all the way. it doesnt matter if i am inconvenienced, have to pay high rickshaw fares or if i am unable to access my own money, but your demands should be fulfilled.

flood-o-phobia

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 13:57:25 +0530

i still vividly remember the ordeal we went through last year.. it was water everywhere, with rain pouring down mercilessly, and people stranded on top of taxies and buses... man, for the first time in life i had seen so much water, and people drowning in front of me.. no wonder i have developed a flood-o-phobia these days, and its going to stay for sometime

i did take some pictures while i was feeling i was extraordinarily brave that evening.. i climbed on top of a drowning taxi, then on top of three already drowned autos, then on top of bus stand, then climbed up a nearby building to save my ass..

whoever said mumbai's inhabitants are rude.. i have completely different experiences to tell.. that night which i spent on top of building reaffirmed my belief in humanity and that huge heart mumbai has.. i still remember the taste of the food which a muslim family in that building served to all those who had climbed successfully to that building.. and i still remember those people who were still hanging on top of buses with water all around them..

then next day was a long walk from shattered kurla, to office in sakinaka, to ghatkopar, all the way from eastern express highway to chembur, to my sweet /home... i stopped at three places to have vada pav and bread being served by the people who were voluntarily helping hungry people stuck in traffic jams..

am glad that i made it to /home safely my family had almost panicked.

blockspot

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 11:40:41 +0530

[newsflash] Government blocks Blogspot, Typepad and Geocities blogs. Programmers become 40% more productive.

[newsflash] Government blocks Freenode IRC Channels. Programmer's productivity reaches an alltime high, 98%.

[newsflash] Government blocks Google.com search engine. Programmers found roaming on roads, unable to write any code.

female geeks

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 00:45:47 +0530

Svaksha's blog talks about how women are actively discouraged from participating in free software projects world over. The article emphasises how much it is important that we give greater responsibilities to women newcomers (while completely forgetting there are euqally large number of male newcomers who would wish to handle responsibilities). I fail to understand why women should get some kind of preference for tasks like being a listadmin..

Besides, i've spent some portion of my career training women from SNDT women's university. Some of these brilliant women students were involved in writing a plugin for implementing a client for Conceptual Graphs in python as a plugin for Dia. They did all their research on their own and used to ask for help regularly. I wonder why would someone call women incompetent.

I believe, women are equally brilliant in doing anything as men are. Encouraging a policy of reservationism has always backfired.

mumbai

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 09:11:18 +0530

you never know, when you'll drown in flood waters.. or be pelted with stones.. or get blasted into peices while travelling in train.. mumbai, you are a dangerous place to live in