XP still Continues though "eXPired"

1.    XP has now got the authorized prefix and suffix to get renamed as "eXPired" since it has been now officially announced by Microsoft as discontinued and has advised XP and Office 2003 users to migrate to Windows 7 and Office 2010 and thus systems are left vulnerable to new forms of malware. No further support to XP...no patches to update...no updates by Microsoft.....but certainly it will take time for XP to get disowned by more then a decade old loyal user population most of whom made their first PC experience with a XP machine...for a home guy who surfs net...it will be difficult to make him/her understand about how vulnerable he/she is now....actually very difficult.

2.    But what about the corporates and govt sector offices? I am sure private sector will make a fast change since it may adversely effect their business model in case of a undesired info leakage or a hack!!!Only recently I made a visit to a post office in Delhi for doing a speed post...wherein the dedicated  loyal postmaster was using a xp machine connected to Internet.I informally asked him about any upgrades in OS planned in their department to which he replied confidently that it's not required since it is working fine.Today the Indian postal department is slowly getting online.Today thanks to vision implementation of the government(though late) that we are able to locate the movement of a speed post letter...what time it was opened..whats the location and when it got delivered...etc etc..but all this can go waste and get a setback if the backbone nodes are not updated and monitored....more so if the staff handling all the machines are low on security aspect.

3.   Well...this postal department is one of the examples cited here since I just interacted with one of them today...but the risk stakes are high when we see this at national level...all the online-governance machines located in remote areas...have they been ensured removed of XP?....if it has not been done....this can be just on the lines of zero day exploits...in this case there must be millions of machines thrown open to hacking....and invasion to classified information.

Central Monitoring System : Another step in the Wrong Direction ?

1.    The month of "May" has become started with a "Will" from Indian Government.Now after so many still unresolved issues on Facebook posts and similar things in respect of issues of privacy,it has come up now with Central Monitoring System(CMS).The concept was placed in parliament  some time in December 2012 by the then information technology minister Milind Deora on which the government plans to spend Rs 400 crore and this would "lawfully intercept internet and telephone services"

2.  Now this means that everything we say or text over the phone, write, post or browse over the Internet will be centrally monitored by Indian authorities.Every byte of what is being exchanged by you over the net would be monitored.....but is it actually required?I have doubts per-se owing to the amount of further investment it would require.At a time when Big Data analytics is still maturing,investing so much on monitoring and storing some portion of it pan India would be a herculean task.The key points that I found interesting are dotted below :

- With the lack of privacy laws to protect Indian citizens against potential abuse,this would set another example of wrong feather in the cap.

- CMS has been prepared by the Telecom Enforcement, Resource and Monitoring (TREM) and the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) and is being manned by the Intelligence Bureau. 

- Without any manual intervention from telecom service providers, CMS will equip government agencies with Direct Electronic Provisioning, filter and provide Call Data Records (CDR) analysis and data mining to identify the personal information and provide alerts of the target numbers.

- The estimated cost of CMS is Rs. 4 billion. It will be connected with the Telephone Call Interception System (TCIS) which will help monitor voice calls, SMS and MMS, fax communications on landlines, CDMA, video calls, GSM and 3G networks. Is their any thing on Mother India Earth left to monitor?

3. Now I fail to understand that how Government expects to monitor cyber criminals by this CMS? Does government actually intend to find out the actual potent and dangerous Cyber Criminals or are they only interested in finding love affairs of local boys and girls!!!coz if the intention is former,would the cyber gang do it without tricks?...without encryption?...without spoofing?...when things like stegnography,TOR,Anonymous etc are still to be deciphered....the cyber crime would go on as it is.The focus should have been on analyzing of what is floating around rather then monitoring open text and messages.

4.  For example if a person with malicious intent,uses Whonix or anonymous kind of OS from a local cyber cafe and then places his message vide a steganographed image that is encrypted,is their any way that this can be deciphered?....technology does not exist today to decipher all this quickly ..still time is there when we reach such a stage....few months back in Dec 2012 when torrent was apparently blocked on directives from Govt Of India,anonymous group had given a open letter shared at http://www.geektech.in/archives/9924.

5. Well it is very clear that the decision makers in such moves are unclear on technological reality but also provisions for a scenario like WAR within....each step in such a direction has to be taken carefully because these are really critical.Additionally,outsourcing such moves to unreliable or may be foreign firms may become a serious threat.....

6.  Well at the end of the day,it is just my view per-sewhich no body is bothered...but the repercussions are serious to be avoided and ignored

Bulk SMS Ban : Carry on India

1.    The government has recently banned bulk SMS and MMS messages for 15 days in view of the exodus of people from the northeast from cities like Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad, following rumours that they would be attacked.

2.    Now how do u feel about this ban?...do u think it is going to be effective?.....certainly not if it were actually the bulk sms that did the damage.Does'nt the govt know about various sites offering these services of bulk sms for free on a simple registration? or do they not know about various smart phones applications that can still send bulk sms via a different mode.Is it not known to them that this ban is going to be effective for pre paid owners only?....and not for post paid owners.

3.    These orders come like axing the problem instead of putting in efforts to manage it. Read the following paragraph@http://www.hindustantimes.com

"The five-SMS-per-day cap is adversely affecting a group of unsuspecting victims, the hearing impaired.A deaf individual sends up to 250 messages per day on an average as it is their only mode of conversation. "The five SMS cap is a real pain for us. It is the only way I can stay in touch with my family or friends when I go to college. If I want to have a proper conversation with someone, I have to send at least 50 messages. It is easy for people who can call and stay in touch. For us, this is the only mode that boosts our mobility. It is insensitive of the government to discount the deaf community when they take these decisions," said Mahesh P, a hearing impaired Delhi University student."

4.   Everi one knows that it is wrong...it is not effective...but hey come on ...carry on INDIA....it is just another passe...

PROXY SERVER : ARE THEY LEGAL TO BE USED IN INDIA?

1.   Few days back I was surfing  few sites via proxy server at HIDEMYASS. Just like a that,a thought came to mind that if the Indian Government on one hand is trying all ways out to monitor nefarious activities on net...and in the name of this monitoring they are monitoring u and me as well....what would they be able to do for those actual ones who use proxy servers?.....

2.   Though it is understood that not all proxy server sites are as safe as they claim...most of them have actually a life of not more then 4-5 days...they actually are born to steal and vanish...we call that 9 2 11....But sites like those have been existing for more than 4-5 years like hidemyass,proxy.org etc are actually doing the work they are supposed to do ie PRIVACY!!!

3.   If any of the readers have some idea or can guide to some link w.r.t legality issues of using proxy servers in India...i would be grateful....and lastly if anyone has some disagreements on the comment earlier that INDIAN GOVERMENT IS MONITORING YOU...just check the ANONYMITY CHECKER at https://xerobank.com/.