E-Waste & Indian Policy

1. In my earlier blog posts at here,here & here ,issues of e-waste and its repurcussions were mentioned.....now seems like Indian govt has attempted to wake herself up and find a solution.In a recent development,Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) seized some containers in Chennai containing large quantity of such waste. The imports were made despite a prohibitory order in this regard. The containers were full of outdated computers and electrical waste. On further investigation, it was found that containers carried hundreds of tonnes of e-waste sourced from Australia, Canada, Korea and Brunei in violation of norms.

2. E-waste is being dumped in the country by developing nations using loopholes in domestic rules which allow NGOs and educational institutions to import such gadgets freely on the pretext of donations. onscious of the fact that huge shipments of e-waste generated in developing countries are finding convenient burial ground in India, the government had through a public notice on May 13, 2010 prohibited educational and other institutions from importing second hand computers, laptops and computer peripherals, including printers, plotters, scanners, monitors, keyboards and storage units. The step was short of a complete ban on such imports.

3. The government is now looking at banning the import of used computers and other electronic waste - coming primarily from developed nations such as US, Australia, Canada and parts of Europe - after several cases of e-waste smuggling came to light recently. A decision is likely to be taken at the Economic Intelligence Council meeting scheduled for this month to be chaired by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee.

4. Thanks http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

TABNAPPING : A new generation Cyber Crime

1. Another new term in the cyber crime is "Tabnapping" a combination of "tab" and "kidnapping" that could be used by phishers to dupe users into giving up passwords by secretly changing already-open browser tabs. All browsers on Windows and Mac OS X are vulnerable.It is thus a computer exploit,a kind of phishing attack, which persuades users to submit their login details and passwords to popular Web sites by impersonating those sites and convincing the user that the site is genuine. Eg . An open tab of Facebook for instance may be a false window. But very few of us may notice. As a result, we readily log in our username and password when prompted, only to fall to phishers.

2. Aza Raskin is the person behind coining this term,this 1984 born genius is an active phishing researcher.It is unlikely that Browser makers will patch this up soon the risk does not emanate from security vulnerabilities per se.

3. However, every major browser has a filter of some kind designed to weed out malicious sites and sites suspected of being infected with attack code. Those filters, assuming the blacklists underlying them are current and accurate, would block tabnapping attacks.

4. Thanks http://www.standardmedia.co.ke & http://www.couponsherpa.com

ScareWare : One more WAREior in the family

1. Adware,spyware,malware....and now one SCAREWARE.Imagine this...u r surfing innocently(???) on the web via your home/office PC,an advertisement appears on the web-page, trying to convince you that your computer is at risk and you must download the anti-virus to clean it. Once you click on the advertisement, a software trigger gets activated and you get caught in an unnerving loop impossible to abort. A scanner window will appear with red-letter warnings listing viruses purportedly infesting your hard drive. A series of dialogue boxes will follow giving you choices that all lead to the same screen: a sales pitch. Make the purchase, and you get a bogus inoculation. Try to cancel it, and you'll get repeated offers. It's like stepping into quicksand. The more you try to get out of it, the deeper you sink.....this is Scareware..the latest new generation way to get ur PC infected...although its first origin dates to sometime in 2004...its now that this is getting firm roots via increased strength of web surfers who are naive about security.

2. In brief, the scareware trickery ensnares internet users in the following steps:

• Criminals buy blocks of advertisement space on websites, intermittently slipping in a tainted advertisement.
• Just visiting a webpage with a tainted ad causes a fake warning box to appear.
• Clicking "OK" or "Cancel" launches the same thing: a "free scan."

After you've been lured into a fake "free" scan of your PC:

• The bogus scan will purport to find a virus infestation.
• Ensuing boxes steer the user to activate "Personal Antivirus," on left.
• The activation prompts take the user to a shopping cart.
• Declining to place an order triggers endless fake scans.

3. Thanks http://fanaticmedia.com

Man in the Browser Attack : New dimension of cyber attack

1. The name is interesting though and so is the working behind....MITB (Man in the Browser) attacks are designed by fraudsters to infect a web browser with malware which can result in mmodified web pages and transactions that are largely transparent to both the user and the host application.Trojans incl Silent Banker,Sinowal etc are pre programmed by fraudsters to activate when the user browser accesses a specific website such as their online banking portal.The activated trojan can then track the online session and perform real time interception etc that can lead to illegal money transfers,identity theft and further compromise on the users personal info.

2. The Man-in-the-Browser attack is the same approach as Man-in-the-middle attack, but in this case a Trojan Horse is used to intercept and manipulate calls between the browser and its security mechanisms or libraries in real time.A MitB attack will be successful irrespective of whether security mechanisms such as SSL/PKI and/or Two or Three Factor Authentication solutions are in place.

3. Thanks http://fanaticmedia.com/infosecurity/

BILL GATES & Khan Academy

1. I m a follower of Bill Gates on twitter and have come to know of this khan academy thru this......

2. When every one looks forward to learning from Bill Gates on so many aspects of IT education.....where do u guess his 11 year old son looks up-to for his education.....he follows Salman Khan...no no...not the Bollywood Dabanggg...he is another Salman Khan....click here to know more.....

3. Khan turns out thousands of videos from a converted walk-in closetin his Silicon Valley home (shown in this pic below) ...................gr888888888 work...and imagine the amount of effort that he has put in single handedly here......

4. This site at http://www.khanacademy.org/ has 1600 plus videos for school level maths,chemistry and science and many more subjects.....more news ....click here

Windows Systernals

1. I had not heard and read about this very low key but very powerful utility site which helps one manage, troubleshoot and diagnose Windows systems and applications incl so many unheard functions and utilities that one can go on and on exploring all.....the complete Windows systernals Suite can be downloaded by clicking here.

2. Another related site named Sysinternals Live is a service that enables to execute Sysinternals tools directly from the Web without hunting for and manually downloading them.

3. Must see and must try site.....click here to hit direct.

SALAAMI ATTACK

1. Ever seen your account with minute details of each and every penny/cent/paise in your account...I m sure many of you wouldn't have....how does it matter if its Rs 22323.45 or Rs 22322.12.....a difference of some paise ...we generally account for it against rounding off....but now on be ware...u may just be a salaami target....better known as Saalami Attack

2. An example of this also known as penny shaving, is the mal practice of stealing money repeatedly in extremely small quantities, usually by taking advantage of rounding off to the nearest money unit viz cent or paisa in financial transactions. It would be done by always rounding down, and putting the fractions of a cent into another account. The idea is to make the change small enough that any single transaction will go undetected.

3. IT comes with a whole lot of things...u get some,u loose some.....be ware.For more info click here, here and here.

4. Thanks http://www.cyberpolicebangalore.nic.in and http://en.wikipedia.org

TROJANs & BANK: Another story

1. Hard working hackers have recieved more then 700,000 pounds from thousands of bank accounts in Britain using a malicious software which claimants say is the deadliest,brutaliest(whats this???)trojan attack ever seen....

2. More then 4,000 online banking customers have found themselves as unwanted customers of this deal by hackers which empties their accounts while showing them fake statements so the crime goes undetected.This trojan is being termed and guessed as a variant of the Zeus trojan banking virus called Zeus v3. This is capable of collecting data such as passwords and even transfers money out of accounts automatically.

3. Beware ...nothing of this scale has happened till date in INDIA...why....because poor dont have much money and the rich keep and talk cash

IPAD WORLD & VARIETIES

1. Ever wondered about how many variants of IPAD exists from various companies apart from apple....many....and i mean really many....few of which i recently read in DIGIT

NOTION INK ADAM

This Adam Tablet is under development by Bangalore-based firm Notion Ink. It is rumored to be likely released by quarter ending Dec 2010 and is one of several tablet form-factor devices launching in 2010 to include a dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor that can support 1080p video output.

ARCHOS 9

Archos is a French consumer electronics company that manufactures portable media players and portable storage devices with Android 2.1 OS,3.2” display resolution 400 x 240,ARM Cortex A8 processor clocked at 800 MHz,a camera and microphone

Accelerometer with a WiFiand a composite video out.The device can be upgraded with a digital TV receiver that enables live TV and DVR features

EEE PAD

ASUS Eee is a family of products by AsusteK and is scheduled for launch by quarter Sept 2010 Computex in Taipei.

AIGO N700

The Android-powered Aigo tablet boasts a 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 processor and features Nvidia's Tegra 2 graphics chipset.

FUSION GARAGE JOOJOO

The JooJoo is a Linux-based tablet computer produced by Singapore development studio Fusion Garage.

DELL STREAK

The Streak is a Tablet/Smartphone hybrid from Dell that uses the Android operating system and comes with a 5" capacitive touchscreen and two cameras, a 5MP one with dual-LED flash on the back and a VGA-resolution one on the front for video calling; both are capable of video.

LENOVO IDEAPAD U1

IdeaPad is a line of consumer-oriented laptop computers designed by Lenovo.

EXOPC SLATE

The ExoPC Slate is a powerful Windows 7 computer with a multi-touch interface that allows you to browse the web, play games, watch TV and movies, listen to music, read the news, read books and magazines, organize your photos, download apps, view RSS feeds, access real-time weather, create and edit spreadsheets, author documents....WANT MORE?

ICD ULTRA

ICD Ultra

MSI WINDPAD

The tablet is powered by a 1.66GHz Intel Atom Z530 processor, 2GB of RAM, and packs a 32GB SSD that boots Windows 7 Home Premium, though MSI has created a Wind Touch UI layer.

User Mapped-Section open???

1. Regular users of Torrents might have seen something like the title disturbing them and stopping them of their downloads....i m one of them...so i tried and checked up few forums...tried doing force start etc...nothing worked....then tried disabling the antivirus for a while.....and it worked.....

2. So...simply just disable the antivirus for the time u wish to download....so lose some...gain some....

Increasing Laptop Bty Life : Few ways

1. Hibernate: Hibernating the laptop is always a tidier option than putting it on standby, or shutting it down. This is because the laptop’s hibernate mode saves it in the state it was hibernated in, and does not require the laptop to reboot all applications, thereby using much less power.

2. Get some extra RAM: Whenever a laptop runs short of RAM memory it end up shifting to the virtual memory which results in hard disk use, which is a much less efficient option in terms of power consumption. Putting in extra RAM does use more power, so don’t get too much extra, but when compared to the use of virtual memory it’s a more efficient option.

3. Apply energy saving options on the OS

4. Bring down the brightness of the screen

5. Shut Down External devices: Most USB devices and other external devices like external hard drives or USB lights or even USB mice should be switched off and removed if not in use.

6. Shutdown background apps

7. Amend battery cycle: For a healthy Lithium-ion based battery, it is always suggested to keep the electrons that are present inside in motion occasionally. That means it’s never a good idea to keep you laptop plugged in or on charge all the time as the electrons lose their ability to store energy. One should let it discharge fully and charge it completely at least once a month to keep the battery as good as new.

8. Switch-off unused wireless radios

9. Try to reduce multitasking: When using the laptop on battery power, one should try as much as possible to use one application at a time, and should ideally shut one application completely before opening another, to reduce consumption of both processing and battery power.

10. Defrag on regular intervals

How Google detects Invalid clicks?

More often then not,most of the registered Google Ad sense users are always tempted to increase their clicks on the ad to generate some monetary benefit....this one comes specially for all those who try tricks of trade....believe it or not their are none... Google is tooooooooo smart...read down below and links below :

1. IP Address

If those clicked on their own ads multiple times from the same IP address means you will sure get banned.

2. Sabotaged by third party

Sometimes, you may also be sabotaged. A third party may decide to do a series of illegal clicks on your advertisements for the purpose of getting you banned. If you notice any suspicious clicks of this nature, Google encourages you to report it to them.

3. CTR

The normal CTR ratio must be in between 0.5% – 15%. Anything more then 15% will be flagged.

4. Cookies

Few Adsense users, use the trick by using the dynamic IP address but it falls flat as cookies in computer can be used to track our cookies and help identify the invalid clicks.

5. Physical Location

Google has many software and bots to trace. They will trace the IP address of the small town and city. So do not click your own ads in different internet cafe and also in friend’s home. If you do this, your account will flagged.

6. Fake Web Traffic

Fake web traffic is anything that generates false impressions on your Google AdSense advertisements, including participating in link farms or link exchange directories.

7. Search Engine Ranking

If you got many clicks without the help of search engine ranking, social media traffic means Google will easily smell it.

More veri useful info here at https://www.google.com and http://www.ambabo.com

Augment your regular desktop with a FACE RECOGNITION feature

1. Face recognition technology although has been compromised earlier on various times and occasions which have been mentioned at this blog here,here and here.But again things are improving with more complex algorithms being used for processing and allowing a person to Log In.Now suppose an online exam is being conducted which requires students to login with their accounts; anybody could login with anybody’s account as long as they knew their username and password.So for regular window OS users,Luxand Blink allows an alternative to traditional Windows login and a solution to problems. It provides its users with a different way to login to Windows: through Facial Recognition.

2. Luxand Blink is a free application comptable with 32 bit version of Windows Vista and Windows 7. The download size of the application is 8MB and installs in a standard way. A webcam is required to be installed in the computer...(did I need to tell that?)

3. So just look into a webcam for a moment, and you’ll be logged into your account before you notice. Blink! employs advanced face recognition technologies to provide automatic, quick and reliable login to one or many computer users. It uses its advance image recognition algorithms to recognize our face. Such is the competence of this application, that whether the lighting is different or our hair are different, Luxand Blink will still recognize our face and log us in.So a regular old desktop becomes ready with the FACE RECOGNITION feature.

4. Thanks http://www.luxand.com/blink/

SAMSUNGs GALAXY BEAM - Projector meets Mobile

1. Imagine one single mobile handset offering the following features :

(a) Miniprojector at 640 x 480 pixel resolution.

(b) 3.7-inch Super-AMOLED (Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode)

(c) An 8-megapixel camera.

(d) Can be used as a wireless access point.

(e) FM.

(f) Wi-fi.

(g) Bluetooth 3.0

(h) GPS

(j) Inbuilt 16 GB storage

(k) TV out

(l) MP3,MPEG4,WMV,DivX & H.264

(m) Touchscreen

(n) 3G/EDGE Connectivity

(o) 530 hours Stand By

(p) 7 hours talktime

2. Thats Samsung Galaxy Beam to be launched on 17th July 10

3. More at www.samsunghub.com

MOST AMAZING TECHNIQUE TO TRANSFER DATA:SLURP

1. This is by far the most amazing thing I have seen in recent years....we have all seen ways to transfer data from one PC to other including bluetooth,wifi,cable and so on.....but this one involvesslurping up (extracting) information and squirting out (injecting) pointers to digital objects. Hence, information can be transferred from machine to machine without any kind of wired or unwired connection.It will be really clear when you see the above video.....you use a dropper like object to pick up a folder from one desktop to other......AMAZZZZINGGG!!!!!!

2. This clever innovation comes in from a former MIT Media Lab student, Jamie Zigelbaum.

3. Thanks http://zig.media.mit.edu/Work/Slurp

IT meets HIGH TECH TAPS : Renshui Faucets

1. Water Taps with in-built chips , the Renshui high-tech faucets, allows customised control of the flow and temperature of the water . All it takes is a simple touch and one can change these parameters to prepare a perfectly tailor-made lovely bath.The water’s temperature is also displayed on the cool body of this faucet that’s totally different in style and form.

2. With a simple touch, one can go from hot to cold water, on or off. Another great feature is the intelligent light, which shows the water’s temperature to cut down the risk of scalding accidents. All these features come wrapped in a contemporaneous design that will add sleek , style in additions to reducing your wallet weight.

3. Thanks http://www.trendir.com/

Intel meets Car : Makes it SMART CAR

1. In an earlier post here about Intel's Bike,I discussed about how Intel had plans to get IT into Bike.Now they have gone a step further.....I mean from Bike to Car...yess..they have graduated to Car.

2. Intel is currently working on a smart car that will register desired information about the speed, steering, braking while also recording video footage from the outside.This would work well enough as a black box since all the information can be used in case of crashes and if possible, even thefts. Safety features like an on-board camera system, sensors to monitor the road condition, distance sensors to warn the driver of closing in distances and mobile control to lock or unlock the car.

3. Thanks http://www.newlaunches.com

COWS & DATA CENTRES : LINKED!!!!

1. Cows and data centers ???Whats the link.......any guesses....strange you may find but this has come from HP who feel that both entities are connected...read on for the link///

2. According to HP Labs, the estimate dairy cow produced is about 55 kg of manure per day, and thus 20 metric tons per year. The manure that one dairy cow produces in a day can generate 3.0 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electrical energy.A medium-sized dairy farm with 10,000 cows produces about 200,000 metric tons of manure per year. This farm can fulfill the power requirements of a medium sized 1 megawatt (MW) data center.The heat generated by the data center need not be wasted. Instead, it can be used to break down animal waste which results in the production of methane.Methane can then be used to generate power for the data center.HP Labs researchers say that this symbiotic relationship allows the waste problems faced by dairy farms and the energy demands of the modern data center to be addressed in a sustainable manner.

3. Actually HP should have not just come up with the idea...with the strong hold they have in the market..it would have more suited them to actually attempt the same on ground rather then advising and making statistical data of the dung!!!!

4. Thanks http://www.informationweek.in