Monday, December 7, 2009

We gotta make a change........

“Without change there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable.”

I love this song of Tupac Shakur where he sings of changes.




We gotta make a change...
It's time for us as a people to start makin' some changes.
Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live
and let's change the way we treat each other.
You see the old way wasn't working so it's on us to do
what we gotta do, to survive.

Let's be individuals who initiate change. I am not trying to be a critic here, the other day I happened to read a recent article by Ankit Fadia "India faces serious threats from cyber terrorists".http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/India-faces-serious-threats-from-cyber-terrorists--Fadia/545176

He starts of saying "“Pakistani cyber criminals deface 50 to 60 Indian websites in a day but in retaliation India can only deface 10 to 15 websites and this has been going on since 2001,” Fadia claimed. "


What is Fadia trying to achieve here first he shud be correct with his statistics,I think he is lately not in the Hacking scene or he is busy promoting his books and trainings.Our Indian Hacking groups led by ICW and HMG have had lot of mass defacements especially post 9/11.Pakistani hackers entered into a truce with ICW http://www.chowrangi.com/joint-statement-of-pca-and-zombie_ksa.html.

Now am not a supporter of Tit for Tat, what I feel and this is my thought as an individual ... why should we people hack each other, this will lead to huge losses on our side,considering we have huge number of websites & systems online.Why don't we as security professionals focus our talents and skills to secure our Cyber frontiers.Its easy to blame Government,but they need people who can guide them.

“Terrorists are using most advanced technologies for communication which include mainly VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) chats. Hiding messages inside photographs, draft, encrypted pen drive are some of the techniques to communicate with each other,” Fadia said.


Yes Ankit you are right terrorists use advanced technologies,but I feel its not India specific worry its a pain globally.We need Govt to invest on Infrastructure to monitor such medium of communication.A gud example is the Blackberry episode...where GOvt asked RIM to lower its encryption from 256 bits to a 40-bit encryption so that they could intercept all messages.Yes I accept we dont have something like a NSA or a project like Echelon,but if we want to combat the menace of terrorism in the cyber world we have to think and act at setting up such agencies.


“China, which was never considered to be a key player in this field, has come up strongly in recent years,” Fadia said.

China has been a pioneer in Cyber warfare,it is state sponsored and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has a great vision on this.They are desperate to achieve Cyber dominance.Their recent incursions into US State Departments,Pentagon,Boeing and US Naval college network is evidence of their growing dominance in this area.Not to forget their exploits into Indian Govt networks.Most people believe Cyber warfare is all about Website Defacements...well thats total bullshit...the impact of a web defacement is very minimal...jus remove the shell and files dropped by the hacker..you are back in track....Cyber espionage & Counter intelligence is the key...building capability to bring down the critical networks of enemies.

Thirdly, there should be international co-operation and an organisation like the Interpol could be formed to sort out cross-border cyber terrorism, the computer wizard said.


yes you are correct we need to have international co-operation,but before co-operationg lets clean up the mess and loop holes in the Indian IT ACT...do you seriously think you can try an offender with the current IT ACT....forget IT ACT not even the normal Judicial system....its been morethan a year and still we are trying Ajmal for the Mumbai blast..

It's easy to comment and write about others....but practising what we preach is difficult...Ankit should first secure his own website....his site http://hackingmobilephones.com/ was recently vandalized by some hackers posting Viagra links.



There are lot of people who does selfess work...not defacing Paki websites but helping Govt and private organizations fix their security issue by providing free advice,alerts and awareness.I know of a Group called Indian Cyber Amry (ICA) http://indiancyberarmy.in , the admins are good friend of mine they have a gr8 vision to help and improve the security posture of Indian websites.Its not by giving press releases and writing articles blaming Govt about the poor security we intiate changes...we have to first be the change and initiate the change....why should we wait for the government...in a country which has rich IT talent and skills this is not a impossible task.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Watching Federer & Tevez at O2

And another long time dream of me got fulfilled.A live tennis match...and I can't ask for more...I got to see my hero Federer play Argentine Del Potro the rising star who outplayed him the US Open.

I was there along with 18000 other spectators at the O2 arena to watch the epic battle.ATP Masters series where the Top 8 play the year end showdown.I just happened to book the tickets very early without worrying whose match am gonna watch.I was jus contended to watch any of the top 8 players playing.And I made a guess that if I take a night ticket am gonna watch a top seed either Federer/Nadal/Murray playing.And when the draws were announced I was thrilled to see Federer playing,I couldnt have asked for anything more and the ticket cost me 30 pounds...definitely not a bad price for watching the master playin.


This is the closest my camera cud get of Fedex


The game never disappointed it was see-saw battle Del Porto started off well and won the first set and federer came back strong to win the 2nd and the 3rd was heading in federer's way until he threw it up....boy Del Porto serves big and has amazing forehand...in the coming years he is definitely goin to be a big challenge for federer...Del porto went on to seal the match winning the last set.....

Federer exited the court early..del porto stayed to know whether he has qualified for the semis...and the announcement was delayed coz all 3 men had equal number of sets won...federer qualified courtesy to his superior games won/lost ration and it was fight between the scot murray the local favorite and the argentine del porto.

Del porto had his nervous moments and was waiting anxiously...in came Carloz Tevez of Man City to meet his fellow argentine and the crowd went crazy shouting Carlito and they both treated the crowd with some rallies with Tevez showing his football skills.




Overall I njoyed my first tennis match...what more can I ask for watching Federer play and Carloz Tevez showing his football skills....

Next on my list is a Premier League match....preferably to watch my Team Arsenal playing @ Emirates.....