Comment Re:India's defense dilemmas (Score 1) 600
Mod this up!
Comment Re: as the temperature of the Earth goes up...!? (Score 1) 356
When something is burnt, energy is only being converted - from chemical energy to heat energy. Even when someone talks about the (supposed) nuclear reaction inside earth's core, the mass lost really is converted into heat which is spread on to the mantle and perhaps the atmosphere, but definitely not radiated away. This increased energy would add to an equal amount of mass as lost by the (supposed) nuclear reaction if calculated using E=MC^2. The quantity (E+M*C^2) is conserved in a closed system.
The only real increase to this would be the energy from the sun, which would be approx 173 petawatt, of which 30% is reflected out (Albedo). Given that 25million kilowatt-hour is a gram, this would only contribute to an increase of just 4.8tons.
Submission + - Indian Govt to service Citizens electronically (iii.gov.in)
pradeepsekar writes: The first draft of Electronic Delivery of Services Bill-2011,has proposed that all Ministries and Govt. departments in India compulsorily deliver services to Citizens electronically,through the Internet and mobile phones.The Bill proposes completely phasing out manual distribution of services, as the Govt.aims to plug leaks in the system, minimize losses and ensure delivery to the intended beneficiaries. This would require each Ministry/Department to identify the basket of citizen centric services to be delivered through electronic means along with the delivery channels, with stipulated timeline and service level for each service. Each Ministry will assess its readiness and accordingly fix the timelines for mandatory electronic service delivery. However no department will exceed a cut off date fixed for the country. Benefits would include efficient, transparent and reliable delivery of web enabled public services in a definite and time bound manner to citizens, thereby transforming Governance. This will eliminate the need for a citizen to go to Government offices to seek services.
Submission + - Indian regulator on IT & Information Security (rbi.org.in)
pradeepsekar writes: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has placed on its website the report of the Working Group on information security, electronic banking, technology risk management, and cyber frauds.
The objective of the Working Group was to provide a set of guidelines to banks covering the entire gamut of electronic banking. This would serve as a common minimum standard for all banks to adopt as well as lay down the best practices for banks to adopt in a phased manner for a safer and sounder banking environment. The Group felt that there was a need for banks to follow a consistent approach in each focus area, to minimize differing interpretations.
The report covers various areas such as IT Governance, information security (including electronic banking channels like internet banking, ATMs, cards), IT operations, IT services outsourcing, Information System Audit, Cyber frauds, business continuity planning, customer education and legal issues.
The Group recognised that the recommendations are not “one-size-fits-all” and the implementation of these recommendations need to be based on the nature and scope of activities engaged by banks and the technology environment prevalent in the bank and the support rendered by technology to the business processes.
The Reserve Bank will begin implementing the recommendations of the Working Group shortly.
The objective of the Working Group was to provide a set of guidelines to banks covering the entire gamut of electronic banking. This would serve as a common minimum standard for all banks to adopt as well as lay down the best practices for banks to adopt in a phased manner for a safer and sounder banking environment. The Group felt that there was a need for banks to follow a consistent approach in each focus area, to minimize differing interpretations.
The report covers various areas such as IT Governance, information security (including electronic banking channels like internet banking, ATMs, cards), IT operations, IT services outsourcing, Information System Audit, Cyber frauds, business continuity planning, customer education and legal issues.
The Group recognised that the recommendations are not “one-size-fits-all” and the implementation of these recommendations need to be based on the nature and scope of activities engaged by banks and the technology environment prevalent in the bank and the support rendered by technology to the business processes.
The Reserve Bank will begin implementing the recommendations of the Working Group shortly.
Comment Re:Windows (Score 1) 122
The "join" command in DOS could do this too... way back in the 90's...
Comment Re:how is this NOT an outlawing of encryption? (Score 1) 366
Encryption is not going away. Any half good programmer can whip together a 3-DES or RSA routine together - why, many programming languages even have ready APIs for it.
Most governments go through this growing up phase with respect to encryption. Even US had export control norms for encryption software till they realised that directly controlling it is plain impossible (PGP was born outside the borders of the country due this very reason).
The Indian Law permits the Government to ask for the encryption key. Now, if someone asked for an encryption key to a SSL session, pray tell me how it can be retrieved... Some parts of the law are not very compatible with the technology that exists today. I do hope someone brings some sanity into this situation.
What India also needs to do is to have a due process to ask for encryption keys (warrant sounds fine to me), develop the ability to break encryption if the keys are not forthcoming (bruteforce the simple stuff - or get access to unencrypted material stored on the mail server), and importantly, learn who they should approach for the encryption keys (i.e, not the ISP).
Till the Government heeds solid technical advice on how to manage encryption, I am sure we will continue hearing such headlines.
Sony Refuses To Sanction PS3 "Other OS" Refunds 396
Stoobalou writes "Sony says that it has no intention of reimbursing retailers if they offer users partial refunds for fat PS3s. Last week, the first PS3 user successfully secured a partial refund from Amazon UK as compensation for the removal of the ability to run Linux on the console. The user quoted European law in order to persuade the online retailer that the goods he had bought in good faith were no longer fit for his purposes because of the enforcement of firmware update 3.21, which meant that users who chose to keep the Other OS functionality would lose the ability to play the latest games or connect to the PlayStation Network."
How To Find Bad Programmers 359
AmberShah writes "The job post is your potential programmer's first impression of your company, so make it count with these offputting features. There are plenty of articles about recruiting great developers, but what if you are only interested in the crappy ones?" I think much of the industry is already following these guidelines.
Ocean-Crossing Dragonflies Discovered 95
grrlscientist writes "While living and working as a marine biologist in Maldives, Charles Anderson noticed sudden explosions of dragonflies at certain times of year. He explains how he carefully tracked the path of a plain, little dragonfly called the Globe Skimmer, Pantala flavescens, only to discover that it had the longest migratory journey of any insect in the world."
Infinity Ward Fights Against Modern Warfare 2 Cheaters 203
Faithbleed writes "IW's Robert Bowling reports on his twitter account that Infinity Ward is giving 2,500 Modern Warfare 2 cheaters the boot. The news comes as the war between IW and MW2's fans rages over the decision to go with IWnet hosting instead of dedicated servers. Unhappy players were quick to come up with hacks that would allow their own servers and various other changes."
Despite the dedicated-server complaints, Modern Warfare 2 has sold ridiculously well.
Comment Re:The writer is clueless about end users (Score 1) 244
In the GSM world, all you have to do is try your SIM on a different device, and you know if it is the network or the device. I prefer manufacturers who get users the features they need in their handsets, and telcos who look after networks. All artificial restrictions go away when you combine this with number portability.
There is no shortage of bundled and locked handsets and plans in the GSM world too. So subsidizing upfront purchase prices for the particular segment of buyers is very much possible, and happens quite a bit.
The CDMA platform may be more spectrum efficient, but IMHO, GSM wins out overall - from an user perspective at least.
Comment ASUS Eee Box PC B202 (Score 1) 697
ASUS Eee Box PC B202 runs Ubuntu Server like a dream. Have configured it as a PDC for my Windows Boxes, and trying to get Free Radius working for my Wifi network. Have got BIND, Squid running to provide the caching I need. Have not got started with the filtering, but thats the next stop after Free Radius. And VPN so that I can get back into home when I am travelling. Syslogd will also be nice to log my Internet Traffic. But that would be all I require. (My backups are on a DNS 323, so I dont plan messing with it. Anyway, this Eee box has only 160GB, hardly enough for the task at hand)
It sits as a headless box in a corner and I just SSH in when I need it. Pretty, and pretty impressive for the small box it is. Atom N270, 1GB RAM is enough for what I do - CPU hardly ever spikes beyond 10-15%, and RAM is more like 25% peak that I have seen when I am logged in and swap does not really get touched.
I have only one wish - a distro where all this is preconfigured or works out of the box...
Comment Life (Score 1) 376
If there is a chance for water there, there may also be a chance for life. Hitting that area in this manner may just reduce that probability to zero.
Using Linux To Make a Slow, Awful WAN Connection 110
Julie188 writes "This is a brilliant little Linux trick from Windows fanboy Tyson Kopczynski. He wanted to test a new Windows 7 feature called Branch Cache, which caches remote data on the local machine to reduce traffic on a stressed out WAN connection. But how to fake a crappy WAN? Linux. 'The command that I executed (tc) made use of Linux Traffic Control (a kernel thing) which allows me to easily interject 100ms latency on eth1. Boff, Bonk, Pow, Plop, Kapow, swa-a-p, whamm, zzzzzwap, bam ... instant WAN crappiness,' he writes."
Worlds.com To Extend Virtual World Lawsuit To Second Life, WoW 106
FiveRings writes "BusinessInsider has a story about Worlds.com, a company that inherited the patent on virtual worlds from the Starlight Starbright Foundation and is taking it to court against NCSoft over the company's various MMOs. If successful, he will press on and sue the makers of Second Life and World of Warcraft as well. The article notes that the NCSoft case is being held in east Texas, which has been a favorable venue for patent trolls in the past."
