Stuxnet

I have been reading about the Stuxnet virus for sometime now. It seems to be a very dangerous virus, with many of the first of it's kind features. This virus attacks SCADA systems. It installs code into the PLC and has the capability of hiding itself from detection. It then can cause the control systems to operate erratically and cause subtle but substantial damage.

Jeffrey Carr in his blog here, claims that INSAT-4B was probably brought down by Stuxnet. ISRO has claimed that Stuxnet could not have "killed" the satellite as it is not built around the PLC which the virus is programmed to attack and that it has it's own custom code to program Siemen's devices.

Obviously, the most talked about attack is the target of the nuclear reactors in Iran, the extent of the damage is yet to be fully known. It is rumored that this virus is so sophisticated that it is not possible to have been created without "state-support".

Maybe we are headed towards the first "cyber-warefare" of our times.

More information about the virus:
Symantec
Wikipedia

Google App Engine works

This weekend I set to add some more features to one of my existing Google App Engine application, Our countdown app. I wanted it to send reminder emails once the events near their due date. (Something like Google Calendar).

Now I could have done it the easier way, and have a cronjob executing every day to check for the dates and send the mails. But I found that the appengine has a neat service called the "Task Queue". One can schedule tasks in this queue, and then set up a "web-hook", which the appengine would invoke as and when it finds appropriate. This is much more neat and scalable for an enterprise application. (In my case, I have only 2 mails to configure :-), but I am happy to know that my design will scale under heady load). Among other features of the Task Queue, one can configure the rate at which the tasks can be executed and also the HTTP request type (GET or POST).

Next would be to once again enable the map application part on the page, and make it mobile (GPS enabled) devices aware. This is possible since the Google geolocation APIs support the detection of the iPhone and Android devices on the client side. Shall post the update, once that's done.

Timing of disclosure

The timing of disclosure is very important. Things when disclosed at one time may result in a totally different situation, than when disclosed at a later time. Strange are the ways of life!

On the other front, have started to explore a bit on the iPod/iPhone devices. I find Apple restricting a lot. The fact it runs on Darwin and that people have made great progress outside of Apple world, should provoke Apple to a more "open" environment. Of course, I have already "jailbroken" my wife's new iPod Touch and experiencing the new world of Cydia. I have backed up my 4.0 SHSH blobs on Cydia as well as grabbed then from the iPod, using tinyumbrella.

With the release of iOS 4.0.2, Apple released the patch for the "PDF hole" stopping the famous jailbreakme method, but I rather installed the "PDF Patch" released by Saurik. I hear that the jailbreakme team released their full source demonstrating the use of the PDF patch, after Apple released the fix in iOS 4.0.2. Way to go!

अच्छा है... (All is well)

Sometimes we so casually respond to the equally casual question, "How are you?" with "Ya.. I am (we) (are all) fine".

We may be keeping a poor health, or facing a critical problem but we hide it from people. There could be various reasons for hiding it, probably from the near and dear ones, so that they do not worry too much.

Unlimited Happiness

Life is such that, a small event in one's life can bring unlimited happiness. It is just a single line in a 22 page visa decision page document, that changed the mood of one entire family!

Well so far so good, waiting and hoping the rest from here on goes off smoothly.

WC2010 fever

Well, the entire world is gripped with this fever now. The first & second round matches have thrown so many surprises. Who could think of Germany, France and Italy (as of now, they are 1 down to New Zealand).

So one can watch the matches live on the "links" available, which I do not want to share here for obvious reasons :). But there are some good alternatives. NDTV has come up with a cool match cast concept. The match is "cast-ed" live using icons and alerts. Try it out here. Another option is the BBC live commentary. But it seems, it is not available due to rights restrictions.

Whatever it be, The World Cup does bring in a fresh dose of enthusiasm in the sport each time in me. I have Brazil as my favourites, let us see....

Those days and those nights

I am happy that my last post evoked mixed response (and some emotions) from either side of the roles in which my friends work in their respective jobs today. I was also reminiscing my initial days in the industry, the associated struggle and slogging overtime. Oh! how very 'a dedicated resource' I used to be.

I also remember this ghazal by JS and CS. I used to hum this ghazal during my walk from Janpath to South Avennue, 11'o clock at night, to catch Bus Nos, 620, 604 or 680 to Moti Bagh or Sect-8 R K Puram. That ticket cost me Rs. 2/= instead of Rs. 5/= if I took the bus from Janpath!

The Superman of a software project

This post is dedicated to the supposed "Superman" of a software project. In any software project, you will find one or two blokes who have this habit of taking on the responsibility of the entire project on their heads, even when there is no need for such drastic actions.

Over the years I have analysed some traits of these "Supermen":

1. The basic habit of "I'll do all" comes from the fact that they wish to become the "hero" of the project.

2. In their hearts they are so insecure about their position in the project/organisation, that they start to involve themselves in all unnecessary tasks, be it trivial or complex.

3. These guys are naturally poor at time management. You will find them slogging till late hours just to prove to management that they are the most "hard working" blokes around. (And also "secure" their insecurity mentioned in point no. 2 above).

4. Naturally, their output in terms of quality is pathetic, since only a "real Superman" can work 10-11 hours a day and produce a decent quality.

5. At the end of the year (more precisely after the appraisal cycle), they will always complain to the management that they were not rated appropriately.

Well I understood long ago, that in this trade, you need to work smart and not slog. And also the fact that pick up only that much work that is possible for one to do within a decent time with a decent quality in it.

God bless the "Supermen"!!!!

Panchatantra - Doordarshan

Felt so nostalgic today, after listening to the title track of Panchatantra. This serial used to be aired on Doordarshan when I used to be a kid.

Those were the initial days, and this title song struck me even then. Though I could not recall the entire track I distinctively remembered the "Ye pachatantra hai..." and the "kudrat ke jaadu hai isme". Jagjit's unique style of rendering caught me quite young, though the actual "bug" bit me during my typhoid recovery days listening to one of his most masterly works, "Sajda".

Here's the lyrics of the track in Devanagari:

यह पंचतंत्र है (२)
जीवन कि हर उलझन को सुलझाए,
बंजर धरती तोड़ के ज्ञान उगाए।
यह पंचतंत्र है (२)

कुदरत के जादू हैं इसमें,
धरती कि खुशबू है इसमें, -- (२)
यह भटके रही को राह पे लाए,
यह पंचतंत्र है (३)

Basic equation

Life's basic equation is:

sadness = happiness

This equation always holds true at every moment in one's life. It is just the way we interpret certain events that lead us to believe that one side of the equation is not balanced. But in reality every event cancels out some other or maybe itself on the other side of the equation. Because the equation above is a net zero, if we move either on the other side, our great sages wrote volumes and volumes on 'Karm Yog'. Do your duty, worry not about the results. However we are ordinary mortals, and it is hard for us not to try to run after increasing the right hand side of the equation almost with our eyes and minds closed.

Anyways, the weather here is so funny, one moment it snows or rains, the next hour it is bright and sunny. And about my separation from my beloved, I can only think of Ghalib's wonder sher:

ने मुज़्दा-ए-विसाल न नज़ारा-ए-जमाल, मुद्दत हुई की आश्ती-ए-चश्म-ओ-ग़ोश है.

"Neither there is the good news of our union, neither the sight of my beloved; It has been a while that there is peace between my eyes and ears!!" (discounting the fact that my ears have a slight advantage, since they have the privilege of hearing her voice over the phone!! :-D )

TGIM

Thank God! its going to be Monday soon!
The weekend was very dull outside. It was a couple of degrees below zero and the sky was covered with cloud with forecast of rain or snow. I stayed mostly inside. Apart from chatting with my wife over the phone (thanks to VOIP telephony) I did not have anything exciting planned. So I decided to play around with something that was on my mind for sometime.

You all must have used (or at least heard) of software such as Nokia(TM) PC Suite and the Sony Ericsson(TM) PC Suite. I have always been wondering how these applications connect to the phone and retrieve all the data to and fro from the device. Well, it seems fairly easy. Whenever we hook up our phone to the PC (by USB cable or bluetooth) it establishes a connection on a PC's Serial COM port. Then these software issue AT commands (mostly) to perform all the "magical" operations.

So, there I was, I connected my ME (nothing fancy, W890i) to my laptop through the USB cable. I then identified the COM port, from the Vista Device Manager, being used by the connection. Fired up PuTTY and selected the serial mode with the COM port number (COM13 in my case). That opened up a session with my phone on the PuTTYconsole itself!

I then downloaded the AT Command list from Sony Ericsson developer site (Publication number: 1206-6103.15) and played around with them. For example, refer to the screenshot below for some of the commands that I executed:

For example at+csca? queries the phone to get the current SMSC address. at+csq? reports the signal quality. 17 indicates the rssi (received signal strength indication) is -70 dBm. at+cbc? reports the battery charge on the phone. 1 indicates that the phone has a battery connected as is currently being charged (which is obvious, because the PC was charging it through the connected USB cable) and 42 indicates the current level of charge (as a percentage) in the battery.

We can do a lot more. Read SMS, write and store SMS and what not! I shall explore this further and come up with more ideas over time. A fruitful weekend after all!

लोकल ट्रेन का सफर

नेताजी ने आज लोकल ट्रेन में सफर किया| इस खबर पर समाचार माद्यम टूट पड़े| इन्टरनेट पर विडियो क्लिप्स भी आनन् फानन में जोड़े गए| विशेषज्ञों ने अपनी विशेष राए में यह बात रखी के ऐसा करके नेताजी ने अपने प्रतिद्वंदियों को मुंह तोड़ जवाब दिया है|

यह भी देखा गया के एक सफर के साथी नेताजी से बात करते हुए इतने भावुक हो उठे के उन्होंने यह कह दिया के नेताजी इतने अग्रिम राजनीतिज्ञ हैं उन्हें उनके प्रतिद्वंदियों के धमको को हंसी में उड़ा देना चाहिए| शायद सज्जन यह भूल गए के नेताजी इस देश के उन 'खास' लोगों में से हैं जिनकी सुरक्षा के लिए राजकोष का धन खुल्ला खर्च किया जाता है|

कब? कब इस देश की जनता नेताओं को देखकर पसीजना बंद करेंगे? कब इस स्वतंत्र देश के लोग अपने नेताओं को देश की इस हालत के लिए उन्हें जिम्मेदार ठहराएंगे? कब?

That's all in Hindi today. Used the new IME tool from Google to type in the text. It's cool!

Now Then...

Just writing this post to get back on track and start the सिलसिला of blogging once again.

Happy new year 2010, and all that.

So, everything went well and as planned. Thanks to all for the wishes and blessings. It seems a lot different these days.

We are now executing the hard part of the deal. Before, we felt it would be easy, but now it seems to get tougher day by day. Obviously a lot depends on how the case is viewed by the Irish immigration, but I have now almost made up my mind and have "Plan B", prepared for the worse.

Let Us C.