Mark Fiore: NarcoMex, Inc.

More Mark Fiore brilliance.

Via The San Francisco Chronicle.

Enjoy.

- ferg

Spam Site Registrations Flee China for Russia

Brian Krebs:

A crackdown by the Chinese government on anonymous domain name registrations has chased spammers from Chinese registrars (.cn) to those that handle the registration of Russian (.ru) Web site names, new spam figures suggest. Yet, those spammy domains may soon migrate to yet another country, as Russia is set to enforce a policy similar to China’s beginning April 1.

In mid-December 2009, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) announced that it was instituting steps to make it much harder to register a Web site anonymously in China, by barring individuals from registering domains ending in .cn. Under the new policy, those who want to register a new .cn domain name need to hand in written application forms, complete with a business license and an identity card.

Chinese authorities called the move a crackdown on phishing and pornographic Web sites, but human rights and privacy groups marked it as yet another effort by Chinese leaders to maintain tight control over their corner of the Internet. Nevertheless, the policy clearly caught the attention of the world’s most profligate spammers, who spam experts say could always count on Chinese registrars as a cheap and reliable place to buy domains for Web sites that would later be advertised in junk e-mail.

According to data obtained from two anti-spam experts, new registrations for sites advertised in spam began migrating from .cn to .ru just a few weeks after the Chinese domain policy took effect.

More here.

Court Says Bush Illegally Wiretapped Two Americans

David Kravets writes on Threat Level:

A federal judge on Wednesday said the George W. Bush administration illegally eavesdropped on the telephone conversations of two American lawyers who represented a now-defunct Saudi charity.

The lawyers alleged some of their 2004 telephone conversations to Saudi Arabia were siphoned to the National Security Agency without warrants. The allegations were initially based on a classified document the government accidentally mailed to the former Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation lawyers. The document was later declared a state secret and removed from the long-running lawsuit weighing whether a sitting U.S. president may create a spying program to eavesdrop on Americans’ electronic communications without warrants

“Plaintiffs must, and have, put forward enough evidence to establish a prima facie case that they were subjected to warrantless electronic surveillance,” U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled, in a landmark decision. Even without the classified document, the judge said he believed the lawyers “were subjected to unlawful electronic surveillance” (.pdf) in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires warrants in terror investigations.

It’s the first ruling addressing how Bush’s once-secret spy program was carried out against American citizens.

More here.

Report: Fighting Identity Theft Not A Priority

Terry Frieden writes on CNN.com:

Ten million Americans a year are victims of identity theft. It's a growing problem in the United States, but fighting it doesn't appear to be a priority, a new report says.

A report by the Justice Department Inspector General released Tuesday cites the wide-ranging costs and dangers of ID theft. Although the report has no new numbers, the financial losses are believed to be substantially higher than the $15.6 billion documented in 2005.

Inspector General Glenn Fine found the effort to combat the problem, however, has lagged since the President's Task Force on ID Theft was established in 2007.

"We found that to some degree identity theft initiatives have faded as priorities," said Fine. He said the Justice Department has not developed a coordinated plan to combat ID theft and that some recommendations of the President's Task Force have not been addressed. No one has been appointed to oversee the efforts, the report says.

More here.

Ukrainian Hacker Liable in SEC Insider Trading Case

Dan Margolies writes for Reuters:

A Ukrainian national who traded on insider information he obtained by hacking into a secure computer network was ordered by a U.S. judge to forfeit $580,000 in profits, interest and civil penalties, U.S. securities regulators said on Monday.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had accused Oleksandr Dorozhko of gaining access to material nonpublic information about IMS Health Inc's third-quarter 2007 earnings by infiltrating the computer network of Thomson Financial. IMS had planned to announce negative earnings after the market closed that day.

Minutes after the hack and just before IMS's earnings release, Dorozhko purchased 630 put options on IMS's common stock, the SEC said in a statement.

After IMS's stock dropped a record 28 percent the next day, Dorozhko sold the put options and pocketed $287,346, the SEC said.

More here.

TJX Accomplice Sentenced to 7 Years in Prison

Kim Zetter writes on Threat Level:

A hacker who helped TJX hacker Albert Gonzalez and others gain access to corporate networks was sentenced to 7 years and one day on Monday .

Christopher Scott, 27, pleaded guilty to breaching the wireless access points of several retailers between 2003 and 2007 to siphon credit and debit card numbers, which he then passed to Gonzalez. Prosecutors say that together the men pilfered nearly 20 million credit and debit cards, which retailers say led to $200 million in losses from fraud.

They used the cards to obtain cash advances from ATMs or sold the account information to other carders, who encoded the data to blank and counterfeit bank cards for fraudulent use. Scott’s take from the crimes was at least $400,000, according to prosecutors. He was paid in cash and with pre-paid bank cards and used the money to rent limos and partied with up to 10 women at a time, prosecutors say, and later bought a car, jewelry and $400,000 house.

The government is seeking forfeiture of $400,000, nine computers and an array of other electronic goods from Scott. Restitution will be determined at a future hearing.

More here.

BlackBerried!!!

Yes, I now proudly own a BlackBerry Bold 9700 – the most technologically advanced (and the most expensive) phone that I have ever bought!

Naah, don’t expect a geeky review of its features, specifications, et al. Neither do I understand the gizmo completely nor will I ever be fully conversant with all its paraphernalia – but showing off a BB feels great ;).

No gadget freak myself, I was hugely helped by my bro in the short listing process. My final decision though was based on the concept of elimination and not selection.

Here were my considered and carefully purged choices:

• Non-smart phones (all the Nokias, Sony Ericssons, Samsungs, Motorola etc without 3G and below 10K): I always remember my Rule 1: If hubby’s footing the bill, don’t try to put a price tag on his love. No cheap stuff ;)

• Samsung Corby: Refer Rule 1 above, apart from the fact that Samsung’s synonymous with the refrigerator in our house, like LG is with the ACs…so…. No offence meant to current Samsung mobile owners – There’s always a next time :D!

• Nokia 5800: A real ‘value for money’ phone. However, Vish and Priyank both own a 5800, and there was no way I was going to do the hat trick, unless ofcourse Nokia presented it to me as family loyalty bonus :).

• Nokia N97: I came quite close to buying this one, until I heard rumors about its distribution being stopped – also seemed a little bulky, and well, we didn’t click at first sight!

• BlackBerry Storm: No wi-fi – the only reason I left this one. Priyank hated the touch screen, which is more like a touch-and-push screen.

• Sony Ericsson Experia: This one got a strong recommendation from Priyank, but I have had 3 Sony Ericssons die out on me – I already have a fourth for my official use (Don’t ask me why I don’t learn – this one’s given by my office) – I guess that was reason enough to chuck it.

• Nokia E71, E72: Too much like a Qwerty BlackB – but not half as good looking!

• The “iPhone” – The strongest contender for Yuvika’s SIM ;)! I love the way an iPhone looks, behaves and attracts attention, but there was so much confusion around it that I lost interest in this Apple goodie. We were told legally unlocked iPhones with Apple warranty were available, and then we were told they went out of stock; iPhones locked with Vodafone too were out of stock. Airtel ones were available but I do not understand how the carriers are selling data plans in an almost non-3g country like ours (India). The Chennai heat got to me – Forget it, I said!

So goes the story of my acquisition. Am reasonably happy with the BB Bold – the classy look and feel, the business-like appearance, the QWERTY keypad, wi-fi, 3G – more than what I would ever use a phone for!

Yahoo! Proposes 'Really Ugly Hack' to DNS

Carolyn Duffy Marsan writes on ComputerWorld:

Network engineers from Yahoo are pitching what they admit is a "really ugly hack" to the Internet's Domain Name System, but they say it is necessary for the popular Web content provider to support IPv6, the long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol.Major 'Net players mulling IPv6 "whitelist".

Yahoo outlined its proposal for changes to DNS recursive name resolvers at a meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) held here this week.

Yahoo says it needs a major change to the DNS -- which matches IP addresses with corresponding domain names -- in order to provide IPv6 service without inadvertently cutting off access to hundreds of thousands of visitors. Under Yahoo's proposal, these visitors would continue accessing content via IPv4, the current version of the Internet Protocol.

The reason Yahoo is seeking this change to the DNS is that a significant percentage of Internet users have broken IPv6 connectivity. Web content providers say they need mechanisms to discover that a user's IPv6 connectivity is broken and to switch these users to IPv4 on the fly. Yahoo views DNS as the best place to make this switch.

More here.

U.S. Military Warns of 'Increasingly Active' Cyber-Threat From China

Patrick Thibodeau writes on ComputerWorld:

On the same day that Google Inc. and the GoDaddy Group Inc. complained about China to a congressional committee, U.S. Navy Admiral Robert Willard appeared before the U.S. House Armed Services Committee with an even stronger warning about cyber-threats posed by China.

Willard's comments about China received little press attention but were stronger than anything said by either company.

"U.S. military and government networks and computer systems continue to be the target of intrusions that appear to have originated from within the PRC (People's Republic of China)," said Willard.

He said that most of the intrusions are focused on acquiring data "but the skills being demonstrated would also apply to network attacks."

More here.

Microsoft Keyboards, Media Devices Under Attack By Open-Source Kit

Dan Goodin writes on The Register:

Security researchers on Friday unveiled an open-source device that captures the traffic of a wide variety of wireless devices, including keyboards, medical devices, and remote controls.

Keykeriki version 2 captures the entire data stream sent between wireless devices using a popular series of chips made by Norway-based Nordic Semiconductor. That includes the device addresses and the raw payload being sent between them. The open-source package was developed by researchers of Switzerland-based Dreamlab Technologies and includes complete software, firmware, and schematics for building the $100 sniffer.

Keykeriki not only allows researchers or attackers to capture the entire layer 2 frames, it also allows them to send their own unauthorized payloads. That means devices that don't encrypt communications - or don't encrypt them properly - can be forced to cough up sensitive communications or be forced to execute rogue commands.

At the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver, Dreamlab Senior Security Expert Thorsten Schroder demonstrated how Keykeriki could be used to attack wireless keyboards sold by Microsoft. The exploit worked because communications in the devices are protected by a weak form of encryption known as xor, which is trivial to break. As a result, he was able to intercept keyboard strokes as they were typed and to remotely send input that executed commands on the attached computer.

More here.

After DNS Problem, Chinese Root Server Is Shut Down

Robert McMillan writes on PC World:

A China-based root DNS server associated with networking problems in Chile and the U.S. has been disconnected from the Internet.

The action by the server's operator, Netnod, appears to have resolved a problem that was causing some Internet sites to be inadvertently censored by a system set up in the People's Republic of China.

On Wednesday, operators at NIC Chile noticed that several ISPs (Internet service providers) were providing faulty DNS information, apparently derived from China. China uses the DNS system to enforce Internet censorship on its so-called Great Firewall of China, and the ISPs were using this incorrect DNS information.

That meant that users of the network trying to visit Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were directed to Chinese computers instead.

In Chile, ISPs VTR, Telmex and several others -- all of them customers of upstream provider Global Crossing -- were affected, NIC Chile said in a statement on Friday. The problem, first publicly reported on Wednesday, appears to have persisted for a few days before it was made public, the statement says.

More here.

Hacker Gonzalez Sentenced to 20 Years for Heartland Breach

Nancy Weil writes on ComputerWorld:

Hacker Albert Gonzalez, who participated in a cybercrime ring that stole tens of millions of credit and debit card numbers, was sentenced to 20 years in prison today.

The sentence imposed by U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock was for Gonzalez's role in a hacking ring that broke into computer networks of Heartland Payment Systems, which processed credit and debit card transactions for Visa and American Express and retailers Hannaford Supermarkets and 7-Eleven.

The sentence will run concurrently with two other 20-year sentences meted out Thursday, also in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts by a different federal judge, Patti B. Saris. Gonzalez pleaded guilty in all three cases last December, with the U.S. Department of Justice agreeing to seek no more than 25 years in prison in each case, with all sentences to run concurrently.

More here.

Electronic Medical Records Data Theft Booming

Nicole Lewis writes on InformationWeek:

Acceleration in the use of electronic medical records may lead to an increase in personal health information theft, according to a new study that shows there were more than 275,000 cases of medical information theft in the U.S. last year.

Unlike stealing a driver's license or a credit card, data gleaned from personal health records provides a wealth of information that helps criminals commit multiple crimes, according to Javelin Strategy & Research, a Pleasanton, California-based market research firm.

Information such as social security numbers, addresses, medical insurance numbers, past illnesses, and sometimes credit card numbers, can help criminals commit several types of fraud. These may include: making payments from stolen credit card numbers and ordering and reselling medical equipment by using stolen medical insurance numbers.

A key finding from the report is that fraud resulting from exposure of health data has risen from 3% in 2008 to 7% in 2009, a 112% increase.

More here.

SCADA Watch: 'Smart' Meters Have Security Holes

An AP newswire article by Jordan Robertson, via MSNBC.com, reports:

Computer-security researchers say new "smart" meters that are designed to help deliver electricity more efficiently also have flaws that could let hackers tamper with the power grid in previously impossible ways.

At the very least, the vulnerabilities open the door for attackers to jack up strangers' power bills. These flaws also could get hackers a key step closer to exploiting one of the most dangerous capabilities of the new technology, which is the ability to remotely turn someone else's power on and off.

The attacks could be pulled off by stealing meters — which can be situated outside of a home — and reprogramming them. Or an attacker could sit near a home or business and wirelessly hack the meter from a laptop, according to Joshua Wright, a senior security analyst with InGuardians Inc. The firm was hired by three utilities to study their smart meters' resistance to attack.

These utilities, which he would not name, have already done small deployments of smart meters and plan to roll the technology out to hundreds of thousands of power customers, Wright told The Associated Press.

There is no evidence the security flaws have been exploited, although Wright said a utility could have been hacked without knowing it. InGuardians said it is working with the utilities to fix the problems.

More here.

Hacker Bypasses Windows 7 Anti-Exploit Features In IE 8 Hack

Kelly Jackson Higgins writes on Dark Reading:

A Dutch researcher won $10,000 in the Pwn2Own hacking contest this week for hacking Internet Explorer 8 on a Windows 7 machine -- bypassing built-in anti-exploit features in the operating system.

Independent researcher Peter Vreugdenhil waged a heap overflow attack on IE 8 and used a zero-day vulnerability he discovered in the browser to bypass Windows 7's built-in anti-exploit features, Data Execution Prevention (DEP) and Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR).

Other successful hacks in the annual contest held at CanSecWest in Vancouver were a non-jailbroken iPhone, Firefox on Windows 7, and Safari on Snow Leopard, each conducted by other researchers who also won the big cash prize. A hacker known as "Nils" hacked Firefox on Windows 7 -- also bypassing DEP and ASLR with an exploit of his own, the details of which were not available at the time of this posting.

Vreugdenhil used a two-part exploit: First he located a specific .dll file to evade ASLR, and then used that information to trigger an exploit that disabled DEP. He used a heap overflow attack to get the address of the .dll file, he said in a paper [.pdf] describing the attack. He would not reveal the vulnerabilities in IE 8 that he exploited, however: "But I might disclose them someday when Microsoft has them patched," he wrote.

More here.

When bloggers meet…

…There’s bound to be a lot of communicating, networking, witticism, and ofcourse fun! The IndiBlogger’s Chennai Meet this Saturday (20th March) at the GRT Convention Center was all this and more!

I personally was very hesitant going for a meet like this – I had absolutely no clue what I would do – I was not looking for any “real” networking per se, I didn’t have a commercial or a very topical blog, I would love to be read by many more people but was not sold out to the idea of advertising for my blog, or like someone commented “capturing victims” – Nevertheless, I did go, and this post means that I did not regret it one bit!

The 30 seconds to fame item on the agenda really formed the core around which the rest of the evening revolved. As each blogger introduced himself and herself, I was in splits laughing, taking notes of the blogs that seemed of interest, and even once in a while waiting for the time keeper to beep ;). It was fantastic to see a conglomerate of people (I suppose around 200) passionately talking – there were bright sparks, hilarious ideas, unique sentiments – a myriad musings.

The “back panels” (my back panel seen in the pic over my very own IndiBlogger ‘T’ – yes, one of the most eagerly sought after “freebie” at the meet) provided a good opportunity to interact with all the bloggers – we exchanged our URLs and tweet IDs – The lazy me is yet to go through the ones I collected and reach out – I plan to do a lot of online reading over the coming days to make up for the backlog – But, I have already begun to receive some comments on my blog posts – which is very thrilling (and makes me feel a tad bit guilty as well), apart from the fact that the hits on my blog go up :).

A bit of a dampener was the Traditional Media vs. Blogging session, where my lack of knowledge of Tamil (yes, the “predominant” speaker from Zee Tamil refused to offer even a summary translation) saw me smiling at others who were in the same boat. Pleasantly, I did have the honor of sitting with a few “just-made” friends, who offered some lingual help. The media person from the Australian channel spoke well of the contradictions that arise professionally for a journalist who also blogs.

We had the Univercell (the sponsors of the event) announce a contest – no, they are not paying me to announce the contest, so go find it for yourself on the IndiBlogger’s or the Univercell site.

The “chaai”, “kaapi” and random conversations on blogs, RSS, hash tags, followers, page hits, SEOC (or some weird technological nazi like that) and the much coveted IndiRanks provided the perfect close.

Great job Rene, Anoop and the entire gang at IndiBlogger. You guys rock!

Also cheers to the wonderful blogger-friends I made – Deepa, Sonia, Anju, Akshay, Susan, Tariq, Shilpa, Akshay, Karhik, Gomati, and the many others (If your name is not here, apologies, I might look young but my memory fails me once too often).

Wishing you all greater blog posts, page hits, followers, and IndiRanks!

“Quotable Quotes”

There was a wonderful quote in one of the Star Wars episode (I don’t remember which one) that went, “Truly wonderful the mind of a child is”. And you bet it is!

These days I am spending some terrific cheery times with my sister-in-law’s kids. It’s absolutely rejuvenating to be with them – there is so much constant banter, sincere reflections on little miracles growing up teaches you to ignore and the sheer joy of rediscovering the taken-for-granted facts of life, that you actually begin to believe that this world may not be such a bad place after all.

My nephew, Ads, is a certified prodigy. All of four, he comes up with the most dumbfounding questions and amazing statements. Conversations with him are an absolute delight – a patient and enthusiastic communicator, he wins your heart in less than a fraction of a second.

I thought it would be a good idea to record some of the interesting chats we both have had in the past couple of days – most, as you will notice, are perfect pearls of wisdom.

Read on:

Ads: Are you an Indian?

Me: Yes, what about you?

Ads: I am an Indian, but I am crème.

Me: What about me?

Ads: You are also crème. But Indians are also brown.

Me: Do you like crème Indians or brown Indians?

Ads: I don’t care about crème or brown. I like all.

(The world has a lot to learn from you baby!)

Ads: What are people living in Chennai called? Chennaians?

Me: No, they are called Chennai-ites!

Ads: Why are they not called Chennaians, like Indians?

Me (without a convincing answer): Because Chennaians does not sound right. It is Chennai-ites!

Ads: So are you a Chennai-ite?

Me: Yes, but am also a Delhi-ite. I was in Delhi for a long long time. Like when you go to Delhi (My SIL is relocating to Delhi), you will become a Delhi-ite.

Ads (Emphatically): NO! I will be Indian – I will always remain Indian. I will not be Chennai-ite or Delhi-ite.

(Is one particular Maharashtrian listening?)

Ads: Guess what - I know all my numbers.

Me: Wow! Can you count?

Ads: Yes, I can count till 100, 1000, million, billion, zillion, gazillion.

Me: Wow! I can also count all the numbers.

Ads: Ok, you know infinity?

Me: Yes, when you cannot count, it’s infinity.

Ads: After what number does infinity come?

Me: After gazillion…

Ads: Why is not gazillion and one after gazillion?

(Can you please ask questions your age?)

Me: Do you like me Ads?

Ads: Yes I do.

Me: Oh, thank you (I then give him a “big hug” and a kiss to seal our friendship)

Ads: I rubbed your kissie – It’s not there now.

Me: It is still there, my kisses are permanent – they cannot be rubbed.

Ads (very sternly): Let’s not discuss this.

(Ouch!)

Me: Oh my god, Yukta (Ads’ 1 yr old sis) is meddling with the plug point, please pull her away Ads.

Ads: Yukta (pulling her away), get off, RIGHT NOW. You will now not play with us. Go to mommy right now!

Me: Ads, don’t be rough with her, she’s still a baby!

Ads (in a matter of fact manner): Yuvika, I can’t help it, SHE IS SUCH A PAIN!

(oops!)

Ads: I want to build my own Disney Park.

Me: Great, what all rides will you have?

Ads: Let me think about it. Around 50 rides like, airplane rides, buzz light year rides – then we will have people in costumes who will pretend to be cartoon characters – nobody will have to pay for food also.

Me: That sounds really good. So you will build it with your super powers? (Ads claims he is a super hero with super powers and their’s is the only super family in the whole universe)

Ads: Noooo, I can’t waste time waiting for magic to happen. I will have to start building it myself – with lot of hard work.

(very sensible for a 4-year old!)

Ads (at bed time): Tell me a nice violent story with lot of wild animals who kill and eat other wild animals.

Me: Ads why do you like so much violence?

Ads: I dunno, but I like violence.

Me: Won’t you get scared.

Ads: I can never get scared. I am a super hero, a power ranger. But sometimes my “bones” feel scared (Ads conveniently pushes off everything on his bones – his bones get angry, fussy, scared, hungry, irritating – but he is always the angel).

Me: Are your bones scared of wild animals?

Ads; No, we live in the city – there are no wild animals here. But can aliens come here?

Me: No, there are no aliens – these are just stories. We don’t know if aliens exist.

Ads: Even if they exist, do they hate human beings?

Me: No!

Ads: Why would they come to our planet then?

Me: Just to visit us, maybe they lost their way or something.

Ads: I don’t like this planet too much. I plan to destroy the whole planet and build a new planet.

Me: If you destroy the whole planet what will happen to me, mama, thatha, nani?

Ads: No, I will take all the nice people to the new planet.

Me: Good idea. Don’t take the bad people, don’t take thieves and robbers.

Ads: But what if the thieves promise not to do anything. Then I should give them a second chance, right? If they don’t behave themselves, we will drop them back to Earth.

(Love you, Ads!)

As and when I collect some more of the wise guy’s discourses, I promise to post them here – don’t want to lose these precious moments to memory.

More of Ads’ gems have been preserved for posterity by his mommy dearest here.

Out of vogue!

So this time what is it I am cribbing about, you ask?

Greeting Cards! No, I don’t mean the animated, loud, fancy flash files from 123greetings.com or ecards.com. I am talking about the paper cards from Archies, Hallmarks and the likes – Rings a bell somewhere?

Since I fortunately still remember the life before the Internet boom, I feel nostalgic (did I hear someone sneer and ask what I don’t feel nostalgic about? Well, please make an allowance for this one!) - Whenever I skim through the stock of Birthday, Get well soon, All the best, Farewell, New Year, Diwali and Christmas cards I have received and collected over the years. A huge pile remains treasured at home in Delhi, and I am on my way to a decent pile here in Chennai as well.

Given the convenience, flexibility, options, ease, reachability, surety, eco-friendliness and all the attributes one might attach to the e-cards, I’d still prefer giving and receiving a “real” card any day.

Ofcourse, this does not mean I give and receive only paper cards – As most I am also warped in my asphyxiating labyrinth that is more commonly known as life, remembering birthdays and anniversaries only when the reminder beeps on my cell phone or pops up on my FB/Orkut/Outlook calendar, remembering festivals and occasions only when the stores announce their sale, and remembering special days only when newspapers report pink chaddi campaigns and shiv sena boycotts!

Where is the time to go to a Greetings/Gift shop atleast 15 days before the d day (the joke is that I do not know of a single card shop near my area in Chennai, that’s another matter I don’t know much in Chennai anyways), exert excruciating pains to skim through the wordings of all the ranges and types available and select the most apt one, find a stamp (do they still exist?), write down the address (Oh c’mon, be honest, how many of us know our friends and relatives postal addresses – emails and usernames rule!), locate a post box/post office and finally pray for the post man to reach your card before the due date!

The only saving grace is that, atleast in India, we still do the weeding invites the traditional way!

... And I still get my fair share of the good ol’ cards - My parents, bro and Vish always make it a point to present to me actual paper cards at every occasion without fail! It makes me feel really special as it’s still touch, feel and display for me.

Not to say I do not cherish the sentiments of the e-card senders, which by the way is also getting substituted by cryptic SMSs (HBD 2 U – for Happy Birthday to you!), walls posts on Facebook (or maybe just a comment on somebody else’s wall post) and Orkut scraps.

So what is my PoA (Plan of Action ;p)? Give more to receive more (selfish, but the world has always been that). I am trying to revive my address book with house numbers, street names and PIN/ZIP codes – Hoping you are motivated to do the same and then we can take a break from the e-exchange and get down to some “real” stuff!

(P.S. All pictures here are of cards that I have received in the recent years.)

Phenomenal woman, That's me

My thoughts on Women's Day are here: It's a woman's world after all. The only update is that now they have an International Men's Day too! It's all about equality, is it?

A dear friend shared the following poem a while back, and I had been waiting for it to be 8th of March to post it on my blog. It's one of those poems, as M points out, "that you read sometimes (the nth time), & again you wish like hell you wrote it. then you pin it up on your wall..."

Here goes:

Phenomenal Woman - Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size

But when I start to tell them,

They think I'm telling lies.

I say,

It's in the reach of my arms

The span of my hips,

The stride of my step,

The curl of my lips.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

I walk into a room

Just as cool as you please,

And to a man,

The fellows stand or

Fall down on their knees.

Then they swarm around me,

A hive of honey bees.

I say,

It's the fire in my eyes,

And the flash of my teeth,

The swing in my waist,

And the joy in my feet.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

Men themselves have wondered

What they see in me.

They try so much

But they can't touch

My inner mystery.

When I try to show them

They say they still can't see.

I say,

It's in the arch of my back,

The sun of my smile,

The ride of my breasts,

The grace of my style.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

Now you understand

Just why my head's not bowed.

I don't shout or jump about

Or have to talk real loud.

When you see me passing

It ought to make you proud.

I say,

It's in the click of my heels,

The bend of my hair,

the palm of my hand,

The need of my care,

'Cause I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.