My Tarot Card for 2011.
Drawn at random, of course.
- ferg
Friday, December 31, 2010
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Yeh dilli hai meri jaan…
(An aside: My absence from blog world for the past 3 weeks does not mean I had nothing to say – blame it on year-end blues, and ofcourse, travel and its associated sins of gluttony and sloth :D. I promise to be back with vengeance whether you like it or not :p)
A hard-core Delhi-ite that I am, it had been a while since I rediscovered the historic grandeur that define the very character of this capital city of India. Thus, fulfilling my long pending promise to Vish to take him sight-seeing, I fell in love with Delhi all over again.
The fuzzy sun rays through the wintery misty on most of the days kept us motivated for our touristy visits!
The Red Fort or Lal Quila was our first stop-over. Dad sportingly took leave from work and drove us around.
The drive through the old “walled” city – areas of Daryaganj, Jama Masjid, Chandni Chowk - reminded me why my visits to these places were so infrequent. The narrow streets, crowded with teeming millions, is not exactly my idea of a vacation.
However, the warm welcome by this much celebrated red sandstone monument made all the en-route traffic worthwhile.
The buildings and structures within the fort are reminiscent of an eclectic fusion of Persian, European and Indian art forms.
Diwan-i-Aam or the Hall of Public Audience…
Diwan-i-Khaas or the Hall of Private Audience…
The two Zenanas (women’s quarters) - Rang Mahal and Mumtaz Mahal boast of splendid architecture in marble.
Moti Masjid, also known as the pearl mosque – This was Aurangzeb’s personal mosque…
Finally, the Hayat Baksh Bagh (Life Bestowing Garden) with the Jal Mahal in the foreground and the British quarters on the extreme left in the background.
Right opposite the Lahori (the main visitor’s gate) gate of Red Fort lies the paradise of Chandni Chowk. If you are willing to excuse the pedestrians who elbow their way literally through you and the constant shouts of shopkeepers, step into the haven for good food and a one-of-it’s kind shopping experience.
Epicurean specialties of this place include paranthas – all kinds of imaginable and unimaginable varieties (lemon, mint, cashew, chilli, etc etc) deep fried in pure desi ghee; chaat items like dahi bhalla, aloo tikki; and Indian desserts, my personal favorite being rabdi ki khurchan!
(Some sound advice: Ignore the run down appearance of the place, forget hygiene and don’t count calories!)
We wrapped off Day 1 of our city tour with a quick visit to Raj Ghat and India Gate.
Raj Ghat – This is the memorial to Mahatma Gandhi
India Gate – The national monument of India that commemorates the Indian soldiers who lost their lives in World War I.
The Amar Jawan Jyoti (flame of the eternal soldier) at the India Gate renders a very solemn air to the place.
The other must-see places on Vish’s list were Qutb Minar and Lotus Temple.
Qutb Minar is the world’s tallest brick minaret and is most prominent for its Indo-Islamic architecture.
The ruins in the Qutb complex are evocative of a tremendously regal era gone by.
Some pictures for you to enjoy…
The Lotus Temple is the Bahá'í House of Worship. The dense fog didn’t help us as far as photography was concerned…
Mark Fiore: The Year That Wasn't
More Mark Fiore brilliance.
Via The San Francisco Chronicle.
Here's wishing you luck & prosperity in the coming new year.
- ferg
Affidavit Details FBI 'Operation Payback' Probe
Via The Smoking Gun.
More here.
As part of an international criminal probe into computer attacks launched this month against perceived corporate enemies of WikiLeaks, the FBI has raided a Texas business and seized a computer server that investigators believe was used to launch a massive electronic attack on PayPal, The Smoking Gun has learned.
The FBI investigation began earlier this month after PayPal officials contacted agents and “reported that an Internet activist group using the names ‘4chan’ and “Anonymous” appeared to be organizing a distributed denial of service (“DDoS”) attack against the company,” according to an FBI affidavit excerpted here.
The PayPal assault was part of “Operation Payback,” an organized effort to attack firms that suspended or froze WikiLeaks’s accounts in the wake of the group’s publication of thousands of sensitive Department of State cables. As noted by the FBI, other targets of this “Anonymous” effort included Visa, Mastercard, Sarah Palin’s web site, and the Swedish prosecutor pursuing sex assault charges against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder.
On December 9, PayPal investigators provided FBI agents with eight IP addresses that were hosting an “Anonymous” Internet Relay Chat (IRC) site that was being used to organize denial of service attacks. The unidentified administrators of this IRC “then acted as the command and control” of a botnet army of computers that was used to attack target web sites.
More here.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Happy Boxing Day!
Boxing Day is a public holiday celebrated in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and many other members of the Commonwealth of Nations on December 26, the day after Christmas Day.
Cheers!
- ferg
Saturday, December 25, 2010
A Christmas Story: All Day Long on TBS
"You'll shoot your eye out, kid."
A Christmas Story. All day long today, on TBS.
An enduring classic.
Enjoy!
- ferg
Merry Christmas To All Of Our Men And Women In Uniform
We Salute All of Our American Fighting Men and Women in the U.S. Military, especially those who are separated from friends, family, and loved ones & away from home this holiday season.
You are not forgotten.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.
You are not forgotten.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Quote of The Day (Again): Will Chen
"I love It's a Wonderful Life because it teaches us that family, friendship, and virtue are the true definitions of wealth."This has become a Christmas tradition with me now -- Merry Christmas.
- Will Chen, writing on his blog Wise Bread (props, Boing Boing). He continues that "...in 1947, however, the FBI considered this anti-consumerist message as subversive Communist propaganda."
- ferg
Thursday, December 23, 2010
One Thing I love About The Holidays: Fruitcake
That's right, you read that correctly.
I love the stuff.
Happy Holidays, and Merry Christmas.
- ferg
An Annual Labor of Love: Children's Xmas Letters to Christopher Walken
Something I blogged about for the last few years -- the gift that keeps on giving.
Enjoy! And Seasons Greetings.
- ferg
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Another Christmas Favorite: Bad Santa
Nothing lifts your spirits on Christmas like a down-on-your-luck, thieving, hard-drinking, Billy Bob Thornton as Santa.
Great movie.
- ferg
Mark Fiore: The Night Before Dogboy
More Mark Fiore brilliance.
Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.
Via The San Francisco Chronicle.
- ferg
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
CIA Launches Wikileaks Task Force (WTF)
Greg Miller writes in The Washington Post:
More here.
The CIA has launched a task force to assess the impact of the exposure of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables and military files by WikiLeaks.
Officially, the panel is called the WikiLeaks Task Force. But at CIA headquarters, it's mainly known by its all-too-apt acronym: W.T.F.
The irreverence is perhaps understandable for an agency that has been relatively unscathed by WikiLeaks. Only a handful of CIA files have surfaced on the WikiLeaks Web site, and records from other agencies posted online reveal remarkably little about CIA employees or operations.
Even so, CIA officials said the agency is conducting an extensive inventory of the classified information, which is routinely distributed on a dozen or more networks that connect agency employees around the world.
And the task force is focused on the immediate impact of the most recently released files. One issue is whether the agency's ability to recruit informants could be damaged by declining confidence in the U.S. government's ability to keep secrets.
More here.
DHS Not Very Reassuring On Its Plans to Gather Banking Data
Jacob Goodwin writes on GSN.com:
More here.
DHS has issued final rules which enable it to exempt certain information contained in Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) from some provisions of the Privacy Act because the information it might obtain from such SARs could be very beneficial to the government in its pursuit of criminal, civil and administrative enforcement matters.
However, the U.S. financial industry, which attempts to support such initiatives by DHS to gather terrorism-related information, raised specific concerns during the comment period about the possible release of sensitive proprietary information under the Freedom of Information Act. DHS was not very reassuring to the financial services industry in the final rule it published in the Federal Register on Dec. 21.
For example, BITS, a membership organization of financial services vendors who own or operate critical infrastructure information systems, asked DHS whether it planned to gather SARs related exclusively to information about “physical security threats,” or whether it also plans to gather SARs generated under the Bank Secrecy Act about suspect financial transactions and money-laundering activities. After explaining that DHS participates in a nationwide effort to collect and assess SARs -- in an initiative which is overseen by the Department of Justice -- DHS noted on Dec. 21 that the SARs it intends to collect “are not limited to physical security threats.”
More here.
Havea Cool Yule - Winter Solstice is Today
The precise moment of the 2008 solstice will be December 21, 2008 at 11:38UTC.Today is the beginning of Yule, the winter solstice celebration of the Germanic pagans still celebrated by some new (old?) age movements around the world. It is also one of the eight solar holidays, or sabbats, of Paganism.
In modern Paganism, Yule is celebrated on the winter solstice, which is this afternoon, December 21, at precisely 3:38 pm Pacific Daylight Time (-08:00 UTC).
All pagans celebrate!
- ferg
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
U.S. Tries to Build Case for Conspiracy by WikiLeaks
Charlie Savage writes in the New York Times:
More here.
Federal prosecutors, seeking to build a case against the WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange for his role in a huge dissemination of classified government documents, are looking for evidence of any collusion in his early contacts with an Army intelligence analyst suspected of leaking the information.
Justice Department officials are trying to find out whether Mr. Assange encouraged or even helped the analyst, Pfc. Bradley Manning, to extract classified military and State Department files from a government computer system. If he did so, they believe they could charge him as a conspirator in the leak, not just as a passive recipient of the documents who then published them.
Among materials prosecutors are studying is an online chat log in which Private Manning is said to claim that he had been directly communicating with Mr. Assange using an encrypted Internet conferencing service as the soldier was downloading government files. Private Manning is also said to have claimed that Mr. Assange gave him access to a dedicated server for uploading some of them to WikiLeaks.
More here.
'The Press Was to Serve the Governed, Not the Governors.'
That was a portion of the opinion of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Black, with regards to the Pentagon Papers ruling brought about by the New York Times publication of disclosures in 1971.
This is a bedrock fundamental expectation guaranteed in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
I am reminded again of the excellent documentary "The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers", which I watched again tonight, in light of all the noise surrounding the Wikileaks disclosures.
If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend doing so.
I have served honorably in the service of my country, handling very highly classified information during my service, and having said that, I believe Daniel Ellsberg to be a hero, not a villain.
Would I have done the same given similar circumstances? I cannot say for sure -- I consider myself a patriot, but I despise lies, deceit, and personal misconduct by public officials whose job it is to serve those that elected them to office.
We are now entering a period where a very similar situation is occurring with regards to Wikileaks, the U.S. Government's efforts to suppress this information, and the vilification of a man who published these documents to shed light on some very dark issues which -- I believe -- the American public has a right to know how their government has behaved.
We live in interesting times -- and it will start becoming much more interesting in very short order, as his extradition, further publication of documents, and the efforts of the U.S. Government to prosecute him under some facet of U.S. law.
We are not children, and we should not be treated as such.
My $.02,
- ferg
Court Rebuffs Obama on Warrantless Cell-Site Tracking
David Kravets writes on Threat Level:
More here.
A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected the Obama administration’s contention that the government is never required to get a court warrant to obtain cell-site information that mobile-phone carriers retain on their customers.
The decision by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is one in a string of court decisions boosting Americans’ privacy [.pdf] in the digital age — rulings the government fought against. The most significant and recent decision came Tuesday, when a different federal appeals court said for the first time the government must obtain a court warrant for an internet service provider to grant the authorities access to a suspect’s e-mail.
The case that concluded Wednesday concerns historical cell-site location information, which carriers usually retain for about 18 months. The data identifies the cell tower the customer was connected to at the beginning of a call and at the end of the call — and is often used in criminal prosecutions and investigations.
More here.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
FBI Accused Of Decade-Old Cryptography Code Conspiracy
Taylor Buley writes on Forbes.com:
More here.
You might not have heard of OpenBSD, but the free operating system is at the root of many computers and virtual private networks worldwide. So too is the FBI — that is, if you believe a new accusation that surfaced on a public OpenBSD mailing list.
Theo de Raadt, founder of OpenBSD, forwarded an emailed accusation that the FBI tampered with OpenBSD’s Internet protocol security code around 2000 to 2001. The allegation was sent to de Raadt in a private email from Gregory Perry, who claims to have been at one point an FBI consultant and chief technologist at a network security company called NETSEC, which was apparently an early backer of OpenBSD.
“My NDA with the FBI has recently expired, and I wanted to make you aware of the fact that the FBI implemented a number of backdoors and side channel key leaking mechanisms into the [OpenBSD cryptographic framework],” he wrote to de Raadt. “Jason Wright and several other developers were responsible for those backdoors, and you would be well advised to review any and all code commits by Wright as well as the other developers he worked with originating from NETSEC.”
If true, Perry’s accusation — that the FBI paid programmers to slip in code that would leak private encryption keys — would prove to be quite the bombshell. But either way the truth will be hard to come by, a fact that will likely only add to the conspiracy.
More here.
Feds Probe '100 Site' Data Breach
Dan Goodin writes on The Register:
More here.
FBI agents looking into the theft of customer data belonging to McDonald's are investigating similar breaches that may have hit more than 100 other companies that used email marketing services from Atlanta-based Silverpop Systems .
“The breach is with Silverpop, an email service provider that has over 105 customers,” Stephen Emmett, a special agent in the FBI's Atlanta field office, told The Register. “It appears to be emanating from an overseas location.”
He declined to provide further details.
Over the past week, at least two other sites – one known to have ties to Silverpop and the other that appears to – offered similar warnings to their customers. deviantART, a website that boasts more than 16 million registered accounts, warned its users that their email addresses, user names and birth dates were exposed to suspected spammers as a result of a breach at the email provider.
More here.
Warrant Needed to Get Your E-Mail, Appeals Court Says
David Kravets writes on Threat Level:
More here.
The government must obtain a court warrant to require internet service providers to turn over stored e-mail to the authorities, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.
The decision by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was the first time an appellate court said American’s had that Fourth Amendment protection.
“The government may not compel a commercial ISP to turn over the contents of a subscriber’s emails without first obtaining a warrant [.pdf] based on probable cause,” the appeals court ruled. The decision, one stop short of the Supreme Court, covers Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.
Kevin Bankston, a privacy attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, applauded the decision.
“I expect e-mail providers across the country will comply with this,” he said in a telephone interview.
More here.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Hundreds of Banking Sites Vulnerable to RSA Security Flaw, Researcher Finds
Brian Prince writes on eWeek:
More here.
RSA, EMC’s security division, is advising customers to apply a two-year-old patch for its Adaptive Authentication product after a researcher discovered hundreds of banking Websites are still open to attack.
RSA Adaptive Authentication is a risk-based fraud prevention and authentication platform that measures risk indicators to identify suspicious activities. According to RSA, versions 2.x and 5.7.x of the on-premise edition of the product are vulnerable to cross-site scripting due to a Flash Shockwave file provided by the Adaptive Authentication system.
The vulnerability in question was actually patched in 2008, but was brought back into focus recently when Nir Goldshlager, a security consultant with Avnet Technologies, discovered many online banking sites were still vulnerable to attack, something he uncovered after searching for the affected filename in Google. He reported his discovery to RSA in November.
Still, hundreds of sites remain vulnerable, he told eWEEK today.
More here.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
At the shore…
Spent a rainy Saturday sight seeing locally :).
Two years in Chennai and this was my first trip ever to Mahabalipuram, popularly abbreviated as Mahabs!
A pleasant early morning drive on ECR (which is also promoted as the Entertainment corridor with a series of theme parks, beaches, resorts and boat houses) to Mahabalipuram/ Mammallapuram, leaving the noise and pollution of the buzzing city behind, is such a relief.
The sea that welcomed us at the Shore Temple was quite boisterous…I love the sight of waves crashing on rocks…
The exquisite Dravidian architecture of the temple is an absolute WOW! What was hilarious ofcourse was the entry fee – Rs 10 for Indians and Rs 250 for Non-Indians!
It’s a pity that this wonderful structure is getting ruined/eroded because of the continuous sea breeze and nothing really is being done to preserve it…
The cyclonic torrential downpour during the day did nothing to deter our crazy spirits. Inspite of the incessant rains, we were able to complete the tour of the temples, the pancha rathas (five chariots), the caves, Krishna’s butter ball, Descent of the Ganges and Arjuna’s penance - Each beautifully and intricately carved sculpture reminiscent of the grandeur of Pallava art.
After lunch at Moon Rakers (a non-veggie’s delight and a veggie’s nightmare), we headed towards Mudaliarkuppam – on ECR, around 50 kms before Pondicherry. This is a boat house that offers water sports such as water skiing, water scooting, boating etc.
Given the weather conditions, we were not allowed to ski/scoot.
However, the boating experience through the backwaters was a lot of fun. We were transported in a motor boat from the back waters to an almost-exclusive beach – we thoroughly enjoyed playing in the warm saline waters, splashing and falling with the waves and collecting sea shells!
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Cyber Theft of $200,000 from Gregg County Texas
Via 12NewsNow.com (AP).
Link.
An East Texas county has halted electronic fund transfers after cyber hackers believed to be in Russia allegedly stole $200,000 in tax-related funds.
The Longview News-Journal reported Tuesday that Gregg County, state and federal authorities are investigating.
Tax assessor/collector Kirk Shields said Monday that local tax payments destined for schools and cities were hijacked.
Shields says confirmation of Nov. 23 theft, discovered in progress and traced to a website in Moscow, has led to changes in the county's method for moving funds.
Thieves use malicious software, known as malware, to infect the computers of unsuspecting users by e-mail. Shields says a county employee who mistakenly unleashed the virus has been suspended for violating cyber-security policy.
Efforts continue to retrieve the funds and identify the hackers.
Link.
In Remembrance: Pearl Harbor
USS California sinking.Pearl Harbor Collection of pictures taken by military personnel.
Image source: Wikimedia
You Are Not Forgotten
On this day in 1941 -- a day that will live in infamy -- the Imperial Japanese Navy made its attack on Pearl Harbor.
The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii, was aimed at the Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy and its defending Army Air Corps and Marine air forces. The attack damaged or destroyed twelve U.S. warships, destroyed 188 aircraft, and killed 2,403 American servicemen and 68 civilians.
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto planned the raid as the start of the Pacific Campaign of World War II, and it was commanded by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, who lost 64 servicemen. However, the Pacific Fleet's three aircraft carriers were not in port and so were undamaged, as were oil tank farms and machine shops. Using these resources the United States was able to rebound within six months to a year.
The U.S. public saw the attack as a treacherous act and rallied strongly against the Japanese Empire, resulting in its ultimate defeat.
It absolutely "...awakened the sleeping U.S. behemoth".
Sixty-nine years later, we haven't forgotten.
- ferg
Monday, December 6, 2010
Russian ISPs May Avoid Responsibility for 'Sketchy' Content
Via RIA Novosti.
Link.
Russian providers of Internet services may avoid responsibility for offensive or controversial content stored on their servers, according to amendments to the Russian Civil Code proposed by the presidential law codification council, a Russian business daily said on Tuesday.
A new draft Civil Code includes an article stipulating responsibility of Internet providers for their content. The presidential council drew up the amendments to the article following an order by President Dmitry Medvedev, an active Internet user, the Vedomosti paper said.
The bill relieves providers of responsibility for the content if three conditions are met: the controversial content was uploaded to the provider's server "by a client or on his order"; a provider "did not know or should not have known" about the contentiousness of the content; the provider took "prompt measures" to eliminate the consequences of the controversial content storage following a written request by a third party.
The measures to be taken will be specified in a special law on Internet providers, Vedomosti said. According to the proposed amendments, a provider is obligated to delete the content within three days, suspend the domain on a written police request and limit access to questionable information upon a prosecutor's request.
Link.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Europe Wary of U.S. Bank Monitors
Eric Lichtblau writes in The New York Times:
More here.
When the European Parliament ordered a halt in February to an American government program to monitor international banking transactions for terrorist activity, the Obama administration was blindsided by the rebuke.
“Paranoia runs deep especially about US intelligence agencies,” a secret cable from the American Embassy in Berlin said. “We were astonished to learn how quickly rumors about alleged U.S. economic espionage” had taken root among German politicians who opposed the program, it said.
The memo was among dozens of State Department cables that revealed the deep distrust of some traditional European allies toward what they considered American intrusion into their citizens’ affairs without stringent oversight.
The program, created in secrecy by the Bush administration after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, has allowed American counterterrorism officials to examine banking transactions routed through a vast database run by a Brussels consortium known as Swift. When the program was disclosed in 2006 by The New York Times, just months after the newspaper reported the existence of the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program, it set off protests in Europe and forced the United States to accept new restrictions.
More here.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
FBI Allegedly Looking for Russian Spy Inside NSA
Ian Allen writes on intelNews.org:
Link.
American counterintelligence investigators are allegedly trying to uncover at least one Russian-handled double agent operating inside the US National Security Agency (NSA), according to information published on Wednesday in The Washington Times.
The paper based its allegation on an interview with an anonymous “former intelligence official” with close ties to the NSA —America’s largest intelligence agency, which is tasked with worldwide communications surveillance as well as communications security.
The anonymous source told the Times that the probe is directly connected to the arrest of nearly a dozen Russian deep-cover operatives by the FBI last summer. Washington eventually exchanged the Russian spies with several Western-handled Russian operatives captured by Moscow and held in Russian prisons. But the FBI allegedly believes that the deep-cover operatives, most of whom used false identity papers and had lived in the US for years, were primarily tasked with aiding at least one Russian-handled double spy operating inside the NSA’s Forge George F. Meade headquarters, in the US state of Maryland.
The anonymous intelligence source said that, not only the FBI, but the NSA is also “convinced” that “one or more Russian spies” are active inside the Agency, as well as perhaps in other Pentagon-affiliated intelligence agencies, including the Defense Intelligence Agency.
The Times contacted NSA and FBI representatives in connection with the anonymous revelations, but both agencies refused comment.
Link.
The call of the wild…
(2010 could easily qualify as “the year of the travelogues” for me…have made so many trips this year - and no, I am not complaining!)
This weekend it was the call of the wild –a safari adventure to the lush greens of Mudumalai (in Tamil Nadu) and around.
A lot of firsts this time around too…And here they are…
Tree Houses!
Yep, we actually got to stay in a tree house – a bamboo structure on stilts on top of a tree – a little rickety but the highlight was the visit by a monkey through the window. No amount of shrieking and shooing could deter it from keeping away!
Here’s the tree house we stayed in…
Zip-Lining
We crossed a river stream on a cable while being attached to a free moving pulley. I felt a little scared in the beginning – the moment when you have to just let go – that primal fear of not having any support to cling on – but after all the cajoling and cheering from everybody I did let go, and lo behold – suspended mid-air is so much fun!
Managed posing “up in the air”…
Jumaring
Jumaring is a basic rock climbing technique wherein you use ascenders on a rope to climb. At our resort, a rope was suspended from a tree and we had to climb to the top. This activity required immense physical exertion. I realized that pulling your body up is the most difficult thing ever. My fore-arms and shoulders have been aching for days together since then. The free-fall after reaching the top was as thrilling as any roller-coaster ride.
We also did the wild life safari but it wasn’t too great. We got to see:
- Peacocks…
- Langurs…(check out the dude’s expressive eyes)
- Monkeys…(cute yet dangerous)
- A lone wild tusker (elephant)…
- Bisons (from really far off)…
- An immensely adorable tree squirrel…
- And of course the spotted beauties (deer)…
P.S. No tigers (Mudumalai has a count of 86 tigers) and no huge herds of elephants :(.
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