All through the time I spent developing WLAN software, security was always the bottleneck. We always had to keep one thing at the back of our minds - if security isn't improved, all this work is gonna get flushed down the drain!
Fears about security have prevented WLAN from achieving all that it can potentially achieve. It was ridiculously easy for someone to break into a wireless LAN. 802.11i was seen to be the saviour, but the infighting among the various stakeholders always prevented the mechanisms defined under 802.11i from being accepted globally.
Isn't it absolutely predictable to see this kind of a comment on any technology news coming out of India?!
For your information, every month, roughly 1.5 million new subscribers are added to the mobile phone user base in India which was about 28 million in December last year.
Till about a year or two ago, there was a definite urban-rural divide in terms of mobile phone usage. This was mostly due to the fact that the mobile phone market had only a few private operators who used to charge exorbitant rates in the absence of real competition. But all that changed with factors like - free incoming calls - entry of 'Reliance' in the mobile phone operator market and its introduction of cheap CDMA-based phones - entry of state-run mobile phone operators like BSNL, MTNL
All these factors meant that mobile phones came within the grasp of anyone and everyone. And we have domestic maids, chauffeurs, vegetable vendors, etc. brandishing mobiles and even doing their business on it!
It will take most of the world a long time to digest this, but the fact remains that the mobile revolution is a reality in India.
... proselytizing would be the last thing on our minds when aliens attack!
In any case, given that there have been so many 'first-hand reports' of alien performing various 'tests' on earthlings, I would caution the Jehovah's witnesses, trying to convert the aliens, to wear sturdy chastity belts!!
'we call our games tactical decision aids. Our thing is not making people shoot better; it's making people think better'
hmmm... if only they could build a game to help the leaders think better rather than shooting their mouths off!
In any case, these games will only take the soldiers upto one point. After that, comes the most important aspect of urban warfare... the mind of the enemy. That is where the battles are won or lost. And every adversary is prone to thinking differently in a given situation!
... that the top level management usually thinks of open source software only as a means to cut costs while ignoring the inherent benefits vis-a-vis the quality and the robustness of the software.
I'm afraid that isn't a valid comparison and won't count as prior art in this case. Bootable floppies do not autostart when inserted into the floppy drive. It is only during the boot-up process that these floppies would be accessed and read without human interaction.
... now we need an auto dialer kinda instrument that dials the support centre number and starts cursing/swearing non-stop till the system on the other end transfer you to a customer support executive!
I think a lot of people in the US equate Indian software companies with the Nike sweatshops... which is a part of this whole problem of outsourcing angst!
Indian techies have been going up the software development value chain for some time now.
Since I'm an Indian techie, I'll attempt to answer that. But the disclaimer is that these are purely my personal views and not a general Indian opinion.
Do the IT professionals you've met feel that US companies and the US government used bait-and-switch tactics to take advantage of cheaper non-US workers? Or did those applying for H1-B visas know what they were in for?
It is quite clear that the US companies are using the tactics of outsourcing purely for their own financial benefit. It is extremely naive to think otherwise. And this is not just a US phenomenon. Every company around the world that outsources cheaper expertise and/or labour is doing just that... trying to get a competitive edge over its rivals by cutting costs. And I am sure that all the Indian developers (all but some of the greenhorns fresh out of college) know this fact when they're getting into it.
So why do the Indians still do it?
The Indian software firms use the US necessity as an opportunity to grow themselves internationally. An Indian company bagging a key US contract can proudly proclaim their achievement and use it as a differentiator amongst its local peers.
Some of the developers, who are geekily inclined, love the opportunity of doing some 'quality development' and so they hardly complain. Others are overjoyed at the prospect of travelling to the US and hence jump onto the bandwagon!
And a follow-up question: does anyone think that US companies will hesitate to leave their outsourcing partners high and dry as soon as they (again) find a cheaper alternative?
I, for one, don't entertain illusions that the US companies would fall in love with our work and ignore cheaper alternatives if they present themselves. I don't think anyone else here does either!
With the US (and the global) economy having gone through a rough patch over the last year, the Indian companies have slashed their margins big time, to remain attractive for the Us companies to continue doing business with them. And I think the Indians have understood that in the immediate future they will need to stay one step ahead of their competitors by being the cheapest even though India has managed to brand itself as a key mover of the knowledge-based economy.
There are two points to be considered here... 1. Internet Campaigning 2. Productization of politics/politicians
Its all well for us to be discussing why Dean has done so badly inspite of his Internet-campaign. But the fact is that with over 98% of American households owning television and with each American watching over 4 hours of television daily, on an average, its naive to underestimate power of the television and in turn, the power of the networks. Compared with that, under 80% of the households own a personal computer. While television is a mass medium, the Internet is still a personal medium. So it was foolish of Dean to ignore this simple fact.
But yes, he has shown that it is possible to bypass the big networks entirely and still make an impact!
Coming to the second issue... that of productization of politics and/or politicians, well, its a mutual thing! The politicians consider the voters as mere means to get elected. Moreover, the people are fed information, by the politicians, that they would find easy to accept. Productization of politicis is this method of putting a spin on everything. And its not a bad thing by default.
PS: Since September 11, US security agencies have increasingly turned to technology to help them process website postings, internet chat and e-mail traffic....and still no sign of Osama Bin Laden.
Exactly!... and they won't catch him till Osama brings his audio and video recorders (the ones that he uses to make all those tapes) online!;-)
I dunno who's the more naive of the lot... Government - for thinking that it can catch the Osamas of this world by developing such softwares...
or the Public - for thinking that the law-abiding citizens don't have anything to worry about these anti-privacy initiatives...
I have always failed to understand why the ISS was built in the first place! It is like a large floating airport in the middle of the ocean! (take some time to see how aptly the analogy fits)
If it was supposed to be a "jumping off point" for space shuttles, as the senior Mr. Bush had envisaged, then the best location for it would have been on the Moon. In any case, I dunno how much reduction in size of the spacecraft or an increase in its speed could be gained by having a refueling base so close to the earth!
The energy and the money spent on this white elephant would have been better utilized in setting up a base on the moon!
But then of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing!
This kind of parallel Rover activity is cutting a lot of research timescales into half and thats a very good news indeed!
But getting all excited about a base on Mars is premature, to say the least! We're still decades away for that to become a feasible option. A case in point is Moon. People have dreamt of setting up bases on moon ever since Man landed there. But it is only now that proposals for such a base are being considered technologically and economically viable. A Mars base is still a distant dream.
By the way... Opportunity's discovery of a huge hematite deposit (its said to be the size of Oklahoma!) points to the possible presence of water some time in the past. But the scientists are not getting too excited about it yet because the hematite can also be formed by the direct oxidation of hot, iron-rich lava.
While LoTR basically is a good versus evil story wrapped in adventure, The Hobbit is an out and out adventure story. It would look wonderful on the big screen.
And it would give a chance for Peter Jackson to prove that prequels (though Hobbit isn't exactly a prequel to LoTR) to hugely popular trilogies can work!! *Star Wars... hint hint*
And ohh, I'd much rather see The Hobbit than King Kong.
Slashdot Mirror
All through the time I spent developing WLAN software, security was always the bottleneck. We always had to keep one thing at the back of our minds - if security isn't improved, all this work is gonna get flushed down the drain!
Fears about security have prevented WLAN from achieving all that it can potentially achieve. It was ridiculously easy for someone to break into a wireless LAN. 802.11i was seen to be the saviour, but the infighting among the various stakeholders always prevented the mechanisms defined under 802.11i from being accepted globally.
I hope things will change for the better now!
[nostalgia]
... when I used to lust, in equal measures, for the hottest girl in my class and the soon-to-be-launched Pentium!!
[/nostalgia]
*sigh*
Isn't it absolutely predictable to see this kind of a comment on any technology news coming out of India?!
For your information, every month, roughly 1.5 million new subscribers are added to the mobile phone user base in India which was about 28 million in December last year.
Till about a year or two ago, there was a definite urban-rural divide in terms of mobile phone usage. This was mostly due to the fact that the mobile phone market had only a few private operators who used to charge exorbitant rates in the absence of real competition. But all that changed with factors like
- free incoming calls
- entry of 'Reliance' in the mobile phone operator market and its introduction of cheap CDMA-based phones
- entry of state-run mobile phone operators like BSNL, MTNL
All these factors meant that mobile phones came within the grasp of anyone and everyone. And we have domestic maids, chauffeurs, vegetable vendors, etc. brandishing mobiles and even doing their business on it!
It will take most of the world a long time to digest this, but the fact remains that the mobile revolution is a reality in India.
... proselytizing would be the last thing on our minds when aliens attack!
In any case, given that there have been so many 'first-hand reports' of alien performing various 'tests' on earthlings, I would caution the Jehovah's witnesses, trying to convert the aliens, to wear sturdy chastity belts!!
of course Mr. Rambo!! ... but all your 5.6 mm rounds aren't worth a dime if you're blown to hell by a suicide bomber!!
'we call our games tactical decision aids. Our thing is not making people shoot better; it's making people think better'
... if only they could build a game to help the leaders think better rather than shooting their mouths off!
hmmm
In any case, these games will only take the soldiers upto one point. After that, comes the most important aspect of urban warfare... the mind of the enemy. That is where the battles are won or lost. And every adversary is prone to thinking differently in a given situation!
... then a certain American company had better start looking elsewhere for business!
... that the top level management usually thinks of open source software only as a means to cut costs while ignoring the inherent benefits vis-a-vis the quality and the robustness of the software.
One code to light it all, ...
One coder to code it,
One debugger to miss the bug
and into the darkness lead them.
I'm afraid that isn't a valid comparison and won't count as prior art in this case. Bootable floppies do not autostart when inserted into the floppy drive. It is only during the boot-up process that these floppies would be accessed and read without human interaction.
'Windows' could be a trademark... 'windows' cannot!!
... now we need an auto dialer kinda instrument that dials the support centre number and starts cursing/swearing non-stop till the system on the other end transfer you to a customer support executive!
... if these are the only Nokia models which are affected by this vulnerability.
What about other models that have Bluetooth? Are they safe from this security hole?
Everyone knows that you jump on the bandwagon. Jumping onto the bandwagon is the kinda stuff Apu says
... Think again!!
Are you absolutely certain about that?
uhh... I'm an Indian.
I think a lot of people in the US equate Indian software companies with the Nike sweatshops... which is a part of this whole problem of outsourcing angst!
Indian techies have been going up the software development value chain for some time now.
Since I'm an Indian techie, I'll attempt to answer that. But the disclaimer is that these are purely my personal views and not a general Indian opinion.
Do the IT professionals you've met feel that US companies and the US government used bait-and-switch tactics to take advantage of cheaper non-US workers? Or did those applying for H1-B visas know what they were in for?
It is quite clear that the US companies are using the tactics of outsourcing purely for their own financial benefit. It is extremely naive to think otherwise. And this is not just a US phenomenon. Every company around the world that outsources cheaper expertise and/or labour is doing just that... trying to get a competitive edge over its rivals by cutting costs. And I am sure that all the Indian developers (all but some of the greenhorns fresh out of college) know this fact when they're getting into it.
So why do the Indians still do it?
The Indian software firms use the US necessity as an opportunity to grow themselves internationally. An Indian company bagging a key US contract can proudly proclaim their achievement and use it as a differentiator amongst its local peers.
Some of the developers, who are geekily inclined, love the opportunity of doing some 'quality development' and so they hardly complain. Others are overjoyed at the prospect of travelling to the US and hence jump onto the bandwagon!
And a follow-up question: does anyone think that US companies will hesitate to leave their outsourcing partners high and dry as soon as they (again) find a cheaper alternative?
I, for one, don't entertain illusions that the US companies would fall in love with our work and ignore cheaper alternatives if they present themselves. I don't think anyone else here does either!
With the US (and the global) economy having gone through a rough patch over the last year, the Indian companies have slashed their margins big time, to remain attractive for the Us companies to continue doing business with them. And I think the Indians have understood that in the immediate future they will need to stay one step ahead of their competitors by being the cheapest even though India has managed to brand itself as a key mover of the knowledge-based economy.
There are two points to be considered here...
1. Internet Campaigning
2. Productization of politics/politicians
Its all well for us to be discussing why Dean has done so badly inspite of his Internet-campaign. But the fact is that with over 98% of American households owning television and with each American watching over 4 hours of television daily, on an average, its naive to underestimate power of the television and in turn, the power of the networks. Compared with that, under 80% of the households own a personal computer. While television is a mass medium, the Internet is still a personal medium. So it was foolish of Dean to ignore this simple fact.
But yes, he has shown that it is possible to bypass the big networks entirely and still make an impact!
Coming to the second issue... that of productization of politics and/or politicians, well, its a mutual thing! The politicians consider the voters as mere means to get elected. Moreover, the people are fed information, by the politicians, that they would find easy to accept. Productization of politicis is this method of putting a spin on everything. And its not a bad thing by default.
well yes... you're right. I needed to qualify my statement better!
... that people realize that there no free lunches and stop falling for such freebies that claim to be knights in shining armor!
But really... its the lowest form of indecency that some of these anti-spyware guys are perpetrating!
Didn't they know something as simple as...
"Make it idiot-proof, and someone will make a better idiot"
PS: Since September 11, US security agencies have increasingly turned to technology to help them process website postings, internet chat and e-mail traffic....and still no sign of Osama Bin Laden.
... and they won't catch him till Osama brings his audio and video recorders (the ones that he uses to make all those tapes) online! ;-)
Exactly!
I dunno who's the more naive of the lot...
Government - for thinking that it can catch the Osamas of this world by developing such softwares...
or the Public - for thinking that the law-abiding citizens don't have anything to worry about these anti-privacy initiatives...
I have always failed to understand why the ISS was built in the first place! It is like a large floating airport in the middle of the ocean! (take some time to see how aptly the analogy fits)
If it was supposed to be a "jumping off point" for space shuttles, as the senior Mr. Bush had envisaged, then the best location for it would have been on the Moon. In any case, I dunno how much reduction in size of the spacecraft or an increase in its speed could be gained by having a refueling base so close to the earth!
The energy and the money spent on this white elephant would have been better utilized in setting up a base on the moon!
But then of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing!
This kind of parallel Rover activity is cutting a lot of research timescales into half and thats a very good news indeed!
But getting all excited about a base on Mars is premature, to say the least! We're still decades away for that to become a feasible option. A case in point is Moon. People have dreamt of setting up bases on moon ever since Man landed there. But it is only now that proposals for such a base are being considered technologically and economically viable. A Mars base is still a distant dream.
By the way... Opportunity's discovery of a huge hematite deposit (its said to be the size of Oklahoma!) points to the possible presence of water some time in the past. But the scientists are not getting too excited about it yet because the hematite can also be formed by the direct oxidation of hot, iron-rich lava.
While LoTR basically is a good versus evil story wrapped in adventure, The Hobbit is an out and out adventure story. It would look wonderful on the big screen.
And it would give a chance for Peter Jackson to prove that prequels (though Hobbit isn't exactly a prequel to LoTR) to hugely popular trilogies can work!! *Star Wars... hint hint*
And ohh, I'd much rather see The Hobbit than King Kong.