Since I can't say much about what happened yesterday, atleast let me say this,
Threats are the penultimate resort of the incompetent - by
Isaac Asimov
posted by 88Pro / Monday, March 29, 2004
Ok now don’t panic. That’s not entirely true; it’s not an open book for everyone, but for people who know how to read it, it is and that itself sounds bad enough !!!!
Of late the popularity of instant messaging has grown tremendously and has become part and parcel of everyday life at least in the field of IT, but have you ever stopped to think, that someone might be reading all your conversations?
Before getting all excited about it let us get the facts of Ethernet (
IEEE 802.3) straight. Computers communicating in an Ethernet LAN could be attributed to group of people talking to each other in a room. When Mike says “Tony, what’s the time now?”, even though all the others in the room can hear, they will choose to ignore because the question is not “addressed” to them. However Tony will respond to the question. Now, if anyone else were really interested they could intrude into Mike’s and Tony’s conversation by just listening to them. In such a set up, will you still communicate any sensitive information? I Don’t Think So. The best alternative would be to develop a code language so that even if others heard what you are talking, they will not be able to understand anything, and that’s equivalent to
encrypting your data in computing jargon.
Unfortunately, most of the communication protocols especially
Instant Messaging(IM) protocols don’t encrypt their data before sending and thus giving unauthorized access to your communication.
Now I’m sure you must be under the impression that listening to a network is indeed rocket science!!!
Not at all, it is actually easier than you think as long as you know what tools to use. There is one such powerful tool available out there called
Ethereal. These network monitoring tools are like fire, you can use it for the betterment of humanity and also for destructive purposes.
If you were wondering what I was doing with Ethereal, I downloaded it to experiment with GTP’ (GPRS Tunneling Protocol). My primary aim was to look into the possibility of using Ethereal to capture GTP packets and saving it as binary files but to my disappointment I could only view the content of the packet but not save it as a binary file. However, after playing around with Ethereal, all the IMs are strictly for official messages only:-)
posted by 88Pro / Monday, March 29, 2004
One of my ex student logged on with a MSN nick name “
The more alternatives, the more difficult the choice” but then again “
The less alternatives, not much of a choice at all”
posted by 88Pro / Wednesday, March 24, 2004
While reading the book "
Peopleware : Productive Projects and Teams" everything seemed so familiar that I wanted to write a little review about why all the IT managers should read this book. Then again,
Joel had done that
already so let me not reinvent the wheel. One thing just struck me was this paragraph from the book
[Quote]
Managers jeopardize product quality by setting unreachable deadlines. They don’t think about their action in such terms; they think rather that what they’re doing is throwing down an interesting challenge to their workers, something to help them strive for excellence.
Experienced (jaded) workers know otherwise. They know that under the gun, their efforts will be over constrained. There will be no freedom to trade off resources to make on-time delivery possible. They won’t have the option of more people or reduced function. The only thing to give on will be quality. Workers kept under extreme time pressure will begin to scarifies quality. They will push problems under the rug to be dealt with later or foisted onto the product’s end user. They will deliver products that are unstable and not really complete. They will hate what they are doing, but what other choice do they have?
(from Peopleware, Chapter 4 – Quality If Time Permits, Page 20)
[Unquote]
if (Sounds_Familiar):
if (isManager):
Buy the book
Read it
Make your product and work place better
else:
Buy the book
Read it
Give it to your manager to read it
posted by 88Pro / Friday, March 19, 2004
With a case of Pepsi and beer we started our 4 hour tour around the island with Ferny. He was nice enough as always to take us around the island, and yes it does take just 4 hours to circle the boundaries of the island. We went through all 6 municipal councils of Pohnpei. The traditional houses are nice and are made out of wood. Dense tree cover, especially Banana covered either side of the road, yet the houses were not congested, and free from any pollution. The area looked and felt kind of like Sri Lankan ‘hill-country’ up north, but with tropical weather. It was a really nice experience and my thanks to Ferny for taking us around and most importantly for answering many a stupid question. :-)
The system here operates quite differently than in Sri Lanka. For example the electricity is Prepaid. You pay an amount to the electricity board and buy a certain amount of units and then charge your meter with that. For taxis you pay 1$ within city limits regardless of where you get in or where you get off. However, if there is room in the taxi, it will pick up more people along the way. Unlike in Sri Lanka, that taxi is not exclusively for you, even if you are the only person in it. Driving, Doors and switches all work to American standards.
Tamim introduced us to one of his good friends Felix. A very nice guy indeed, and a great cook too, in fact he cooks for us all kinds of Indian style food. Since Indian or Sri Lankan food is fairly hard to come by in these parts, he is an absolute godsend to us. All we have to do is buy him the ingredients and he will do all the cooking for the five of us and then wait for us to come to dinner after work. I don’t know anyone else who will cook for 5 unknown guys and wait for them, without expecting anything in return.
It’s just amazing getting to know all the great people who live here.
posted by 88Pro / Sunday, March 14, 2004
If we make peaceful revolution impossible, we make violent revolution inevitable. - John Kennedy
[No comments]
Naturally the common people don't want war... but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along... All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. - Hermann Goering, 1936
[Hermann Goering have understood the politicians more than anyone 67 years back]
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. - Isaac Asimov
It is impossible to prepare simultaneously for war and peace and still have time for golf.
[Isn’t this what is happening in Sri Lankan now? (Going to War for Peace)]
If Christ had died in the 20th century, Catholics would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks. - Lenny Bruce
[Just thought this was funny]
There is no reason in the world to fight, however there is every reason to need to know how to fight. - Sun Tzu, The Art of War
War - it doesn't determine who's right, only who's left.
[People who still want to go to war don’t realize this simple fact.]
For more quotes visit
Quotes File. I got the links to the Quotes File through
Ted's weblog.
posted by 88Pro / Thursday, March 04, 2004
