Technology, Money and a Lot of Masti

I changed my blog title to something more known to me :P . As you know, previously it was "Technology, Management and a Little Masti" and now as you can see, its "Technology, Money, and a lot of Masti" .

Technology - I love to read, share and read more about latest Technology news, updates.

Money - Over the net from more than a year, I learnt a lot about money earning or more precisely "Making Money Online". This'll include SEO, PTC, PTP, PPC and many other ways of earning money. Thought there are some blackhat ways too and I have tried them. They are really profitable :P

Masti - Previously it was a little masti, this was completely unfair. I cannot live without masti(fun) and now there will be a lot masti. You'll surely enjoy it!!

And one more thing, now I'll try not to investigate any matter. As this blog is not "Learn FBI's way of investigation blog" :P

Some days ago, I read in newspaper that 3 undersea internet cables got cut. The newspaper article mentioned that the ISP's will route traffic through different lines. Experts warned that though it'll work but it'll slow down the whole internet. And it did, it disrupted internet services badly in India. Here are some of the interesting comments from different people I read on the topic-

I have been watching the email all day waiting for an important email, and I have only gotten 12 SPAM emails all day. Normally I get at least 100 everyday, wow.

Cable have a natural hum which can attract sharks. Cables are also prone to earthquakes as well.

Ships dragging the anchors typically break these cables, however earth quakes wreak them as well. The breaks happen quite often, but the public don't notice due to multiple routes/cables and prevention of nigh on impossible.

“It is incredibly rare to experience a dual-break where both cables are down simultaneously,” said a spokesperson for Interoute, the internet networks company.

Its so incredibly rare that it's happenned twice in one year! That's not rare. Getting hit by lightning is incredibly rare, not this!

In a unrelated story, Internet SPAM drastically declined today. Some speculate that the reduction is in the 60 to 70% range.

Could this be the work of terrorists too?

Can it be?

Its clear from the above comments - This is the work of TERRORISTS. They are afraid of internet that's why destroying cables by bombing and farting.

Now being serious, the cables that were cut belongs to FALCON . And the cause was reported to be caused either by bad weather or a ship's anchor, though the bad weather was just a possibility and the anchor a much more likely occurrence. There are some conspiracy theories too on this topic might be related to terrorists, you can read them here.

After reporting of the issue, I mentioned in previous post, to MSP india team. Dreamsparkindia changed their FAQ, while their site was down for a day. The new point added in FAQ is -

Q: Are authorized DreamSpark partners allowed to charge a fee for distributing DreamSpark DVDs to eligible students in India?

A. Microsoft has made this software available at no charge at www.dreamspark.com. However, authorized DreamSpark partners are allowed to charge a small fee (not more than Rs. 50 per DVD) as a DVD replication and Student verification charge for offline distribution in India. Remember to ask for a receipt.

Actually, I was a bit late in posting the previous post due to my external exams. The whole investigation(so called) was done after a few days of Dreamspark launching in India. This change(FAQ update) was brought to my notice by a mail I received from MSP India team. I had checked their FAQ again and again before reporting the issue. So, I very well know their was no such point. They added the third point in the cost section of FAQ after MSP India Team contacted them.

As soon as Microsoft Dreamspark was announced in India, I was eager to get the Dreamspark DVD. So, I went to the Indore centers for collecting it. But , I found it surprising that i would have to pay for it. Here's the story in detail -

One of the centers was asking for attending a workshop costing Rs.550, to get the free Dreamspark DVD. Then, I rushed to the next center for getting the free DVD. Actually, I was like investigating about it at every center. I took myself as an authority being an MSP ;) The second center was asking for Rs.50 for the DVD, they said the software is free but not the DVD. I told them its clearly written "Collect DVD containing software at no cost" on Dreamsparkindia website. But the personnel sitting there was so rude and unprofessional that he declined to give me a proper answer. I even purchased the DVD(for Rs.50) and asked for a slip but he said "I cannot give it" . And he has not asked me for any student verification too. Its like selling the DVD. Now, I inquired about the Dreamspark DVD at the third and last center of Indore. But came know that the center was closed 2-3 months ago.


After all this, I contacted MSP india team to inform them about all this. They took action and the centers for indore got a representative from Hughes(the co-sponsor of Dreamsparkindia). I contacted him and asked about the DVD. But I got the same answer that the DVD is not free, its the software. Though he was really polite, professional and helpful. I'm not complaining about Rs.50, but they should make it clear on their site that DVD costs Rs.50. So that people like me don't begin to investigate and snatch the title of Sherlock Homes "The best detective". ;)

Smartphone France got exclusive pics of Windows Mobile 6.5, which they say "are close to Windows Mobile 7". Here are the pics and a translated quote from their site.

While the arrival of Windows Mobile 6.5 for the year 2009 was announced here and there, then confirmed by Steve Balmer himself at the PDC 2008, Smartphone France is very pleased to present exclusive World 2 first screenshots of what should be Windows Mobile 6.5.

If for the moment there is no real information on the new version of Windows Mobile, what is happening is that Microsoft has finally decided to redesign the interface of the aging systems to try to catch up with his lags behind its competitors.

At visual we can see that Windows Mobile 6.5 is very close to what should be Windows Mobile 7. At visual we can see that Windows Mobile 6.5 is very close to what should be Windows Mobile 7. Does it mean that Microsoft has decided to completely revise their copy as regards WM7 and we propose intermediate version which should be initially WM7? Does it mean that Microsoft has decided to completely revise their copy as regards WM7 and we propose intermediate version which should be initially WM7? In all what whatever happens in a case closely monitor ... In all what whatever happens in a case closely monitor ... although it will take many months before seeing a new version of Windows Mobile on the market. although it will take many months before seeing a new version of Windows Mobile on the market.

I love firefox, no doubt. Its the safest , coolest and most customizable browser (according to me and many others). Firefox 3.0.3 has got 11 vulnerabilites , out of which 4 are critical. It'll be good to have a little info about them.Here's a quote from zdnet about the vulnerabilities -

Four of the 11 flaws covered with the new Firefox 3.0.4 are rated “critical” because of the risk of code execution attacks via specially rigged Web pages.

The four critical vulnerabilities are:

• MFSA 2008-55 Crash and remote code execution in nsFrameManager. A vulnerability in part of Mozilla’s DOM constructing code can be exploited by modifying certain properties of a file input element before it has finished initializing. When the blur method of the modified input element is called, uninitialized memory is accessed by the browser, resulting in a crash. This crash may be used by an attacker to run arbitrary code on a victim’s computer.
• MFSA 2008-54 Buffer overflow in http-index-format parser. This is a flaw in the way Mozilla parses the http-index-format MIME type. By sending a specially crafted 200 header line in the HTTP index response, an attacker can cause the browser to crash and run arbitrary code on the victim’s computer.
• MFSA 2008-53 XSS and JavaScript privilege escalation via session restore. The browser’s session restore feature can be used to violate the same-origin policy and run JavaScript in the context of another site. Any otherwise unexploitable crash can be used to force the user into the session restore state. This vulnerability could also be used by an attacker to run arbitrary JavaScript with chrome privileges.
• MFSA 2008-52 Crashes with evidence of memory corruption. Mozilla developers identified and fixed several stability bugs in the browser engine used in Firefox and other Mozilla-based products. Some of these crashes showed evidence of memory corruption under certain circumstances and we presume that with enough effort at least some of these could be exploited to run arbitrary code.

The Firefox update also fixes the following issues:

• MFSA 2008-58 Parsing error in E4X default namespace
• MFSA 2008-57 -moz-binding property bypasses security checks on codebase principals
• MFSA 2008-56 nsXMLHttpRequest::NotifyEventListeners() same-origin violation
• MFSA 2008-51 file: URIs inherit chrome privileges when opened from chrome
• MFSA 2008-47 Information stealing via local shortcut files