G33K

Cyberworm la James Bond

2010-12-09T00:00:00+05:30

09 December 2010

MISSION: Infiltrate the highly advanced, securely guarded enemy headquarters where scientists in the clutches of an evil master are secretly building a weapon that can destroy the world. Then render that weapon harmless and escape undetected.

Great article detailing how a cyberworm was designed to counter the threat that typically a la James Bond would be required to solve.

LINK

I loved the way they finished it.

Embedded in different section of the code is another common computer language reference, but this one is misspelled. Instead of saying “DEADFOOT,” a term stolen from pilots meaning a failed engine, this one reads “DEADFOO7.”

Remember something about this blog is called G33k not GEEK :P

Yes, OO7 has returned -- as a computer worm.

Stuxnet. Shaken, not stirred.

Facebookmail - the next big thing ?

2010-11-14T00:00:00+05:30

14 November 2010

On November 15, Facebook will unleash Project Titan to challenge Google's Gmail and other messaging solutions in the crowded market for Web-based e-mail clients. The Webmail client will include personal @facebook.com e-mail addresses for the social network's 500 million-plus users.Titan will also be integrated with Microsoft's Office Web Apps suite, allowing Facebook users to create and share Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote documents. This integration would be the evolution of Microsoft Docs.

While FBMail will compete with Yahoo Mail, Windows Live Hotmail and other countless messaging solutions - the main target here is GMail - possibly, the application which next to Google Search which gives Google it's dominance over Web. It brings in another battle among the tech-giants. Already, there is no love lost between the companies with Google stopping Facebook from importing contacts from GMail as Facebook did not allow the exporting it's contacts to Gmail. Google was right to expect Facebook to make it's contacts open in the same way as Google does. Facebook of course couldn't allow it. Facebook, of course circumvented this by creating a custom script.

The battle for Web dominance will definitely take another twist tomorrow. Google, of course will give a good battle - with the rumoured 'Google Me' in the works this battle will be long and hard.

The thing here is that Google are bound by their motto - Don't be Evil - they at least try not to. Facebook has no such qualms. With privacy leaks time and again for all uninformed users - the leaks are many. Reminds of twoface

"You thought we could be decent men in an indecent time. But you were wrong. The world is cruel, and the only morality in a cruel world is chance. Unbiased. Unprejudiced. Fair."
Two-Face (The Dark Knight)

All this and Facebook is now banned in Saudi Arabia. A day after a Palestinian barber was arrested for registering atheistic sentiments on several Facebook accounts, Saudi Arabia has banned that social network outright. Link

I for one will not be moving to Facebook mail unless and until they provide a compelling reason or feauture for me to do so.

All of this bodes exciting times for the Web & people like me - grins

Generate year using Javascript

2010-11-06T00:00:00+05:30

06 November 2010

Many times when you write a simple HTML page, at the footer you'll need to include the year in the copright statement. For eg.,

Copyright © 2010 Gautham Ponnu

Many a time, in an infrequently updated site I often forget to update the year at the footer. This was until I came across this useful code snippet to generate the current year using simple javascript.

1 <script type="text/javascript">
2 var d = new Date()
3 document.write(d.getFullYear())
4 </script>

So, a typical usage of this piece of code would be like this.

1 <p>Copyright &copy; <script type="text/javascript">
2 var d = new Date()
3 document.write(d.getFullYear())
4 </script> <a href="http://gauthamponnu.com">Gautham Ponnu</a> 
5 All rights reserved.</p>
6 Please look at the code. Get inspired. Don't steal.

This will produce the above output.

Wicked USB slots

2010-11-02T00:00:00+05:30

02 November 2010

I mean this is wicked. It's really a brilliant idea. Have USB's pluggable into the wall.

Dead Drops’ is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space. I am ‘injecting’ USB flash drives into walls, buildings and curbs accessable to anybody in public space. You are invited to go to these places (so far 5 in NYC) to drop or find files on a dead drop. Plug your laptop to a wall, house or pole to share your favorite files and data. Each dead drop contains a readme.txt file explaining the project.

Dead Drops

Anonymous file sharing. This is innovation. I could never ever walk away from one of those without plugging in.

Although, I could come up with a zillion ways of misusing this - from building an USB bomb to loadin it with gory images.

However, one must not forget that plugging and playing everywhere will lead to contraction of different STD viruses .

P.S: Std - Standard :P

Hello world !

2010-10-30T00:00:00+05:30

30 October 2010

There are really two kinds of blogging I’ve been doing: writing and sharing technical stuff generally desktop customization. However, I soon realized that my limited number of readers were predominantly not interested in any computer-related stuff let alone whatever latest and mightiest conky configuration I had set up. Hence, to cater to my exclusive tech audience I'm starting this new journal of my tech journey

G33k

G33k is simply a dumb word play on the word Geek. Wiki says,

The word geek is a slang term, with different meanings ranging from "a computer expert or enthusiast" to "a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts", with a general pejorative meaning of "a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person, especially one who is perceived to be overly intellectual

Quite a meaning, eh ? In this journal, you'll find me sharing links, information, tips and my views regarding technology and generally geeky things like - Bash scripts, Conky, Web 2.0, Web applications and other random stuff.

Then came the decision over what engine to use. Having already used Wordpress I did not want to use it again. Something like Posterous looked attractive, but I wanted to style my blog, and it needed to be hosted at the domain of my choosing. For the same reason, other hosted sites (tumblr.com etc) were disqualified.

Then I realized to truly realize the true geek, I needed to host this site in a different manner. So, came Jekyll - a ruby static site generator. I also decided to finally use Markdown - something which I wanted to use for a long time. Jekyll is really awesome !

Jekyll is a simple, blog aware, static site generator. It takes a template directory (representing the raw form of a website), runs it through Textile or Markdown and Liquid converters, and spits out a complete, static website suitable for serving with Apache or your favorite web server. This is also the engine behind GitHub Pages, which you can use to host your project’s page or blog right here from GitHub.

Once, I learn enough about the entire system I'm using I'll probably port the entire stuff over at github.

I'm not a coder in the original sense.

I simply like geeky things.

And ya, say Hi to my favourite new pet - Barty ! Like him ?

He's partly inspired from the legendary Bartimaeus of the Trilogy.

His trademark cheekiness and wry, often hilarious side comments annotate the novels. Enjoying insulting his master for appearance, emotions, and stupidity, the chapters that he narrates often contain humorous footnotes that add information on the nature of spirits and his history. Although he is only a middle-class djinni, his quick wits often save him in difficult situations. He has a fairly large ego, due to his many accomplishments over the ages and often becomes indignant when forced to work with jobs he considers "unworthy of his talents".

Hope you who share the adventure with me enjoy it as much as I do.