Myths about Security and Privacy in Social Network

Somehow, Security and Privacy have become major concerns in Social Network. This wasn't the case earlier, there's lot of debate going on and lots and lots of people blaming the technology for it. Is Security and Privacy a problem related to Social Network? It's difficult to answer this question. But, can technology solve the problem? No, this problem cannot be solved with the use of technology. My friend was claiming that the problem with FB is privacy related issues which is not present in g+(Note: I'm a hater of FB). But i do not agree with him. The problem is with him, the way he sees the social network. In this blog, i'll share some of my views related to security and privacy in Social Network.

• First of all, some people suggest  you not to share sensitive information in Social Networks. Well, that's a good advice to give but they try to define what sensitive information means. Well that's an absurd thing. What might be a sensitive information to me need not be a sensitive information to others. So, it's upto the individual user to decide what information he/she shares and does that information compromise the security.

• Next, people say that limiting the audience with whom you share is a solution to the Security and Privacy problem. Really? Really?? Really??? I don't think so. People make lot of assumptions which doesn't hold when making such claims. I'll tell you why limiting the audience doesn't work.

• The first assumption is limiting audience means trusting a subset of people in your friend list. How can you trust them? For example, I may send a friend request to my close childhood friend. But, how do I confirm his Identity. That profile could be an Parody Account or he maybe sharing his account with someone else or it could be hacked.  So, limiting the audience may still compromise your privacy.
• You can trust him/her. But, he/she could be using some apps which compromises his/her privacy. The app could be using all the information which is shared with him/her. Most of the people don't look for permissions while installing an app. Not only his/her privacy is compromised but even yours.

So, limiting the audience doesn't help you much. There are ways to get information you share on the internet. 

Suggestions:
Security and Privacy is not a concern in Social Network. According to me, "Social Network  is a virtual world where everything is virtual" That's it. You do exist and unexist at the same time. Never try to map anything from the virtual world to the real world. These two are mutually exclusive sets with only characteristics and not content in common.
Be careful and decide what you reveal in Social Network because no Social Network can guarantee you privacy. The problem is not with them it's with the humans who use it.
As the Chinese proverb says, "To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven, and the same key opens the gates of hell".

Yet Another Tutorial on how to download Streaming Songs and Videos in firefox!

Yes, as the title says this is Yet Another Tutorial on how to download videos and songs from streaming sites. This blog doesn't use and recommend any add-ons (even though the blog writer uses most of the time).

There are numerous add-ons which does the same thing, but, still why do i need to follow these instructions?

Yes, you could use any add-on, but, still there are numerous sites in the infinite web from which these add-ons doesn't allow you to download content.

If these add-ons cannot download then how can one download>

The answer is simple any content from the web is cached in your system for some time. In the same way any video or audio is temporarily saved in your system. That's the reason why you see buffering when you watch some video for the first time. If you immediately replay the video or without closing that tab for some time and come back to play that video it doesn't require any buffering.
 

So, that's the solution once you allow a video or an audio to buffer completely, you just have to find where it is stored and you can copy that file and save it somewhere else.

In this blog, i'll  show you how to do the same thing in firefox.

• In firefox, go to Edit->Preferences->Advanced->Network.
• You'll see something called as Cached Web Content and next to it Clear Now. Click on Clear Now to completely  delete the cached files.
• Then open a new tab in Firefox, enter about:cache and when you press enter, you'll see a screen with Information about the Cache service.
• Go to  Disk Cache Device and click List Cache entries. Since, you've already cleared the cache it shouldn't take much time to load and you'll see around 20-30 file entries.
• Next, open the web-page which streams the audio or video content and allow it to buffer completely.
• Once the buffering is completed, go the List Cache entries tab and reload it.
• It will present you with a table containing Key, Data Size, Fetch Count, Last Modified and Expires. 
• We are interested in only Data Size and Last Modified fields.
• Go to the directory as specified by the Cache Directory listing.
• Set the view to be List.
• You'll see most of the sub-directory size is zero except 2 or 3  sub-directories. (If you haven't cleared the cache earlier most of the sub-directories would be filled and it would be difficult to search)
• Now look for files with file-size greater than say 500KB.
• Try to play those files with your favourite media player, if it is able to play the file and if this was the audio or video content you were looking for, then just copy the file to wherever you want.

Note

Be aware and be careful about what you are downloading and i'm not responsible for any copyright infringements which you may face.

Disclaimer

Making use of and/or applying any part of the information and/or instructions is fully at your own responsibility.

Evolution of Sati - a practice

Well, you heard that right! Today I'm going to share my first conspiracy theory with you guys. So, let's dive into it.

 

What is Sati?

Before answering what is Sati. Let us look at when it could have started. Well, Wikipedia says that it there are some records of it in 400CE.
 

But, looking at the Indian history, the practice of Sati gained popular significance during the Mughal and British rule. Because, if Sati as projected was a bad practice then, there would be records of some people revolting against it before 15th century. These reports are only found during the Mughal rule and British Rule.

If, Sati wasn't a bad practice then what could it be then? The mythological story behind this is of Sati(Daakshayini) who self-immolated because she was unable to bear her father Daksha's humiliation of her (living) husband Shiva. So, we get a definition for Sati.
 

"Sati was an action intended to be undertaken by few people who thought that there was no meaning to their life after after the demise of their spouse. Here, the survivor immolate herself/himself on her/his’s funeral pyre" 

But somehow as time progressed the new definition came into picture:

"Sati was a social funeral practice among some Indian communities in which a recently widowed woman would immolate herself on her husband’s funeral pyre even without her consent"

Observations:

• There are not much of records of Sati as a practice before 16th century just because it wasn't forced by anyone/any community. Else, there could be someone like Raja Rammohan Roy would have revolted against this and historians wouldn't have forgotten to mention this(Unless the historians are Flatterers).
• So, pre 16th history the so-called Sati Pratice wasn't a practice at all.
• In the 16th century i.e, during the Mughal rule under the ruling of great, noble rulers like Babur et al.(chuckles) the report of Sati as a practice is found.
• It is observed that Rajput Queens used to immolate herself when the King was killed by the opponent king in the battle. They had a reason to, because of the aforementioned rulers like Babur, who kept on adding women to their harem. They couldn't withstand the respect given to them by these rulers, so they preferred death.
 

It became a practice during British East India Company reign. These Britishers had a clever way of establishing themselves in whichever land they invaded. One such tactic, is to convert the inhabitants into Christians. This way they destroyed the tradition and culture, and incepted their belief into the minds of the inhabitants.

 

In India too, they did the same thing. They used various strategies like Divide and Conquer and other things to establish themselves here. 

As mentioned earlier, one such tactic is to convert the inhabitants into Christians. But no one would convert from his religion to other religion simply. They wanted to show that his religion is inferior compared to theirs. But how do you do it? 

This is where they observed the so called practice of Sati by the Rajput Queens. They somehow needed to highlight this, so that it would be a blackspot to Hinduism and show that their religion is better than Hinduism. Without the help of few upper-caste and influential people who could anything for fame, it wasn't possible. They started propagating Sati so that it could be a practice which is what the Britishers wanted.

People used to believe them because they did not have the knowledge of Samskrtam and these people mentioned that they were written in the scriptures and everyone should follow it. So, with great hard work by this social workers Sati slowly started becoming a practice. The Britishers used this along with few other practices accredited to Hinduism as a weapon to convert Hindus into Christians. And then they finally took the privilege of banning something which they started.

All the thoughts which I've shared may or may not be true. But this is what I believe of how Sati as a practice could have been evolved.

10th Anniversary of Pollution-Free दीपावली

This is just great feeling, no crackers, no noise pollution or no air pollution for the past 9 years. This simply makes me feel proud of myself. Yes, that's it, I haven't burnt a cracker from the past 9 years. This दीपावली, if I don't burn crackers(which is for sure), then it becomes 10 years of crackers-free दीपावली.
That means I'm not contributing to air pollution nor noise pollution as others do.
This all started in my school, we had taken an oath that we won't burn crackers and I feel proud that I've kept my word. I believe my friends would have done the same(I know few friends who have kept the words).
I urge that even you guys do the same thing by stop burning crackers and making दीपावली a pollution free festival. This दीपावली let us remove the darkness in our thoughts by lighting the lamp of knowledge and the first step in doing so is by taking an oath not to burn crackers from today.
Happy दीपावली!
दीपावली उत्सवस्य शुभाशयः!

Traffic Congestion in Bengalooru

Well, this is not Yet Another Blog for complaining traffic conditions in Bengalooru or misleading the reader by suggesting some stupid ideas that everyone knows it doesn't work. If that's the case what's the content of this post. Well, I do speak about the traffic conditions in Bengalooru but with a different perspective. I do put some light on some so called solutions and try to show that these things doesn't work.
Before going into what Traffic conditions in Bengalooru let me share what I think about Traffic. In computer networks, "Congestion" occurs when a link is carrying more data than it can carry leading to "Packet loss" or " Queueing Delay" etc. Think about Road also as a link carrying some data, now what happens more vehicles try to go at a time than the width of the road? if, all the vehicles go with same speed then that's fine, otherwise what happens is "Slow Moving Traffic".

If that's the case what are the causes for congestion..

Q. Is it the width of the roads?
A. No, definitely no. It might have been the reason. But looking at the rate at which vehicles are increasing even if you keep on widening roads some day it wouldn't enough.

Q. Is it the poor architecture of the city?
A. Yes, but to some extent.

Q. Is it the Traffic Controlling System in the city?
A. No, the work done by Bangalore City Traffic Police is pretty good.

Q. Is it the BMTC buses blocking most of the available bandwidth of the road?
A. If the same question was asked a month before then I might have said yes, but, this time it's a no. And BMTC bus strike this September has revealed that they are not the true culprits behind traffic problems. People believed that there would be less traffic on that day, but it was the other extreme. The reason is fairly simple people used their private vehicles to travel leading to traffic problems.

Q. Is it people who travel in private vehicles?
A. Finally, you got it right. But I just don't blame them it's also the pedestrians who add to the traffic problems.

Q. But, why is it so?
A. The answer is simple, "No One Follows Traffic Rules". Before explaining my point let me answer one more question.

Q. Can congestion be avoided or the problem can be solved?
A. NO. Congestion cannot be avoided nor the problem can be solved.

If we look at our infrastructure, in most of the localities the width of the road is 40ft. But if we look at the vehicle density, then anyone can say that there can't be "Smooth(actually it's Fast) Traffic flow". The problem is the varying speed of the vehicles.
Just imagine if all the vehicles moved with same speed, there were no overtakings as a result everyone by default followed a single lane. Even if you cannot avoid the "Slow movingness" but there's no "Chaos" in the system and the system is "Deterministic". These are the characteristics of a good network.
But what's happening is everyone are in hurry, they want to reach their destination early. So, they don't care about "Traffic Rules". This brings in chaos in the system and there is utter non-determinism in the model. This makes the model useless.
If everyone stops using their private vehicles and they commute using public transport available, that would bring down the bandwidth problem a lot. Also, if everyone cares for their co-travellers and drives responsibly, then there would be no chaos and system would move towards determinism.
There's no escape from "Traffic Congestion" or "Slow-Moving Traffic" but we could make it "Smooth-Moving Traffic" if only everyone followed traffic rules and drove responsibly.

Xournal

Xournal also X Journal is a note-taking, sketching application on GNU/Linux. It is intended for working with stylus. But still I tried it using on my laptop using touchpad. Initially I found some problems simulating stylus using my touchpad but then I was trained to. Before sharing some features and hot to use it, i'll show some sample document which I used as an exercise while studying.

 

So, Xournal is a full-featured note-taking application. You have "Text Mode" for typing text, "Pen Mode" for writing using stylus or touchpad, "Ruler Mode" to draw lines( I did not use this mode while creating this document), "Highlighter" to highlight some piece of text. Also an "eraser" which you need a lot initially.
Also switching between these modes fairly simple and you can easily remember the shortcuts.

Xournal KeyBoard Shortcuts

Mode	KeyBoard Shortcut
Text Mode	Ctrl+Shift+T
Pen Mode	Ctrl+Shift+P
Ruler Mode	Ctrl+Shift+L
Eraser Mode	Ctrl+Shift+E
Highlight Mode	Ctrl+Shift+H

There are some more options which I haven't explored. You can export the file as a pdf file. There are various other options which you can play around with it.

Final Verdict: Xournal  is worth trying and you won't be disappointed.

Anti-T20 or Anti-IPL

In the recent days there's been a lot of debate over the existence of Test matches, ODIs and T20s. Some opine Test matches should be discontinued and some ODIs and some T20s. There are various arguments for their discontinuation. But the question is co-existence of these 3 formats of the game. Arguments like unrelenting schedule have been put forward. But what's the real cause for all these things, Is it more tests being played or more T20s?
Well before answering these things let me give some statistics to you.

	Test	ODI	T20
2010	43	86	43
2011	36	96	17
2012	28	70	21

Looking at the number of matches played in every format of the game, there's not much difference. So arguments like increased schedule, more burden on the players doesn't become valid. All three formats of the game co-existed before but what's the problem now? Why is everyone questioning the existence about their existence?
So the real cause is the domestic T20s especially IPL.

	IPL
2010	60
2011	74
2012	76

The culprit behind too much cricket is IPL. Because the number of matches haven't increased across the 3 formats in the previous years. But the number of IPL matches did. Players value playing in IPL more than their nation(Sehwag issue). So the truth players don't want to miss IPL, the time during which they have to be rested and skip playing for their countryside telling they need to spend time with their family.
So, if any format of the game should vanish then it's IPL and not the other 3.

But how to revive the  3 formats of the game?
Well those who watched the recent England v/s South Africa series never say that Test Cricket is dead. If you want to revive Test Cricket prepare pitches where both batsman and the bowler gets something out of it. Because no one wants to watch a Test match ending in a draw.