Of Browsers and OS - Some Statistics

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Another weekend coming up and I spent sometime analyzing my Google Analytics data.

In browsers, Internet Explorer and Firefox are head-to-head with around 46% each. Safari comes third with around 4% of share and Mozilla is behind with 2%.

In OS, Windows leads the pack with a lion's share of 89%. Macintosh comes next with 7%. Linux trails behind in third position with a meagre 3.5%.

For Browser/OS combo, it's a tough fight again between IE and Firefox. IE with Windows comes at 47% while Firefox with Windows is at 40%. Safari-Macintosh is at 3.5% while Firefox-Linux is at 3%. Safari-Windows have turned out to be a dud and it comes at 0.4%. Firefox-Macintosh threw a surprise with 3%.

Disclaimer: Since I write mostly about Tech news and stuff, that could be the reason why my Firefox ratio is high. Firefox still has garnered only around 15-20% of the market share. But with Firefox 3 coming out, and IE getting sluggish, I am sure that Firefox will cross the 50 mark soon. Maybe in an year. Thanks to NCES for their excellent graph creating tools.

Rudra - The Next Gen Destroyer

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Rudra Technologies, a Singapore based Anti virus provider, released their flagship product, Rudra.An evaluation download is not available yet (this page says it will be available soon), but their product brochure gives some exciting news.

[The following write up is based on the brochure and I take no responsibility if the product fails to keep up to this]

Usual anti virus softwares use a signature matching or a scanner method to detect viruses and malwares. They check with an existing database using pattern matching algorithms. This is the main reason why we need to keep the database updated. (I hate those pop-ups I get on every Monday in office that says that my anti virus database has to be updated)

Rudra claims that it doesn't require any updates!! It makes sure that no virus and malware runs on the system by:


Since it's a proprietary technology, they haven't disclosed about the working of the mechanism in detailed. But some of the features will surely raise an eyebrow.


Hmm..this will raise some issues with user privacy. Mostly, they will have logs of the activity of the Antivirus software and since it keeps tracks of user activity, it will have the usage pattern of the computer. Something like a high-level "cookies". If a hacker manages to get hold of these files, then level of data compromised is unimaginable. Also, they claim that Rudra makes Windows Kernel to forward all execution requests to Rudra for validation.

Another interesting stuff I noticed was this:



Sounds great!! Hope these things work out when the software is out. Anyway, they support only Windows XP/2000 as of now, so Mac and Vista users, wait and see. (This again proves that Windows Vista, well, sucks!!)

If all's well, then I am sure that Norton, McAfee, Panda, AVG and team will hit the panic button!! Let me know of your experience with Rudra (if you got hold of it from somewhere) and other antivirus softwares. Mail me at bonchibuji at gmail dot com

(In Hindu mythology, Rudra is another name for Lord Shiva, the destroyer.)

"Do Evil"

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Google seems to have changed its motto!

Yesterday, Google helped in the arrest of an Indian professional for posting derogatory comments about Sonia Gandhi. Google shared the information about the user and the cops were able to trace back the IP to the poor chap!! I pity him.

Google says that they supports the free expression of its users and is committed to protecting user privacy. But when the cops and the government comes knocking on the doors, they seems to forget this. In this case, Pune Cyber Crime Cell asked for the details and Google happily handed over it.

The vulgar comment was posted in an Orkut community called "I hate Sonia Gandhi". The email used for commenting was r*******@gmail.com and was traced back by Google to be of an IT professional from Gurgaon. Google came clean!!

The irony is that the owner of this community cannot be arrested or charged because it is "completely legal" in India to "hate politicians!!" But, posting some thing bad about someone whom you hate is a felony!!

This event comes in wake of RIM (Research in Motion) agreeing to share the user data with DoT. My gut feeling says that Indian Government is planning to become serious in the cyber business and censorship. Time alone will tell that. Let's wait and watch.

DoT takes RIM's bait

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The fight between DoT(Department of Telecommunications, India) and RIM (Research in Motion) has taken new dimensions. DoT was forcing RIM to share the private data of the customers...messages, transactions etc..which happened through Blackberry's. Security agencies were concerned about the potential usage of an un-monitored communication system by terrorists. This led to widespread confusion among the users and there were even rumors that Blackberry's will be pulled out from the market.

Who can afford to leave the country with the highest growth in cell phone users? Finally, RIM has agreed to share the data with DoT. Or better, I should say that they have agreed to handover the data to DoT. Blackberry uses Public(with user) and Private(with company) key in its encryption system. Private key is held by RIM. Now, they have offered to give the private keys to DoT with an if clause, "if DoT will assume full resposibility and bear the consequences in case of a data loss or data theft."

If DoT agrees to this, I will say they have taken the bait. Since security systems in India are "highly sophisticated and hack proof", it will be just a matter of hours for some one to get the private keys.

Also, Blackberry is used by many users for bank transactions and similar stuff because of its high security. So, if DoT loses the data, think of the damage it can do! Millions of bank accounts and credit card numbers and private messages floating around!!

This is the first case where RIM is known to have shared the security details with a government. There is also a rumor that RIM plans for a similar deal with China to roll out there soon. But, in China it always happens. Be it be Google or Yahoo or Microsoft, China has forced the companies to reveal private and sensitive information. Is India trying to become another Big Brother? This also reminds me of the short period when blogs were blocked by the Indian Government.

Any thoughts by Blackberry users?

Who wants to be the American President?

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2008!

2009?

Thanks to Gowri Sankar and Vishnu Prasad.

Philanthropists, beware!

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Phishers never give up. Be it the Katrina Hurricane or the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2005, they are waiting to pounce upon. The recent prey is the China Earthquake.

SANS Internet Storm Center wrote in a blog on 15th May that they were noticing a number of new registration of domains related to the China earthquake and Myanmar Cyclone.

Quoting Jim,

"These may not all be scams, but we repeat the advice we first gave nearly 3 years ago, if you wish to donate money to help the victims of these disasters, we suggest you stick to the established charities that you have a relationship with (such as the Red Cross or Church World Service or the like) through their main web pages or the phone."

Phishers also seems to have followed this advice. Websense, the internet security firm reported about a phishing site that "poses as a representative of the Red Cross and provides multiple bank accounts for the money to be wired."

The site is down now. This is usually the way phishers work. In most of the cases, a particular site will be used for maximum 10 hours and then they will dump it and resurface with a new one. So, before giving donating. Double confirm the identity. Be-aware!!

Another update from SANS says that the scammers have gone mobile. Check out the details of the story here.

"10 reasons why I sucks!" : Brickbats at me!!

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Some time back, I wrote my 10 reasons Why Linkspank Sucks. Andrew, the founder of Linkspank, took it seriously and gave me his take for all the 10 reasons and the new changes they have made. Slowly, I started liking the site and then gave my 3 Stars for Linkspank.

Due to the high "stickiness" of Linkspank, I was browsing through the entries and came across this. "10 Reasons Why visakhcr Sucks!" Wow, other than Andrew, some one else have taken the pains to react to me even if its "very flattering". Also, from one of the comments here, it seem that the blogger, KidBaby, just started his\her illustrious blogging career "spanking" me!! Anyway, I love it when some one writes about me. You can read my reply here.

Some blogging tips to KidBaby - You have made the biggest blogging mistake. There is no a single link to my post or blog. So, whom am I for a reader of your blog? This is what is the purpose of linking.

Satyam sued for $1 billion - WTF?

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Satyam Computer Services,the $ 2.1 billion Indian software giant, has been sued for $ 1 billion by Upaid Systems, online and mobile payments specialist.

Here's the extract of press release from Upaid.

"Upaid originally filed the Texas lawsuit in April 2007 following the revelation in Texas of forged documents previously provided by Satyam to Upaid. Satyam had sought a High Court injunction in London in September 2007 to try to block the Texas case, arguing that a 2003 commercial agreement terminating the relationship between the two companies precluded all future claims against it for all past practices and that any residual claims against it had to be tried in London.

The High Court categorically refused Satyam's request in January 2008. After hearing testimony from senior executives of both companies and legal experts in a four day trial, the Court ruled that the Texas claims could proceed. Satyam appealed this decision, and it was this appeal which was comprehensively dismissed last Friday by a Court of Appeal panel presided over by Lord Justice Waller, Vice President of the Court of Appeal Civil Division.

Costs were awarded against Satyam. In their further plea to the Court of Appeal for leave to appeal to the House of Lords Satyam first admitted publicly that, "...the effect of the judgment is that collateral proceedings in Texas will proceed. These are likely to be highly detrimental to the Appellant and extremely large sums of money are at stake."

This is really interesting.

"This is a very serious case of misconduct that involves fraud and forgery by one of India's leading software companies. The damage done to Upaid has been made even worse by the time wasted in London while Satyam tried to avoid the consequences of their own actions, rather than doing all it could to help a former customer by addressing the substantive issues raised in Texas. But, with the London issues out of the way, we can now look forward to dealing with what really matters in Texas, where the forgeries first came to light".

Read the full Court of Appeal Judgment here.

Except an analysis on this situation on this by Soham Das by Jump Up

Update : Soham kept his word. Read his detailed analysis on this case here.

Celebrating Laser

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On May 16 1960, first working laser was demonstrated by Theodore Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories. After that D-day, the world of laser has seen a huge growth. In medicine, in defense, in industries, and even in toys (the laser pen).

Read a first hand report about the First Laser by Charles H. Townes from A Century of Nature: Twenty-One Discoveries that Changed Science and the World. Also, Google celebrates this event in its own way. See the home page. For those who came late, I am putting a screenshot.

Tech Hasn’t Empowered Workers Enough Yet - My Experience

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Recently, Bill Gates quoted, "Technology hasn't empowered workers enough yet." He agrees that the change has started, but haven't caught up much with the users.

The other day, my team was planning for a picnic. We wanted a count of the number of people who will be coming. First, we started with the old thing: Passing around a paper and a pen and asking everyone to write their name on it. Seeing it takes more time, we stopped it and planned to do it in a more "geeky" way.

First, we tried to sent it by Microsoft Outlook as a meeting request so that we will have a count of people who vote for it and against it. Then, someone noticed that some of us will not be using Outlook and if it's Exchange Server, then this will be difficult. So, I suggested Google Docs. But, my employer's IT policy doesn't allow to access Google Docs since it comes under "File Sharing". So, I checked up with Google Notebook. But, its features are less and I didn't have the time to setup a new Google id for that. Finally, I suggested the idea of a Wiki. Well, I created one for the purpose used Wikidot. But when it came to editing, I found out that if one person is editing, the Wiki will be locked for 15 minutes and no one else will not able to edit it. That kills our entire purpose.

Finally, we created a Excel sheet, put it in shared and gave the IP and password to all. Well, here also the file will be locked when someone is editing it, but there is an option to inform when the lock is released.

Finally, mission accomplished.

Total time taken - around 45 minutes.

Approx. time taken to fill with paper and pen - around 50 minutes(we are 40 people and giving 1.25 minutes to each)

So, when is the Web going to evolve to solve real world problems?