26 Apr 2017
100daysofwriting
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internet
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security
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shutdown
Some more bizarre things happened today, 27th April, 2017. Not so bizarre, now that I know that Internet shutdowns were common. This is definitely the first internet shutdown that I have seen in the papers. Actually noticed. Kashmir now has a block on 21 social networks for the next month. These are the social networks:
I just had to laugh when I saw Tumblr, Pinterest and Snapchat on that list. Seriously, who is sharing even the anticipated objectionable materials.
More bad news for LastPass’ security team and all users of a password manager that is either Lastpass itself or something else. I have never been comfortable giving anyone access to my passwords. Even...
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25 Apr 2017
100daysofwriting
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atwood
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books
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movies
Ah, I have been running two days late now. Right now is 27th April, 1733. This post should have been out on 25th April before I slept. I came down with a bad cold and fever yesterday. So, now I have to manufacture two posts in quick succession. I still have one more exam to give tomorrow. Nah, no big deal!
IIT Delhi’s website got attacked, alongwith a lot of other Indian websites. Now, apparently, it wasn’t the website servers themselves that got hacked but the DNS provider, ERNET that got hacked. And after the DNS providers got hacked, they remained in that state for about 12 hours.
Ironically, on the same day, only a few hours before this fiasco,...
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24 Apr 2017
100daysofwriting
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essays
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examinations
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time
At school and college, there is a laid back approach to exams. 5 exams in a month, in some places. Some study leave before the first exam: in the order of a week to a month for practical exams. Lots and lots of free time. Before the exams begin, before each exam. All of this is wasted time.
Not here. Both the mid term and the end term exam sessions are 7-8 working days. They generally start on a Monday and end the next Tuesday. Sometimes, they start on a Thursday and end the next Friday. There’s no official “study leave”. Professors start to wind up their teaching about a week before the last class if they have planned it...
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23 Apr 2017
100daysofwriting
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atwood
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books
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fargo
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movies
Handmaid’s Tale was released as an audiobook. That’s not the best part of the news. The best part: It is narrated by CLAIRE DANES. OH MY!
I found the above excerpts on Audible’s Soundcloud, and they are DOPE!. This audiobook also has some new material, that was added by Margaret Atwood herself!
The TV series of this book is going to premiere on 26th April, in 3 days. The trailer for that series (which is going to be on Hulu) is also stirring. There’s a lot of new material for this book coming out this year. AH, SUCH GREAT TIMES!
I was rather stunned with the Audiobook version that Claire Danes performed. I have...
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22 Apr 2017
100daysofwriting
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answers
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clickbait
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dislike
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medium
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quora
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writing
Yesterday, a friend shared [this Quora answer]https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-psychological-facts-that-people-dont-know-1/answer/Dorottya-T%C3%B3th) which ended up with it appearing on my news feed.
I read the answer and instantly disliked the contentions made by the author. I was going to let it go, until someone asked me to ellaborate on why I disliked the answer. I had to think about this for just a bit, after which I came up with this extremely long answer:
Ah, thanks for making me think more about it! :D
First of all, if writing was Tom’s true dream, he ought to have done something concrete towards it. But let’s not talk about that, because he probably has a lot of reasons why he can’t do it.
Why Sam doesn’t...
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21 Apr 2017
100daysofwriting
This is going to be a rather short one. There was a suicide in IIT KGP today.
Everything seems trivial for now, it’s become a HORRIBLE DAY and it’s a horrible
thing to happen to someone.
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20 Apr 2017
100daysofwriting
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austen
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books
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emma
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juicero
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startups
Emma has been out of this blog for a few posts now. I have made absolutely no progress with it! Frustratingly, I am still stuck at around 38%. With exams Saturday, and 4 days of the next week, there is absolutely no way to read any more.
There was no resisting such news, no possibility of avoiding the influence of such a happy face as Mr. Weston’s, confirmed as it all was by the words and the countenance of his wife, fewer and quieter, but not less to the purpose.
– Mr. Weston just told Emma that Frank was going to visit the next day, at dinner time.
Okay, I read till about 40% in the past 15...
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19 Apr 2017
100daysofwriting
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online
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privacy
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security
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webcams
2 days ago, I wrote this list about improving your security online and practices that you should follow. The last point on that list was Tape your webcam. The question that most people seem to have is:
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Are there any existing exploits which can turn on your webcam without turning on the light that is there next to it? How widespread are these lights?
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Why should I tape the webcam if I have nothing to hide? (This was the argument used by Shailene Woodley’s character in the movie Snowden (2016)).
I think the FBI director Comey answered both these the best:
I saw something in the news, so I copied...
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18 Apr 2017
100daysofwriting
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hindi
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lunchbox
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masaan
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movies
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railways
Yesterday’s post, that I wrote 13 hours ago, was one of the most detailed and informative blog posts that I have written in this series for about 20 days now. I shared it with a lot of people, I hope people see it, read it and implement some of those measures in their lives too. For me, to implement all of those things took almost a year. I started with 2FA and now, I have implemented all of them. It takes considerable time and effort to implement some of those measures, but the time spent will be well worth it.
I had a strong bout of nostalgia today, movies related. I watched scenes from Masaan (2015) and Lunchbox...
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17 Apr 2017
100daysofwriting
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cryptography
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lists
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security
A new day, a new attack on HTTPS.
Checking certificates is a great practice, and almost always I stop after opening a certificate and looking at the certificate signing chain. That tells most of the story. Specifically, when using some other computer, it tells you whether the computer’s owner is trying to fake some certificate sign by putting a malicious Gmail certificate on the computer and effectively implementing a MITM attack. It’s as simple as installing MITM Proxy which automatically creates a...
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