Love Chocolates?? Are they really a health booster?? Find out

• ·         “Chocolates are good for health” This statement is like flower to our ears but scientific research has not reached to an extent that we can conclude if chocolate is really good for health.

• ·         Flavonoids, a component of some chocolate has antioxidant property which means that it can control diabetes, heart attacks, strokes  and cancer and improves brain function and slows the effects of aging.

• ·         The existence of flavonoids in chocolate is restricted to dark chocolate only. So you’re out of luck if you love only white chocolate, milk layered chocolate or candies. White chocolate or any other light chocolate adds nothing to your health but add a lot to your calories.

• ·         Flavonoids are found in cocoa beans. The outer layer of cocoa beans is very rich in flavonoids.  

• ·         All the chocolate packaging indicates the amount of each ingredient being added to the chocolate. Be proud to see if flavonoid or cocoa is one of them.  A chocolate made out of 100% cocoa is beneficial.

• ·         Some chocolate companies pay up for chocolate surveys. These surveys underline that chocolate is beneficial for health only to help boost the sale of the companies. Most of the chocolate survey are sponsored by chocolate companies itself thus putting suspect behind the famous saying, ‘chocolate is good for health’.

Chocolate maybe good for health

·         

HDTV, HD channels. . . Don’t get cheated, learn the basic of HD before you switch to anything that is HD.

Image Source: jcprovideo.com

With a number of commercials about HD Channels, HD Recorders, HDTV etc   people are tempted to go for HD without much knowledge about it. Hence some of them complain about poor picture quality even though their TV set is HDTV. Why is it so?

HD or high definition is the top tier of DTV i.e. Digital TV. Digital TV unlike analog TV works on digital signal of zeroes and ones whereas analog works on wave principle.  Remember that to experience HD you will at least need the following.

1     HD broadcasting station: The signal coming into your TV must be HD, for that the signal transmitted from the broadcasting station must be HD. When a particular channel has a HD tag then you can be sure of the fact that the broadcast of that channel is of HD mode.

2     HD Receiver: Either your cable operator should have a HD receiver i.e. a HD set top box or you yourself must have a digital signal receiver at home to decode the digital signal being broadcasted.

3      HDTV:  This is where the necessity of HDTV clicks in to see the progressive scan image of the received signal. 

1

Next, we learn the basic difference of an analog TV and   HDTV.

An analog TV works on interlacing. The pictures we see in our television set are a set of frames of images which are moved very fast to create a motion of picture, hence a moving picture results. Interlacing increases the frame rate by consuming the same bandwidth of received signal.  Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) is capable of displaying interlaced signals.

Digital TV uses progressive scan technology. In interlacing the frames are created by alternate odd and even line of pixel whereas in progressive scan technology all the pixel line are created sequentially. Analog TV has a standard aspect ratio of 4:3, 16:9 for digital TV. Aspect ratio is the standard width by height ratio of the image in a television.

You must have seen the tag 1080i or 1080p. It means that the screen resolution is 1920 X 1080 interlaced or progressive. Such a high resolution is available in HD transmission alone. When an analog broadcasting signal is viewed in a digital TV, then a poor picture quality is witnessed, that is because the broadcasted signal is in the ration 4:3 viewed in a TV of ratio 16:9.

The GNU/Linux Legend, Richard Matthew Stallman on the take of Free Software

Richard Stallman, developer of GNU/Linux who recently visited Gauhati University stressed on use of Free Software citing its advantage and attacking propriety software (Non-Free Software) for its evil deeds in society.

Following are some of his conclusion drawn from the lecture.

• Facebook, according to Mr. Richard is a surveillance, which is abusing its user and gaining lots of personal information to pass on it to the intelligence bureau.

• Microsoft Windows is a malware, so is Apple’s Mac and its software. That’s because they install software having malicious codes without the users consent. He further adds that once you install an OS from Microsoft or Apple to your computer, that particular computer becomes sole property of the said company because they obtain all the rights to play with any of your file in your computer. This is true and dangerous.

• Some websites when visited can install malicious program in your PC and track down your personal information including the place where you are living. This is basically achieved by websites running propriety JavaScript. Mr. Richard stresses on use of free JavaScript.

• Free Software unlike the paid ones respects your freedom. It will do what you want the program to do and let you modify it too. Further more, you can redistribute free software among your friends, it’s all legal. What happens in paid software is that they rarely allow the freedom to use the program as the user wants. According to Mr. Richard, propriety software makes a user dependent over it, over that, it can’t be redistributed and its source code is kept secret, all this going against the spirit of good will.

• Free Software will merge with Open Source anytime in near future.

• Mr. Richard objects that he is not the father of open source, he says, “If I am the father of open source then it would be like stealing my sperm and artificially inseminating it”

• Schools from Nursery to Post Graduate level should use free software, because it saves lots of investment of the schools and provides full freedom to modify the source code of the program student’s use. Some company ties up with schools to provide Computer knowledge, but what actually these companies do is against the well being of the society. These companies prompt the school student to use their software, but if some of the student out of curiosity wants to know how those program works then they are bound NOT to know it because the source code of those propriety programs are kept secret by the same company, thus defeating the purpose of good will and learning.

Mr. Richard Matthew Stallman concluded his lecture by appealing to use free software and spread the message of merits of free software. Answering to a question he said that free software can permanently come in the mainstream and rule over paid software once people learn about its internal advantage and start using them.

If you have ever used a touch screen then you must know this

Besides gaining huge popularity as touchscreen phones, touch screen are also found in ATMs, Airport etc. Why not to know the very basic science of it then? So here’s what Wiki and HowStuffWorks teach us, explained at Tech Affairs for the layman.

Touch screen are made of varied technology but the back bone comes from three techniques widely developed and used.

1. Resistive Type:      The resistive type of touch screen has two layers, one resistive and the other conductive. Whenever the screen is tapped with a stylus or fingers, the two layers make contact with each other and a voltage difference is created. The voltage difference judges the coordinate and the position of the screen being touched are responded.

2. Conductive Type:   A sheet of conductor is such set up so that it carries an electric field. Whenever the screen is touched the electric field is disturbed at a particular coordinate, the location of change in electric field is the location of touch.

3. Surface acoustic wave:      This technology is used in touchscreen phones. On the screen two transducers are designed that converts physical variation into electrical signals. One transducer at the x coordinate and other at the y. Whenever a touch event occurs the transducer can detect the change in wave and a signal is sent from one transducer (may be of x or y coordinate) to the other and the signal judges the coordinate point where the screen was touched.

Surface Acoustic Wave technology has gained more momentum then the other two technologies mentioned above because unlike the other two, Surface Acoustic produces far clearer and bright display making it suitable for phone use. Resistive and Capacitive transmits 70% and 90% light respectively. Also the Surface Acoustic type doesn’t have metallic layer on the screen.

The very basic about GPS enabled cellphones

If you carry a smartphone then most probably you have a GPS receiver embedded in it. OVI maps in Nokia phones or the Goggle maps pinpoint your location instantly. It gives information on your present location, restaurants near you etc.

A mobile phone network consists of a base station and a tower. Whenever you (your phone) move from one network to another, the base station of the respective network determines the signal strength. The tower transfer the signal from one base station to other depending upon the strength of the signal at a particular base station.

GPS in a smartphone can use two way methods to determine your location. It may scan for nearest towers in the phone’s vicinity. Determining the signal strength, the angle of approach and distance of the phone from the towers a location of the phone can be fixed, but this method is not the actual task of a GPS receiver. A GPS receiver in a smartphone actually scans for three satellites in the sky below which the GPS receiver is present, now a location of the GPS receiver is fixed by determining its location relative to the three satellites. The point where the end point of the waves from these satellites intersects on the surface of the earth is the location of the device. This technique is known as triletaration. Both the method mentioned above are used by smart phones simultaneously for better accuracy of the location.

Read More at How Stuff Works

2G Network is vulnerable. Your Phone can now be hacked

This piece of information suffused the Internet on December 29^th, 2011. Karsten Nohl, head of Security Research Labs in Germany says that GSM network is vulnerable to a new hack. The hack would allow a fraudsters to make calls and send messages without hinting the phone owner about it. A hacked prepaid user would soon realize this seeing the change in balance money whereas a hacked postpaid user will realize this after seeing the phone bill. 

Worse is the fact that none of the Indian network provider provides high end security to encrypt phone conversation.

How is it done?

A computer and two antenna is all that required to do the trick. A mobile phone catches the strongest tower (and hence the nearest) in a region. The computer and antenna system can pretend to be a tower and fool your phone. Once the link is established between your phone and the fake tower (the system), outgoing calls can now be extracted since the fake tower is not encrypted. Therefore a fraudsters can listen to all your outgoing calls.

Image: gizmodo.com

How to prevent the hack?

Prevention can be provided by the network provider. System software of network provider needs an update to withstand such attacks. A user can at most switch to 3G Network to be secure or rely on network provider for an update to the system software. Some phones may even warn the user before the phone connects to an unencrypted network; in that case the user must go by the warning and follow on screen instruction to prevent the phone from connecting to the fake tower.

Earth like planet found, but can we live there??

On December 5^th 2011, NASA announced that it has discovered two earth like planets through its Kepler telescope. Through this article I discuss the very basic and first hand question of this discovery. 

WHAT??

Two earth like planets named Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f in a different solar system. Thus they are exoplanets, meaning planet in a different solar system.

HOW??

They were discovered by kepler telescope. The assertion that they are ‘earth like’ was made by comparing the mass of these two planets with that of the earth.   Mass like that earth or lower then earth imply that the gravitation is also similar to the earth and hence the atmosphere is bound to the surface of the exoplanet whereas mass greater than earth imply that the gravitation pull is not similar to the earth and thus the presence of atmosphere is probably nil.

WHY??

The finding is important since mankind needs an alternative place for living in future, an answer to the rapidly growing population and fast depletion of resources. To ascertain more about the two new planets the scientist are now busy finding its density. Density equivalent to or similar to that of earth would give evidence of the presence of water in the named exoplanets.  Visiting the planet is something we cannot think of right now, it is unimaginably far.

The Kepler science team says that the best of Kepler telescope is yet to be delivered and researched and something more interesting and fruitful is in store for the future.

You can watch interesting videos and read more at CSMONITOR and NASA's official site

Source: CSMONITOR & NASA

Laptop in your bed can be fatal to your life

Today’s Assam Tribune highlighted a very important piece of news by Sudip Talukdar. A Laptop can be fatal if you fall asleep at night while using it. According to the piece of article, using a notebook in the bed causes it to overheat since the mattress of the bed blocks almost all the ventilation route.

At least two people have reportedly died while sleeping with their laptop switched on in bed, causing battery overheat and ultimately bursting of the battery with huge leakage of toxic. Not only that, Mr. Sudip adds that if a laptop battery is dead then one should consider replacing it as soon as possible because charging a dead battery will invite tragedy.

It is also highly recommended that while using laptop, especially in bed, one should use a laptop cooler and keep the laptop over it. Laptop cooler is easily available in any IT store.

STAY SAFE!!

Is Social Network becoming too social?

Courtesy: earlcapps.blogspot.com

A survey conducted over a small area of different States in north east India  which includes schools and colleges shows a dark image and future of the upcoming youth of this region. Students of classes VI to XII are so much indulged in social network like that of facebook that its impact is easily notable in falling grades, intensity of outdoor activities and indeed socializing. Being a member of a social network site has become a trend. These teens, unaware of the privacy, terms and condition of a networking site post and upload whatever they think is cool. Some even go to the extent of blackmailing and bullying beside derogatory remarks made on each other through this medium. This results in conflict between a numerous section of people and cyber crime resulting in loss of prestige & privilege. Some students even bunk school hours to surf the social network. For teens, this social network is also a good way to impress other friends. Some parents and teachers blame it on the easy availability of cell phone while the other just complains about one another's parents

It is high time that these teens be made to learn and understand the terms and condition of a networking site. Furthermore its overuse needs a check. All this is possible through parents and educators who should impart unstrained and periodic training in schools and colleges, of which not a drop is seen yet.

Steganography

It has been a long time since I wrote last. Actually many hurdles popped up, lowering the frequency of my post. Today I write about Steganography in computer technology. Steganography as defined by Wikipedia is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one, apart from the sender and intended recipient, suspects the existence of the message, a form of security through obscurity.

In this post, I restrict to write about the use of Steganography through basic computational method

A person Mr. Mac sends an image of a beautiful flower to Miss Mary. Both Mac and Mary work as spying agent for the government. Being a spy they are not allowed to share intelligence information through email or phone or fax or through handwritten letters as any such act may catch the eye of a 3^rd party which will spoils the purpose of spying. What they share is actually in the image of the beautiful flower. The image contains handful of written information which an intended receiver can extract. Attached to the image file is a hidden text file which is not at all visible to a usual person. This is Steganography, or computer Steganography. 

How is it done??

Well, we know that every image is made of up pixels. As computer understands only the language of 0 and 1 so these pixels have a binary code like 11011101, an 8 digit binary code (as 8bit=1byte). Now suppose a pixel of an image file contains the binary code 01010110, what is done is that, the last or any 1 digit of the binary code of a pixel is changed to any one binary digit of the letter of a text file. This way 1 digit of millions of binary code is changed to a digit corresponding to a letter of the text file. The intended receiver stacks the last digit of the changed binary code of the pixel and arranges them in an 8 bit order. Finally he has the hidden message.

But change in binary code should change the pixel as well?? This is true but when a single digit of a binary code is changed, the pixel does not change much, may be a little bit of quality reduction.

The image below will try to explain whatever is written above.

Click on the image for an enlarged view.

 

Well, I tried to explain Steganography by a simple example. The hidden message may be hidden in another text file, movie file or a MP3 file apart from an image file.

Now one may ask how we can change the binary code. Well, I leave it to you, google it and find out more about Steganography. A hint is that, Steganography can be done easily in Linux Operating System by use of stegohide, outguess.

Biology in Engineering

A lecture that I heard at our orientation program laid stress on the importance of Biology in Engineering. The importance is explained by an interesting example is as follows.

An employee of the famous and frontier company named OIL (Oil India Limited) once called up his mate (who is currently a professor in Gauhati University) to find a solution to his problem. His problem, a bacterial component poses threat to some of the oil component standing as a challenge to the mass production of oil. The solution as given by the professor was simple. Just introduce a microbe into the bacterial component, the bacterial dies and the problem gets solved. The employee of OIL then calls up his higher notch to know if the microbe is available in OIL laboratory. He then learns that the microbe was bought from a private firm at a cost of 45 lakhs.  

According to the professor, who heads the Biology department in Gauhati University, the microbe could be simply made in a culture for just Rs.15

By the above example the professor makes everything clear, biology can’t be neglected in engineering studies; else an engineer can be cheated.

Some of the engineering colleges in India have introduced Biological Science as a subject in Engineering and others might follow. Student often neglect this subject thinking he/she has nothing to do with it but the example as explained above shows the brighter side of biology.

News Channels in North East India, a headache.

There are around 4-5 Private News channels in north east who instead of delivering NEWS, deliver their views on almost all issue of society. They prefer to judge news as a case, create some stupid debate over it by paying and inviting eminent personality of North East. These eminent personalities can’t even turn down the invitation fearing public defamation of them in the same channel which invited them. Yes, such is the position of a news channel in north east.

Some common stupidity of these news channels include playing a background music of a bollywood movie in the so called news item, publicly supporting a particular political party, avoiding to air news which include allegations and wrong doing of a particular political party, introducing debate where the anchor speaks like a parrot. I even feel that most of the host/anchor tries to copy the style and accent of some of the renowned anchor/host of prominent NEWS channel in national and international platform.

Not only that, the worst scenario is when the anchor or the editor of the news channel interrupts a renowned personality saying, ‘I think your statement has no point since. . .’, or, ‘We are running out of time, kindly make it short’ 

My question is, what does the anchor, or editor of the news channel think of themselves compared to the eminent personality sitting adjacent or front of them. The way this anchor/host speaks, as if their no one a greater then him/her.

These News Channels even play blame game, when they no it’s not their job. They fail to understand that their main purpose is to deliver NEWS and nothing else. Debate can be created but not the way they do.

I feel pity for the entire aspiring journalist because more than half of them will be joining a private news channel and their purpose of journalism stops right there even if they earn their living.

Also, not to forget, these private news channel disclose their rivalry between them (between one news channel and the other) by creating a defamation news against their rival channel, isn’t it shit .

Who are keyloggers? How to stay safe from them?. . . A guide to all newbie.

Keyloggers are those people who can track what you type over the keyboard when you’re connected to the internet. A keylogger can thus keep a watch of which sites are you visiting and track what is being typed by you. This also means that when you type your password to access any online service, a keylogger can attempt to steal your password.

It is clear from the above Para that a keylogger is also a hacker. And if you are not destined well then you may loose everything you have over the internet.

How to protect oneself from keyloggers?

Since a keylogger can benefit by what you typed, especially when you type your password, so let’s address the protection here.

Suppose your password is, innate96p now don’t type the password in one go. Firstly type tep then with the help of your mouse keep the cursor between e and p , now type 96 , now again keep the cursor before t and type nn , following the same technique by moving the cursor again before n , type i and lastly by keeping the cursor between second n and t , type a

This way the keylogger records your password as tep96nnia whereas your actual password is innate96p.

Though the process seems time consuming but let me assure you that its not. Once you’re habitual to it, you can do it easily thereafter. The above password which I have shown is just an example and you need to follow the same technique with your password.

It is highly recommended that you follow the above procedure whenever you log in to any website through a shared computer. (eg. Cyber café)

 The article above is written by me but the actual idea was given by a thinkdigit forum member few years back. All credit to the particular member of the said forum

NPTEL...a light for engineers

Being into first semester of engineering, I was looking for resources online that could facilitate my engineering study. And to my expectations I found many and most helpful among them was the resources provided by the IITs and IISc.  Video lectures and materials on almost all subjects of engineering grouped systematically for specific branches of Engineering. Not only that, theirs even material (mostly video lectures) for semester 1 and semester 2 students. Videos are hoisted over Youtube. For the mobile browser the videos are available in 3GP format. Other format includes MP4 & FLV. Written materials are available in HTML and PDF format. These resources are a fruit of the Project named NPTEL funded by the Government. NPTEL or National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning is a project whose main purpose is to make India an Engineering Knowledge stronghold. Not only that, the site claims to deliver industries and teachers with resources which they can put into use. Since these video lectures and written materials are from the IITs and IIS Bangalore, no doubt that they would deliver the best. One can even download the videos and PDF format of materials.

Know more at www.nptel.iitm.ac.in

Similar to NPTEL project in India, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been delivering free courses on engineering for more a decade now. These MIT materials are available at http://ocw.mit.edu ,why should I continue, simply visit the site and judge yourself. I bet you would find it zakkas

You don’t enroll into any course when you visit these sites. The MIT Courseware includes forum discussion and we can expect NPTEL to follow soon.

Hope to see lot more from NPTEL. Cheers ! !

Safety in Facebook....the neglected but important part

Facebook has some inbuilt feature which goes a long way in protecting ones privacy and ensuring safety. Well, not everyone is aware of all these services by Facebook and here I am to write a post on all those services. If you don’t know about ‘secure browsing in Facebook’ and/or if you are really concerned about your privacy and safety in Facebook then read on. . .

To avail all these features it is always recommended that you register you personal cell phone with Facebook.

1. Secure browsing using HTTPS: Facebook allows its user to switch from Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS). HTTPS is secure mode of browsing then HTTP.

If your browser address bar shows that you are in http://www.facebook.com/home.php    then it means that the connection between the Facebook server and your computer is unsecured.

To switch to HTTPS, Click ‘Accounts’ then ‘Account Settings’ on you Facebook homepage. Under the ‘Account Setting’ page click ‘Security’ and enable ‘Secure Browsing’.

      

            Click on the above image to get an enlarged view

A line from the famous Wikipedia explains:

HTTP is unsecured and is subject to man-in-the-middle and eavesdropping attacks, which can let attackers gain access to website accounts and sensitive information. HTTPS is designed to withstand such attacks and is considered secure against such attacks.

 

The above image shows a secure HTTPS connection to Facebook.Click on image to enlarge

2. One-Time Password: This feature can be very helpful at times. Suppose you are opening your Facebook homepage in a public computer, say in Cyber Café or in School or Office. It is a smart option not to input your normal password to prevent password tracker, key loggers etc. to open your profile, better it would be if you ask Facebook for a special password to open your page. Simply send a SMS as ‘otp’ (without quotes) to 32655 from your registered mobile number. Your will soon receive a special password which remains active for only 20 minutes and can be used only once.

3. Login Approvals: Another social service by the social giant. You can configure login approvals and I recommend that you configure it NOW. This ensures that other unrecognized devices don’t login to your profile. Suppose you log in to Facebook from your own cellphone or your personal computer or both then you can keep these two devices under recognized devices. If ever you log in to Facebook with a different device other then these two devices then you will be asked to enter a access code which will be sent to your phone via sms. This is to ensure that the log in attempt is not fake or a jailbreak.

To go to recognized devices, Click ‘Accounts’ >> ‘Account Setting’>> Under Account Setting Page click ‘Security’ and add any recognized devices under ‘Recognized Devices’.

EXTRAS

Friend Listing In Facebook: Ever if you wanted to chat in Facebook but wished one of those irritating friend stayed away from your chat box. Or if you ever wanted to share something only with friends you trust most and not your cousin or teachers. Well, that’s always been possible in Facebook, but it is unlike Google+ where these feature is easy as a cup of tea.

You can Create LIST in Facebook. On your Facebook Homepage, click on ‘Accounts’, then click ‘Edit Friends’. Here you can see ‘Create a List’

You can create list according to your convenience, for example, create a list named ‘Teachers’ and add all your teachers in that list. Similarly create a list named ‘Cousin and Family’ and add your entire cousin in that list.

Now whenever you are online, you can customize to which list you would like to show yourself online. Or, if you share something, you can customize to which list your sharing would be visible too.

 The green circle shows the 6 lists I created. Click the image to enlarge

Sharing Responsibly. Click on 'Customize' to make your sharing visible to only those people you want Click on image to enlarge

Under Chat tab. Click 'Limit Availability' to chat with only those people you want. And make yourself invisible to others.

Clicking 'Limit Availability' pops up the above window. Here you can see the list you created and become online and offline for respective lists.

Also read my earlier article to be secure over Social Network.
Keep your Social Networking Profile Safe
 To know more on Facebook Security visit Facebook's official Security Center at 

www.facebook.com/help/safety/

Sonia goes abroad for her treatment . . . Do we lack hospitals??

(Well, it’s not a tech article but thought to air my view over it.)

Don’t we have enough facility in our hospitals to serve person like Sonia Gandhi. The latest news regarding her visit to US puts a big question mark on the medical service of our country. Well, I personally feel  that we have enough super specialty hospitals especially in the metros but the high profile dignitaries wont agree with that and so they are moving abroad.

Now if Sonia Gandhi doesn’t feel that we have enough hospitals to address her needs then why doesn’t she come up with a world class hospital and research center. After all she and her followers rule our country. The actual fact is something else. In India we do have good (read best) hospitals, like Max, Fortis, Apollo, Ambani, and Medanta to name a few. But the Government’s indifferent attitude towards private hospitals compels her to plan a trip to US for treatment.  Wait a second, where is AIIMS in the list?? Well she is Sonia Gandhi (who in world doesn’t know her) and AIIMS would fail even to cure a minor pain in Sonia’s finger.

Are all these high profile Government official ignorant of common man’s health and so they ignore Govt. medical center like NEIGRIHMS (In Shillong) which is in sorry plight since a year or so?? Is the standard of medication of AIIMS being questioned by Sonia’s visit to US for medical treatment?

Thank God, they did not send Suresh Kalmadi abroad for his health check up. May be that’s because he is a useless leg for the Government now and so he landed up in AIIMS.

I can continue writing but that won’t change anything.However, I wish Sonia Gandhi speedy recovery.

This trend was even seen in the making of the film Robot. The producers and director of the film consulted Chinese firm for special effect. The Indian firm had a limited job to do. Well in one view this is justified because the producers here will look for more and more profit and for that, may be they consulted the best studio according to their choice. But again, even here the standard of animation and special effect studio in India is being questioned.

Are we really developing our India??

Are You Aware of Social Engineering??

Hacking and Social Engineering are conterminous. We often believe that a hacker steals our password, credit card information etc through electronic means or by his/her knowledge & skill in computer world, but things may be different too.

Won’t it be easy for a hacker if he finds your password simply by seeing what you typed?

A social Engineer uses social way to find confidential information. He/she would try to gain as much personal information about his/her target. He/she then uses that information gained to try all combination of password. Thus it will be easy for a hacker to crack your password or credit card details incase those sensitive and confidential words come from something related to you, say name of your pet, name of your girlfriend combined with your vehicle number or name of your teacher etc.

Social Engineering is done by following ways.

Phishing:   A person or group can create a fake website or it will be right to say that they impersonate the original website. By links in email or social network the target is tempted to click on those links (the target or victim thinks it is a trustworthy & know website to him/her) and provide confidential details like date of birth card details etc in the page of the impersonated website.

Shoulder Surfing: Let’s understand it by an example. Suppose you are into a cyber café. You log in into any of your account online. What if a person behind you sees what you have just typed? Because cyber café is a public place so theirs a huge probability that the password you typed is being noted well by a particular person. This is shoulder surfing.

Dumpster Driving: We regularly throw garbage in the dustbin. Now some people (those hackers or fraudsters) go through one’s thrown garbage to learn personal details as very few people take care to dispose of sensitive documents properly. As I told earlier personal details can lead a way to crack ones password.

Thus a social engineer will go to extreme of extent to obtain personal information. The ways may include the 3 points mentioned above and beyond.

Avoid Shoulder Surfing: Shoulder surfing can easily be avoided by tweaking your password a little bit. To avoid, make sure your password contains atleast a letter both in upper case and lower case or/and include a particular letter or number or symbol twice consecutively. This would prevent others from noting what you have just typed as typing a character twice (or more times) consecutively won’t be easily visible or noticeable to the fraudster or hacker.

Keep your Social Networking Profile Safe

Yes, with the following simple step you can increase your social profile’s security up to several times.

Step 1: Keep a strong password. Your password should be such that it contains alphabetical letters, numerical and symbols like!@#$ %^&*(). Make sure it is at least 8 characters long, mind it 8 characters and not less then that.

            THE WHY OF STEP 1

                       

With specialized software and technique (which I can’t mention here) a hacker can make an attempt to crack your account password and he/she may achieve success in that. What a hacker does is that he instructs particular software to try all combination of character present in the keyboard to be typed automatically in the password box of a social networking site. Suppose my password is 5 characters long and it is ‘cfhtd’. Now we see that the first place is ‘c’, second place is ‘f’ and so on. The specialized software can try all possible character in the first place, Keeping the first place fixed the software can try all possible characters in second place and this trend continues. When the correct match is found then voila, the password is cracked.

But even those specialized software has some limitations. It cannot find combination of 8 character password easily as it will take a lot of time to do so (years and years). Above it, if the password comes with symbol then the task becomes more tedious. It will be wrong to say that cracking a password containing 8 character or more is impossible but it is not feasible to a hacker.

Step 2: Always double check the Webpage you are opening (here by webpage I mean the Social Network Homepage).

Rather then typing the address of the Social Networking site in the browser window, firstly go to Google Home page (www.google.com). In the Search Box, type the name of your Social Networking Site (e.g. Facebook). Now open the webpage by clicking the relevant search result. Also, never open the social networking website by any link provided in your email or other source. Type it in Google search box to be secure always.

THE WHY OF STEP 2

Sometimes a hacker or a group of hacker may create a fake website that looks similar to the original one. Those hackers may send you a link with a message which would convince you to open it. Once you click, you are trapped.

It is worth taking this step rather then repenting later on.

Withing My Mobile. .all the basics related to mobile network

We hardly know a person who doesn’t have a cellphone. From an Industrialist to a cobbler, from an entrepreneur to a student all has at least one handset with them. Mobile phones are a necessity today. All of us know how to make a call or write & receive a sms. But what about its technical details? Do you know what GSM, CDMA, GPRS actually means. What does this 3G all has to do? Will there be 4G in years to come? Isn’t 2G service not enough? No doubt, some of you would say it’s a mode of network and internet service respectively. But in this article I discus all these things and more in simple yet informative way.

 CDMA Vs TDMA

CDMA or Code Division Multiple Access is a method used for radio communication. We often relate CDMA with mobile but it is important to understand that CDMA, CDMA ONE & CDMA 2000 are all different thing of a same thing. Confused? ?

One of the basic concepts in data communication is the idea of allowing several transmitters to send information simultaneously over a single communication channel. This allows several users to share a band of frequencies. This concept is called multiple accesses. CDMA employs spread-spectrum technology and a special coding scheme (where each transmitter is assigned a code) to allow multiple users to be multiplexed over the same physical channel. In TDMA or Time division multiple accesses, the transmitter is not assigned a code but assigned a particular time frame.

Lets try to understand the above statements in a simple language

Let us consider the channel to be a room and all transmitters to be people. Now, for instance let us have 20 people in a room. These 20 people can communicate with any other person they want. Suppose Person No. 5 want to talk to Person No. 3, at the same time Person No. 4 & 10 wants to talk to person No.3, in that case all the 3 person need to wait for their respective turn to talk to person No. 3 to avoid clashes in communication. This explains the TDMA mode of communication.

Similarly, let us modify the above example. Person No. 5, 4 & 10 can use their own mother tongue (considered they are all different) to communicate to Person No. 3, provided Person No. 3 knows the languages well. This way communication clash can be avoided and Person No. 3 can give each other person a due concentration and importance. This explains CDMA mode of communication.

It is to be mentioned that TDMA communication system was the network technology developed by GSM. Hence TDMA is popularly known as GSM.

THE GSM: (or TDMA)

GSM stands for Groupe Spécial Mobile, a committee constituted by administration of European Nation to works towards a unified network system replacing the old analogue network system of communication. This committee was successful in developing the digital cellular voice telephony in the year 1982. This resulted in easy way of communication within the EU nation which was nearly impossible before GSM.

This developed network was later named upon the committee, GSM.

GSM Network was first available at the 900 Megahertz (Mhz) band of the Electromagnetic Spectrum.

Later the GSM network was further developed and was available at 1800 as well as 1900 Mhz frequency.

SMS, GPRS, UMTS are all part of GSM and were born as a GSM developed.

THE GPRS:

GPRS or General Packet Radio Service is a packet oriented mobile service or we can say that data is transferred in form of packets. This service based on GSM is able to support internet protocol (IP) with other protocol thus making web browsing possible. It was first invented in the year 2000. In 2G mobile service the data speed of GPRS is around 33Kbps to 114 Kbps.

THE GENERATIONS, 1G, 2G, 3G and beyond

1G ~ VERSES ~ 2G

While in 1G where radio signals were analog, 2G introduced digital radio signal. The conversation between people is kept protected in a digital way or technically we can say that the conversation is digitally encrypted. This prevented eavesdropping.

By eavesdropping I mean that an engineer or a technical person or any such person having good knowledge about technical system could break into a person’s cellphone and steal data. That simply means that he/she could hear conversation and make calls without the knowledge of the cellphone administrator/owner.

2G allowed more subscriber to make calls at a particular time unlike 1G where only few people could make call within a same circle of coverage. This was made possible by the digital system of communication where a person’s voice is converted into digital signal and then these digital signals were compressed to a large extent. Therefore a mobile tower could allow more space thus allowing greater number of subscriber to stay connected with each other or in other words it allowed greater number of subscriber to successfully make calls.

With 2G even heath hazards were addressed. The digital systems were designed to emit less power. This reduced prolonged exposure to radio waves. Also less power was required so cellphone got smaller and smaller.

In 1G, it was possible that a cellphone being cloned. This means there could be 2 or more phones with the same number. This initiated fraud too. With digital system of communication ( 2G ) phones can no longer be cloned.

It was in 2G where SMS was introduced. SMS was not possible in 1G due to analog system of communication. With the technology of digital data transfer Short Messaging Service and Electronic mail got a kick start.

Not only SMS soon followed the GPRS & EDGE technology. When GPRS was introduced, 2G was 2.5G and when EDGE got introduced, 2.5G was 2.75G.

GPRS allowed data transfer in a more placid manner. It can be used for services such as Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) access, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), and for Internet communication services such as email and World Wide Web access. GPRS allowed 56Kbps to 115KBps of data transfer speed.

EDGE: Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) was the enhanced GPRS. It allowed greater encoding of data and allowed greater speed. Speed upto 100 Kbps could be achieved. It means faster web browsing in mobile.

THE 3^rd GENERATION MOBILE TELEPHONY (3G)

As it can be understood that 3G is advancement over 2.75G (not 2G). As we can make out from the advertisements and promotion, 3G offers a wide range of services like high speed internet access, video calls and mobile TV. Recent 3G releases often denoted 3.5G and 3.75G also provide mobile broadband access of several Mbit/s to smartphones and mobile modems in laptop computers.

3G has come up following the norms and recommendation of International Mobile Telecommunication (ITM-2000).

The 3G use Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) beside other technology. UMTS was not to be found in earlier generation of Mobile Telecommunication. UMTS is a component of IMT-2000. UMTS employs wideband Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA) radio access technology to offer better efficiency and bandwidth to mobile network operators. UMTS is also referred as 3GSM.

. . . . . & beyond

4G is the successor of 3G and one day it has to come and stay like other generation of mobile communication.  Work is on for developing 4G. 4G will offer data transfer speed over the web upto 1 GB per second and for a person traveling in a high speed train can browse or download stuff over the internet at a speed of 100 MB per second.

4G has a new word, MAGIC. It stands for Mobile multimedia Any were Global mobility solution Integrated wireless and Customized services.

User would also enjoy very secure Internet Protocol (IP), Wireless Modem Smartphone, Ultra Broadband Internet Access, IP Telephony, Gaming etc.

Source: Wikipedia. For more details visit Wikipedia pages and increase your knowledge