Give back whatever you can...

This is an article that appeared on Network World. Although this is not very much related to what I want to post on my weblog, but I could not hold back posting this. Please see the part about the guy, Anil wanting to do well in his studies. Well no surprises there. Everybody wants to do well in their studies. But why does he wants to do so well? So that companies from foreign countries can recruit him and then he can live comfortably in the US or some other country. Does not it occur to anyone to do well so that they can work towards improving India and helping her develop even further? It may seem ironic coming from me, an indian living in US. But I am not here by choice. I want to go back one day, open a high tech consultancy and R&D company and help India become one of the best countries in the world. I am an Indian and am proud of it and I want everyone to be proud of it. India gives me so much, I want to give it back a part of it at least...

I hope every student and aspirant thinks this way. And I also would urge the expatriates living in other countries to think what they can give back to India.

A house without fences

Imagine your home without fencing. Traditionally we have been putting fences (compound walls) around our house to deter unwelcome visitors and make it hard for them to get inside and also to demarcate the property we own. What would happen if we take away the wall? There would be no boundary, no restrictions to prevent anyone from entering into our premises. Right? That's what we would think.

Now let's just stop for a moment and imagine an invisible electric field surrounding your house and the property that you own and which electrocutes whoever tries to force their way in without authorisation and permission. Seems pretty hard to imagine right?

That's what might happen to networks moving forward. At least that's what the members of Jericho forum are discussing and proposing to do even as you read this. This is what the forum is calling as de-perimeterisation of the network. (Jericho by the way is an ancient legendary city surrounded by walls which miraculously fell when Joshua sounded the trumpet) The proposal calls for removing firewalls from the network boundary. Emails and E-business form the core of businesses today and firewalls impedes traffic and growth and it too tedious to manage it via a firewall.

The forum has not come up with alternates for firewall, but I guess it will be something what I described above, an invisible electric field which allows unrestricted view by does not allow anyone to come in without proper authorisation. More to come.

Informantion Security Integrity and India

The issue has again cropped its ugly head again. Whether outsourcing to India is safe or not? In my opinion, it is safe, very safe. Probably even more safer than getting the job done in-house. Why? Some of the reasons are listed in the email I sent to the author and the publisher. I am not sure whether they will publish my email or not, but I just want to publish it on my blog.

Here is how it goes:
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I have been reading these breaches with quite some interest. In fact
when the first one happened, I was back there in India and it was a
hot topic across the IT fraternity of which I am a proud member. I
agree there have been some breaches. Not too long ago there was an
incident in Mumbai where a fired employee stole some tapes.

My question to all concerned is: Is the spotlight on India just
because the work is outsourced and offshored? What would the
corporations do if similar breaches happen here in the US? Just to put
things in perspective, in May Citibank reported loss of data of more
than a million customers in transit in post? Do they put in more
security controls in place for USPS, UPS and FedEx? Or do they stop
using it? Or should we stop using Citibank? And reflecting back on
numbers, how big is $300,000 as compared to stolen data or more than a
million customers? And I have not even talked about CardSystems and
Choicepoint and others. How much coverage was given to those by the
media?

We are very proud of our integrity and values and we treasure the
trust more than anything else. There are bad characters in all
societies. Is it really required to blow things out of proportions? I
come from one of the biggest software companies in India and in the
world, and we are proud of our security and integrity built in the
systems. We face the same questions from our clients every day and to
date we have increased our business and revenue year over year. Our
clients trust us and we provide them with the environment and the
facts and the deliverables which make them feel comfortable.

I would like to throw this question in the open for being answered.

Best regards,
Mukul Dharwadkar
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Maybe I will follow up this with some more reasons. I may not be as qualified for that. But I have a view of both the sides. I have worked in India for several years before coming to US. What do you think? Let me know and I might start a series on this as a regular feature. Or even a separate blog.

Linux and Open Source

I have been working (at least trying) on Linux for some time now. On and Off. But it never stops to fascinate me. It has matured a lot from the time I first used Red hat linux when it was version 6.0. It has grown remarkably. But still Linux still feels scratchy to use, a bit rough at the edges if you compare with Windows.

Incidently I have been using MS products right from when it was in DOS stages. I think the first one I used was BOS 3.1 or something. And right now I am at Windows XP and the experience is really smooth. Frankly I am no fan of Windows and MS products. But we all have to admit it. Bill Gates and Microsoft has turned the world around as no one yet has managed to do so and I still earn my livelihood on Windows.

But open source and the movement behind it is what is required right now. When I started computing, I did not even know about networking and it was the case with most of them. All the users of computers were supposed to be benign and come from a good background. All crime was left to the thugs and rogues in the dark alleys. But times have changed and changed a lot.

Crime has moved big time from the dark alleys to the data center and we have to tackle it as good netizens and citizens. And I feel that open source is the way to go. With all its shortcomings, the basic principle of community fighting against crime is the idea that appeals to me. As an analogy, our society cannot be crime free if only one agency (the police department) fights crime. We as society members an community have to report and work towards rectifying crime and criminals. And that is the very reason why there is a lot of crime still in the community. Similarly, only one or two organizations cannot fight cyber crime. It will take the effort of entire community to reduce it if not eradicate it.

Cyber crime and terrorism is not yet organized, but it soon will be and we will be left with nothing to fight against it if we don't organize ourselves. Let's move to opensource and fix the bugs and backdoors together so that cyber criminals don't stand a chance against us!!!

Market your blog

I put Google Adsense on my blog and am waiting to earn money.. Great!! But how do I increase the hits to my blog? Simple!! Visit other peoples blogs. Yes its really that simple. The technological advances, and ingenuity of people never stops to fascinate me. Really!!!

I got the link for BlogExplosion from the ads by Google AdSense and I clicked out of curiosity. My blog not the hottest of all so that people will come and read it by themselves. Firstly I have not zeroed in on any category. I have dabbled in technology, experience, relationship, news, opinions etc. But not a consistent one. My inclination is towards technology though.

However, that's not the point. The point is how do I advertise my blog and ensure that people read it. That's what BlogExplosion does. Just register to the site and register you blog and start browsing other peoples blogs through the site. The more blogs you visit and read, the more credits you earn and the more probability you have that your blog shows up. I know its not the best method, But what else do I do when I a novice here and still zeroing in on the subject of choice.

But I have my passions. Soon enough I guess you will see that the posts contain more technology, more open source, more security related stuff than anything else. But I would need feedback!!! A lot of feedback. So read it and don't just leave it. Write to me!!!

AdSense... Makes a lot of sense

I caught Google AdSense on one of the website I was just surfing through and was immediately interested to know more about it. So I went to google, searched adsense and was shown the details of signing up to Adsense and I signed up. Its really that simple.

I signed up and I have sent the necessary documentation required to process my payments and and waiting for it to get activated. In the meantime, I have incorporated the Google Adsense code in my blog and website and its raring to go. I just can't wait to earn some money... Just kidding.

The real reason I put Google Adsense on my blog is to give it more exposure. I know its supposed to work other way round. People reading my blog (if anybody is reading at all), then they should get relevant ads and content based on the content of my blog. But I figures, if my website gets registered in the google database, then it will come up in seraches where one or some of the keywords are relevant to the content of my blog. I will soon put the code up in my website www.dharwadkar.com also as soon as I get it up and running.

I have been blogging in fits and starts. I blog (I was tempted to say write, but I am not that good enough, yet...) regularly for some time and then there is nothing for 6-8 months. There is no apparent reason for this. It just happens like that. In the meantime the desire to blog just burns and when the flame is big is enough, I post...

I thought maybe when I came to the US, I would get more time for myself and might post regularly, but with a job that demands 14-15 of my hours and a 10 month old son it is very difficult and rare to get some time for myself let alone spend some time with my wife. And to her credit she is not complaining. She is as supportive as you can be.

Hopefully I should be able to get some time for myself and blog regularly. Then maybe one fine day I might be able to say that I write!