Fsf-friends April 2006

fsf-friends@gnu.org.in

46 participants
48 discussions

by Prabhat Sandheliya

Dear All, Yesterday (03-04-2006)I attended a seminar by a so-called "Hacking Guru" Ankit Fadia, at DAVV, Indore (MP) auditorium. I just want to share my feelings with you. The Seminar was a complete failure, though it was attended by about well over 100 people, but was a complete disaster. The very first thing by which I was offended badly was using the sacred word "Hacking" to demonstrate something we, the hackers, call cracking. The seminar topic was "Ethical Hacking", now I want to ask Mr Fadia, what is unethical about hacking ? Hacking is very positive word and there in no need to put "Ethical" before it. By the way his seminar topic should be "Ethical Cracking". If you really want to become a hacker, please read an article by a real hacker, Eric Steven Raymond (ESR). The man who changed the history by writing a paper "Cathedral and Bazaar". please read the article here : http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html<http://www.catb.org/%7Eesr/faqs/hacker-howto.html> The people who can not differentiate between hacking and cracking, should read an article by the GOD of hackers Richad M Stallman (RMS), the man who started GNU movement all by himself. The gcc (compiler), gdb (debugger), emacs (editor) are some of the most popular softwares in the world written by him. Please read the article here : http://www.outpost9.com/reference/jargon/jargon_69.html The things Fadia demonstrated were ancient techniques used by crackers to break into some one's machine. Now a days even 10 year olds can download these tools from Internet to control others' machines. Can we call them hackers ?? If he calls it hacking, I doubt if he understands the term even "Cracking", leave hacking altogether. This childish behavior is called script kiddie. IP spoofing, SQL Injection, password cracking softwares, Trojan horse programs, these are the tools of cyber criminals. So I wonder what is the significance of the term "Ethical" here ?? In the entire session I kept waiting for some program or utility, written by himself. But I don't thing he had something like this to share with audience. The entire session was demonstration of third party utilities, and the saddest thing was no mention of the name of any author of any utility. He didn't care to give some credits to the utility developers. What a shame !!! Mr Fadia, I real hacker always respect the creativity of others, and before using their work proper credits are given, this is the hacker's attitude. It's not like that, you download something from Internet, use it and forget the person, who made it. That's pretty mean. Second most annoying thing was that he calls himself a "hacker" and was using a Windows XP operating system ???? I have been in to computers for the past 10 years and I never come across any real hacker who uses Windows. I met Brian(Apache creator), Andy Cleen, Alon cox, Rusty (all networking gods), RMS (the GOD himself) but all of them were using some or other form of Unix or Linux. Come on, MR Fadia, Windows is the worst OS in the world, full of security holes, so what is the point to break into a Windows machine ???? What do you want to prove ???? He only once mentioned Linux, just to tell how you can use it's live CD to boot a Windows machine and cracke the password. Actually, before attending the seminar, I Googled a lot about Fadia and his work. But what I could find was self acclaiming statement by Fadia about himself and his future and just crap, crap and crap by technology illiterate Indian news papers' reports. I just want to share my findings with you. Vulnerabilities patches by Fadia = 0 (He may know how to break in, but doesn't know how to fix up) Bugtraq id's by Fadia = 0 Hacking / Security tool by fadia = 0 (He simply Goolge and download the tools from Internet, that's not cracking. Actual cracker is the programmer, but Fadia never ever gives due credits. Now that's not hacking, that's stealing) Any open source software by Fadia = 0 (He is afraid of suggesting Linux to people, 'coz it's secure) Any Linux or Windows software security patch = 0 Any recommendation or recognition by Real Hacker Community = 0 (They laugh at him. He is just a kid) Software / Cryptography patents by Fadia = 0 Algorithms by Fadia = 0 Any official citation by FBI/CIA/CBI for Fadia = 0 (They don't even bother about any explanation) Any confirmation of his self-claims = 0 (Nobody, expect him knows, if they are real) Any confirmation of him decrypting Osama's message = 0 (Hahahahahahahaha) Any original technical tutorial or book by Fadia = 0 (He simply copy the things and never he never ever gives due credits to the original authors.) Any originality in his tutes or books = 0 (Hahahahahahaha) Skill level of Fadia = Only God knows !!! I tried to read a few books by him, but to my wonder some part of his books are nothing but simple "copy and paste" material from well known sites for Windows registry editing. Please visit www.winguides.com and compare the material with his first book. Oh God ! this is the clear violation of intellectual property rights of the website. Please inform the webmaster. I have done it already. I was astonished by the course he came to promote here, "Ethical hacker certified by Ankit Fadia" ! He sill is child in hacking field, and he is giving the certificates for hacking ????? And worst thing, Reliance web world is promoting it. What a shame !!! Have all gone mad ? Can't they see ? Unfortunately, question and answer round was cut from the seminar, that's also because of Fadia arrived there one hour late. Well, that's India's celebrity style statement. Otherwise, I would have asked all these questions to him there only. Anyways, I went to him at the end of the seminar, and asked if Windows is so vulnerable, can he suggest audience to use Linux rather than Windows. And the reply came was straight "NO". What a shame ??? I understood the reason, why he said no. The reason is same why Microsoft does not patch up it's OS. Plain economics. If you make system secure with Linux who is going to ask for people like Fadia, so called "security expert" ??? I want to make an appeal to all of you, please make all of your friends aware of these facts. Let one should not get undeserved advantage. I also want to appeal news papers, please do not make a hero out of nothing. Stop polluting the honest media by prejudiced reports. And at the end I want to tell Mr Fadia, that I don't have any personal problem with you or your achievements, but please behave properly in hacking community. We hackers are very positive people we never ever try to harm anybody, until he comes to our or our philosophy's way. Please stop calling your self a hacker, if does not understand the hacker culture. And for god sake, stop behaving like a child, now you are in college, so GROW UP !!! Prabhat. PS : I am sending this mail to Mr Fadia, Reliance web world, most of Linux mailing lists and all of my friends. Please post your comments at lug-indore(a)googlegroups.com

17 years

Talk on GNU/Hurd internals

by प्रव ीण् ए (Praveen A)

Hi, GNU Hurd hacker Annad Babu will be presenting a talk on Hurd/Mach internals. When: Monday 10AM-1PM (May 1st) where: Computer Science & Automation Dept., Indian Institue of Science[, Malleswaram, Bangalore]. Links: * GNU Hurd http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/ * Debain GNU/Hurd http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd * Qemu image http://www.zabor.org/balrog/hurd/ * Indian GNU/Hurd User Group http://i-hug.sarovar.org/ IRC: * on FreeNode #hurd, #hug, #i-hug, #hurd.in Regards Praveen -- "Value your freedom, or you will lose it, teaches history. `Don't bother us with politics', respond those who don't want to learn." -- Richard Stallman Me scribbles at http://www.pravi.co.nr

17 years

Internet, tech skills growing quietly in Goa...

by Frederick Noronha (FN)

INTERNET, TECH SKILLS GROWING QUIETLY IN GOA PANJIM, April 30: Goa's BSNL internet service provider is already providing some 3000 broadband connections in the state, and roughly another 24,000 people dial-up to get access the Net using this central government-run service. These figures emerged during an informal discussion at the monthly meeting of the India Linux Users Group (Goa), a network promoting Free Software and Open Source in the state. ILUG-Goa, which holds its meetings usually on the fourth Saturday of each month at the Goa Science Centre at Miramar, sees a range of tech issues -- usually directly related to Free Software and Open Source in Goa. During it's meet on April 29, a range of issues came up for discussion, from how to partition your hard-disk (to install GNU/Linux side-by-side with Windows), to software tools to ehance productivity, and various internet and broadband options available to users in diverse parts of Goa. For instance, there are some useful Free Software tools to monitor your bandwidth usage on BSNL's broadband. One such tool is available for free download at http://tinyurl.com/qgu9p Called the Data One Broadband Statistics, this is a screen-scraper written using Perl to download usage statistics of BSNL's Data One (www.bsnl.co.in/service/dataone.htm) broadband service and total it. Generally, BSNL (www.bsnl.co.in) allows only the Microsoft-based IE and has no monthly total. But trust Indian software talent to find a work-around. This solution comes from the Free Software/Open Source network in Chennai. Meanwhile, the Goa free software network stays connected and announces its event via http://iluggoaannounce.notlong.com There are no fees for joining, all are welcome, and encouraged to form parallel user-groups in diverse parts of the state. Meanwhile, the Fedora Core 5 Free Software distribution has just become available on DVD in Goa. Number of foreign magazines are also available. Members of ILUG-Goa such as engineer Bijon Shaha and software pro Arvind Yadav gave diverse views on techies-only distros like 'Gentoo'. Debopriyo 'DP' Sarkar pointed to a 'mindmap' of various Free Software distributions or 'distros' available, which was illustrated at linuxhelp.blogspot.com Earlier, there was a brief presentation on FreeMind. FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping software written in Java. It has the potential of playing the role of a high productivity tool. Operation and navigation of FreeMind is faster because of one-click "fold/unfold" and "follow link" operations. Other members raised a range of issues -- from how to get started in GNU/Linux, to playing around with tools like StumbleUpon, and how to encourage Free Software usage in schools and educational institutions. Remy Furtado of Rosary College, Navelim expressed an interest in working on the Free Software tool Moodle, ideal for distance education, as the Goa University moves to a pattern of semisterisation. Goa Engineering College's Prof George Easaw has done work on this platform, as have others. Reacting unofficially, BSNL officials said Goa now had six STMS 155 MBps connectivity, which was resulting in a speedy expansion of broadband to many parts of the state. But for broadband facilities to become available in village areas, at least 60 subscribers were needed to make operations viable. So far, broadband from BSNL is available in a growing number of areas in Goa: Panjim, Vasco (except Cortalim, but including Sada, Mangor, Bogmalo, Sancoale and other areas), Ponda, Bambolim, Merces, Dona Paula, Porvorim, Mapusa town, Calangute-Candolim, and Saligao, among others. Equipment has already been installed in Aldona exchange, and broadband facilities are expected to go functional -- ------------------------------------------------------------- | India Linux Users' Group, Goa | | Join the friendly user group | | Mail list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/join | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | http://groups.yahoo.com/group/teach-yourself-linux | | http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa-announce | | http://www.iosn.net/country/india/organizations/ilug-goa/ | ------------------------------------------------------------- , , / \ .-. * SOFTWARE ((__-^^-,-^^-__)) (. .) * FREEDOM `-_---' `---_-' / V \ * SHARING `--|o` 'o|--' // \\ \ ` / /( )\ KNOWLEDGE IS POWER ): :( '.^^_^^.' SHARE IT EQUITABLY :o_o: \_/ \_/ "-"

17 years, 1 month

Linux: A European threat to our computers (by Tristan)

by प्रव ीण् ए (Praveen A)

<http://shuddery.blogspot.com/> Hi, Can this not be a joke? Linux: A European threat to our computers (by Tristan) http://shelleytherepublican.com/2006/04/linux-european-threat-to-our-comput… Regards Praveen -- "Value your freedom, or you will lose it, teaches history. `Don't bother us with politics', respond those who don't want to learn." -- Richard Stallman Me scribbles at http://www.pravi.co.nr

17 years, 1 month

Since we were talking about hacking/cracking

by malovika roy

Hi guys, I would like to bring to your notice one site thats just been hacked, http://knowgenesis.org/forums/ One of my close friends (who writes on Open source related topics) is a moderator for this forum which is an online knowledge community. Pls see the mail below and if anyone of you can do something about this then please do. the responsibility is claimed by some Turkish hackers. Malovika. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Janani Gopalakrishnan <gjanani(a)gmail.com> Date: Apr 27, 2006 11:11 AM Subject: Since we were talking about cracking... Hi, Imagine my surprise when I visited it this morning. The site was wiped out clean, and there was just a banner by 2 Turkish hackers claiming responsibility for the deed. Check out http://knowgenesis.org/forums/ (do please check it out today because I think the admins will start recovery by afternoon -- or so I hope!) It's really outrageous. The impact sinks in only when we face the brunt. It was not even a commercial site -- just an online community (based on OS philosophies -- even their Journal is licensed under CC) for knowledge sharing! I wonder what thrill they gain out of this! I have lost around 2 months worth of posts by members because of this! And we were having such wonderful interactions. Janani -- ----------------------------------------------------------- "Things work out best for the people who make the best out of the way things work out."

17 years, 1 month

Re: [Fsf-friends] Since we were talking about hacking/cracking

by admin＠itmission.org

Hi, Just upgrade the forum if phpbb to the latest version, or search the database for that forum, to find any entries by the hack, do take rsync of your database further if you have shell access ... let me know if you need any help.. :) Thanks, -- Shibu C Varughese http://itmission.org ------------------------------------------------- --- malovika roy <malovika(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Hi guys, > > I would like to bring to your notice one site thats > just been hacked, > http://knowgenesis.org/forums/ > One of my close friends (who writes on Open source > related topics) is a > moderator for this forum which is an online > knowledge community. Pls see the > mail below and if anyone of you can do something > about this then please do. > the responsibility is claimed by some Turkish > hackers. > > Malovika. > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Janani Gopalakrishnan <gjanani(a)gmail.com> > Date: Apr 27, 2006 11:11 AM > Subject: Since we were talking about cracking... > > > Hi, > > Imagine my surprise when I visited it this morning. > The site was wiped out > clean, and there was just a banner by 2 Turkish > hackers claiming > responsibility for the deed. > > Check out http://knowgenesis.org/forums/ (do please > check it out today > because I think the admins will start recovery by > afternoon -- or so I > hope!) > > It's really outrageous. The impact sinks in only > when we face the brunt. It > was not even a commercial site -- just an online > community (based on OS > philosophies -- even their Journal is licensed under > CC) for knowledge > sharing! I wonder what thrill they gain out of this! > > I have lost around 2 months worth of posts by > members because of this! And > we were having such wonderful interactions. > > Janani > > > -- > ----------------------------------------------------------- > "Things work out best for the people who make the > best out > of the way things work out." > _______________________________________________ > Fsf-friends mailing list > Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in > http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends >

17 years, 1 month

[Fwd: Would you like to mentor a student paid to contribute to your package?]

by Nagarjuna

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Would you like to mentor a student paid to contribute to your package? Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 14:56:31 -0400 From: Richard Stallman <rms(a)gnu.org> To: gnu-prog(a)gnu.org The GNU Project is participating in Google's Summer of Code program. (See http://code.google.com/soc/mentorfaq.html for details.) In summary: * Summer of Code 2006 is a program that offers student developers stipends to work on development of free software. * The FSF will be paid $500 per project, too. * We need people to volunteer to mentor these students, and also people to evaluate other ideas that students may suggest. * Payment to the student is contingent upon feedback by the mentor. * There is no requirement that the finished code be included in the package itself, but goal is to get code we want to use. * For FSF-copyrighted GNU packages, we will ask the student to sign the usual copyright assignment before getting paid, to make sure there will be no legal obstacle to using his code. If you are willing to mentor one or more projects, this could be of great use to the GNU Project -- it would introduce new volunteers to your package's code base, get a little funds for the FSF, and enhance the GNU operating system. Before you volunteer to be a mentor, please make sure you can actually spare the time to do the work; having mentors become unresponsive or drop out would be very bad. It is important for projects to be feasible for a good student-level hacker to do in 2 or 3 months; nothing super large. It is ok if you talk with student candidates that you already know are capable, to plan projects with them. That is a good way to produce projects that are really likely to get done, and done well. To volunteer as a mentor, please send email to <summer-of-code(a)gnu.org>. Please describe the student projects you offer to mentor, and for each one, say which GNU package it will enhance. We need to find a "backup mentor" for each project; the backup mentor is someone who will take over in case you become busy, sick, or otherwise unavailable. If you can think of any obvious suggestions for backup mentors for your projects, please mention the suggestions in your mail. (We consider these suggestions are tentative, so you can mention them first, then ask them if they are available.) But if you can't think of anyone, please suggest your project anyway. We will look for a suitable backup mentor. James Youngman <jay(a)gnu.org> will be taking care of accumulating the offers and putting them in our web site, but he could use one or two people to help. If you are willing to help, please write to <summer-of-code(a)gnu.org>. _______________________________________________ GNU Maintainers Announcement List gnu-prog(a)gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-prog . -- -- Dr. Nagarjuna G. Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. Mumbai India. V.N. Purav Marg, Mankhurd, Mumbai, INDIA 400088 http://www.hbcse.tifr.res.in/Data/Objects/n/nagarjun/viewObject

17 years, 1 month

Dont be proud of freedom if its through linspire

by Hiran Venugopalan

I am now seeing many guys here who SAYS them as Linux [GNU/Linux Users] and talks about freedom.But when I ask them about the distro there reply is some times sad one for me - linspire.I dont think the linspire as Linux.Itssimply proprietary.Its on EULA.Although the basic GNU/Linux system is free software, most of the GNU/Linux versions now available include a small amount of non-free software--just enough to spoil them as a way to attain freedom. But Linspire is in a class by itself; large and important parts of this system are non-free. No other GNU/Linux distribution has back slided so far away from freedom. Switching from MS Windows to Linspire does not bring you to freedom, it just gets you a different master. | Hiran Venugopalan | | Palakkad Libre software Users Society | Adding freedom to common minds | | 09846951870 | hiran.v(a)gmail.com |

17 years, 1 month

Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 15:10:08 +0530 From: "Prabhat Sandheliya" <prabhat.news@gmail.com> Re: [Fsf-friends] Lamers Stuff !!!

by Debarshi 'Rishi' Ray

>> Nice to know about your views. It _was_ nice to read after all. I spent a faur amount of time rolling in laughter too. >> Let's discuss the Sardar Sarovar Dam and Jessica's Lal's murder here >> too, while we're about it. How about Salman Khan's incarceration for >> shooting a black buck? Do you feel justice was served in that case? >> Hey, the wrong guy won Indian Idle too -- maybe we should organise >> mass meetings across the country to protest that! >> >> I look forward to hearing the views of everyone on this list with >> respect to all the burning issues in India today. > Well, dear. I don't think this is the right place to discuss these topics > here. This is FSF list and lets confine our discussions to IT, Linux and OSS > here. But if you have something to say, please visit here ( > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/India-Force/<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/India-Force/>) . People will love to hear your > views. My dear Prabhat, that is exactly what Raju was trying to imply. :)

17 years, 1 month

Google Summer of code guidelins

by प्रव ीण् ए (Praveen A)

Hi, These are the GNU projects guidelines to participate in Google Summer of Code. http://www.gnu.org/software/soc-projects/guidelines.html More about Google Summer of Code http://code.google.com/soc/ http://code.google.com/soc/studentfaq.html will give you Frequently asked questions like 1. What is Summer of Code 2006? Summer of Code 2006 is a program that offers student developers stipends to create new open source programs or to help currently established projects. Google will be working with a variety of open source, free software, and technology-related groups to identify and fund several hundred projects over a three-month period. The inaugural instance of the program, which took place last summer, brought together 400 students and 40 mentoring organizations from 49 countries. We'd like to include even more organizations and participants this year. The program's goals are to inspire young developers and provide students in Computer Science and related fields the opportunity to do work related to their academic pursuits during the summer, and to support existing open source projects and organizations. Since we're looking to find developers around the world (many of whom may have considered creating open source software but havent yet taken the plunge), we felt that concentrating on the student population was a good place to focus our efforts. Further, since no single organization could possibly mentor hundreds of students working on disparate projects, we thought it made sense to spread the work throughout the open source and free software community. We also think that the Apache Software Foundation (for instance) knows a lot more about what an Apache project needs than Google does and is more likely to ensure that an applicant gets the right kind of guidance so they can create acceptable code. I really hope some of you join in. I'm sure it will be a really good opportunity to learn with some of the best programmers of the world (and ofcourse $4500). Regards Praveen -- "Value your freedom, or you will lose it, teaches history. `Don't bother us with politics', respond those who don't want to learn." -- Richard Stallman Me scribbles at http://www.pravi.co.nr

17 years, 1 month

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Fsf-friends April 2006