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
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
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: \_/ \_/
"-"
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."
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
>
-------- 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
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 |
>> 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. :)
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