மே 21, 2008

May 16th to 19th We as a group went and enjoyed the deep down jungle camp at Duchy of Kalhatty in Ooty. Expect more about the events and other stuffs in the forthcoming blogs.

இப்போதைக்கு இது ஒரு ஆரம்பம், முடிவல்ல...

மே 16, 2008

A victim of cyber crime? Here's help

Have you ever been stalked online, blackmailed or received email threats? If your answer is "yes", you are among the thousands today who are being attacked by Net criminals.
Like other parts of the world, India too is constantly under the threat of these heinous acts. Those of us who use our computers at home without proper security measures are often the easy victims for these crimes. In the physical world, if a crime is committed, we usually know what to do. Usually the nearest police station comes to the rescue. But what should you do for something you have no real proof, or someone who is not even visible? We bring you some tips which will help you get help quickly.

Cyber stalking or online harassment
This is one of the most common cyber crimes in India. If you are being stalked or harassed, don’t take it as a passing phase. Act fast.

• Avoid all contact with the stalker. Be assertive and diplomatic while communicating with him/her.
• Don’t change your phone number; instead let your answering machine or voice mail take the calls. This will prevent him from adapting ulterior contact strategies.
• Safeguard any evidence of threats like letters, email and voice messages. All this would be needed for legal action.
• Report it to the nearest cyber crime cell.
• If attempts of physical attack take place, file an FIR immediately.

Online Fraud
If you suddenly find out that your money has disappeared from your bank account or there have been discrepancies in your credit statements, your accounts might have been compromised.

• Contact your bank and start the process to ensure that you don’t lose any more money. Ask your bank how you can dispute charges and recover funds.
• Set up a fraud alert with cyber crime cell.
• Watch your credit card and other statements and see if there are transactions that you have not made. This is to ensure that there has been no identity theft.
• File a police report in your area

Spam/Abuse
If obnoxious unsolicited emails fill your inbox every day and refuse to go away, the simple solution is not just to delete them. Effective reporting of spam will ensure prosecution, fining or even jailing of spammers.

Report to: Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email, India (CAUCE India)
Web: http://www.india.cauce.org/

Hacking
If you find out that you have been hacked, there are broadly two ways to fix the problem.
Rollback: Backup all your important data and reinstall Windows.

System clean: You may also use freely downloadable utilities like Fport, TCP View, etc to clean up the files left by the hacker), but this is not recommended for the novice computer user since it requires a certain degree of technical know-how.

However, it is best to start afresh by reinstalling the operating system so that you can be sure that you machine is void of any infection. Call your service engineer for this. But if you have lost data, or credit card and other critical numbers, it’s best to speak with your banks and get necessary changes done to ensure no money loss occurs.

Cyber crime helplines
a) Superintendent of Police, Cyber Crime Investigation Cell (CCIC); Web: http://cbi.nic.in/; Email: cbiccic@bol.net.in
b) Resource Center for Cyber Forensics (RCCF); Web: http://www.cdactvm.in/; Email: cyber@cdactvm.in
c) India Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In): http://www.cert-in.org.in/

மே 03, 2008

A month is over with a fresh month started. The very first day was a nice experience for me as i enrolled for an awareness walk/run program conducted by Radiant Wellness Centre in aid of The Spastics Society of TamilNadu. It was called as "Run... Away from Obesity". After a very long time i did a cardio workout to discover abt my fitness level. Registered for the Walk/Run program at the Wellness T.Nagar Office. Got up at 5 am in the morning on a leave day was a fresh start for the entire month. Ready for the challenge and reached the Meeting point (Marina Beach Light House) at 6:15am. Dressed up in red T.Shirt and White pant. Shoes and cap were the accessories.

The Awareness run started at 6:50am from Light House (Marina Beach Inner Road) with the other end to be at Thiruvallikkeni (Preferrably Allikkeni MRTS Station Point along the Beach Inner Road) and back to Light House. Its a 5 km stretch, wherein we (55 people) completed it with running, walking and jogging fit to every individual. Though it was a early morning fresh air that Marina spread out, we felt the Chennai Weather moved up the slide with the temperature increasing.

We completed the run with the breakfast (Bread Sandwitch, Plum cake, Samosa) plus few glasses of Slice (remember the recent advt. - mango without seeds). I was able to run few meters, walk more and jog a little. Drenched with the body sweet it was a nice workout after a long time (retrospect of school day games - football, cricket etc.). Most of the people are the members of Radiant Wellness Centre, T.Nagar. (www.radiantwellness.in).

Coming to the wonderful things in the program - first we had the Chennai City Police Patrol guarded us during the entire time period, they were very conscious in using the mike announcements (noice pollution :-) , Secondly we had a person who i think works for Allsec Technologies a big tummy quoted, "I have taken 25 yrs to build this, why should i run and make this structure to go away", finally he also joined us. Thirdly Spastics Society people who has to be on time came late at 7am while we were in the middle of the run. Next I could see a lot of people doing activities like workout, walking, learning to driver car/bike, beach games - football, cricket, fishing, skatting, morning bath, etc.

Seeing all this i believe something is missing in everyone's life. We are suppose to maintain the cleanliness though there were signposts giving out the awareness to keep the longest asset of Tamil Nadu. To my surprise, Times of India captured the event and printed in the Friday main edition with the topic "Jog organised to raise awareness on obesity" under Times City. Try to go for a small walk, jog around your locality. Don't use bike until you have so much to hold them in your hand.