Blogs

Writing a blog is a favorite pastime for many. It helps spread knowledge and you can also gain good reputation among your peers if you write good technical blogs. But whether one blogs professionally or as just a hobby ,bloggers must know the basics of Html in order to make the blog look as they want it to. Here is a brief overview on a few html tags that can be used in making your perfect blog.

Html code has two tags, the opening tag and the closing tags. The content goes in between these two tags.

The heading tags help display the heading. Different sizes can be obtained by using different tags like

<h1> text goes here </h1>

<h2> text goes here</h2>

<h3> text goes here </h3>

Another important feature of Html that can be used in blogging is adding hyperlinks to the text. This can be done by using the following code.

<a href =”link goes here”> text goes here </a>

Images definitely attract more viewers to a blog. In order to include images into your blog you can use the following code.

<img src=”link of image goes here” alt=”text goes here” width=”30” height=”50”>

If you need to include bullet points, here is the code that will help you with it.

<ul>

<li>list 1 </li>

<li>list 2 </li>

</ul>

The bold, italics and underline fonts can also be achieved using html tags.

<b>text goes here</b>

<i>text goes here</i>

<u>text goes here</u>

Another feature that can be useful is alignment of the text. You can position you text to the center, left or right using the following html tags.

<p align="left">text goes here</p>

<p align="center">text goes here</p>

<p align="right">text goes here</p>

These were just a few Html tags, there are a multiple tags that are available that can help address any specific requirement .These html tags can go a long way in controlling the structure of your blog. Happy blogging!!

References :

[1] https://blog.shareaholic.com/understanding-blog-analytics/

[2] http://yourcontentnotes.com/2011/02/basic-html-tips-blogging/

[3] http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Technology-Blog

[4] https://blog.shareaholic.com/html-101-for-bloggers/

[5] http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_images.asp
[6] http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2011/08/why-i-blog.html

QR Codes

The QR code aka "Quick Response" code was first designed in Japan for the automotive industry.

Very interestingly, QR codes were first invented back in 1994 for the purpose of tracking parts in the automobile industry. Over time it slowly became more popular and started being used in other industries such as Retail, Banking etc.

A typical QR code shown above is a collection of four squares with a dot in each square and a bunch of lines (horizontal and vertical) mainly used for alignment purposes. A QR code can store alphanumeric (upto 4K characters) and numeric data ( around 7K characters). A QR code usually contains a phone number, url, text message or an email address.

Now the advent of smart phones has accelerated the use of QR codes especially in retail marketing. QR code scanners are free apps that can be downloaded and used to scan QR codes. Scanning a QR code redirects the user to the appropriate website that a company wants their customer to see. This becomes very easy for customers as they don’t have to type in a long url. Also, QR codes are very reliable. A slightly damaged QR code (even if up to one third of the information is lost) can yield the right result after scanning.

The simplicity of use along with its reliability has led to the proliferation of QR codes. Today one can see QR codes from advertisements in trains to a carton of cereal. But proliferation of QR codes has also led to an increase of malicious attacks by cyber criminals.

As with any popular technology, there are risks with using QR codes that have to be kept in mind. I wanted to discuss a couple of suck malicious attacks

 - September, 2011 saw the first major QR code attack that redirected users to malicious websites and apps which tried to gain personal and credit card information. Also, premium texts were sent costing the user money.
- Attackers today can create QR codes that reveal a user’s mobile phone’s IMEI number. This is a unique identification number for a mobile device. This information would be dangerous in the hands of attackers with malicious intentions.
- Hackers can embed in QR codes factory reset codes for mobile phones. When such QR codes are scanned it will delete all data and settings on the phone.

One can prevent such attacks by keeping the phone’s firmware up to date and by using good judgment in choosing which QR codes to scan.

While QR codes are becoming more popular, a new technology called clickable paper is emerging that might one day replace QR codes. The idea of clickable paper would be that one could click an image and that would redirect a user to multiple related pages such as its Amazon website, YouTube video, Twitter account, Facebook page and anything related to the product.

References

1. http://usa.kaspersky.com/about-us/press-center/press-blog/malicious-qr-codes-attack-methods-techniques-infographic
2. http://www.answers.com/topic/qr-code
3. http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/qr-code-ussd-attack/
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code
5. http://mashable.com/2014/01/09/qr-code-clickable-paper/

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Cyber Security

  "DDoS cyber attacks get bigger, smarter, more damaging" -Reuters

                       "McAfee uncovers 200 new cyber attacks per minute in 2013" -v3.co.uk

 "World's biggest cybe rattack detected, 360 million accounts, 1.25 billion email addresses hacked" -The Times of India

Cyber attacks have become a major threat to the world. The importance of cyber threats can be gleaned by the fact that the US government in its recent budget proposal reduced the overall defense spending, but increased the spending to counter the cyber threats. This is not only a national security concern in today's world but also a major concern in consumer space as hackers try to get personal information of users, steal their identities to make money and use them for other nefarious activities.

Given the vast amount of recent attacks, I wanted to highlight a couple of threats that has gotten media attention lately.

- In recent months Twitter, gained a lot of attention due to its IPO. But that was not the only reason why Twitter was in the news. This newly formed company was at the receiving end of a major cyber attack .According to news reports 250,000 user's email addresses, user names and passwords may have been compromised . Even more disturbing was the fact that Twitter took almost a week to discover the live attack that had taken place.

- Target fell victim to a major security breach during last year's holiday season and is believed to be one of the biggest retail security breaches in US history. This breach compromised the credit /debit card as well as personal information of a whopping 70 million customers. The attackers stole the information by hacking the credit card swipe systems at their stores. The scary part is that there are rumors circulating that personal information is being sold in the dark corners of the Internet. This one attack drove down quarterly revenues of Target by twenty percent.

Personally, I have started paying greater attention to cyber security after having done a Cryptography course last semester. As a part of this course, we had a very interesting project in software reverse engineering. For this, I chose a shareware application, disassembled it (after making sure the EULA was not violated) and bypassed the license registration of the software, which is a key security feature. As a result of this, I was able to register for the software without having to buy it. Another project involved creating a very benign Trojan virus. While these projects were very interesting, it also made me realize how vulnerable software is to cyber attacks.

We live in a world dominated by connected devices running on software and have our personal information online . Also, rapid growth of mobile phones and tablets along with the proliferation of apps, each asking for our personal information and location has meant hackers today have multiple routes to gain consumer information. Thus cyber security is all the more important in today's world.

While there is always a threat of falling prey to any cyber attack there are several ways in which one can secure themselves from cyber threats. Software can be made more safe by doing several code reviews and testing so that bugs can be kept to a minimum. It is usually these bugs that allow a back door entry for hackers to exploit. Software reverse engineering attacks can be prevented by adding dead code or using code obfuscation techniques. In order to have a secure online transaction, one must use a secure connection and pay heed to the security warnings that browser suggests. Such counter fixes along with common sense measures such as changing passwords frequently ,using strong passwords, deleting cookies and logging out of public computers, etc can go a long way in preventing personal information from getting hacked easily.

References:

[1] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/internet/Worlds-biggest-cyberattack-detected-360-    million-accounts-1-25-billion-email-addresses-hacked/articleshow/31133867.cms

[2] http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/05/us-cyber-ddos-idUSBREA240XZ20140305

[3] http://mosesike.org/is-information-technology-really-a-good-force/

[4] http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-top-cyber-attacks-of-2013-    20130530,0,1649624.photogallery?index=la-fi-tn-top-cyber-attacks-of-2013-20130530-007

[5] http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2333178/mcafee-uncovers-200-new-cyber-attacks-per-minute-in-2013
[6] http://www.gfi.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/web-security-threats.jpg

Open source

“In real open source, you have the right to control your own destiny.” -Linus Torvalds

                                    

Open source software helps me successfully navigate through my academic, personal and professional life. On a daily basis I use Open Office to do my homework, OpenNebula for setting up a cloud, Apache server for doing my Java projects and Whatsapp to name a few. Open source software helps a lot of Startup companies to grow very rapidly. The barriers of entry for a start up company are low - All that is needed are a couple of motivated people, a small capital and a fresh exciting idea. Early stage startups don't need to spend a lot of money to buy the big name software suites in order to bring their ideas to life, due to the availability of open source software. Also, since the source code is available, these companies can customize the software to meet their specific needs. Open source benefits not only Startup companies but also academic institutes and large companies. Most of the design software used in schools are open source and even large corporations encourage the use of open source alternatives. It promotes the idea of 'Free Knowledge'. Today, the sky is the limit for students as they can access any type of software they need to create exciting products at little cost. They can improve upon an existing software or even develop new applications from the available source code.

Use Open source for your next project: If you need to start a software project from scratch you can do so without having to purchase any proprietary software. This can be achieved with the help of multiple open source tools that are available freely on the web. Below are the list of open source software that I have found very useful in my projects. Software Configuration Management (SCM) Tools: There are many tools that are available but the one that I have most experience with is the Concurrent version system (CVS). CVS helps maintain the most current version of the code or files. This is useful when multiple developers are working on the same project at the same time. The developer can check out a copy of the code and make changes to it and later check in the modified code in the system. This prevents the possibility of the changes getting overwritten as multiple developers work in a software project at the same time. Software Hosting Facilities: GitHub is very popular in this category. It combines the best of two worlds - social networking and code sharing for developers. It has a pretty good GUI and has a wiki to get you started, along with several collaboration tools. The developer can fork out a copy of the code into his/her own machines so that write access is achieved. Once the developer has a local copy, changes can be made and the modifications can be merged back into the original code. Standalone bug trackers : Minimizing bugs is the key goal for any software project, so it is very important to closely track bugs. Bugzzila is a defect tracking system. Developers can track the bugs that they have uncovered and also keep a note of any pending problems they have not addressed yet in the project. Editors and IDEs : Eclipse is an integrated development environment that is used for Java based projects. It can also be used to run many other languages by installing the appropriate plug-ins. Project Management Tools: Project management is very important to successfully deliver the product on time. OpenProj helps to achieve this. It allows the project to be divided into several sub tasks along with the time allotted for each task. The entire team is on the same page when it comes to project time lines and helps meet critical deadlines. However,there are a few drawbacks with regards to Open source software. It usually does not have good documentation available to setup and customize the software as needed. Since it's free, there is not much technical support available and that can be a problem to fix bugs. The only way out is to rely on forums or talk to individuals who are well versed with the software and there is no guarantee of getting a solution to every problem that one may encounter. As long as the risks are kept in mind and properly addressed, Open source can be a boon to software developers.

References :

[1] http://www.zdnet.com/docker-an-open-source-startup-you-need-to-know-about-7000023273/

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software

[3] http://opensource.com/resources/what-open-source

[4] https://www.catincan.com/
[5] http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/14/what-exactly-is-git
hub-anyway
[6] https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/What_to_do_and_what_not_to_do_in_Bugzilla
[7] http://www.siliconafrica.com/wp-content/themes/directorypress/thumbs//may-the-source-be-with-you_Open-source.jpg