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July 31, 2006

War doest...

Jason a long time ago had this as his signature;

"War doesn't determine who's right. It determines who's left."

What will be the toll on the war in Lebenon and Isreal ?? What will be left ??

The Double Game in the Nuclear Poker is beginning to play out. The Khan network is active !!

July 28, 2006

Error code: 11.E98474

What is this new error message from Blogger ??

Blogger could not process your message at this time.

Error code: 11.E98474"

Has anyone seen this before ?? I researched but can't find error code definations...

you will get zero results for this query [within quotes]

google.com/search?hl=en&lr ...

July 27, 2006

Support Call Nitemare ?

David, does a great job on tis Podcast !!

This is classic example of a WTF is  with BofA :)-

"You can hear this entire exchange in my recording of the call, plus you can hear me ask at one point, how it was that they were able to verify my ability to access my account by checking the phone number I was calling from.  I have CallerID blocked on all outbound calls.  Does BofA have the same sort of special access to the CallerID system that the 911 system has? "

But Kudo's to Clare (support person of BofA) for pulling out her card and verifying the numbers and trying to make a case. She did Ok. Here'sthe complete call.

My question here is how is BofA actually verified the telphone number of David's and whats the number working only outside the US and not in Canada and the US ? The Case# 1- ...dah ? what ever happened here  ? did David edit  ??  Why did he hid the case number ?? Can't we verify this directly with BoFA ?  Oh the supervisor comes on and they don't release numbers of the Executive Office or the PR dept--but the supervisor (Channel ?) does not understand whats happening here.. and mutters "I don't know man" , you can can contact .. 415- and then edited once again.. (grrrrrrrrrrrrrr..David Do that .. full disclosure buddy !!). Ok loop to the main them.."how did you verify my number " - yeah public instiution - police dept .. or what ??

hehehe.. our good friend steps in . Oh hello James.. what sayest thou ? :)-  "Oh its alwasy nice to be recorded by someone you trust " - James is so Kewl.. !!

ok James calls back and verifies the downline for the critical CRM number.

Kudos to James and David  for such a  great conversation and ensight

Breaking news !!

Breaking news .. I just hit my limit on Google Blogoscoped, where I cut info on google !!Pd

Now I must beg Phillip to increase my watermark !!

Grrrrrrrr.. or maybe I should cheat and change my handle. I did in my former life with ipNG and IPv6 forums way back in '98 !! :)-

Anyhoot, Thank you  Phillip for the breaking news info byte and a thank you to all the GB forum members for engaging in good covnersations !!

Maybe, I should can retire.. and get a life !!

Lanes Gift vs Google

The Lane Gift vs Google Case was opened some time ago and just this morning I was having a discussion on this. Just now Judge Joe Griffin ruled today to approve the proposed settlement. Here is his ruling.

Hopefully, Google now can move forward with the other plans to make life easier and better for their community.

July 20, 2006

Operation "CGM-1"

The King "... should divide the day as well as the night into eight parts . . . During the fifth, he should hold consultations with the council of ministers through correspondence and also keep himself informed of the secret reports brought by spies.... During the first one-eighth part of the night, he should meet the officers of the secret service.... During the seventh, he should hold consultations and send out the officers of the secret service for their operations."  The Duties of a King , The Arthasastra , Kautilya - Prime Minister to Emperor Chandragupta Maurya (4th Century BCE) !!

So began one of the most sophisticated operations carried out by a Counter intelligence Task Force in Indian. Code named : "CGM-1"

7/11 was a bleak day once again for the those in India. The Mumbai blast occurred. This triggered a massive outcry in the international community. Last Tuesday's attacks in Mumbai killed 182 people and wounded more than 700

7/13 a directive issued by Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) to block certain sites.

7/17 , news begins to trickle in that Bloggers are beginning to feel the impact of the blockade. Main Stream media begins the cascading effect on the  "dis-information saturated campaign".

7/18 - This become world news

7/18 -  the Indian ban applies to ALL blogs from these sites, not just those originating in India: ALL blogspot, typepad, geocities blogs worldwide. Thus Indian community is "eyes-wide shut" status. They can talk , but yet they can't see.  - Likewise the intel community can now target. Infiltration and communication between the "dissident group" is blocked.

7/19 - Blog Services providers are puzzled !!

7/19-  "having seen the government order. Only two webblogs –  pyjamaeditors.blogspot.com and exposingtheleft.blogspot.com have been  been blocked," Gulshan Rai, head of cyber security agency Computer  Emergency Response Team.

7/19 - "Shivam Vij managed to talk to Dr Gulshan Rai, director of CERT-IN, the only body authorized to issue directives to ISPs. His response: "Somebody must have asked for some sites to be blocked. What is your problem?"  . Here's the list of site actually blocked

7/20 - Early AM (EDT) - India calls blog block an "error". The secretary for telecommunications, D.S. Mathur, the highest-ranking civil servant in the sector, hung up the phone when reached at home. 40,128 Indian bloggers who mention India as their country are effected.

7/20 - Press Information Bureau releases a statement "The Department of Telecom (DoT) has instructed all the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the country to block only the specified website/webpages on the parent website"

7/20 - Blockade begins to lift.

So within 48 hours (give or take) - Operation CMG-1 is completed. 

There are many subtle points to note here ;

Gulsan Rai once worked with the the inter-services Joint Cipher Bureau which has primary responsibility for cryptology and SIGINT, providing coordination and direction to the other military service organisations with similar mission. Most current equipment providing tactical intelligence is of Russian origin, including specialized direction finding and monitoring equipment.

Of the list of 17 'banned' sites, four are dead, one is Chinese, six are American right wing, two (perhaps) wrongly spelled, three Hinduata sites and one some guy called Rahul Yadav.

When contacted Yadav tells me "When I found out about this it was pretty shocking, how can a government focus their time and efforts on a personal website with only links to its political opponents? "

Do you seriously think that DoT and the CERT-In,  would ask ISPs  in the country to ban imagesearchyahoo.com, that's not even a URL !!

It was just a brilliant smoke screen, written, directed, produced and enacted by the ever talent men and women of Indian security agencies. We might never know what happened during the last 48 hours. What was really blocked, who was caught, what was prevented.

Was Operation CGM-1 a direct response, to what is called as the; Mapping the Global Future: Report of the National Intelligence Council's 2020 Project is the third unclassified report prepared by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in recent years that takes a long-term view of the future.

July 19, 2006

Hype vs Reality

idI have been following the story on the Indian Blogger woes recently. I for one, did not think that it was pure censorship. However, I ahve been fighting my own battles on this  thought process here.

i just pulled  a copy of the directive from here, which clearly indicates that the blogs targeted were indivdiuals and NOT any blog platform at all. 

Dot The Sites are clearly written down;

1. http://www.hinduunity.org
2. http://mypetjava.mu.nu
3. http://pajamaeditors.blogspot.com
4. http://exposingtheleft.blogspot.com
5. http://thepiratescove.us
6. http://commonfolkcommonsense.blogspot.com
7. http://bamapachyderm.com
8. http://prinesskimberly.blogspot.com
9. http://merrimusings.typepad.com
10. http://mackers-world.com
11. http://dalitstan.com
12. http://hinduhumanrights.org/hindufocus.html
13. http://nndh.com (fax scan unclear, could be wrong)
14. http://bloodroyaltriped.com
15. http://imagesearch.yahoo.com
16. http://imamali8.com
17. http://rahulyadav.com

I personally trolled each of these sites and have found some of them to be "inflamary" by nature. And certainly slanted away from the government and its viewpoints. Are they really worthy of being banned, I dont think so.

However, I am still questioning the validity of the document. Why would the Indian Governement  want to pull a Japenese  blog [item#6] ?? How many bloggers in India read Japense eh ??  Is this document a "fixed" . The last item[17] has nothing within it , its about a student [Rahul Yadav] who has only 1 posting ..

Whats happening here ?? Anyone would like to share comments ??

Update#1: Peter Griffen is working out the exact list. The fax seems fuzzy. Apoliges for any errors !!

Update#2 : Rediff has the listing too. Still appears to be a "shadow" operation in play- my opinion!!

July 17, 2006

She's Got Spunk !!

I never heard of Amanda Chapel, a PR person calling herself the Strumpette, before. Amanda

Well here's a snip from here bio

"Bottom line professionally speaking, I am 5’ 4” tall, athletic, Pantene shoulder-length black hair, perfect perky boobs. I present well and am most accomodating. I’ve slept with clients. I sleep with my boss. I am the consummate PR strumpette"

I am not fooled at all by that. But, what I don't understand is why she is standing up for the Dell Hell sceanrio. I commented there

"I’m not getting it…Amanda sez

“I will contact him if the eggs are bad or the apples are rotten. I just want them replaced, or my money back. But if he’s negligently sold me something toxic, I do want more. I want damages and legal fees, too.”

I will contat Dell if the computer is bad or rotton.
I want them to replace it.
If they repeatly ignore me, I want damage and legal fees too !!"

yeah, baby, this is the attention and intention eononmy.. what you want is eaxctly what I want.. ..!!"

Yeah, Chapel is a nice name. Out of curosity are you really blond Amanda  but just die it black ?? Because I think you just dont get it , or rather-- you get it only when your eggs are bad !!

Well, Amanda- in all honesty you got a lot of spunk in you and that I like. your very passionate on what you say and do. Hopefully, you'll get wise on naked conversations

Play Monitor(2) chain game

Dsc00513

Right Hand panel : Left Hand Panel

"I’m trying to do a monitor chain. Please photograph this blog post (including your monitor and its immediate surroundings), and post the resulting pic on your blog. Then the next person photographs your blog post and posts it, and so on. Leave your post URL in the comments so people will be able to follow the chain, and link your image to the post you photographed... this way people will be able to zoom into the monitors by clicking. (Use rel="nofollow” on the links, this is for fun only.) Post these instructions in your blog post as well. "

This is a game, have fun !!

Indian Government blocks Blogging platforms

Bloggers are reporting that the Indian government has issued a directive to block Blogging platform like Blogger, Typepad etc. More information is being done on the working group.

This appears to be risk management strategy by the GOI to curtail terrorist who are using this media for activities against their citizens. Read as Terrorist activities or is it ??