Internet is all about different applications scattered around and each one using its own data repository behind the scenes to fuel up the running application. But if you consider the data held by all the applications what is the chance that each application is holding a data that also exists in one or more of the other applications? I get an immediate reply, a very high chance. If as a user you are using multiple applications on the web, again the chances of data relevancy between these applications could be highly possible. For example if I am using a calendaring application that shows me appointments why can’t I also see what my bank statement was on that day or the previous days? If there is way to interlink the numerous data that is scattered around the web and bring them up wherever you want as the context maybe then it brings a whole new perspective of how we look at web. It is no more just a network of interconnected machines but also a network of interconnected data. The World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Semantic Web provides a common framework that allows data to be shared and reused across application, enterprise, and community boundaries. It is a collaborative effort led by W3C with participation from a large number of researchers and industrial partners. Also refer to this article “The Semantic Web: An Introduction” and the wikipedia entry.

The chief internet evangelist and father of internet Vinton G Cerf was in Bangalore and gave a public presentation here in Bangalore on the past, present and future of internet.  Few of my colleagues attended the presentation.  Thanks to Narayanan, Sumanth and Prakash who summarized the presentation.

Vinton G. Cerf is the Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. He is responsible for identifying new enabling technologies and applications on the Internet and other platforms for the company.   Vinton spoke to a huge gathering on the topic - “A father speaks about his child’s past, present and future“.  Befitting the title of the session Vinton showed few glimpses of ARPANET (the past of internet), dealt on the effectiveness, speed, amount of data transferred using this ARPANET in the initial days.  Then he moved on to the present situation where the users of internet have almost increased tenfold.  He also showed the statistics regarding the usage of internet in the present day life and also connectivity across multiple electronic devices such as pc, mobiles, PDA’s …  Throughout he stressed upon that not just “Knowledge is Power” but “Sharing the Knowledge is Power” and he acknowledged that Google is committed to make it happen.  Vinton kindled few thoughts on how the future electronic devices could behave.  Be it programmed refrigerators that will e-Mail/SMS the owner about the contents that are stored or be it surfing board equipped with Laptop (supported by Wi-Fi) that helps the user to be connected through out.

With the kind of demand that is increasing rapidly, Vinton stressed on getting a structure to the scattered internet with more R&D on networking technologies like IPv6. With a standard disclaimer saying that Google is not involved in the project that he is leading, he spoke about his project “Inter Planetary Internet”.

Vinton showed the slides of this project which talks about a new way of transferring content/data with the help of other planetary systems like how a robot deployed in Mars sends the data back to earth. The constraint though is the existing protocol TCP/IP is not enough to get the expected response time because the transfer now has to happen in terms of astronomical distances which usually is about 4 to 20 minutes.  He mentioned that a new protocol Inter PlaNet (IPN) would be required to enable such a communication that will meet the required response time for data transfers.

Click on this link “About Inter Planetary Internet Project” to know more about it.

I am sure you get lot of spam emails like anyone does. While most of them are really junk mails, some of them are interesting reads. Seriously, sometimes if you are too bored, you could just open up couple of the spam emails and read them. One of the regular spam emails that I am used to getting is something like the below one.

“…
…
I am a major investor in offshore oil Riggs until recently when I was crippled by stroke which left half part of my body paralyzed, I have undergone major surgery but my health is still not improving. For the past fifteen years I have been waiting if I would be cured but all to no avail and recently my doctor gave me very sad news which is very disturbing to me he said that in about three months time my health may get worst and since I have no close relative around I will want to set up orphanage homes in my name and also donate the rest of my wealth to charitable organizations which you are going to be in charge.

My account balance presently is $12.2m united state dollars as reflected in my last statement account from my bank account and I have wish to use this fund to finance this project as I do not have much time left, you will be entitled to 20% of these funds for your good work and put the rest into the orphanage homes. Please send me a mail with your telephone and fax numbers if you are willing to honestly assist me. As soon as I receive a response from you I shall instruct my bank to deal with you directly for easy transfer of the fund. All the information regarding the fund will also be given to you with all the necessary documents for onward transfer of the fund to your nominated bank account.
….
….”

The senders of such mail belong to group of spammers called “Nigerian Email Fraud” whose purpose is to make an identity theft. Ultimately you will lose some money and you won’t get even a penny back.  How does this fraud ring work? Read this article “False Promises of Inheritance - Spam Email Fraud” to know more about how this fraud ring operate.

I read this joke through a mail forward and chuckled for sometime.

The computer science professor wrote a simple program on the board and asked the students to study it and write comments.

Student 1: This program is very nice
Student 2: I like this program very much
Student 3: I don’t know what a program is
…
…
…

Happy Weekend

Secure Shell or SSH in short is an application layer protocol that helps in connecting and working with a remote machine.  SSH replaced its predecessor Telnet which is not as secure as SSH and thus vulnerable to security threats.  SSH works with the help of public key cryptography which is a popular cryptography mechanism that is widely used for encrypting and decrypting information passed over the network.  SSH is widely used to connect to remote UNIX/Linux systems to configure and manage.  While majority of UNIX/Linux systems come with SSH service and command line client to connect to remote, Putty is a widely used GUI based SSH tool for Windows (as well as for *nix systems with graphical support) that can help in connecting to remote machine through SSH.  Even though SSH enables a secure communication between the client and the server, the configuration of the SSH service on the server is very important to effectively enable a secure connection.  This blog article “HOWTO: Five steps to a more secure SSH” discusses the 5 important steps to enable a secure SSH (that makes it secure secure shell )

I was impressed with this video “Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us” that takes us from where we were to where we are today and also raises the question where it is all leading to. We are getting connected to people around the world so easily with web and collaboration it has unleashed but are we missing to connect personally to our own closed ones that are nearby? I could not answer myself convincingly. That apart, this video is also a good movie on the evolution of web 2.0.

I recently came across the below quote which emphasizes that the technology however advanced and efficient it may be the ultimate thing that matters is if the consumers of it are able to use it and makes their lives easy.

Just remember: you’re not a “dummy,” no matter what those computer books claim. The real dummies are the people who, though technically expert, couldn’t design hardware and software that’s usable by normal consumers if their lives depended upon it - Walter Mossberg

Compassites celebrated its first anniversary last Saturday. It was a big occasion for us and it was a fantastic feeling to ponder back the one year roller coaster ride we had. We had the moments captured that turned into a video that made each one of us feel good. We had a talk treat from our board members and what came after was a touching video of COACH which is an employee social responsibility program. COACH represents Compassites On A Cause for Help. We had three programs conducted last year and it was touching and more than anything it gave us a feel of self satisfaction in helping the needy. As my colleague Vivek who is one of the key organizers of COACH said, we feed work for our mind and COACH for our heart and we feel the completeness in what we do at Compassites. Here is the video COACH - Compassites ‘Heal the world’.