Why 802.11n still in draft?

Finally we're moving in to our new house after long construction and registration hang-ups. But I want to make sure our entire house including the court yard is Wi-Fi dead spot free. I am planning to replace my old wireless modem/router with MIMO (Multi-In, Multi-Out) one. Wi-Fi router with MIMO capability boosts network performance with up to 10x the speed and 10x the coverage of Wireless-G. It's a proven differentiation feature rather than a fancy marketing gimmick. However, I started shopping online to find a good deal; as usual now I'm suffering with Feature Fatigue, too many features and options to consider, sometimes it gives more confusion than containment.
I'm a member of IEEE standard body and also working in Telco xSP industry where lots of product developments are happening in Wi-Fi/Wi-Max domain. Next generation Wi-Fi (803.11n) was drafted long ago but facing continued hurdles to finally being ratified. 802.11n is the fourth major version of the wireless networking technology known as Wireless-Fidelity. Originally announced in January 2004, the technology has been adopted in its "draft" form by many vendors, but finalization and ratification is still nowhere close to being done.

802.11n promises to deliver a fivefold increase in speed, and double the range of 802.11g. Indeed in many cases it's already delivering something approximating that, as pre-standard kit has been available for almost a year. Netgreat RangeMax NEXT Wireless-N Routers & Gateways product series extends the possibilities of wireless home networking by providing a Steady-Stream approaching 300Mbps, and is compliant with draft 802.11n. This would give you the luxury to stream high-definition videos from your laptop to media center TV while you're making internet phone calls, downloading mp3s or torrents. There are many other providers including D-Link, Belkin, Linksys, Netgear are already competes in the 802.11n space although the standard is not ratified yet.

One of the big problems now involves is the patents. Apparently Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) owns some patents that cross into 802.11n's world. And the CSIRO has not promised not to sue anyone who develops 802.11n technology. So the IEEE standards body, responsible for ratifying the protocol, waits and waits. Hoping something will happen.

This means that anyone who implements, or is implementing, 802.11n is at risk of being sued by CSIRO, and that the standard is very unlikely to be approved. Any equipment with draft 802.11n may already be infringing on CSIRO's patents, which could create a horrendous drama if CSIRO decides to sue.

Biggest concern is what would happen next. 802.11n shouldn't be the end of the line for Wi-Fi development. Will these problems cause development to end, or for vendors to start developing their own, incompatible technologies? I don't want my Linksys long range USB adapter to be incompatible with Netgear's NEXT router… who wants another HD DVD vs. Blu-ray war?

APEC, Stop Bush Coalition and Freedom of Speech

This year Australian Government is hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Sydney. Security has been fastened and city will be closed on Friday to minimize the public movement. According to the police commissioner, this event is the highest risk security operation that they’re ever running in Australia with 21 heads of state coming from around the world. However one of the strategies put in place, building a big strong and ugly fence, has made a huge controversy. Primary objective of this fence is to stop protesters coming in to the so called security area. Government seems petrified of protests and they were using media to discourage potential protestors and stop people coming in to the city. However, when US president arrived in Air Force One with over 600 delegates, protesters gave him the welcome he “deserves”.

Last evening police have won the court battle over the rally's route, the $300 million bill will be partially recovered from the fines imposed on cars towed away from special Event Clearways which stretch as far as Sutherland Shire from the Central Business District (CBD). Now the protest rally, led by The Stop Bush Coalition, has to limit their route without entering to the so called security area. Massive crowd will be expected to partake against ongoing, inhumane carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan where people dying every day — people whose lives could be saved if the Bush and Howard governments made a simple policy change. However protesters believe that these lives are lost not in a noble struggle for “democracy”, but in a shameful war of conquest, a war to plunder the resources of the Middle East in favor of the corporate interests for whom US President George Bush and Australia PM John Howard rule. Furthermore, protestors will be taking a stand in favor of genuine action to stem the global warming threat.

At the same time Ausie news hungry commercial TV stations are eagerly waiting to see some kind of drama happening on Saturday. Rally organizers stressed that they will go ahead free of physically confrontation and avoid any kind of mass arrest. But there can be few within the expected 20,000 crowd who wants to show their anger in different ways. At the rate of current developments are happening I wouldn’t be surprised to see some infiltrated gangs trying to make the peaceful protest to a violent. That would not only give more credibility for the government stand “We told you so” but the media will also get what they called “newsworthy events”. Then the protesters will claim that police overreacted and were needlessly aggressive, while the police will say they were just doing their job, protecting the delegates. Footages and Images of this conflict will be seen around the world.

The conference will end on Sunday and there will be pile of in-principle agreements about climate change and trade where The US, as always, will refuse to commit to most of them.

Some people might feel secure about being in Sydney CBD this week due to heavy police presence, Blackhawk helicopters in the air, Special Forces on Jet Skies speeding in surrounding waters and Snipers on most of the tall buildings. At the same time small businesses suffering due to city closure and some of the Sydneysiders find all this is nothing but an inconvenience although they get an extra holiday to getaway from their busy lives.

Healthy Living: Fight against Cholesterol

As I promised in my last blog, here I am sharing my findings on how to fight against cholesterol. So what is cholesterol? It is a fat-like substance a type of lipid that is found in the cells of all body tissues of animals, including humans. It is not a type of fat, rather a soft, waxy substance. It originates from two major sources: dietary intake and liver production. About 80 percent of cholesterol is manufactured in the liver. Cholesterol is carried in the bloodstream in specialized protein packages called lipoproteins.

In some cases, excess cholesterol will be transported to the liver, where it is metabolized harmlessly. In other cases, excess cholesterol will penetrate the walls of arteries (tubes that carry oxygen-rich blood away from the heart to other tissues in the body) throughout the body, contributing to a disease called atherosclerosis.(a disease in which arteries harden and become narrowed due to gradual build up of a plaque on their inner walls - heart attack)

Although there are many subclasses of lipoproteins, doctors generally focus on the following three types:

High-density lipoproteins (HDL), which transport cholesterol away from arteries and are protective. Commonly known as good cholesterol, HDLs move easily through the blood. They are stable and do not stick to artery walls. They also help to prevent heart diseases by carrying bad cholesterol away from the arteries.
Low-density lipoproteins (LDL), which can penetrate the arterial wall and deposit cholesterol within the artery, thus contributing to heart disease. Commonly known as bad cholesterol, contains more fat and less protein than HDLs. LDLs are unstable; they tend to fall apart. Rather than being removed from the body by the liver, they stick to artery walls and contribute to plaque build-up.

Chylomicrons, which carry only a small percentage of cholesterol. Chylomicrons are mostly rich in another type of fat called triglycerides. When we eat, our body uses the calories it needs for quick energy. Any extra calories are turned into triglycerides and stored in fat cells to be used later. The excess calories are stored as fat regardless of what kind of food we eat-fat, carbohydrate, or protein. If we regularly eat more calories than we burn, we may have high triglycerides.
When you measure your blood cholesterol level your doctor will give you a figure of total cholesterol level. If your cholesterol level is 6.5 mmol/L or greater your risk of heart disease is about 4 times greater than that of a person with a cholesterol level of 4mmol/L. Not all people with high cholesterol levels get heart disease. About 30 per cent of the community will die of heart disease and most of these will be over 65 years old.
Heart disease usually takes long time to develop, but if you discover your cholesterol level is high you should take necessary precautions to reduce it. Other risk factors for heart disease include smoking, high blood pressure and obesity (check your BMI).
What to do if your cholesterol level is high
The most effective way to lower your cholesterol is to reduce the amount of animal fat in your diet by various means. You also could:
" reduce cheese intake and/or substitute low fat varieties
" choose reduced fat milks (skim milk)
" substitute polyunsaturated margarine for butter
" choose lean cuts of meat and remove all visible fat
" eat skinless chicken, fish or beans
" beware of pies, pasties, rolls, fish and chips and commercial cakes, muffins cookies, crackers, snack foods, fried foods, donuts, pastries, baked goods (hidden/trans fat)
" make cakes at home with polyunsaturated fat, cook chips with polyunsaturated or monounsaturated oil - Basically Stop eating junk/fast food.
" Use Olive oil (extra virgin is the best)
" lose weight if overweight (check your BMI level)
" Substitute white bread for Wholemeal Bread
" Eat plenty of veggies and fruits
Fruit and vegetables is packed with valuable nutrients and contains a number of plant chemicals which are supposed to offer some protection again heart disease and cancer.
" Reduce alcohol intake (Alcohol is very powerful at elevating triglyceride), Keep a gap between drinks. Red wine is always good for heat; not much but couple of glasses.
" Quit smoking
" Cigarettes or any form of tobacco help to increase LDL levels (bad cholesterol), and depress HDL levels (good cholesterol). As we all know smoking massively increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
" Choose High Fiber, Low-GI Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are an essential element in any low cholesterol diet plan. They are very nutritious and an excellent source of both soluble and insoluble fiber. The basic rule is to choose high-fiber low-GI carbs that are whole grain: meaning unrefined carb foods that retain most of the original fiber and grain. Examples of available whole grains include: whole-wheat, whole oats/oatmeal, wheatgerm, whole-grain corn, brown/red rice, basmati rice, whole rye, whole-grain barley. It is much easier to find verity of food types and healthy food stores in this part of the world.
" Eat lots of omega-3 rich food
Remember not all types of fat are bad for blood cholesterol. True, we don't need any dietary cholesterol, nor do we need any saturated fat, or any hydrogenated or "trans fat". However, we do need some fats - called essentially fatty acids (EFAs) - because our body does not manufacture them itself. The most important essential fatty acid is known as omega-3 (alpha-linolenic acid). This is found in some vegetable oils like flaxseed oil and fish oils from oily fish like mackerel, salmon, herring, sardines and tuna. Omega-3 actually helps to improve blood fats like cholesterol.
Finally.. Exercise!
Although eating a heart-friendly diet is an important step towards healthy cholesterol levels, it is important to consider the cholesterol-lowering benefits of physical exercise. Although it is important to match the intensity and duration of your workout to your physical condition, there is no doubt that regular aerobic, cardio or even swimming strengthens the heart muscle, improves cholesterol results and helps protect against hear attacks.

Healthy Living : What is your BMI and What you should know about it?

I did my first medical test in Apollo-SL and it hurried me to shred 8kg in order to adjust my BMI to `normal level` however I reduced 13kg and ever since I uphold it well. Since then I hardly had any junk (fast) food. I stopped taking full-cream milk and started drinking tea/coffee with only skim milk. Never had white bread but only whole meal bread, but every weekend we used to have English breakfast which Avi is very enticed with. I always hated veggies and fruits but for the last two years I had more than what I had for the entire life time. I get really grumpy when I put on extra kilos and loose my slenderness. At the time I was studying for my MBA I had put on extra kilos which made me really irritable with myself. But it took couple of months to fit in to my favorite skimpy jeans.

I just did my post-marriage medical test and realized that I haven't maintained properly especially my blood cholesterol level; this time it's not that hard.. just gotta reduce 5kg that I have gained especially in the winter.

BMI is the acronym of Body Mass Index which is a statistical measure of body fat based on our height and weight. You don't need to visit a doctor to calculate your BMI and it's easy as googling or you can quickly see the BMI assessment for your body on the chart below. This can be easily determined if you know your weight and your height. So what does BMI tells you? It gives you a quick indication of which category you falls in, normal weight (BMI = 18.5-24.9) Overweight (18.5-24.9) or Obesity (BMI => 30).

If you fall under the normal category you could put your feet up and have a lip-smacking Krispy Kream doughnut but the next category wouldn't give you that luxury yet you may have to seriously control your diet along with regular exercises. Last category is the worst and you don't want to be there. Because Obesity is now established as an independent risk factor for atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease. It is also part of a cluster of symptoms (others include, hypertension, hyperlipemia, diabetes) which make up the condition known as insulin resistance syndrome - itself a predictor of adverse heart health. So for optimum cholesterol levels and heart health, we all have to maintain a healthy weight (BMI 20-24.9). If you are overweight (BMI 25-29.9) or obese (BMI > 30) you gotta follow a healthy weight loss diet and you will see an improvement in your cholesterol bloodwork.

I'm not paranoid nor a medi freak but I would love to learn more about contemporary preventive measures and share my findings among everyone; therefore, keep tunned, in my next blog I will dig more about cholesterol and best practices to fight against it.

Information Fatigue Syndrome (IFS)

While Googling is becoming the routing apparatus in our daily information seeking exercise, Dr David Lewis first suggested a new phenomenon, information fatigue syndrome, which emerged as a direct result of the information revolution. He also came up with its symptoms which include the paralysis of the analytical capacity, constant searches for more information, increased anxiety and sleeplessness, as well as increasing self-doubt in decision-making. How many of you becoming highly stressed through trying to cope with the huge amounts of information bombardment from books, journals, e-mails and the Internet? I'm a real victim of this newly coined syndrome but I really don't know whether it is some kind of hyper-aroused psychological condition. It is a disorder as per the Reuters report on Dying for Information which argues particularly affects the group called knowledge workers whose jobs mainly involves dealing with and processing information. In fact almost everyone suffering with this newly coined disorder or becoming victimized at a rapid rate.

Now we have gone beyond information overload to the point of information pollution which leads to the contamination of a culture or of a person's life by excessive data. I wouldn't be surprise to hear information environmentalism, a movement that seeks to reduce information pollution and its effects on people. We are not yet ready to meet challenges of excessive amount of information that causes stress and weariness but we are getting used to this exhaustion although it brings mental stress.

Feature fatigue caused by products that come with large number of ever changing features. Yet some find it quite exciting to deal with but when it comes to decision making, number of features brings more confusion than contentment. I am still shopping for my latest large screen flat panel TV yet still finding difficult to settle with one product. I am tired of comparing varied options starting from aspect ratio to interlace and progressive broadcast standards. I started my research on last May, since then some of the products have drastically dropped prices and new models with more enhanced features have replaced some of the `discontinued models`. Finally I decided to go with Sony X series 116cm LCD but now they have dropped the price of X series 127cm LCD!!

Another interesting dimension of IFS is disposophobia. The fear of throwing things out; I'm happily suffering from this phobia as well. If your music library contains thousands of tracks or your portable hard disk is full of `torrented` hundreds of hours of recorded TV shows or movies and also having uncountable numbers of digital photos, and more e mail addresses and social networking accounts that hard to track….you also suffering with disposophobia.

Animal Copyright, Bestiary and Advertisements

Animals and nature are being used frequently by SMEs to large conglomerates in their commercial campaigns, instead of compensate them like any other celebrities, these companies blissfully ignores natures simple principal - one must give back what one takes to preserve and sustain the world which we live. In Monterey, Calif. thousand remarkable people gather in every year to exchange something of incalculable value, their ideas and what happen there has never been shared. But Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives. Canadian filmmaker and photographer, Gregory Colbert who came up with Animal Copyright idea along with his profound patience and an unswerving commitment to the expressive and artistic nature of animals. He has captured amazing interactions between humans and animals.
In 2006 TED conference, Gregory Colbert, talks about the creation of his exhibit "Ashes and Snow" Colbert's work, which he calls "a 21st-century bestiary," captures the poetic beauty in our relationship to the animal kingdom. Colbert presented an 8-minute film (embedded below) of his epic episode of his relationship with animals. He then announces his new initiative, the Animal Copyright Foundation, which aims to collect royalties from companies using images of nature in their ad campaigns. According to Colbert, “Animal Copyright Foundation is a non-profit entity that exists to server and preserve species and habitats around the world; Starting January 1st 2007 the foundation will collect 1% of all media buyers including print, broadcast and Internet that uses animals” Collected payments will go to the Animal Copyright Foundation and funds will be distributed each year to different conservation projects around the world. If this idea thrives, in three years it will become the largest environment fund in the world without relying on any fund raising.
His exhibition, Ashes and Snow, which attempts to inspire emotional understanding of the nature and our stand within it, will travel all parts of the world in next ten years.
His breathtaking images were taken in Egypt, India, Burma, Tonga, Antarctica and also in Sri Lanka. None of his images are computer generated or digitally enhanced or digitally collared.

Counterterrorism, Lawful Interception and Privacy

The Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) faces a severe security threat which it has a legitimate right to mitigate. However, lack of lawful interception capability in Sri Lanka hinders forensic investigations and inadvertently assist perpetrators to escape. I have heard enough about politically motivated unlawful wiretapping in fixed telephones in Sri Lanka. In this respect, mobiles have so far remained untouched despite the fact that most terrorism and related crimes/ activities are carried out with mobile communication. Apart from script kiddies attempting to crack passwords, cyber-terrorism hasn’t caused any considerable damage to Sri Lankan infrastructure. Nonetheless, it is naive and foolish to disregard the potential risk factor lurking in Telco. The growing number of government online systems/web sites and the tremendous increase of internet users further prove the need for effective cyber-terrorism countermeasures as well as centralized lawful intercept systems.

Evolving technologies have led to a substantial increase in the use of stored communications, such as SMS/MMS messaging, instant messaging and e-mail in Sri Lanka. Therefore, the need for imposing lawful interception in order to combat terrorism/ criminal activities cannot be ignored. Arguably, privacy is no longer an absolute right in the contemporary world, and as such privacy interests must be balanced with competing public interests (national security). Nonetheless, intercepting a voice communications is just as intrusive as reading someone’s private emails or stored communications. As such, government and the judiciary should address theese challenges and attempt to achieve a balance between the thin line between privacy and national security.

The telecommunication world was a much smaller place in early 1990s when US congress passed a landmark wiretapping law. But post 9/11 brought about controversial intercept laws to western democracies under the cloak of Anti-terrorism laws. In 2002, Australian judiciary approved Telecommunications Interception Legislation Amendment Bill which specified the conditions under which it was lawful for law enforcement agencies and Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) to intercept communications under the authority of a warrant, subject to reporting and accountability mechanisms. All telecom carriers should possess lawful intercept capability for Dial, packet data and Voice and law enforcement agencies could conduct a wiretap (packet data, voice) centrally on a carrier’s network by duplicating a phone call (or packet dump) digitally by directing a copy to designated central location.

Lawful interception involves complicated processes and heavy investment in software and hardware. Every telecom carrier must employ dedicated staff with government security clearance to maintain all lawful intercept systems and frequent warrants. In Australia, those engaged in alleged criminal activities like child pornography, cyber terrorism etc shouldn’t be surprised to see Feds knocking on their door with records of all relevant past voice communications and internet access packet dumps.

In my next blog, I am hoping to focus more on prevailing issues/concerns with intercepting Internet Telephony and Intercepting Standards.

Getaway....to Wentworth Falls

Finally Avi's stressful semester ended and we badly and madly wanted to getaway from our routine busy life. Locations wasn't set for X'mas in July but finally settled with a place that has a good collection of Victorian and other historic buildings and excellent trails into the Blue Mountains National Park. Wentworth Falls offers spectacular views over the Jamison Valley and boasts the spectacular waterfall for which it is named. It has been a tourist destination for nearly 150 years. Small village of Wentworth Falls offers a serene ambiance with Wentworth Falls, Valley of the waters, Breakfast Point, Jamison Prince Rock, Vast Southerly views, Wentworth Falls Lake; we covered all of them and also covered few from dozens of tracks and trails with many breathtaking lookouts. Simply amazing to be there in freezing winter, we enjoyed every moment of it. We didn't forget to visit Australian Buddhist Vihara at Katoomba where we sat for an alms giving ceremony and pirith chanting.

Day two: we drove to Jenolan Caves, Australia's most impressive limestone caves. There are nine caves open to the public with spectacular lighting, underground rivers and cave formations. They are called Imperial, Chifley, Jubilee, Lucas, Pool of Cerberus, River, Orient, Temple of Baal and Ribbon. A dating method used by petroleum companies to find oil deposits has put the age of the Jenolan Caves in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales at 340 million years; that is Carboniferous age which is way before Dinosaurs!

We only managed to explore Temple of Baal which is one of the most highly decorated caves at Jenolan and was discovered in 1904 and it is named after the Biblical reference to Baal. This cave is world famous for its vast array of helictites which seem to defy gravity as they form. No sooner we'll go back there to explore all the other caves and the surrounding valley.

Amazing hidden potential

I don't watch reality TV nor see anything out of it, today I found this incredible clip from "Britain got Talent"; Paul Potts, introverted humble mobile phone salesman, who dreamed his life to do what he feel he was born to do appeared in the show and blew away millions of hearts by his amazing talent. I watched this clip many times, every time I watch the video I get Goosebumps and tears in my eyes.. such an inspirational endowment.

Music isn't in my soul but my desire to feel and see Paul's performance and the sheer joy I sense through every nerve of my being as I watched will be something I will repeat again and again. This has opened my eyes more towards to Opera.
I can see next Pavarotti in him!
Kudos Paul!

Inscrutable Skype

Enterprise networks are already blocking messenger applications are actively engaged in monitoring P2P traffic and tweaking application firewalls to capture valid patterns of disruptive, noisy freeware applications such as Skype. I know some of the companies that uses Skype as an alternative medium for internal communication and some believe Skype traffic brings misery to their networks. Many people have done numerous testing to understand mysterious behavior of Skype traffic. Its encryption is indecipherable because it is a closed source, not shared for public, many argue this is vulnerable for Man-In-the-Middle (MITM) attacks although no one knows how the keys are exchanged. Skype traffic characteristics are dynamically changes and work through almost any NAT based firewall. UDP and TCP ports it uses differ randomly; even length of the packet and voice sample sizes vary in each time.

Some argue, neither Skype VoIP nor Skype IM poses any readily exploitable security threat, none of the black hat websites nor hacker forums so far mentioned a single incident of Skype being exploited for sinister security attacks. Bandwidth also not a huge concern (unless you become a SuperNode - explained later) A Skype voice session uses 32K to 46kbps of traffic in each direction and that is not a huge, but few dozen of internal users concurrently uses Skype calls could even fill up a T-1 worth of pipe.

Skype calls are routed through the Skype-network via other Skype running systems, these are called SuperNodes. Any PC running Skype risks becoming a SuperNode, why? Let's say you have fast internet connection (cable / ADSL2+) with a high end system with higher CPU/Memory with a direct IP connection to the internet, then my skype calls may end up routing through your PC! SuperNode can generate a considerable noise by opening a large number of concurrent connections for other systems, it doesn't matter you stop using Skype on your PC, it will still route calls. In order to stop this behavior you literally need to bounce your computer.

Irony is, before you install skype literally you have to agree upon being a SuperNode.
Quote from EULA:
4.1 Permission to utilize Your computer. In order to receive the benefits provided by the Skype Software, you hereby grant permission for the Skype Software to utilize the processor and bandwidth of Your computer for the limited purpose of facilitating the communication between You and other Skype Software users.

Countries like EU, US and Australia, there are very restrictive traffic caps, for 6GB monthly download, residential ADSL customers in Australia would pay around $50 per month. Excess traffic will cost far more. So cost of being a SuperNode is an expensive proposition! In an enterprise network it will be hugely disruptive and causes damn too much noise by disrupting legitimate applications.

So far there is no pragmatic way of blocking this undetectable, untraceable Skype traffic but very soon IPS vendors will work a way out. At this juncture, there is no such solution commercial or / open source solution that stops Skype calls permanently.

A Mighty Heart

Couple of weeks ago, I finished reading Mariane Pearl's Mighty Heart, poignant true story behind the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl's kidnapping and murder by Pakistani fundamentalists in 2002. Author, Daniel's widow, Mariane introduces `Danny` as he was alive while also providing a heart-breaking first person account of his eventful disappearance and death. Bok was well written with plenty of endearing details about Danny, his insistence on moving his favorite chair with him around the world, his love of playing mandolin, his private conversations with his unborn son, detail events of kidnapping, captivity and the events of brutal murder --but the more remarkable portrait that emerges is one of extraordinary bravery. Danny placed himself in post 9/11 Pakistan, knowing well those regions inherent with high risks, because of his gutsy commitment to getting the truth out of terrorist activities.

When Danny's kidnappers e-mailed pictures of his captivity along with their demands, his very pregnant wife, author, was left to try to manage the search effort along with Pakistani police and US intelligence, she let events unfold as they happened, complete with their frustrating dead ends and dealing with Karachi's bureaucracy. From the date of kidnapping to receiving of a videotape containing undeniable confirmation that the Danny had been killed, she revealed unflinchingly every emotional detail with such candor that to call the book heart wrenching.

Michael Winterbottom directed the movie "A Mighty Heart" based on the true events of the unfortunate event which just being released in US. Angelina Jolie gives a remarkable, restrained performance to the life of Mariane Pearl.

Anarchy on the rise

The Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) faces a severe security threat, which it has a legitimate right to mitigate. However, its controversial policies are doing small to enhance security and are fuelling animosity among moderate Tamils and other minorities towards the state. Politically motivated anti-government propaganda machines including opposition party and their allies working really hard to convince International Community that Sri Lankan government failed to respect basic human rights. The latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines abuses committed by both the GoSL and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) since they resumed their unclaimed war in 2006. While the LTTE has continued its deliberately provocative attacks on the military and Sinhalese civilians as well as its violent repression of Tamil dissenters and forced recruitment of adults and children, the government is allegedly involve with rights abuse as part of a counter-insurgency campaign. I find their report is an excuse or legitimize violence of non-state actors in democratic societies.

I have received a copy of latest Economic and Market analysis done by City group, according to the report, Sri Lanka’s economy remains resilient. Its economic growth is likely to remain around 6% in 2007 despite the ongoing spending on war, political issues and a devastating tsunami in 2004. Moreover, Sri Lanka is the first South Asian economy with a per-capita income of over US$1000; besides, country has the highest inflation and fiscal deficit in the sub-continent…, (see the below graph), since countries Rupee was allowed to float since early 2001, following the removal of administrative controls., under the present exchange rate system, forces of demand and supply in the market determine the rate. Central bank only intervenes to prevent excessive volatility and maintain a comfortable level of reserves. Anyone can weigh these statistics and come to their own conclusions, people live in the country have a better judgment than living aboard. Arguably, countries development is moving forward with more than an acceptable level with a huge military expenditure. In other hand corruption and criminal influence on the political system have increased, some argue government is attacking moderates who are critical of its approach and has given room to nationalist extremists, who incite further communal strife.

In reality LTTE is struggling to survive both militarily and politically, yet most of the media remain far from realism primarily after the censorship. After supply routes being cut off, eastern administration being toppled, EU and Canadian ban on the terrorist outfit, dishearten Diaspora; tigers working hard with their propaganda machinery to bring their lost face. Politically bankrupt tigers in a tenuous situation to come forward for negotiation. After the death of their chief strategist they pushed into a corner with no other choice, since `80’s LTTE never came to the negotiation table with a weak position and they will never ever. Million dollar question is will tigers ever compromise with the Prabakaran’s leadership? Will he ever agree for a second best? But governments APRC is pushing for a political solution with power devolution, anyhow with a majority agreed solution, will there be a trust and goodwill between these two groups where LTTE to drop their arms and come to democratic stream and get elected by the people? Highly unlikely with the current climate especially after GoSL vowed to defeat LTTE militarily within 2-3 years. Majority of the country may support that coz that is the fastest route to end this ongoing bloodshed. However, moderates worried about the impact to the economy, international isolation, rising inflation etc., as a developing country, can Sri Lanka cope with this war for another couple of years without international support? I would say YES only if we unite as Sri Lankans, Synergistic power is a vital tool at this crucial juncture, but in reality power hungry opposition and other rebellious parties and their allies trying t0 fish in the troubled waters.

My new Pearl

I have the delight (rather no choice) of having to be in contact with the office 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to ensure that any InfoSec aspects are dealt with in a timely manner and that in the event of a telecom meltdown, I can start the spin process immediately so that any form of possible downtime that impacts to customer SLAs or minimize any potential risk to an acceptable level or in a best possible scenario, mute any possible noise. I find my newest, sexy and sleek Smartphone, quite possibly the smallest yet most functional multimedia device I've laid my hands on to date, extremely handy. Thanks to e-bay, I got a very good deal.

The Blackberry Pearl is no different from the standard Blackberry range but has some interesting software and hardware additions whilst at the same time being radically reduced in size. After the initial change, I attached the Pearl via the USB cable provided and then make a number of selections to synchronize phones e-mail inbox to that of my laptop. Once the Pearl and the PC have been synchronized, every change to my e-mail inbox, contacts list and diary using the Pearl or PC will be reflected on the other device and ready to go.

After installation, when I kept the pearl on my palm I realized how incredibly small, slim and lightweight in comparison to even some of the newer Blackberry devices. It is clearly aimed to attract more users purely from the ever growing mobile phone market rather than appealing only to business users. Blackberry isn’t a household name until now; they have done a similar strategic u-turn like CISCO did. Anybody thought why did CISCO invested $800M for re-branding? Simply coz John Chamber wants his gadgets to end up in your living room. By the way, with the battery, Pearl weighs only 89.5g and size wise it is only 10.7cm (H) X 5cm (W) X 1.4cm (D). Call quality on the Pearl is exceptional. Instant Messenger feature enables you to sign into Yahoo Messenger or Google Talk and exchange instant messages and browsing also exciting with the bigger screen.

First Blackberry phone with a camera is much better than older models. Using a trackball it is very easy to grip and move around selecting icons from the menu with a gentle press. My view is further reinforced by the fact that the keys used to type have been placed together in the same way as a mobile phone so that each number also represents 3 letters of the alphabet rather than older Blackberry models that had a full QWERTY keyboard.

I love the Pearl (so far), but too sleekly for my hands, might easily slip off; in fact I’m worst when it comes to usage.

House Hunting….

We started house hunting last August. It’s been a while now. We started from Sydney’s North West side coz we’re pretty much used to west side of Inner NSW. Ever-growing Sydney house prices are now par with London and NY yet affordability isn't the same; the rise and fall of Sydney house prices over the past decade has inflicted lopsided damage on the most vulnerable parts of the city. In Sydney's west and south-west With the rising rental market, smartest would think it is worth paying a manageable mortgage rather than higher rent.

When comparing options we tried to find the location that best suits to our lifestyle. Most important factors for me are distance from work and also need to be located close to specific amenities. We looked through the following list and prioritize accordingly; Work place close, Access to public transport, Family/friends nearby, Shopping facilities, Medical facilities, Childcare, Pre-school, Primary school, Parks, Sporting facilities (e.g. sports grounds, gyms, tennis courts, pools, etc.), Libraries, Entertainment, Appealing streetscape, Low noise area (away from traffic, plane paths and industry), Clean air are just a few. We knew that we wouldn't find the all aligned with one property yet prepared for a reasonable compromise.

When developers offer a home packaged with the land it is to be built on, this is often termed a 'house and land' package. To purchase a house and land package, it is vital to research the location and developer, select a display home, decide upon the type of package you'll purchase, and understand the building process. It is a never ending process.

According to the reports, housing demand remains solid. Sustained growth in household incomes and employment, combined with increased immigration, is expected to support new dwelling investment growth in 2007-08.

BadWare and SpyBye

The number of websites spreading badware (spyware, malware, and deceptive adware) is rising in an alarming rate; in many cases, the websites are otherwise victims of malicious hacking. Badware is malicious application that tracks your online behavior and pumps that information back to insincere marketing groups so that they can assail you with targeted ads. stopbadware.org is an education nonprofit backed by Google, Lenovo, Sun Microsystems - "neighborhood watch" campaign aimed at fighting badware while providing reliable yet objective information about downloadable applications to help web users make better choices about what they download onto their computers.

In other had spybye.org which is a low interaction client honeypot developed by Niels Provos allows to determine whether a web site is malicious by a set of heuristics and scanning of content against the ClamAV engine. This tool is comes very handy for web masters to determine if their web pages are carrying browser exploits that can infect visiting users with malware. It functions as an HTTP proxy server and intercepts all browser requests. SpyBye uses a few simple rules to determine if embedded links on your web page are harmlesss, unknown or maybe even dangerous.

SpyBye operates as a proxy server and gets to see all the web fetches that your browser makes. It applies very simple rules to each URL that is fetched as a result of loading a web page. These rules allows us to classify a URL into three categories: harmless, unknown or dangerous. To try SpyBye, configure your browser to use www.spybye.org:8080 as proxy server and then go visit http://spybye.org/. If you see that a URL is being fetched that you would not expect, it's a good indication you have been compromised.

Sometimes in April

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Sometimes in April - One of the emotional yet disquieting movies I have ever watched; based on true events of gruesome Rwanda genocide which compliments Terry George's Hotel Rwanda (Nominated for 3 Oscars - Another 12 wins & 26 nominations).
It happened in April 1994, arguably what happened within 100 days from April is one of the most heinous genocides in world history began in the African nation of Rwanda. Over the course of 3 months, close to 900,000 to one million people were slaughtered in a terrifying cleanse by Hutu majority against their Tutsi minority.

After watching both movies I was compelled to dig more about facts regarding the unfortunate event.

After the arrival of Belgian colonists in 1916, they separated Hutus and Tutsis in to distinct entities, and even produced identity cards classifying people according to their ethnicity. Belgians considered the Tutsis as superior to the Hutus and empowered them as well as given jobs and educational opportunities than Hutu's. Resentment started among majority, culminating series of riots in 1959 - more than 20,000 Tutsi's killed, many more fled to neighboring countries. Three years later Belgium relinquished power and granted independence and Hutus took their place.

From that point Tutsis were portrayed as the scapegoat for every disaster. Tutsis who fled to Uganda as refugees - supported by moderate Hutus formed Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) to overthrow the Hutu president `Habyarimana` and to secure their place in the homeland. After collapse of scattered peace accord things continued in disarray.

In April 1994, president Habyarimana's plane was shot down by a rocket resulting complete unrest and the consequence was both instant and catastrophic. Within hours of the president's death, presidential guard mobilized a militia group backed by radio propaganda, 8,000 Tutsis including moderate Hutus were slaughtered. By the early July nearly one million were butchered. Rwandans were largely left alone by the international community after the murder of 10 UN soldiers. In the movie, militia leader was talking to UN head regarding international community intervention - he said "In Rwanda we don't have Oil nor Diamonds why do you have to come down and involve?" Arguably in most places US-UN intervention backed by huge political interest. Classic example is Iraq; would US search for mass-destruction in Iraq if they're just another developing country with lower GNP? Norwegians intervened to mediate Sri Lankan conflict after inhaling oil from un-cleared Mannar Sea. Why do they find it difficult to differentiate freedom-fighters Vs. Terrorists? Isn't it amusing that there is no internationally recognized definition for Terrorism?

I will leave it for another post…anyways after 100 day massacre (from April to July), RPF captured Kigali (Capital of Rwanda) and declared ceasefire. As soon as it became RPF was victorious, an estimated 2 million Hutus fled to Republic of Congo (then Zaire). In Rwanda UN troops and iNGOs arrived to restore the normalcy. On july 19, new multi-ethnic government was formed and majority of cabinet posts were assigned to RPF members.
Long and arduous search for justice went on and on; about 500 people have been sentenced to death and more than 100,000 are still in prison but some of the ring leaders managed to escape. Still today many who lost their loved ones are still waiting for justice.

Run any Linux flavor from a USB Flash without Re-booting Windows

My favorite bootable Linux live-systems are KNOPPIX and BlackTrack, both pretty handy and I would recommend to any Security aficionado. Both primarily designed to be used as a live CD, but to run from hard disk or USB flash disk is a quite a messy task.

I really wanted to carry a secure OS where I can whack in to any public computer and run all my SecTools. It is always handy whenever you travel without your laptop; imagine you could carry your operating system, files, e-mail, personal settings, and favorites in your pocket - all you need to do is just whack the USB in a Windows/Linux PC and run your favorite Linux in another Window!

Let's fold the sleeves; it's pretty straight forward. All you need to do is download Qemu and a copy your favorite Linux CD (ISO) Image. Qemu is a generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer. You can find all supported CPUs here. Extract the downloaded .zip file to a folder on your flash drive and copy your favorite Linux ISO image to the same. Typically an ISO image is big as 700MB, so you may need minimum of 1GB flash drive. But don't be disheartened if you got a 128MB one, try Damn Small Linux - everything is in a 50MB ISO. Once you have the ISO image it's only a mouse click away, run the StartLinux.bat file - you will be surprised.

I found the booting up process is bit slow and also found a driver allowing a Qemu to run x86 code in a Virtual Machine. It's called Qemu Accelerator. That's bonus and surely will speed up your Linux on XP experience. Extract all files in tar.gz file in to your Qemu folder and right click on the kqemu.ini file and select Install. Once you install the accelerator as a windows service, make sure you start it by ` net start kqemu` prior to running StartLinux.bat.

Have fun!

It's a Boy!

I received a SMS from Duminda around 5ish in the morning saying "Thanuja gave a Birth to a Baby Boy." I jumped off the bed with excitement and called my friend to pass on my good wishes. During the last week I called him twice to confirm the expected date of confinement, when I rang I seldom felt any excitement yet ordinary as usual. That's him! He told me that both Thanuja and new born are doing well. I was so touched when he told me that I'm the first person to know about the great news! I was overwhelmed and went speechless for a moment....I deeply wanted to be there with him.

I first met him as a vendor in late `99 while I was working at Dialog, since then he became a trusted and close friend of mine. Duminda is a smart yet successful, witty IT/Telco salesman with a very good self esteem and a warm heart. He was always just phone call away whenever I need him....

We have already decided to spend lots of time in SL on our December trip, so I will be meeting all my (few) friends.....first time after being away for 2 years from loved ones.

Finding needle in the haystack – Need for Intelligent Scanning

When it comes to growing Vulnerability Scanning space, predominantly there are two classes of scanning. There is the "noisily scan - everything and look for all possible static signatures/holes" otherwise "quietly find for relevant signatures/holes". Most adamant will always look for "aggressive" option in nmap rest want to be none-disruptive yet none intrusive methods, nevertheless today's most IDS/IPS scanners would easily spot for any kind of noise generated by traditional scanners. In any case it is healthy to be under the radar as much as possible without getting highlighted in logs with thousands of nmap port scans.

For example, after few requests when you learn that the host is an MS IIS server (by using httprint by telnet-ting to the server port directly and issuing the proper commands or running some other web server fingerprinting tools out in the space hmap, 404print, webserverfp etc.) Let's say for the moment by fool-proof fingerprinting method I have confirmed that the host is running IIS.

[In a different discussion I would like to further converse on Fingerprinting (reconnaissance stage in Ethical hacking lessons) coz many in the industry don't put their money on accuracy of fingerprinting.]

So do I really require running exploits that only affect Apache? Or let's say that the server does not support PHP, so do I need to scan for vulnerabilities related to PHP? Plausibly that is a something different above where most scanners are, as they usually aim for the noisy disruptive scans that request everything under the same. As I would prefer the second method, that it seriously reduces the time required performing the scan, and it significantly reduces the signatures probes against the server. But is there a reliable scanner/method can be trusted without missing the "reality check"? I did some extensive reading on this matter, according to an Article written by SPI Dynamics on Intelligent Engines - Next Generation Web Application Security they discuss about the how the combination of Intelligent Engine technology and Static checks would deliver most accurate results. Swift growth rate in the industry with the growing number of checks, vulnerability databases will have tens of thousands of static checks in a few years. With that many checks, application scans will simply take too long. Imagine your Nessus Scan with traditional application assessment static-check technology, running an automated test for vulnerability like Cross-site scripting could take up to three hours and yield results with many false positives. Using intelligent engine technology, that time can be reduced to 12 minutes with almost no false positives. Need for a new technology to revolutionize the process of finding vulnerabilities will not only speed up the web server security assessments but surely be able to perform more flexibly and more accurately by virtually eliminating false positives.

There are heaps of tools available freely and commercially - from nmap to nessus to Core Impact. But what matters is how effectively/quickly your IS Team want to mitigate risks identified by you? What will really happen to your fortnight/monthly scan results? Do you find the same in the next round? If yes, what action would you take? I know the question is somewhat political yet your hard work of finding holes in your infrastructure wouldn't bring any edge to you or your network. The model that I'm working on is (obviously gotta start from grass-root) focus on `new systems` rather than existing. At least to make sure new systems come in to production networks are fully tested. The idea is to screen all new systems in a lab environment to make sure box is `clean` to sit in production. So what happen after commissioning? How does these responses to new vulnerabilities? In the long running cyclic process; once you receive new Vulnerability updates (from CVE or SANS @RISK) - must quickly act and update your daily vulnerability columns according to your platforms and recent vulnerabilities and conduct a stealth scan to assess the risk. Once prioritized according to old school method you know how to get things patched. Keep in mind your job isn't finished until you finish your post-patch scan with "no more" holes. So if you have streamlined the process you wouldn't be noisy nor spending hours to find new vulnerabilities against recent CVE update - literally you will be spending less than 10 minutes with one system.

Bravo Sri Lanka

As I was thinking before the big game; if SL win the toss there will be 75-25 chance of winning but if Aussies did it will be just 10-90 chance. Nevertheless we started well and Aussies couldn't do much - they only managed to score their lowest score in first 10 overs albeit the match is reduced to 38 over. Malinga did exceptionally well but Mahela had to pull Vass early 'coz of Gilchrist started aggressive pick up. We were targeting big Hayden but less focus went to Gilchrist who hasn't done much in the WC.
When play finally did start my eyes were on Vaas, who bowled the first over, It became quickly apparent that one of the finest bowler of swing could not find a shade of movement due to prevailing conditions, I was highly disappointed knowing that a high-scoring match looked on the cards; When a batsman like Gilchrist start scoring with 150% rate in the final is more than enough to add extra pressure despite the fact that rest of the batting did only average. I heard about Clive Lloyd's first WC century and Viv's in Second WC but Aravinda's '96 century is still the best for me. It was the only century made in the second innings of a WC final. Nevertheless in reply, Jayasuriya and Sangakkara gave us a glimmer of hope with a stand of 116, but the Kangaroos eventually sealed their World Cup hatrick win after rain delayed, reduced overs, dramatic encounter. They were the only two batsmen who attacked all Aussie bowlers and gave bit of hope and pride to me.
Today morning one of my work mate (Ausie) - Julian came to my desk and told me that "I don't like McGrath much but it was amazing the way Gillie hammered; Kumar and Sanath also hammered all our bowlers -it was unbelievable - I thought we're going to loose the grip" I was really proud about Sri Lankan team - they didn't let us down. In reply I told him that "we had a chance but luck was with Gillie". I added, SL's plan was to get in to semis and work from there - eventually we did that but I really wanted them to prove Aussies are beatable (we've done that many times even in Australia). Being runner-up is more than something for our little country. In an encounter like this we gotta be really sharp and should be able to make half-chances to our side. Dilhara did have a chance to end Gilchrist's innings on 31 but could not take an awkward return catch off his own bowling. These are crucial if a team wants to beat powerful teams like Aussies. We have seen in the past when Jayasuriya start hammering around not any bowler wanted to ball. Batsman like him can take away everything from opponents however they don't perform that often. Same goes to Gilchrist - powerful big hitter who can grab the match away from any team. Unfortunately it happened on 28th after winning the toss. It was a colossal damage nevertheless we responded strongly yet nothing came our way. Not even little bit of luck nor weather was sympathetic.

I thought we played really good cricket up to now, but that was a very special innings from Gillie. "The way he batted in a World Cup final was brilliant and totally took the game away from us." Chivalrous Mahela said at the end.

I'm very proud of SL team performance throughout the WC. We did exceptionally well to reach finals. Well Done Sri Lanka!

Application Firewalls - Pragmatic way to fend emerging attacks?

Reason for me to write this blog entry is two fold, firstly typical Gartner statistics cited that by the year of 2009, 80% of enterprises will fall victim of application layer attacks (another handy marketing phrase for typical InfoSec consultants) secondly to discuss practicality and effective deployment to avoid possible false positive.

Why these application layer attacks are becoming prominent and successful? Simple answer is: application layer attacks are fundamentally designed to circumvent or bypass network centric controls that we have implemented over the past decade, such as port blocking using ACLs. Classic example to describe how attackers getting smarter than earlier; unlike those days attackers use "malicious propagating" rather than "botting" and planning a DDoS (yet most destructive attacks method). Most of emerging worms propagate by using security vulnerabilities in the HTTP protocol suit. Most leading Application layer FWs (such as Checkpoint Power with SmartDefence) allows detecting and blocking worms based pre-defined patterns.

Consider typical web application attacks, conventional firewalls protecting a web server by placing it in the DMZ and blocking all sort of ports but allowing tcp port 80 and 443. So what's wrong with it? Sadly, traditional firewall can not distinguish desirable port 80 traffic from undesirable - malicious port 80 traffic. Imagine a SQL injection or long URL/Large header to overrun the buffer of a web server (many buffer-overflow attacks require a very large header to be sent to the web server). Arguably it's a good security practice to limit the sizes of in HTTP request and response, this helps to reduce the chance for buffer overruns and limits the size of `code` that can be inserted into the header.

Application firewalls has the ability to perform upper-layer inspection of web traffic before it reaches the Web server. The devices are able to deep inspect request packets and analyze the nature and type of commands are complies with relevant RFC standard. For example, The HTTP RFC allows a restricted set of HTTP methods. However, even some of the standard methods are unsafe, because they can be used to exploit vulnerabilities on a web server. HTTP methods can be break into three sets: Standard safe (GET, HEAD and POST), standard unsafe and WebDAV. In Checkpoint NGx FWs with Smart defense technology by default, all methods are blocked other than the standard safe methods.

Sounds very complex and slow to deploy but application FWs have great potential. Even in the test environment I had to adopt a cautious approach, conducting careful analysis and extensive testing. It is amazing how easily would end up blocking legitimate traffic. It's still painful and need careful consent with our web application developers and also to convince them that the technology will help the company more than it will hinder their day to day lives.

Finally and important strategy that can be adopted in deploying application layer FWs is to start with passive mode. Begin with monitoring without actually blocking any traffic. This will help you to get a better view. Before FW is actually put into active mode, lots of monitoring is a must. I'm sure you don't want you e-comm server sending TCP reset packets to customers. We still have problems with new CISCO ASA FWs with AIP-SSM IPS module, which needs extensive testing in a fully loaded lab. These FWs acting as the border FWs and sit on top of CheckPoints. More importantly once the FW is deployed in the active mode, it should be watched very carefully with greater patient. Logs needs to be carefully scrutinized because that will tell you an interesting story. Record all blocked attacks and you could use them to justify ROI of company's security investment. There will be always false-positive, and they need to be further analyzed perhaps with web developers to balance the security and the usability.

Compared to packet filters/statefull FWs, application FWs are not a panacea. You may have to use web/application vulnerability tools test your web/application servers exposures. Effective yet continuous web vulnerability management strategy and finely tuned application FW would definitely complement each other.

Bravura Performance

Sri Lankan skipper Mahela Jayawardene's last night impeccable innings of pure class and rare inning, when it was most needed as we claimed the rightful place in the final of the 2007 World Cup, second time in the history of the big game. Opening batsman Tharanga played his part, as did Murali, who picked up 4 wickets and spun Kiwis out for only 208, who have reached the semi finals five times and never moved ahead.

I still can remember Mahela's miserable (previous) '03 world Cup, which failed to reach double figures in the tournament, everyone was furious about his contribution. After four years, he bounced back and led the country with utmost confident to the final with a carefully crafted inning. (Reminds me Aravinds's '96 semi final inning when team was in trouble) Mahela cool headedly absorbed pressure and made his unbeaten maiden century (equaled the highest world cup semi final score ever - Gooch's 115 against India in '87) with such perfection. It was an unforgettable world cup inning played under preasure. At the lunch break, Nick Night was asked by David Gover (in Sky Sports) regarding SL 289 score and his response was "Plenty" - I looked at the statistics after the match and realized it was the second highest score in a World Cup semi final.

Tharanga gave a confident answer to selectors with his 73 of 74 balls. Arguably Marven is (was) a better batsman than Upul but didn't play a single game in the tournament. Surely it wasn't the right time to gamble and Tharanga deserves an opportunity in the big game to prove his potential. Splendid Murali did the miracle again; Kiwis couldn't read him at all. Kiwis needed a sound start and a magnificent spell from enigmatic Malinga ensured they did not get one. Flemming decided to step down from his captaincy after he played the wrong line to Malinga's sling swinger which came back in to the left hander.

Sri Lankan teams target was to reach Semis and work forward from there. Now we are in big finals, what's next? At the time of writing, Ausies have dismissed South Africa for just 149 and batting for a quick finish. Nevertheless pumped up Sri Lankan team is ready to surprise any team with greater confidence. Our team is a well balanced with rare talent to overpower strong teams. Hopefully selectors will address "Dilhara" issue; perhaps Maharoof might get the game of his life. As Mahela said at the press conference "though Sanath missed out here but hopefully he can get a big one in the final." If not still we have many players to make bigies.

Off you go Lions - Bring back that pride again. It means a lot for our Cricket.

Lara – the great contender

Even exceptional will have to work hard to fill his shoes, his statistics are just phenomenal!
West Indies captain, arguably best batsman in the modern era, Brian Lara has retired from all international cricket after Saturday's thrilling World Cup match against England.

As an ardent fan of the game I have a huge respect for West Indies not only because they play humbly but they are a team who enjoys and respects opponents’ cricket. Most Carbines comes to watch “game of cricket” not necessarily to see home team winning. They really know how to respect and enjoy the game. I always enjoyed watching Lara batting as same as great Lloyd and Viv. The Irony is that I enjoy watching Lara batting (especially in Test matches) rather than Jayasuriya.

For me most memorable moments of Lara’s cricketing career are (obviously) breaking of the 36-year-old mark with his 375 against England in Antigua in 1994 and Unbeaten 400 against England after 10 years in the same ground and ironically against same team – England. Next was Lara’s 4, 6, 6, 4, 4, and 4 off a Robin Pietersen over in 2003 to break the world record of most runs in an over and his epic double century, to pass the Allan Border's world record total of 11,174, against Australia at the Adelaide Oval.

At the end of his great cricketing career, sudden fame turned him into a confused and conflicting figure. Lara's headship style has been called into question by West Indies past players including Michael Holding, who called for him to be replaced as captain even before they were knocked out of the competition. However former West Indies captain, cricket legent Sir Garfield Sobers insisted Lara was not responsible for the team's under-performance. He captained his side in 47 Tests, winning 10, but under his captaincy West Indies won the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy by beating England at The Oval. I think deteriorating West Indies cricket management is more responsible for the catastrophe of the team. After Ambrose-Walsh retirement they couldn’t find right replacement (or haven’t groomed anyone) to continue the West Indies fierce pace attack nor steady opening pair to replace Haynes-Greenidge.

LARA Facts :
Born: Cantaro, Trinidad 2.5.69
131 Tests
11,953 runs, average 52.88, 34x100, 48x50, highest score 400no
299 ODIs
10,405 runs, average 40.48, 19x100, 63x50, highest score 169
First class cricket
21, 993 runs, average 51.38, 64x100, 87x50, highest score 501no

"I want to be remembered as a batsman who provided entertainment to the fans," - Brian Charles Lara

Beyonce Experience

I am not a huge fan of western music but I can literally enjoy anything. The "Beyonce Experience" is a 2007 worldwide concert tour by singer, songwriter, and actress Beyonce Knowles which kicked off on 10th April in Tokyo, Japan and tonights it is scheduled for Ausie fans. I wasn't a fan nor ever listen to her music but I have enjoyed her latest musical movie "Dream Girls" which won three Golden Globe Awards ceremony in 2007, including Best Picture - Musical or Comedy, and won two Oscars at the last Academy Awards. Beyonce's performance catches anyone off guard with her beautifully subtle performance.

Avi thinks she is best female singer in the modern world and she doesn't want to miss the big opportunity but she thought I'm not going to enjoy it. Initially I thought it's gonna be packed with thousands of teens and I would find it extremely bore. We boked our seats from Ticketek three months before knowing that it wil be a sell out. By the way we watched `Dream Girls` month ago and I was highly impressed by her performance and thought I would be able to stay alive in the show.

We drove to the Acer Arena (Sydney Olympic Park) hour before the start. It's only 10 minutes drive from where we live. Chris Brown who started the show with his acrobatic dancing and with some good POP and R&B stuff. He kept the crowd alive till the big moment. Super Dorm was packed with a record crowd. (17,000 fans) and everyone started screaming for Beyonce…I started scanning all over to see anyone besides teens, there were more than few.. at least 15 percent of the crowd. I felt bit young afterwards.…Luckily ourseats were in front of the stage with a straight view. Last time when we were here (for the "Walking with the Dinosaurs") our seats were more to the right side of the stage and not the ones with best view but this time we got the best 'coz I managed to book tickets within the first 15 minutes of the on-line release. It was a dog fight!

Anyways Avi was so happy jumping up and down…. Show started at a rapturous pace that leaves everyone breathless and delivered performances that are both subtle and fittingly over the top. I have never seen such high quality stage set-up, lighting was implausible and superbly done. She was awesome and blew everyone away with her striking voice and impeccable performance.

Avi enjoyed till the end and so did I, at least I wasn't petulant.

Cunning Tactic

2007 ICC world cup telecast time is a nightmare for people living in Down Under due to GMT +10 but I didn't miss many from last 45+ encounters. Being an ardent fan that supports Lankans always find verbal skirmish with Ausies very stimulating. Mingling with them for couple of years I'm amused to see them, with struts out with a chip on their shoulder, talks about unmatchable Cricketability of the crick-roos.

I'm not surprised of the tactics used by Lankan's but didn't like when Mahela tried to defend resting stars. Nevertheless, we have the sole right to pick our team and that is neither ICC nor commentators job. Some commentators suffer with athazagoraphobia or some variant of acarophobia...they gotta get treated soon otherwise soon there will be a need for an alternative for cricket commentary. We expect bit of professionalism from these Gents...Did anybody argued when Ausies picked a lousy team for Chappell-Hadley tournament last February? In fact Kiwis made a mockery of them by winning all three and adding another 2 worst world records for Ausies. (After loosing to SA in 2006 scoring mammoth 434-4) So where was the great Chappell at that time? You're right….. he was in the commentary box without any comments.

With a positive atttude, Sri Lankan selector Asantha de Mel said, SL is already in Semis and pretty confident that they will beat Kiwis again and determined that big moment should come in the final in 12 days. He added "Last time we (full team) met Ausies 2 years ago - but cricket has changed now" adding to that they have never faced Mainga in ODIs. I think Vaas and Murali factor is more perilous than two years... so obviously resting Lankans top guns means unexpected to be expected at the final level. (If Lankan go through)

Channel 9 (free to air in Ausie) telecasting only Ausie playing matches, haughty Ian Healy also furious on TV with Lankan team card. Ausies never expected this and obviously they wanted to boost team moral by beating SL full team…when unexpected happened they got panic attacks. Rather than talking about strategy that opponents worked out they started criticizing the SL captain and selectors. I just remembered a handy Latin word for all this - "Ad Hominem"

It seems iniquitous Michael Holding lost some big money due to Lankan's cunning tactic, He believes the current format is open to corruption..! (Instead of talking about abysmal WI performance) he said this morning "I have an account with Betfair (betting giant) and I watch a lot of different markets. "Before the game started, Australia was 1-2. "As soon as the toss went to air, when (Betfair) found out, Australia went to 1-5 because Muralitharan wasn't playing, Malinga wasn't playing, Vaas wasn't playing."

No wonder he was so disturbed…

Even Chappell's suggestions "It was ridiculous, disgraceful, and the ICC has got to ask some questions." dropped without considering by match referee Mike Procter who had no problems with Sri Lanka's decision and said he would not take action.

Whenever I start write about Cricket will end-up not doing any till dawn, Shall post this now.

Good Luck to Sri Lankan team!

IPv6? When?

4.3 Billion Internet address space is being heavily utilized and Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) contends that a "revolution has just started; you ain't seen nothing yet" The advent of Internet protocol Version 6 (IPv6) means the current capacity of the Internet will be expanded to 340 trillion trillion trillion addresses. For us (Australia), the advent of IPv6 should mean a clear revolution in how the Internet is used for business but alas speed is still a major issue. Australia lags behind other developed countries in introducing high-speed Internet services despite the fact that ADSL 2.0 has just been rolled out by major telecoms. However, we remain left behind as developed giants like China, takes far more innovative approaches to Internet delivery and use. For instance, China has recognized the need for fast internet services in rural provinces by connecting villages with fibre-optic cable and access to high-speed Internet services. Their purpose was to offer locals the opportunity to build online businesses and stop the flow of rural Chinese to the coastal economic zones. In Australia, Telstra owns nearly 80% of all the major long-haul fibre and microwave points of presence across the country but, fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) network project is still a political debate.

IPv6 is coming whether you like it or not - Australia is losing ground to Europe and Asia, where Europe already has 37% of all IPv6 addresses and Asia has 21%. Many major Japanese companies are already IPv6 compliant.

China has already formed the IPv6 industrial chain. The Global IPv6 Summit (which was held on 12-13 April '07) is the most influential IPv6 summit worldwide. This years IPv6 forum Policy statement says "Set the date for termination of (IPv4) allocations and the date of announcement" Simultaneously with the adoption of IPv6 in 2008 for the Olympic Games, large scale IPv6 commercial use will be implemented by China's four major carriers.

When I first heard about IPv6, in 2002 at a ISP/IXP workshop, CISCO house in Bangalore, India my first impression was that it was a "premature baby" primarily because there were many areas still to be addressed at that time. According to the IPv6 Forum CTO, PKI for IPsec issues are still not completely resolved in the market place and key to wide deployment of end-to-end. So basically after five years we are still at the same place. Should say Australia is that ignorant.

The question remains, will there be a monopoly of IPv4 addresses by 2009-10? While current IPv6/IPv4 traffic ratio at Internet Exchanges is only 0.1% and DNS queries show 10% IPv6 support, rapid deployment expected in 2007/2008 as Windows Vista has IPv6 enabled the default and Linux deploys of it's miredo(teredo implementation)

There are many benefits of IPv6 roll-out even for the end-users; including restoration of the end-to-end Internet model, larger number of addresses, new Node Discovery Architecture, Stateless Auto-configuration, and the enhancements to Mobile IPv6 routing.

A little bit on the architecture…

According to RFC 4291 (IP Version 6 Addressing Architecture) IPv6 addresses are 128 bits long and typically comprised of two logical parts: a 64-bit (sub-) network prefix, and a 64-bit host part, which is either automatically generated from the interface's MAC address or assigned sequentially.

Furthermore, a global view into the IPv6 routing tables, which displays ISPs are deploying IPv6, can be found by looking at the SixXS Ghost Route Hunter pages: these pages display a list of all allocated IPv6 prefixes and give colors to the ones that are actually being announced in BGP. ISPs that provide IPv6 connectivity to their customers can be found in the Where can I get native IPv6 FAQ

As an Architect of a Telecom company I cannot wait for this transition, but must therefore contribute to this Internets massive revolution.

Value the Customer

When networking with peers, especially product managers we always argue on the right balance of five P's regardless of the product (diverse effect on off-the-shelf to search engine marketing). We are confronted with the mantra of enhancing shareholder value as the reason for being in business. In other words, the reason to exist in business is to increase the wealth of its owners. Regrettably, preoccupation of this rationale has led to several corporate disasters according to Marketing top guns.
If I put my MBA hat on, the real reason for being in any sort of business is to bring value to the customer. The customer has to fork out money if the transaction does not represent value to the customer; the business fails and shareholder value goes down. But that's not the end of it. More pre-sales engineers want to be involved in an ethical exchange with the customer. They want to feel that what they are doing gives more meaning to their lives at an ethical level, and that the customer is the beneficiary. Moreover, they want to take the ownership of the solution and obviously they will be accountable. In my experience, architects, designers and pre-sales engineers are frequently prevented from achieving this level of fulfillment because of the dictates of their peers and the lack of alignment between senior management and behind the scene staff. Does this arise due to the fact that most senior management comes from sales/finance backgrounds? or could it be because they are not up to date and tech savvy? This is often depicted in the failure to build organizational effectiveness to ensure customer satisfaction due to poor post-sale execution. Some argue this could be frequently compounded by the preoccupation of management with incentives to secure managerial goals.