Towards a broken future of Internet

Ashish on December 24, 2011

Internet, which initially started as a DARPA experiment is [still] under the indirect control of USA government through ICANN despite several objections from Europe as well as IBSA. This worked when most users were from the western world with the notable exception of China and few minor quirks. But in the past few decades, not only the governments around the world are putting more controls but also the internet users (as well as enterprises) are fighting back against US control. In this blog post, I will describe the main threats to the existence of (current form of) Internet.

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Summary: India Unbound

Ashish on July 2, 2011

The book is divided primarily into three parts, the pre-independence era [focused on the British Raj including some stories of the Mughal period], the post-independence pre-liberalized era, and post-liberalized India.
The author was born in 1943 in West Punjab, which is now under the occupation of Pakistan. The author narrates his personal experiences of the economic conditions of India from 1947-2001.

India Unbound

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Cyber Security in India : Role of CERT-In

Ashish on September 28, 2010

CERT-In is a low-profile (Indian) government organization.

The Government of India established the Computer Emergency Response Team  (“CERT-IN”) to ensure Internet security. Many institutions, including the Ministry of Home Affairs, courts, the intelligence services, the police, and the National Human Rights Commission, may call on it for specialist expertise. CERT-IN’s stated mission is “to enhance the security of India’s Communications and Information Infrastructure through proactive action and effective collaboration” [Source]

I had a chance to visit CERT-In last week. The experience was overall good, unlike the typical dirty government office with laid-back employees, I saw employees enthusiastic about their work (and a colorful office).
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BlackBerry Controversy in India

Ashish on September 13, 2010

Indian Govt. has asked RIM (maker of the BlackBerry smartphone) to provide access to the data going through its servers for intelligence purposes and it appears that BlackBerry has accepted the demands. Due to the lack of understanding of encryption on the part of Indian media, misleading and ambiguous reports have been published on the same. This blog post is an effort to clarify the same.
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