Who uses more Internet?

Firstly, sorry for the long absence. Didn't realize how quickly the weeks went. I will be off to Sweden (Uppsala University) tomorrow for 4 days.

Anyways, here is the reason for the post. I just read on the Google Blog today that the World Bank has opened up its data APIs, and since you know how I love debate based on facts rather than guesses, I figured I'll give it a spin.

And here is some interesting data for you all to see
[Internet accessibility per capita, USA, World, Pakistan, and India]



You can play with this data yourself here.

So, what say?

Good Times

Yesterday was a good day by most counts.

First, the France telecom guys showed up (after their crazy SMS to me two days ago that they will come on the 9th of November at 00:00hrs!).

Turns out that the wire was disconnected in the circuit box outside my apartment. They attached it, and my Internet works! :)

The Second (and perhaps the biggest) piece of news was that my journal paper to the IEEE Transactions on Computers, which was under minor revision, has finally been accepted without any more changes. Now just a week more to upload all the files, and it will be done :).

Thirdly, I realized that neuf now allows free phone calls (using the VoIP phone that comes as part of my DSL plan) to INDIAN LANDLINES also!

Fourthly, I finally installed 64-bit Ubuntu Linux on my new desktop, (pre-assembly picture here) and can properly use its 4GB of RAM and 500GB Harddrive. And yes, portal is running well on it :). See screenshot below.



And the final good news came last night, when I realized that the free channels that come with my IPTV (again, part of my DSL plan), include Zee Music! Finally, auto-playing new bollywood video songs in the background :).

Life, in short, is good.

-A
P.S. Tonight is nuit blanche, and I will be meeting Barman and Dalal from my ITBHU days. More good times :)

Watching out for the Watchers

Let's start from a direct quote from the article in question:

Imagine if the FBI could, with only a piece of paper signed by the special agent in charge of your local FBI office, demand detailed information about your private Internet communications directly from your ISP, webmail service, or other communications provider. Imagine that it could do this:

• without court review or approval
• without you being suspected of a crime
• without ever having to tell you that it happened

Further imagine that with this piece of paper, the FBI could see a wide range of private details, including:

• your basic subscriber records, including your true identity and payment information
  
• your Internet Protocol address and the IP address of every Web server you communicate with
  
• the identity of anyone using a particular IP address, username, or email address
  
• the email address or username of everyone you email or IM, or who emails or IMs you
  
• the time, size in bytes, and duration of each of your communications, and possibly even the web address of every website you visit
  

Finally, imagine that the FBI could use the same piece of paper to gain access your private credit and financial information — and that your ISP, bank, and any other business from which the FBI gathers your private records is barred by law from notifying you.

Now, stop imagining: the FBI already has this authority

This and many other such interesting articles, including those on how to securely delete your files in Windows without installing _anything_ extra are part of the SSD initiative website by the electronic frontier foundation [ref: /.].

Given that the FBI was given crazy powers like those in the quote by the USA PATRIOT act, I wonder what the post-26/11 Indian law looks like.

And in today's nature video, I present before you, the Indonesian Mimic Octopus!


P.S. Thanks for the birthday wishes. I went for dosas with S and P in the evening. Was good :-).