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 :-).

o++

Last year, it was n++, so I thought I should move on to the next letter in the alphabet :).

To answer the biggest question : 28 done, many more to go.
And to answer the second biggest question : not yet. Let's see what this year holds ;-).


Thanks to all those who have called, SMSd, emailed, facebook'd or orkutted me. Also a special thanks to S for his hand-made card and letter, and to S and P who wished me in person at INRIA :).

This post will be short, in part because I need to get back to work, after a weekend spent in bed due to a nasty fever and a painful Wii-shoulder.

Firstly, this post is dedicated to the three other people I know with the same birthday as mine - Ilica, the daughter of Gyanam Bua, Avanti, the little brat of my ex-advisor, and Prof. S.K.Sharma, the inspirational go-getter at ITBHU. Happy birthday you [us] all!

A lot happened to me in the last 365 days, the three most important ones being my [eventual] graduation from the PhD, my relocation to France, and the most recent -- my foray into some _real action_ for the motherland. So far so good, thanks to all your good wishes. Let's see what the next year brings.

And finally, my gift to you today [esp. for the three co-birthdees].

1. A New Scientist report on how humans might be predisposed [pre-created ?] to believe in a "purpose" for everything, and therefore, a creator. Interesting experimental setups, I must say.

2. The oblig cheezy happy birthday song video :).



ciao!
-A

Some Must-Visit Pages

Coming soon: A post about where Indian politics might very well be in the coming years.

For now: Some pages that deserve your attention.

1. If you like g33ky comics [or not] check out Abstruse Goose. [ref: B]

2. If you are a woman [or not] make sure to check out this must-read post on the red-colored blues.

3. If you are into poems [or not], check out my mom's blog with her newly posted poetry [pretty good, I must say]. And there is much more in that poetry-diary of hers I tell you :).

4. If you live in bangalore [or not] make sure to read this harrowing account of moral policing by local hoodlums. [ref: C]

5. If you know about Never Forget [or not], see our second newspaper coverage! [yes, my mugshot is there :)]

And for the nature video of the post, here is one about sea-turtles and sharks.