A TV Channel in Bangalore ( TV9 ) reported today that mobile calls were being received from Paksitan to mobile users in Delhi, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Mumbai etc allegedly from either terrorists or terror funding organizations. The channel gave out four distinct numbers with the ISD code 092 and stated that some of the calls were […]

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The terror mail threat received by the Sri Lankan Cricket team before the Ahmedabad Test has once again brought focus on the Cyber Cafes. The mail was sent from a Cyber Café in Chattisgarh and promptly the Police have arrested the Cyber Café owner. For records, Police are happy that an arrest has been made […]

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  Information Security (IS) concept has  been under a continuous evolvement. Initially, IS was a technical concept as creators of software and computer systems struggled to make the system more trustworthy. The fundamental requirement for this purpose was to let the systems be accessed and operated only by authorized persons. Hence Access control was the […]

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Consider this case:
A well educated software professional working in Infosys is travelling in train from his native place to Delhi. He has to catch a flight to Bangalore. The train is getting delayed. He feels that he may miss his flight. Now, what does he do?
Sit quitely and resign to the fact that he may […]

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 In an interesting development in Pune, it is reported that Nasscom became a complainant in case of a data theft allegation resulting in the arrest of a head of a BPO. The case pertained to an allegation that the medical history data of a US based company was being stolen and sold to another company. […]

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 During the Cyber Security Summit 2009 at Bangalore, last month, the Think tank constituted to suggest modifications to ITA 2008 had recommended to GOI that the notification of Section 67B of the new ITA 2008 be better kept in abeyance since it poses a threat to innocent […]

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One of the major causes of death in the world is malaria, but the World Health Organization estimates that 20 percent of the one million deaths from malaria are dying because the medicines that they are taking are substandard or outright counterfeits. If you include fake antibiotics and fake drugs used to treat tuberculosis, the […]

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Every Company CEO in India needs to ask this question to himself. “Are We ITA 2008 Compliant?”. Every Director of a Company and also every IAS officer in charge of an e-governance project should also ask this question to himself.
If he does not know the answer, it is time to explore what is the Compliance […]

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I was startled to find this important editorial in the NYTimes:

A Final Verdict on the Presidential Salute

After a couple of paragraphs explaining the writer’s expertise in saluting, and another couple of paragraphs on the history of presidential salutes, we come to the conclusion:
(President Obama’s) salute, it struck me, was impeccable in every way.
Huh?
It’s true that […]

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A recent Economic Times Report in India which reported a successful Sting operation by a UK agency in which some health related data was bought from a medical transcription company has evoked some predictable response in US. As could be expected, there are voices stating that the best way forward for Health Care Information  Security […]

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With the increasing penetration of ICT and the changing culture of the society, users of ICT are accumulating virtual assets of various kinds. For example, people buy domain names through registrars with substantial costs. They may […]

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President Obama was brought up in Asia, yet he seems clueless about Afghanistan, and of the geopolitical problems in this area.
The press is even worse, preferring the simplistic out of date explanations of the “Afghanistan is Viet Nam” meme, or the “Stop the war” meme, or stressing civilian casualties “reported” by Taliban linked sources without […]

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The report in Economic Times suggesting a successful sting operation revealing the possibility of leakage of medical record information for a price by one transcription company in India calls for an urgent and appropriate response from the industry.
It is necessary for us to remind the world that […]

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During the Bangalore Cyber Security Summit 2009, held on October 8th and 9th, one of the issues which came for discussion is the impact of the proposed amendments to ITA 2008 on various Intermediaries.
While most of the speakers spoke about the increasing security threats and therefore a strict regulation on Cyber […]

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The two day Summit on Cyber Security organized by the Karnataka Government in association with several agencies concluded on 9th October 2009 recording several significant commitments towards a better security in cyber space in India.
During the inaugural on 8th, the Chief Minister of Karnataka, in his inaugural speech (read out by the State Law Minister […]

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 [This article is in continuation of the earlier article titled “Theory of IS Motivation based on Behavioural Science” published in these columns]
 
Motivation has been a subject of intense interest in corporate circles since a long time. Management experts have mainly discussed the behavioural science aspects of Motivation from […]

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The UID authority of India has clarified that that UID would be issued to all “Residents” and not restricted to “Citizens”.
This is a matter which needs an extensive debate.
There is no doubt that cleaning up of data base of beneficiaries of various e-Governance programmes which can be achived by the Unique ID for Residents has […]

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Information Security Practice has evolved over a period from a pure technical perspective to techno legal perspective. While the market is slowly absorbing this transformation, a new dimension of Information Security Management is calling for serious attention. That is the “Human Behavioural Aspects of Information Security Management”.
Naavi has been in the forefront of defining the […]

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The father of the “green revolution”, Norman Borlaug, has died.
Some of use are old enough to remember when famines in Asia were common, and when the “Population bomb” types were predicting mass starvation of millions of poor people.
The famines didn’t happen, because Borlaug, and other agricultural scientists, developed high yield wheat and grains, along with […]

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 According to a statement by the union IT secretary, the amendments to ITA 2000 may be notified within a month.
 The Act was passed in the Parliament in December 2008, Presidential assent was given in February 5, and still the date of effectiveness has not been notified. The history of the amendments indicates that there must […]

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A lot of nonsense being written in the news about Conservative writer George Will deciding to throw in the towel in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is a mess. Big deal. It’s been a mess for a couple thousand years, and trying to “win” a war there and put in a crumpets and tea democracy is a bit delusional.
But […]

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The UID Authority of India (UIDAI) has decided to run its pilot in Karnataka and has rightly put the versatile and energetic e-Governance secretary, Mr M N Vidyashankar  in charge of the pilot project. We […]

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The headlines are not helpful. This one is from CBS News:
“Mutant Polio Virus Spreads in Nigeria
124 Children Afflicted This Year By Paralyzing Disease, Believed To Be Caused By Same Vaccine Used To Fight It
And other new sources print the same story with even more frightening headlines…
Reality check please.
Let’s talk about Polio. I’m old enough to […]

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It was a pleasant surprise to know that the Government of India thought it fit to pick a professional like Mr Nandan Nilekani and appoint him for one of the important projects such as the National ID Card  (NIDC) Project. Our good wishes to Mr Nandan for a successful stint in this new role.
It may […]

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As the mother of two adopted boys, I am for adoption, but now we are seeing couples like Sarah JessicaParker andMatthew Broderick “renting” a womb to obtain their newest child.
What’s wrong with this picture? After all, they give money, and a woman is paid a lot of money to carry their (genetically related) baby to […]

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My grandkids are into Facebook, and most people in the US know how the anti war opposition used Facebook and other internet social sites to help catapult Senator Obama to win the US elections last year.
But using Facebook groups for political purposes is not limited to the US.
Here in the Philippines, we have a big […]

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 Information Security specialists often lament that proper  attention is not given to their requirements by top management. At the same time top management in some companies are worried that the cost of inforamtion security is too high for comfort and hence they would rather like to take a chance and see how it goes with […]

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IIM Ahmedabad (IIMA) and the Reseaerch Council of UK (RCUK) have organized an International Conference on Security and Identity Management (SIM-09) at Ahmedabad. To be held over two days, the conference will deliberate on various issues of Security not only from the technological perspective but also from the perspective of Business and Regulatory aspects.
Dr Henry Bloomfield […]

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Tata Motors has been in news for quite a while for launch of its Nano car touted as world’s cheapest car. Costing at a base price of about $2000 (Two thousand), Nano received unprecedented interest from all over the world. The highest model costs around $3500 and is equipped with features like power window, power […]

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Here is an interesting case of an attempt by a public sector bank to misuse the provisions of the Debt Recovery Tribunal to harass a customer.
In this case, a Customer of the Bank received an export order from Uganda. He insisted that the order would be taken up only against advance payment. The importer gave […]

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