Cell phones - cancer risk

Finally mainstream media across the world has highlighted the WHO report about cell phones and cancer risk. There are several technical solutions out there some of which I have been using for a long time:
1. Speakerphone - If your phone has a speakerphone, that is probably most convenient and easy to use.
2. Handsfree microphone cable - Always comes with the phone, inexpensive and easy to use.
3. Bluetooth headset - Common and popular especially among technophiles. But I wonder if using them also involves any long term risk since it is closer to the ear and is used pretty much all the time. The one I used broke sometime back. Maybe that actually was a good thing :).

And in terms of usage, it is best to avoid using cellphone in areas where signal bars are few (less signal means the cell phone has to transmit harder to get to the tower) - elevators, rural areas or between tall buildings etc.And for parents concerned about children, definitely a good idea to stop your children from using the phone close to the ear as their developing brains are likely to be more sensitive to radiation.

ISRO S band sale scam, REALLY??

ISRO is in the news of late, unfortunately for the wrong reasons,  around the sale of satellite S band spectrum to a company Davos.
In a season where the word spectrum itself is shrouded with negative aura of corruption and deliberate selling short of state assets, ISRO seems to be in the situation of being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Some supporting facts of this case are that ISRO signed a commercial contract with Davos only after the other suitors for the S-band including Reliance backed off. Despite the fact that Davos would have been the primary beneficiary of the deal, it was a commercially and legally tenable deal.
 Perhaps ISRO and government can claim overriding clauses of "national security" or "public interest". But essentially since the government has backed out due to negative external sentiment, Davos would be justified in adopting legal recourse in enforcing penalty for unilateral abrogation of the contract. From a longer term perspective, it is very important for ISRO and government to establish clear and transparent guidelines and policies regarding such sales so that entities dealing with them do not feel left in the lurch by what they may regard as out of scope arbitrariness.

Hinduism and Open Source

For a long time, I have had this idea of drawing parallels between Hinduism and the open source (as in the context of software) movement :
- Acceptance of diverse approaches.
- Openness to new ideas. No dogmatic "one right" way.
- Reasoned philosophical debates.
- Innovation :).

And then came across these two very different perspectives on this theme.
Josh Schrei: The God Project: Hinduism as Open-Source Faith

Siddhartha: Open Source Hinduism

Blood and gore on Telugu news channels

Yesterday evening, primetime news on Telugu channels was dominated by the death of Suri - real life inspiration for the character in the movie Raktha Charitra.

No news channel wants to miss out on such a sure shot means to attract audience. But surely they could have portrayed the episode more sensitively. What is the point in displaying graphic scenes of blood and violence at 7.30 pm when young children are very likely to be watching TV? There was no warning about the graphic scenes, no sensitivity or humaneness in editing or any message about requiring parental guidance.

There are several international standards that reputed news channels apply in covering such news items. And I am sure that Telugu news channels aware of the concept of self regulation, even if only tangentially.  It is macabre to exploit the killing simply as a means to boost TRP rating. If Telugu news media does not want a censor authority looking over its shoulder (or maybe they really do), they would have to do better than come up with such disgusting coverage.

UPS for home

Almost inexorably, the day arrived (start of the season of power cuts !!) when I had to contemplate buying a UPS/Inverter for home. 


BRANDS
1. APC - Numero uno. Almost legendary reputation for reliability. Expensive.
2. Microtek - Best price + warranty offer.
3. LUMINOUS - Good price. Very informative website. Excellent sales and support (if someone is planning to buy a UPS inverter, I would happily recommend these folks). My choice.

FEATURES
1. 800VA - To power the lights, fans and all electronic equipment in our small but snug and comfortable two bedroom apartment, this was sufficient.
2. Pure sine wave - As opposed to Modified(square) sine wave generated by the UPS usually offered by vendors.

See http://www.sinergex.com/inverter-info.html for the differences.

One additional difference is the power factor. The actual power delivered by modified sinewave for this unit was 800VA*0.8=640W whereas for the pure sinewave  the value was 800VA*0.7=560W (1 tubelight).

To power our laptops, printer, I specifically asked for pure sine wave inverter despite the slight reduction in power supplied.

3. 12V, 120 AH battery - Prestolite (an Exide brand) supplied by LUMINOUS.
4. Inline - Did NOT go with a unit that could be connected inline i.e. power is drawn at all time from the UPS battery so that even when there is a power outage UPS inverter automatically kicks in without the tiny interruption.
5. Price - `13k

LUMINOUS Sine (Pure Sine) Wave 800VA for powers my home!!
(Hmm.. Maybe I should ask for a fee for this endorsement :))

PS:
It is sad that Bangalore continues to suffer from daily power outages when its infrastructure ought to match up to  the likes of Shanghai.

A quick back of the envelope calculation: Price of the UPS times No. of households who own a TV (and can be assumed to be able to afford a UPS) = `15000 times 17000000 = ` 25.5 billion or 2550 crores, that is over 40% of the total 2009-10 power budget of the state of Karnataka. So, every household is paying the penalty of buying a UPS, because the funds allocated to build, maintain and enhance infrastructure has over the years been inefficiently utilized  over the years!!

Photon Whiz on Linux

Here is a guide I obtained from Tata Indicom about using the Photon Whiz.

Photon_whiz_on_Linux

To enable hotplug, I added this to the file /etc/udev/rules.d/70-huawei-ec121.rules on my Fedora 13.
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEMS=="usb"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="12d1",ATTRS{idProduct}=="1411"RUN+="/usr/sbin/usb_modeswitch"RUN+="/usr/bin/wvdial -C /etc/wvdial_for_tata_photon_whiz.conf"

Works great for browsing, email and small downloads!!

Towards EVMsecure :)

Among the security community, even among those who argue in favor of security through obscurity, the consensus is that security through obscurity should never be used as a primary security measure. It is, at best, a secondary measure; and disclosure of the obscurity should not result in a compromise.
- "Security by Obscurity." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 12 August 2010 at 17:13 Web. 28 Aug. 2010.
However,the Election Commission seems to have followed this as a primary measure for the EVMs. Its open challenge in 2009 seems to clearly reflect this mindset. This position made the EVMs a lightning rod for independent security researchers/cryptanalysts to investigate whether the EVMs are truly as secure as claimed. Their paper, videos (http://youtu.be/apkSkb6Ak3I)and website should be viewed in this light.
While Gonggrijp and Professor Haldman have echoed a global consensus about electronic voting machines being inherently insecure and hence requiring an paper audit, what must be kept in perspective is the reality of the huge gains in efficiency and relative safety that the machines have achieved in India since their deployment!!
Rather than responding in the typically bureaucratic knee jerk manner to the disclosure, could not the Indian institutions have persuaded the cryptanalysts to become ethical hackers(whitehats)? I certainly hope  a team comprised of the cryptanalysts and experts drawn from various stakeholders in India (such as election commission, embedded system experts, security researchers) is being formed as I write to perform a comprehensive security audit on the device and come up with EVMsecure :). A By-election could serve as a pilot project to test its real world efficacy.
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What an exciting and awesome challenge for this team - to retain faith in the election process of the world's largest democracy!!