India ahead of Europe in techies' salary hike

Engineers' salaries in India and China have risen at a pace faster than that in some of their European counterparts like Japan and North America.


MNCs outsourcing work to India with a wish to do away with the increasing labor cost concerns may now rethink their strategies as labor costs in India are on a fast rise.

Engineers' salaries in India and China have risen at a pace faster than that in some of their European counterparts like Japan and North America, says the 2009 EE Times Global Salary & Opinion Survey.

Almost half of the respondents in China and about 40 per cent of those in India were seeing their salaries much or slightly higher than what they were 5 years ago, while only 34 per cent of respondents in Europe and 25 per cent of that in North America reported a hike in the similar duration.



The study says that competition for engineering talent in China and India has stiffened over the past decade as hardware and software companies have accelerated the transfer of manufacturing and design operations from Western locations to lower-cost parts of the globe.

Due to this tight competition, companies often offer attractive incentives to secure experienced engineers, only to lose them to rivals after a couple of years.

Although high-tech employers in China and India have indeed been raising compensation for local employees, many engineers in the two countries still earn considerably less than their counterparts elsewhere, the study adds.

Significant contributions from Microsoft India Development Center (MSIDC) for windows 7

The latest operating system has been through significant development at Microsoft's India Development Center in Hyderabad. This represents a paradigm shift in the quality of work taking place in India





Gone are the days when Indian centers of global IT companies were involved in just providing support functions to the main development outfit based out of the USA or Europe. Now the Indian centers are actively involved in research and product development.

The Indian development centers of Intel and Microsoft stand testimony to that. The recent launch of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system too had significant contributions coming from Microsoft India Development Center (MSIDC) in Hyderabad.

MS launches Seven 7s to fight Windows 7 piracy

MSIDC and Windows 7
Microsoft India Development Center situated in Hyderabad is one of the largest Microsoft R&D centers outside their headquarters in Redmond, USA. This center started 11 years ago with a team of just 20 people, and over these years has grown to become a team of around 1500 employees.

MSIDC has played a key role in contributing towards components of several Microsoft products, some of which include Bing, developer tools and Windows 7.

Over the years, the MSIDC development teams have gained expertise on networking and virtualization, and that reflects on the type of components of Windows 7, they had complete engineering responsibility of. The contributions of MSIDC teams to Windows 7 are discussed here.

Should You Migrate to Windows 7?

VPN Reconnect
In this mobile world, one of the pain points that most organizations face is providing seamless connectivity to their workforce for corporate applications. Most organizations provided such applications by using VPN tunnels over Internet.

But if their employees moved out of the office network, their connection to the application would be inaccessible as their VPN connection got terminated, and even if the employee had a wireless broadband connection, he would have to reconnect and get back onto that application to continue working.

Windows 7 and Vista offer best file search

Windows 7 provides a VPN Reconnect feature, which allows a VPN connection to have multiple network paths defined between points on the VPN tunnel. This results in seamless switchover and uninterrupted connectivity, as VPN Reconnect feature automatically uses the next available path to maintain the existing VPN tunnel if the main network connection fails, and so the user's work remain uninterrupted with no connectivity outages.

This VPN Reconnect feature has been developed at MSIDC. It is standards based and uses the IKEv2 IPSec protocol. It supports additional VPN strategy which allows fallback to SSL in case IKEv2 is blocked by the firewall. It also provides support for Machine Certificate based authentication making it more secure to use.

Direct Access
For corporate users who would like to access their corporate intranet while on move over the Internet without having to configure any VPN connection, Direct Access feature of Windows 7 is the solution. Direct Access provides the end user access to the corporate network so they can have access to the resources they need even while they are on the move.

It also enables the IT administrator to have increased level of remote device management. Direct Access uses the IPv6 and its native features to tunnel and secure data over public network like Internet.

The MSIDC team has been instrumental in setting up the Direct Access Management snap-in feature in Windows 7, and provided all the management framework around setting up the Direct Access server and the policies around it. Thus, playing a key part in providing an end-to-end solution for Windows 7.

Mobile Broadband
The third networking related component that MSIDC has contributed to Windows 7 is the Mobile Broadband feature. This feature enables users to connect to the Internet from any location that has cellular connectivity.  Prior to Windows 7, all telcos were writing their own connection managers, even the mobile broadband card manufacturers were writing the device drivers in their proprietary format.

This resulted in an inconsistent user experience as he subscribed from one service provider to another. The MSIDC team worked with various card manufacturers and telcos across the geography and provided them with a common API set for connection manager and driver model so that user can have a consistent experience.

With organizations moving towards mobile workforce, and even netbooks coming with an embedded wireless broadband card, the user now just has to take subscription from a wireless service provider and he is all set to work on the Mobile Broadband feature of Windows 7, taking care of the connection manager as well as device drivers.

Customers can connect via 2.5G, 3G, GSM or CDMA based cellular data services and enjoy the same experience as that available to users of Wi-Fi and other broadband technologies. The spectrum of technologies that this feature supports include GSM as well as CDMA.

Virtualization Contribution
Apart from the networking related responsibilities for Windows 7, the MSIDC also contributed towards virtualization technologies like Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode for Windows 7. Microsoft has learned from their Vista experience that several enterprises had not adopted Vista because of the application compatibility issue.

With Windows 7 though, Microsoft has tried to resolve application compatibility issues. And for any enterprise application which runs on Windows XP, but is not compatible with Windows 7, they have provide a Windows XP Mode.

This is effectively a license to run XP with Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate editions and allows enterprises to upgrade to Windows 7 and have their Windows XP compatible business and productivity applications working inside Windows 7 in a virtual environment.

The experience of running native XP compatible applications on Windows 7 is seamless and also once the applications are installed on XP Mode, they are published in Start Programs and on the Desktop of Windows 7, providing user with ease of access and enhancing his experience. Also the application in XP Mode starts normally and there is no Virtual Machine environment visible to the user.

Beyond Windows 7
Providing key components for Microsoft Windows 7 is not the only accomplishment for MSIDC. It is also contributing towards Microsoft's family of developer tools and technologies. The upcoming Visual Studio 2010 will have features of Test Elements and Team Lab management, which were developed primarily at MSIDC. SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP2 Beta 2, developed at MSIDC, is the latest release from the SQL Server Compact family. It is a free, easy-to-use embedded database engine that lets developers build robust Windows Desktop and mobile applications that run on all Windows platforms, including Windows 7, Pocket PC and Smartphone.

Airtel, RCom, Google to build Asia undersea cable

Globe Telecom, part owned by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd, and units of Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications are also part of the consortium




A consortium including Google and KDDI Corp has signed a deal on to build and operate an international undersea cable system, estimated to cost $400 million.

EIG will provide flexibility route diversity to India
Globe Telecom, part owned by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd, and units of Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications are also part of the consortium.
The cable system, named Southeast Asia Japan Cable, has a design capacity of 17 Terabits per second (Tbps) upgradeable to 23 Tbps, the highest capacity system ever built so far, the companies said in a joint statement.
It is targeted to be operational by the second quarter of 2012.
The 8300 km-long cable system will provide faster and more efficient broadband connectivity throughout Asia and will initially link Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines, and Japan, the statement added.

Wipro accepts West Bengal's land offer

Wipro chairman Azim Premji along with officials of the company visited the plot, and also held a meeting with Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at the state secretariat Writers' Buildings.



 


IT services provider Wipro Technologies has accepted the West Bengal government's offer of 50 acres in Rajarhat on the outskirts of the city for setting up its second campus here.
Early Thursday, Wipro chairman Azim Premji along with officials of the company visited the plot, and also held a meeting with Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at the state secretariat Writers' Buildings.
"We went to see the land today. We liked it very much. We have also decided to purchase it," Premji told reporters after the parleys with the chief minister.
The land belonging to Housing Infrastructure Development Corp (Hidco) will be handed over to the IT giant for Rs.1.5 crore per acre.
Premji said his company would start work in 18 months. "The area is getting ready."
Three months back, the state government had to shelve the proposed township projects at Rajarhat after it cancelled land allotments to IT companies like Infosys and Wipro following allegations that land had been "forcibly" taken from locals.
The chief minister later said the government was ready to offer 45-acre each to Wipro and Infosys for starting new centres.
Wipro then wrote to the government Oct 30, seeking land at concessional price, following which it was offered the 50-acre plot.

Hackers puts the shine on Chrome OS

Less than two weeks ago, the source code for Google’s Chrome OS was released on November 19, 2009 under open source licensing as Chromium OS.


 It took less than a day, for the first hacked Chrome OS developer build to go live on theInternet. Very soon it got torrented and hosted, courtesy of a geek celeb who goes why the name of Hexxeh.

The first build required 4GB, but a new and vastly improved ‘diet build’ is now available as a 300MB direct download, it extracts to a 950MB image that can run off a USB stick.

The OS is also available as a torrent on PirateBay, and lots of other trackers. What’s more, support is vastly improved in the newer builds. The minimalist OS can do nothing other than browse the Internet, eliciting snide remarks from a Linux fanbase. “Basically you get a Linux OS that can do nothing but look at Web pages.” But that misses the point.

This OS should work out exceedingly well on an aging PC or an underpowered netbook. It’s also great for your grandma or technically challenged siblings, as there will be little scope of it being infected with viruses or spyware. It cuts all the flab, and offers blindingly fast browsing speeds on underpowered PCs.

We tested the Chromium OS build on an Acer Aspire 12-inch netbook. The Chromium OS booted in less than ten seconds, and while the wireless connectivity did not work, it was able to browse using a LAN cable.

Programs are launched using a button in the upper-left corner of the screen. Here, you can find the whole stable of Google’s services, including Gmail, Picasa, and Youtube. The OS also links to other web applications like Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Pandora, Facebook, and Twitter.

Beyond this, it provides only the bare minimum: a calculator, a clock, and a network status indicator. There isn’t even a notepad for you to save things on if you aren’t online.

The experience on the whole, is quite put together at this point, but provides a free OS that you don’t need a license, or an antivirus for. Better driver compatibility is expected in the future.

Hexxeh, who is also available on Twitter says that “In theory, we have even better compatibility that that chart suggests, that chart refers to compatibility on a fresh unaltered build. I’ve added the WiFi drivers from Ubuntu to this to try and fix the WiFi for people having issues.”

The Web site maintains a growing compatibility list out here that lists out problems or issues, mostly related to wireless support. From the list, we were able to ascertain that the Chromium OS build will work flawlessly on the LenovoThinkPad T400, ASUS Eee PC 1008HA and Eee PC 700 amongst others. With new builds, the compatibility list grow larger.

Kshitij Sobti reporting for Thinkdigit.com has mentioned an interesting spin-off whose usability beyond just netbooks. “ChromeiumOS64 also features the Xen hypervisor, which lets you run Linux or Windows XP as a virtual machine within Chromium OS.” he said. A copy of the OS can be downloaded from: http:// chromeos.hexxeh.net


source::ET

Inside LG’s all-new transparent mobile

Korean giant LG has launched its new handset dubbed GD900 Crystal in India. The company claims that LG Crystal is the world’s first transparent handset and features intuitive 3D S-class UI

                                                                      

Illuminates with a glow:

                                                                    

Designed to be entirely transparent and illuminated with a glow, GD900 embodies a scratch-resistant design. Made of tempered glass, the transparent design effect is reinforced by a bend of metal

Gesture Command:

The GD900 sports a 7.62 cm WVGA full touchscreen display and incorporates an alpha numeric keypad that doubles as a touchpad for controlling the handset.

The device boasts of LG's touch technology and Gesture Command. It offers handwriting recognition and responds to multi-touch commands.

                                                                                                    

12 easy symbols:

To launch a feature, users simply need to press the handset’s multitasking button and draw one of the 12 easy symbols on the keypad. Further, users can also assign symbols to any of the device’s nine multitasking-enabled features.

The transparent phone is also inclusive of a dedicated graphics chipset offering comprehensive multimedia experience.

8 Megapixel camera

The Crystal comes with 1.5GB of internal memory and allows expansion till 16GB. The mobile phone packages Wi-Fi capabilities, Dolby Mobile enhanced sound and DVD resolution video recording, 8 megapixel auto-focus camera and media player.

Shades & pricing

The LG Crystal comes in chrome and titen shades. The mobile is available at retail stores across the country at an approximate price of Rs 26,000.










source:indiatimes infotech

10 Most infected sites in India

Indiatimes Infotech



Often heard of sites infected with malware? Sites which host viruses and other malware, playing perfect host to online criminals. There are number of such Indian sites, little doubt then that India is among the top three countries in the Asia-Pacific region to have been impacted by malicious activities in the cyberworld.

Ever wondered which are the most infected sites among these? In its latest security report, Symantec has revealed top 10 infected sites from India.

lastspy.in



sapesoft.in



automotiveproductsfinder.com



premalayam.in



ashokelectronics.in



apfindia.com



evision.in



mlcuniv.in



pmrtechnologies.in





nagarjunauniversity.ac.in





source: indiatimes

Infosys to make 13,000 campus offers next year

Infosys Technologies, India's [ Images ] second largest information technology services company, which is an early bird on campuses this year, says it will offer jobs to 13,000 freshers for 2010-11.
This is despite the fact that the number of engineering colleges it visits every year for campus recruitment is expected to drop by half as compared with 2007.
The company says it has been prompted to do so since the conversion rate (the number of people who get offers and finally join the company) in the last two years has improved dramatically.
Till 2008, according to Infosys' [ Get Quote ] Senior VP and Group Head for HR Nandita Gurjar, the company used to visit 1,050 engineering colleges for campus recruitments. The number dropped to 700 in 2008. The figure is again expected to fall to 500 or 550 this year, as the company has already started going for campus interviews.
"In 2008, when we made the campus offers, the conversion dramatically improved and this is the reason why we did not require to go to so many colleges. Even now, though we plan to visit 700 colleges, we are expecting to get the required numbers from 500 or 550 colleges," Gurjar told Business Standard.
The typical conversion rate in case of campus recruitment is about 70 percent, which has now gone up to 73 percent, she said. Earlier, Infosys board member and head of HR T V Mohandas Pai had said the company might hire 20,000 people at the gross level for the financial year starting April 1, 2010.
Going by this, Infosys may have to hire 7,000 laterals (people with experience) for 2010-11.
Meanwhile, Infosys has initiated the process to fill up the post of chief executive officer of its BPO division, with the decision of erstwhile CEO Amitabh [ Images ] Chaudhry to quit. Gurjar said there were five contenders for the post and all of them were from within the company.

BS Reporter in Bangalore

Source:

Google Wave Invites

WANT NEW GOOGLE WAVE INVITES JUST GIVE UR EMAIL ID--

Is India prepared to face cyber warfare?

 March 2008: An IP address originating from China intrudes into secured Indian cyber territory. The hackers attacked the ministry of external affairs website, managed by servers located in the national capital. They are believed to have stolen login identities and passwords of a host of Indian diplomats and sneaked away with ‘top secret’ state information, though the government has officially denied this.

April 2007: Estonian government removes the Bronze war memorial of a Soviet Soldier and war graves from Talinn. The removal is met with large-scale protests by ethnic Russians. About 1,300 people are arrested, 100 injured, and one dies.

In the days that follow, Russian hackers start mounting massive DDOS (distributed denial of service) attacks on websites of Estonian government ministries, major banks, news organizations, the Estonian presidency, parliament and major political parties. The whole cyber infrastructure of the government crumbles and banks suffer huge losses.

And the future...

Circa 2010: Commonwealth Games are in full swing in New Delhi and the Delhi Metro Rail is running on full capacity. On the third day of the Games, in the midst of a morning rush, the servers of DMRC crash thus cutting off power and halting the trains underground in the dark.

About 50,000 people are stuck underground. And two trains just miss a headon collision. TV stations blank out. The BSES Rajdhani’s automated servers stop working thus shutting down power in half of Delhi. The Air Traffic Control servers are taken in control by a foreign command centre.

Many flights miss collisions. All flights are cancelled and so are the 2010 Commonwealth Games. The BSE and NSE servers in Mumbai crash thus eroding all stock value to zilch. Mobile networks and internet is down. India is under attack. But the perpetrators are not known. 
This might well be what you read in newspapers in October 2010 if India does not pay heed. Cyber warfare is for real, as it happened in India in March this year and in Estonia in April 2007, and Indian establishments are under threat.

But India does not have a national strategy on countering insurgency in the cyberspace. “The draft amendments to IT Act 2000 do not have a single clause related to cyber terrorism or cyber war which compromise the national security, sovereignty and integrity of India,” says noted cyber lawyer Pavan Duggal.

The parliamentary standing committee has also criticised the government for not including clauses relating to cyber terrorism in the IT Act.

Sources say that the threat to India’s IT systems is very high and the threat perception will obviously reach a new high as the Commonwealth Games come closer. In the long term there is no policy on cyber warfare except for some localised attempts by intelligence agencies. In fact often there’s little understanding of what is cyber war.

What is a cyber war?

Cyber warfare can be defined as use of IT equipment like computers

, mobile phones or other IP enabled equipment to conduct a war via the internet. Cyber warfare is part of information warfare which involves collection of tactical information, spreading of propaganda or misinformation to demoralise the enemy and using information to overpower enemy systems, servers thus bringing normal life to a standstill. Various methods like DDOS, phishing, cyber vandalism, espionage, destroying critical utilities, and equipment failure come under cyber war.  

A Brief History Titan Rain: It is a term given to a series of coordinated attacks on US computer systems since 2003. Titan Rain hackers gained access to Lockheed Martin, Sandia National Laboratories, Redstone Arsenal, and NASA. Moonlight Maze: It is the U.S. government's designation given to a series of alleged coordinated attacks on American computer systems in 1999. The attacks were traced to a main frame computer in Moscow. Estonia Debacle: On May 17, 2007 Estonia came under cyber attack. The Estonian parliament, ministries, banks, and media were targeted bringing down the whole cyber infrastructure in Estonia on a standstill. The Chinese threat: Around Sep 5, 2007, the Pentagon alongwith various French, German and British government computers were attacked by hackers of Chinese origin. China denies any involvement. Estonia counter attacks: On Dec 14 2007 the website of the Kyrgyz Central Election Commission and ISPs were attacked during election. The message on the website read "This site has been hacked by Dream of Estonian organization". Indian MEA attacked: In the second week of April, 2008, IP addresses originating from China attacked the Indian MEA computers. The hackers are believed to have gotten away with sensitive data, though the government denies.

According to government’s own data, the past 12 months have witnessed almost 400 registered attacks on Indian sites, owned by government departments or private institutions. That makes for more than one major government site being attacked on a daily basis. In the private sector, about 51% sites attacked belonged to the e-commerce sector, 47% belonged to the financial services sector.

Stages in cyber war

A full-fledged cyber attack on a nation may involve three steps. first, bring down the transportation and control systems. Second, bring down the financial systems (the stock markets and banks) and third, take control of the nations’ utilities.

A full-scale cyber attack can cause panic among people. It can trigger alarm systems in all major establishments, be it Parliament, Rashtrapati Bhavan, major hospitals, schools or colleges. A hack into the traffic light systems can cause havoc on roads in terms of accidents.

A break into the IT systems

controlling the metro rail services can cause disasters. A break into your bank’s system or tax department can fish out your pan number, your salary, the investments you have made, the assets you possess to the cars you own.

A hack into your demat account can hurt you financially. One can know everything from details of your parents to the number of children you have. A hack into your personal computer can reveal all the searches you have made in the past to all the chat windows.

Imagine what chaos can prevail if the IT networks which control our power plants and nuclear plants fall into the hands of a rival nation. Imagine what can happen if one is able to break into the communication links of the defence ministry.

One can make an army or air force self destruct itself in a war. But the fact is that such talent (to prevent or control the attacks) is hard to acquire. In India too only a few hundred computer hackers exist. And the real top quality talent will always be in shortage.

According to strategists, before the beginning of a full-scale armed conflict and cyber conflict, the real challenge for a rival military organisation will be to eliminate this talent. This is because only a few computer geniuses will be able to prevent or bring the disrupted systems to normalcy.

But in the event of a full-fledged attack which brings down servers of critical public utilities or hands over their control to a rival party, recovery may take many days. For instance, restoring the Estonian critical utilities took a long time. A NATO team was dispatched to help the government in the cyber war but which could not prevent a barrage of DDOS attacks.

The CIA has also conformed that hackers had attacked IT systems last year causing a multi-city power failure. “We have information that cyber attacks have been used to disrupt power equipment in several regions outside the US. In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities. We do not know who executed these attacks,” Tom Donahue, a CIA senior analyst said at a conference in the US.

The US conducts various kinds of cyber War games on a regular basis. In March this year, at Cyber Storm II, (annual cyber war game) the focus was simulated attacks on IT, communications, airlines and energy sectors.
Companies like Microsoft, Cisco, McAfee, Dow Chemicals participated in the war game which included US defence and intelligence agencies as well. The exercise cost about $6 million. No such large scale cyber war games happen in India. But private companies including telcos and ISPs do conduct such drills.

Various kinds of attacks

Denial of Service (DoS) attacks are most commonly used in a cyber war. A DoS attack is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. DOS attacks paralyse IT systems. There are various types of DOS attacks:

Nuke: In Nuking, large amounts of corrupt data is repeatedly sent to a user by using the ping facility. It’s also known as Ping flood. The user’s computer is unable to handle this data and gives up displaying the Blue Screen of Death, very common in Windows Vista, XP and other versions.

Reflected Attack: In this a victim’s computer is made to send out large amount of forged request to a large number of computers that reply to the requests. The replies flood the victim’s computer and crash it.

DDOS: The most lethal of all is the Distributed DoS attacks. In a DDOS attack, thousands of compromised systems flood the bandwidth or resources of a targeted system, usually one or more web servers. They keep on multiplying themselves by attacking other systems and creating a Botnet.

“DDOS attackers can be as sinister as Cold War agents or as mercenary as professional blackmailers. We ourselves conduct such drills and offer DDoS Detection and Mitigation security services. VSNL gets a large number of DDOS attacks every day. Our offerings include real-time application-layer analysis of the IP traffic traversing Tata Communications’ global IP backbone.

The services monitor and analyze traffic on a 24x7x365 basis,” says a Tata Communications spokesperson. An Airtel official also said that they get hundreds of DoS attacks everyday but thankfully the company has a strong IT infrastructure to avert them.

China is believed to possess an army of specialized hackers who hack into systems of other countries and test their vulnerabilities. They are trained in the art of counter aggressive cyber warfare. India, however, is far behind. Though some departments are taking precautions.

Says Amulik Bijral, country manager RSA Security, “Many departments in the ministry of finance and ministry of defence have started using two factor identification for logging in their systems.” Two factor tokens involve a normal password plus a token which generates pin codes in real time to be carried by the user.

To login to a system the user will have to enter both the password and pin. In the South Block (ministry of defence and army HQs), laptops are not allowed and only a few computers are connected to the internet. These computers obviously don’t have access to the defence intranet.

“Despite a real threat, India is not a signatory to the 45-nation international convention on cyber crimes which has the US, EU, South Africa etc as its members. There is a lack of political will,” adds Mr Duggal.

India needs classified experts in intelligence agencies which can examine the various vulnerabilities in the IT systems. Though Computer Emergency Response System exists, it acts after the damage has been done.

Future tense

Though India is touted widely as the IT superpower of the world, the Indian government, especially the cyber crime cells of Delhi Police and Ministry of IT, still doesn’t have adequate talent to intercept the communication of terrorists via the internet. Lack of ability to attract good talent is an issue. The pay scales are not attractive enough for top end IT talent to look at joining government run cyber security cells. 
The Signals Core of the Indian Army also has professionals working on information warfare. But not many individuals are keen to join them as the salary levels are very low compared to what one gets in an IT company. The basic salary of an Indian Army or Navy officer ranges between Rs 8,500 per month to Rs 26,000 per month.

On the other hand, the US Navy pays its Information warfare officers salaries which start from $2000 per month (Rs 80,000) and go up to $6,300 (Rs 2.5 lakh) per month. On the other hand, many private IT training institutes conduct courses in operating systems and ethical hacking.

Salaries for a fresh ethical hacker can start around Rs 4 lakh per annum. Experienced hackers just work from home and earn far higher salaries in private companies. Clearly the government needs to think of its compensation policy if it wants to attract good IT talent.

Attracting high-end talent is a must as government and other agencies need professionals who can simulate all kinds of disaster scenarios, build the right kind of cyber security walls and stay on top of developments.

“Though the government has made arrangements to counter cyber warfare threats, a lot still needs to be done. For example, there are certain ways and means which one can use when e-mailing to avoid getting into the system and being tapped. There are certain brands of satellite phones which are difficult to tap,” says Rajat Khare, director of Appin Networks, a network security firm which maintains security for major establishments like the DMRC, Rashtrapati Bhawan etc.

Here, hiring the best talent can help. In a bid to counter cyber warfare the government has made a cyber warfare cell comprising 40 IITians. However, this is just a small step in building capability to counter cyber attacks.

According to Shamshad Ahmed, regional director, India & Saarc, Lumension Security (a network security provider), the third world war may be fought, if not entirely, then at least significantly, in the cyberspace.

Apart from hostility on the ground, the enemy cyber warriors can bring down defense computer systems, all important government systems, they may blacken off data at the nuclear plants and introduce dangerous contaminants or malware which can destroy all communication links. India definitely needs an army of cyber warriors to confront the threat.
Glossary

C2W: Command-and-control warfare. The integrated use of operations security, military deception, psychological operations, electronic warfare, and physical destruction, mutually supported by intelligence, to destroy adversary command

Cracking: Illegally gaining entry to a computer or computer network in order to do harm.

Zero-day attack: It is a computer threat that tries to exploit unknown, undisclosed or unpatched computer application vulnerabilities.

DNS spoofing: Assuming the DNS name of another system by either corrupting the name service cache of a victim system, or by compromising a domain name server

for a valid domain.

Firewall: A system or combination of systems that enforces a boundary between two or more networks.

Logic bomb: Unauthorized computer code, sometimes delivered by email, which, when executed triggers the perpetration of an unauthorized, usually destructive, act.

Phreaking: "Hacking" the public phone network.

Virus: A self-replicating program that is hidden in another piece of computer code, such as an email.
 

How to Install Chrome OS From A USB Drive

Have you already tried Chrome OS using a virtual machine, and were less than impressed? Well now you can get a feel for how Google's Web-centric operating system will run natively on your machine. The folks over at Engadget were able to boot Chromium OS -- the open source version of what will become Chrome OS -- off of a USB stick on a Dell Vostro A90 netbook. The USB bootable disc is based on the Chromium OS build of Twitter user Hexxeh, who set up a Web site where you can view all the instructions you need for getting your bootable USB up and running.

If you're ready to get your hands dirty and try out the new OS, here's what you need to know:

Get the Torrent

Before you do anything, you're going to need to download the Hexxeh's Chromium OS build. You can find a torrent link on Hexxeh's Website or you can use the mirror links found here andhere courtesy of Engadget.

Set Up Your USB Stick

Hexxeh has some easy instructions for writing your Chromium OS image onto a USB stick. The instructions for Windowsand Linux look pretty straightforward, butMac users are going to have a slightly more complicated time.

Pick Your Machine

A major problem with Chromium OS right now is that its device drivers are in the very early stages of development. That means some parts of your computer may not respond when using Chromium OS. One of the most common problems being reported is the lack of Wi-Fi functionality. So you may have to use an Ethernet connection instead. You should also know there's no guarantee the OS will boot up at all.

If you're in the market for a netbook or laptop, and you plan on experimenting with Chromium, check out Google's list of devices that are known to work with the latest version of Chromium OS. The list is primarily for developers who want to work with the new OS, but there's no reason you can't use it as a buying guide. The device index features a sortable checklist that lets you know if the Wi-Fi and trackpad functions are working, as well as general comments and warnings specific to each device.

For example, you might want to stay away from the Asus Eee PC 900 if you plan to run Chrome right now. The netbook's Wi-Fi is supposed to work, but the device's fans may not run, which could cause your system to overheat. Other Wi-Fi-ready devices, according to Google's list, are the Toshiba mini NB205, and the Asus Eee PC 1008HA. The Lenovo ThinkPad T400 may also work after upgrading the Wi-Fi firmware. But before you go out and spend money on a new computer, read over Google's hardware list to make sure you are fully aware of the functionality and problems for the device you have in mind.

Booting From the USB

Once you've got your computer, and have gone through the steps of writing your bootable disc, you may find you can't get Chromium OS to boot on your Windows-based machine. If this happens, you may have to change the settings for how your machine boots up.

You can learn how to change the settings by checking out PC World's guide to installing Windows 7 on a netbook using a USB drive. The instructions are not Chromium-specific, but you should be able to figure out how to adapt this method for your purposes.

A word of warning: Changing the boot order means messing with your system's command prompt and BIOS. If that sounds scary, you might be better off picking up an officialChrome OS machine later next year. For the rest of you, let us know in the comments how Chromium is running on your netbook.

Intel Core i5, Core i7 800 Processors and P55 Express

With today's launch of their new "Lynnfield" based Core i5 and i7 800 series processors, and the accompanying P55 Express chipset, Intel's current flagship CPU microarchitecture--codenamed Nehalem--finally trickles its way down into the mainstream computing segment. Since Nehalem first landed on the desktop in the form of the Core i7 line of processors, it has unequivocally owned the performance segment of the market.  They are simply the fastest desktop processors currently available, bar none. But while the Core i7 was riding high, Intel still had the established Core 2 line-up to satisfy the mainstream, though meeting market demand for a refresh here as well was obviously the end game.

Along with the new Core i5 and Core i7 800 series processors and P55 Express chipset, also come a plethora of new features and changes. While the Core i5 and i7 800 series processors are based on Nehalem and share similar execution cores, with these new processors, Intel has changed the integrated memory controller configuration, brought PCI Express connectivity on-die, and revamped their Turbo Mode functionality to offer varying levels of increased performance depending on the type of application being used. These new processors also require a new socket, new coolers, and the P55 Express chipset--which is an elegant single-chip solution.

There's a lot of information to cover to fill you all in on the pertinent details regarding the Core i5 and i7 800 series processors and P55 Express chipset. So we'll dive right in. First up we have some specifications on tap, and then we'll follow up with architectural and platform details, and a full performance breakdown using a trio of P55-based motherboards. Lots to see; let's get to it...

Intel Core i5 Processor On The Intel DP55KG "Kingsberg" Motherboard

Intel Core i5 and i7 7 Processors Specifications & Features

Core Frequencies:  2.93GHz (i7 870), 2.8GHz (i7 860), 2.66GHz (i5 750)  DMI Speed - 2GB/s TDP (Thermal Design Power) - 95W Stepping - 5 Number of CPU Cores - 4 (8 Threads w/ i7) Intel SmarCache- 8MB L2 Cache - 1MB (256K x 4) Processor input voltage (VID) - .88-1.2v .045-micron manufacturing process Shared Smart Cache Technology PECI Enabled Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology (EIST) Extended HALT State (C1E) Enabled Execute Disable Bit (XD) Enabled Intel 64 Technology

Intel Virtualization Technology (VT) Packaging -  Flip Chip LGA1156 Total Die Size: Approximately 296mm2 Approximately 774M Transistors MSRP - $555 (i7 870), $285 (i7 860), $199 (i5 750)

45nm Lynnfield Quad-Core Wafer

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Details regarding Lynnfield and the P55 chipset haven't exactly been well guarded secrets these past few months. In fact, we've already posted a number of articles related to both, in which we cover many of the main features and specifications. We have obviously written about Nehalem in depth in our coverage of the original Core i7 launch. But we've also posted information on overclocking Nehalem, and have offered up a number of P55-based motherboard sneak peeks as well...

• Intel Core i7 Processors: Nehalem and X58 Have Arrived
• Core i7 Extreme Overclocking With Liquid Nitrogen
• Lynnfield Motherboard Sneak Peeks
• Overclocking Intel's Core i7 920 Processor
• Intel Showcases Dunnington, Nehalem and Larrabee Processors
• IDF: Inside Nehalem
• Intel Nehalem Processor and SSD Sneak Peek
• Intel Penryn and Nehalem Details Emerge
• Intel Reveals Nehalem Naming Convention
• NVIDIA To Support SLI On Intel X58 Chipset

We're going to summarize many of the main details again here, but if you'd like to check out our complete coverage of the Core i7 (Nehalem) and the X58 Express chipset, the list of articles above offers just about all there is to know.