All set 4 the Marathon

Posted by Nishit Shah on January 18th, 2008

After almost couple of months of preparation for the marathon, I am all set for it. I can now jog for round about 10km at a stretch. Though, I am running in the Dream run which is of 6km. Its gonna be gr8 fun. Will specially designed T-shirts for the Marathon and around 150 of us from Directi running, am sure we gonna make some mark ! Will write more about the event once its over and upload some pics later if I manage to take any. Meet u there !

Share This!
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Ma.gnolia
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

Somewhere Back In Time

Posted by Nishit Shah on January 18th, 2008

Iron Maiden is back with a bang and it bigger and better ! The new Maiden tour kicks off in Bombay on Feb 1st and no points for guessing who was the first one to book the tickets ! I am all geared up for the hope. Its gonna be the biggest gig I have been to of course after the Roger Waters one last year. I am sooo excited for the show, its hardly 2 weeks away now. And all I have been doing is listening to Maiden whole day long !

Share This!
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Ma.gnolia
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

ClubHACK

Posted by Nishit Shah on December 10th, 2007

I was almost about to miss this event! But somehow got up from the bed early enough in the morning to make it on time. I had returned home late from Bangalore as my flight got delayed by an hour. Reached home at around midnight and had to catch a 5am bus to Pune to reach there on time. I was very tired to get up at 4 am and get ready but somehow managed to do it and reached there on time :) With topics like Hacking one’s Firefox to steal his web secrets, Mining Digital Evidence in Microsoft Windows, 7 years of Indian IT act , etc and an opportunity to meet and network with some of the best Indian Hackers, this was an event not worth missing. This event was organized by Rohit Srivastwa. a renowned cyber security specialist. The speakers / topic of talks / venue / delegates .. everything was too good. I had gone with my ex- Katalyst colleague Ameya

The event started with Rohit introducing all the speakers of the event. The first talk that I attended was Sunil Arora on Backdoor 2.0: Hacking Firefox to steal his web secrets. He showed in detail about techniques to write a malware for Firefox to steal a victim’s web secrets like username, password, credit card number etc. He also talked about the recently discovered vulnerabilities in Firefox and how one can exploit them to push the malware to victim’s Firefox remotely. The session was very informative.

The next session was by Chetan Gupta on Mining Digital Evidence in Microsoft Windows. He showed us how forensic analysis was done on Windows system and how the cyber crime sleuths are able to recover all th details from a system at the time of investigation. Chetan Gupta is a very well known security expert working with Symantec Corporation and the best part was his introduction. He had almost a dozen security certificates under his belt. So, it took like almost 5 minutes to complete his introduction by the comparer and everyone started clapping soon after his intro. I am pasting a part of it here.

Chetan Gupta is a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Sciences from AIUMT, USA and has done his Masters of Science in Computer Networks. He has vast experience in the field of Information Security with a focus on the domain of penetration testing and digital forensics. He is well-versed with the Incident response and Computer Forensics standards and methodology, has a good understanding of the Cyber law & has led teams on Computer Forensic assignments for many multinational clients. He has also conducted penetration tests and risk assessment exercises for a multitude of international clients. Chetan Gupta is an Encase Certified Examiner (EnCE), SANS GIAC Certified Forensics Analyst (GCFA), SANS GIAC Certified Intrusion Analyst (GCIA), Master in Computer Forensics (US), Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), CIW Certified Security Associate and Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA).

phew…
The next talk was one of the most interesting one by Rohas Nagpal who is the President of the Asian School of Cyber Law. where he talked about the 7 most prominent cyber crime cases in India including the controversial Avnish Bajaj case of Baazee.com. There was so much to learn about the Indian IT act from him. Most of the things that I was not aware of. He also talked about piracy, pornography, etc.

Then headed for lunch break and attended sessions on Crazy Toaster: Can Home Devices turn against us? and Hacking Web 2.0 and then headed for the panel discussion with Cyber Crime Lawyers, Hackers and Cops. This was the most impressive discussion on Cyber Crimes, powerful Indian laws and the security. I cleared many of my doubts which were never cleared by anyone.

Overall an amazing event. Headed back to Bombay soon after the event.
Looking forward to be a part of ClubHACK2008 !

Share This!
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Ma.gnolia
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

foss.in/2007

Posted by Nishit Shah on December 10th, 2007

Had been to Bangalore between 4th to 8th December for foss.in/2007 and boy what an event that was! As I had mentioned in my earlier post that I will be attending this. I was at foss.in/2007 only for the first 4 days ( 2 project days and 2 main conference days ) as I changed my plans for the last day and went for Yahoo! India’s year end party @ Club Cabana.

day 1 @ foss.in
Reached Bangalore around 11 am as my flight got delayed by around 20 minutes and headed straight to my colleague’s hotel room to keep my belongings and then to IISc. The very first day was the project day and by the time I reached the venue, sessions were already going on it full swing. day1 had project days on Debian/Ubuntu , Open Solaris, Mozilla & Gnome and each of them were allotted a hall were sessions were going on. After jumping around from one hall to another to get a gist of whats going on I finally settled at the Mozilla Project. After the event I spent the rest of the evening with my friends at the 13th floor.

day 2 @ foss.in
Day 2 had project days of Fedora, Open Office, KDE and IndLinux. And I ended up sitting for almost all sessions of the Fedora Project day. It was drizzling whole day and the atmosphere around the JN Tata Auditorium was damn chill. Got introduced to quiet a few Bangalore LUGGers. Also, met Kartik Mistry. After the Foss we got invites to the amazing Mozilla Party @ Opus. They party was too good and it was the first time that I was partying with such amazing hip techie crowd. Its not everyday that you get invited to a Mozilla party and get an opportunity to chat with Mitchell Baker (CEO of Mozilla aka Chief Lizard Wrangler) and Mary Colvig (Marketing Manager) among others :) . Reached home pretty late at around 1am as the place where I was staying was at the other part of the town. It was damn chill..had a feeling that I would freeze to death by the time I reach home.

day 3 @ foss.in
The Main conference started on day 3. With many interesting talks lined up, it was difficult to choose which talk to sit when both were at the same time. Day 3 started with the inauguration of the main conference by Atul Chitnis and Kishore Bhargava which was pretty good. Then sat for couple of very interesting sessions by James Morris and (Why you should be a kernel hacker) and Rusty Russell (lguest: Hacking the Little Linux Hypervisor). After the event headed off to MG Road with friends.

day 4 @ foss.in
Day 4 was my last day @ Foss.in. Attended few sessions, had lunch, took loads of snaps, was fooling around on my Team Lead’s lappy most of the time. Made loadsa new friends. The main reason to attend such events is networking. You get to know and meet soo many like minded people and get an opportunity to discuss techie stuff.

As mentioned earlier, I didn’t attend the day 5 of foss.in as I was with my friends @ Club Cabana. for Yahoo! year end bash and boy what an event that was.

All in all it was a gr8 event. Very much worth taking a much needed break from work for 5 days and flying all the way to Bangalore for it. If folks can come from abroad to talk or to attend this event as delegates.. so can I !

Meet you @ foss.in/2008

Share This!
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Ma.gnolia
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

@ Foss.in

Posted by Nishit Shah on December 5th, 2007

Live blogging on day 2 of Foss.in Reached here by noon yesterday and attended the project day of Mozilla yesterday. Was really cool. Am here today attending the Fedora project day. More on this later when I get my hand on a comp.

Share This!
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Ma.gnolia
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

FOSS.in/2007 - ClubHack’07

Posted by Nishit Shah on October 27th, 2007

Foss.in

Missed the foss.in/2006 and this time around I am gonna be there for all 5 days from 4th to 8th December ‘07. To be on a safe side, I have applied for a leave from work way in advance and booked the round trip flight tickets too !

ClubHack

After FOSS I am planning to go to Pune on 9th for ClubHACK India’s first International Hackers’ Convention @ International Convention Center, Pune. With impressive line of speakers , I bet its gonna be a damn interesting event and since its an invitation only event, I hope to hear a positive reply from the organizers by next month.

My return flight is on 8th late evening to Bombay. So, probably I need to get up early in the morning and catch a Volvo to Pune.

Share This!
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Ma.gnolia
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

AV Revolution’07

Posted by Nishit Shah on October 27th, 2007

Samsung LCD TV
Went to Hi-End Audio-Video Consumer Electronics Expo aka AV revolution at NSE grounds Goregaon. I have been following this event religiously for the past 3-4 years as it happens every year around this time. There was a change in venue this year as it normally takes place at Hyatt Regency. Also, the number of participating companies have gone down. I remember, a couple of years back, I was not able to cover the whole event in one day. Also, it was Sunday so it was way over crowded. That’s why I made it a point to go on a weekday. However, I was disappointed to see so less booths and products on display as compared to previous events. I saw nothing exceptional except for Sony’s OLED TV , Samsung’s 70″ and Panasonic’s 84″ Plasma TV.

I bet a visit to Croma would have been more meaning full then this exhibition. I was looking for a DVD player which has HDMI as well as USB connectivity and also plays the maximum number video formats available in the market. I was disappointed to find only 3 such models. 2 of Pioneer and 1 of Samsung. The Pioneer stuff was really good but unfortunately they don’t have any distributors in Bombay. So except for grey market its very difficult to get it. I don’t know what was wrong with me that I asked an Onida booth guy about a DVD player with such specifications, he said “Such technology is not yet out in the market. We are still researching to combine two different kinds of connectivity” … lol. The speaker systems were good. I liked the concert series of Jamo comprising of two front tower speakers, two rear bookshelves, one centre speaker and a sub-woofer. And unlike previous shows, the exhibitors were not allowed to play music, so one can’t judge the quality of sound produced just by looking at the speakers and its specifications. Overall a mediocre event, covered it in just 3 hours and headed off to work for an important meeting :)

Click here to view few of the pics I took at the event.

Share This!
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Ma.gnolia
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

Copyright © 2007 iBlog: Nishit Shah. All rights reserved.

Disclaimer: Nishit Shah works at URBZ - the opinions expressed here are my own, and neither URBZ nor any other party necessarily agrees with them.