InCTF – India’s First CTF style Ethical Hacking Contest…!!!

Now, this  is something which never happened in India. Amrita University and TIFAC – Core in association with VeriSign, is all set to host India’s first Capture The Flag style (CTF) Ethical Hacking contest. InCTF ‘10 focus on students making them aware about secure coding practices .We will help you out, so that you can learn everything from scratch and participate in your University itself, under a faculty mentor who can help you out.

When :- InCTF ‘10 begins from February 2010 to March 2010. 2months filled with hands-on experience in vulnerability identification, exploitation and patching with lots of fun and exposures in the field of hacking.

Pre-requisite :- You do not need to be a professional hacker to participate in this contest. All you need is to be familiar with any programming language and it is recommended to be familiar with the any standard linux distro.

Steping Stone :- Hurry..! make a team maximum of 5, choose a mentor from your University, click here to visit the website and register your team. Send a Demand Draft of just Rs150/- in favour of “Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham” from any nationalized bank and send to th mentioned address. Do not waste your time, you can start learning as soon as you are done with registeration.

WOW..! :- Winning team will recieve a cash prize of Rs 40,000/- . First Runner-up will recieve a cash prize of Rs 30,000/-, Second Runners-up – Rs20.000/-. Apart from this Top 30 teams get a cash prize, Certificates of merit and other goodies. Special prize for the University with maximum participation and faculty mentors of the top 5 teams. Also University with winning team will be awarded a “Champion University” award.

More Over you have a chance to called as “India’s No.1 Ethical Hacking Team”.

You still waiting…?? hurry-up register your team today itself and learn, hack and win..!!

Check out InCTF for more details. Also follow us on twitter @InCTF and Facebook

What is inode??

Have you ever thought or imagined on how does a linux system manages all your files in ur hard disk? Lets have a look, it uses a very simple concept of nodes. When a file is created, a data structure is created which contains information about the files. Each file is associated with an inode that is identified by an inode number. On many types of file systems the number of inodes available is fixed at file system creation. A typical fraction of space allocated for inodes in a file system is 1% of total size. From the inode number, the kernel can access the contents of the inode, including the data pointers, and so the contents of the file.
ls -i    (list the inode number of all the files and folder in the current directory)
ls -l    (this retrieve the inode information/file information)

File names and directory implications :-
1. Inodes do not contain file names, only metadata.
2. Unix directories are list of “link” structures, each of which contains one file name and one inode number.
3. The kernel must search a directory looking for a particular filename and then convert the filename to the correct corresponding inode number if the name is found

Some more implications :
1. If multiple names link to the same inode then all of them are equivalent. The first one to have beed has no special status. This is unlike the sometimes more familiar symbolic links, where all the links depend on the original name.

2. An inode can even have no links at all. Normally such a file would be removed from the disk and its resources freed for reallocation (normal process of delete), but if any process are holding the file open, they may continue to access it, and file will be finnaly deleted
when the last reference to it is closed.

3. It is not possible to map from an open file to the file name that was used to open it. The operating system would convert the filename to an inode number at the first possible chance, then forget the file name. This means that the getcwd() and getwd() library functions
would need to search the parent directory to find a file with an inode matching the working directory, then search that directory’s parent, and so on until reaching the root.

4. It is also possible to hard link the directories which leads to a directory structure into an arbitrary directed graph and this will have n-1 nodes edges for n nodes.

5. A file’s inode number will stay the same when it is moved to another directory on the same device, or when the disk is de-fragmented. Therefore, moving either a file’s directory entry or its data(or both) is not enough to prevent a running process from accessing it, if the
process ever had a chance of finding out the inode number.

6.Installation of new libraries is simple with inode file systems. A running process can have a library mapped whilst another process replaces the file, creating a new inode, and an all new mapping of the library will exst for the new file. This facilities eliminates the need
to reboot tp replace currently mapped libraries.

I hope it helps you understand the concept behind the file management..!

ACM ICPC Asia Regional Onsite-Amritapuri

Another experience in my life….After Vidyamritam it was time for me to coordinate another event-An International Programming Contest. Only 2 institutions are authorised to conduct the ACM ICPC Asia level Regional Contest of which one is AMRITA UNIVERSITY. It’s the third consecutive yr that AMRITAPURI Campus is hosting Asia Regional. It was held at our college from 31st Oct, 2009 to 2 Nov, 2009.

I was given the charge of Travel and Transport. As I do not hold any previous experience in ACM-ICPC, I strongly feel I was assigned this duty considering my organisational skills and mainly because of the great success of Vidyamritam, . This was the first time I was the part of it, with the bigger responsibility. Well, another student coordinator was my classmate and my dear friend Sarath Gopeenathan. We have worked together and organised many event for our departmental association VAASTAV. It was another great experience to handle an international event along with him. He was having an experience in it as he had already served as a volunteer before. The committee was headed by Binu Sir and Soumya Mam. We had around 21 students with 6 girls who were assigned as volunteer in this committee.

Around 53 teams were confirmed to take part in this contest. These teams were from India, China, Bangladesh, Korea and Sri Lanka. We had a very good exposure with them and I am still in contact with many teams. We were supposed to make sure that teams were picked from various near by railway stations and airports and were comfortably brought at the college venue. That was the most difficult job and we had to be very carefull in that. Even one mistake made by volunteers will affect the reputation of our university. During the journey, teams asked numerous questions regarding college, event, accommodation etc..etc.. which we had to answer perfectly.

The main difficulty which I think was the departure timings. Many team’s departure plans were changed many time which actually created a confusion.Though it was resolved in much less time and vehicles were arranged. We had a pretty good communication among the committee volunteers, which I think can be improved for the next ACM ICPC 2010.

It was another stunning success and experience which was added to my life. I strongly feel that there are lot more on my way and I am looking forward to coordinate and volunteer more such events. Hope I will work as a team to deliver my best and serve with full energy and more enthusiasm….

My World Of TGMC…!

Well, Its been nearly 6 months me and my team working on The Great Mind Challenge(TGMC). By the way it is the National Level Web-Designing Competition organised by IBM. We have submitted the synopsis(Phase 1, first level submission), in which we have done a pretty good job and now its time for the reality. Last date of project submission is 20th Jan 2010 and we haven’t even finished 1 single JSP page. Believe me, it’s very hard to work with IBM tools…My GOD…! Installation itself will doze you off and even after, several troubles surrounds you like, starting server which takes quite an amount time, JDBC drivers shows error, crashing of whole software itself, the worst of all compatibility problem with operating system etc..etc… I have tried out windows 7, vista, xp, fedora and ubuntu and Finally landed up on xp, where these persist but bit less.

Apparently, I always love errors. I find it interesting to solve the encountered ones using the most famous search engine ‘GOOGLE’. I have learnt a lot just by solving them. Search for the encountered ones and follow different approach by different people. This will make you learn how to solve one particular error in many different ways.

Front-End part is perfectly handled by my other two mates. Template for our website is ready and they are about to begin with static pages. Me and fourth mate is handling Back-End where JSP, DB2 queries and JDBC are the main technologies which I should know. Among them JSP and DB2 is bit more simple to learn(though I am not perfect in that). The most difficult part comes when you use JDBC, the connectivity part. Need to learn that properly.

There are few more teams and its the same case with them. Most of them are enjoying at home and me and my team feels that we are the only team left behind on this earth…huh..! With the help of some previous year’s top projects we are some how moving on…!Anyways what ever may be the case one thing is for sure that we will be giving our 100%. I just hope everything goes well.

By the way forgot to tell you one more thing. Our team name is ‘square0ne‘. Now you must be wondering why did we choose such a name…? Let me tell you that, we always start, but ends up at the same starting point and thus the name….

Connect Airtel-Mobile Office in Ubuntu!!?

I am using Samsung SGH-L700 and I wanted to use Airtel Mobile Office in Ubuntu. Finally when I am succeeded in configuring it in Ubuntu. I would like to share it with everyone. Here are the steps:

Before proceeding you need to make sure that wvdial package is installed in your machine.

Step1:- Just type wvdial in terminal to check if it is installed. If yes, then proceed otherwise type the following command in terminal to install.

sudo apt-get install wvdial

Step2:- Now follow these commands :

wvdialconf

This will scan and detect the serial ports of the modem which is connected. It will then edit the file called wvdial.conf which is present in /etc/ .The expected output is :

Editing `/etc/wvdial.conf’.

Scanning your serial ports for a modem.

Modem Port Scan<*1>: S0   S1   S2   S3
ttyACM0<Info>: Device or resource busy
Modem Port Scan<*1>: ACM0
ttyACM1<Info>: Device or resource busy
Modem Port Scan<*1>: ACM1
WvModem<*1>: Cannot get information for serial port.
ttyACM2<*1>: ATQ0 V1 E1 — OK
ttyACM2<*1>: ATQ0 V1 E1 Z — OK
ttyACM2<*1>: ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 — OK
ttyACM2<*1>: ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 — OK
ttyACM2<*1>: ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 — OK
ttyACM2<*1>: ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0 — OK
ttyACM2<*1>: Modem Identifier: ATI — SAMSUNG SGH-L700
ttyACM2<*1>: Speed 4800: AT — OK
ttyACM2<*1>: Speed 9600: AT — OK
ttyACM2<*1>: Speed 19200: AT — OK
ttyACM2<*1>: Speed 38400: AT — OK
ttyACM2<*1>: Speed 57600: AT — OK
ttyACM2<*1>: Speed 115200: AT — OK
ttyACM2<*1>: Speed 230400: AT — OK
ttyACM2<*1>: Speed 460800: AT — OK
ttyACM2<*1>: Max speed is 460800; that should be safe.
ttyACM2<*1>: ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0 — OK

Found an USB modem on /dev/ttyACM2.
Modem configuration written to /etc/wvdial.conf.
ttyACM2<Info>: Speed 460800; init “ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0″

Step3:- Now its time to make some necessary changes in your wvdial.conf file in /etc/

sudo gedit /etc/wvdial.conf

Major changes required are Phone, Username & Password. Changes are as follow:

Unforgettable experience at AMMA’s 56th B’Day – 2

click here to read the previous entry

[Contd...]

On 25th Sept, 2009 at around 7am first set of beneficiaries from Kozhikode arrived and our work started. They were all directed to the respective counters, got them registered and taken to the allotted room. Parents who  accompanied them were also allotted rooms. Slowly benificieries from other places also started arriving. Same process was done. Volunteers took them for breakfast, lunch and dinner, interacted with them, played antakshari and many more. All the volunteers had a great time with beneficiaries. In between there were lots of problem, some id cards were not there, some uniforms were missing, even some name itself were missing from the list. There was a tailor too, who was taking the measurement and was giving the clothes instantly. We had to take care of all these thing. As expected there were fights too. You won’t believe two groups Kasargode group and Kozhikode group were formed and were fighting for some silly reason. They took mats, rolled them and were hitting each other(WOW!!!). Volunteers took proper care. Though they also got enough from them, but they made them understand and solved the matter. Volunteers enjoyed a lot doing that. Meanwhile lots of beneficiaries fell sick who were immediately taken to the first aid room which was set up by AIMS(Amrita Institute of Medical Science & Research) Kochi.

Most of the time I was sitting at the information center. When ever a new set of beneficiaries arrived my job was to inform the corresponding faculty, so that they could take charge. In between many counters faced lots of problems and either  me or Aishwarya had to go to the respective room to solve it. We did a pretty good job. By night all the rooms were almost overflowing and even corridors were not left out. People were sleeping even in corridors. There was a huge crow gathered by then. At around 12 midnight me and Aishwarya went to each room and confirmed that there is no problem with any counter and that there is no missing cases. After finishing our job we went to public canteen and had our dinner. By around 2am I went bak to hostel and came back by 5.30am in the morning. I was damn tired and was just flat on my bed. Volunteers were alternatively taking group of 10 students for bathing. That day(26th Sept, 2009)every student had to wear uniform for AMMA’s public program in the evening. There was a confusion about whether after the breakfast they were supposed to be seated in the main hall to attend the final round of elocution or they were supposed to be taken to ashram for AMMA’s darshan. To avoid any missing cases we decided to bring all the beneficiaries back to their room itself after breakfast. Once we got the confirmation some of them were taken to main hall to attend the finals. After the lunch by 3.30pm all the students were seated in main hall for AMMA’s public program.

In morning around 20 students came from Calicut whose id-card were missing. So muself and Sharanya T L(S5 EEE) were checking out for their id-cards in internet cafe(place where all the id cards were printed). Mean while I got a call from Geetha Maam that I have to rush near main stage. There was a benificiery supposed to get prize from AMMA, who was not in uniform and was not having id-card too. I called Br. Manoj, who was incharge, to get more details but he said he immediately wanted to meet me. I then ran towards the stage(I ran as if i am taking part in Olympics). After reaching near stage I came to know that there were 2 students who were not in uniform instead of 1. One girl from Alappuzha and 1 boy from Tanur. Manoj Sir told that I just have 10 minutes and within this 10 minutes Both the children should be in uniform and id cards. I immediately took their details and contacted Geetha Maam over mobile. She contacted the tailor so that we could get the uniform as soon as possible. But tailor said he can not do anything until he take their measurement. I then took both of them and ran from stage till manufacturing lab. Tailor took their measurements and gave them uniforms. They immediately changed their dress and we again ran back to the stage. Manoj Sir was very happy to see them in uniform.WOW!!  you won’t  believe, these students were there in stage with uniforms and id cards in less than 10 minutes. This was a great achievement. I can never forget this.I then stood near the stage itself, expecting such cases. Thank God there were no more.

Beloved AMMA was about to reach and all last moment preparations were going on. A huge crowd had gathered near the stage to see Actor Mohan Lal(A well known film star of Malayalam movies), because of the huge crowd I had to temporarily shift my department from Vidyamritam to Crowd Control. It was a tough time. People were shouting slogans for Mohan Lal, screaming, pushing. My God!!! A small action from Police Officers were also seen. They were also helping us to control the crowd. It was really a great experience. Crowd was in control only after Mohan Lal left.

At 8pm, after bhajans volunteers took them for dinner and then they were seated to their respective counters. Faculty and volunteers distributed the cheque of Rs 450/- to each beneficiary. After the cheque distribution volunteers took all the beneficiary for AMMA’s darshan. They were then taken to their respective rooms. At around 11pm everything was done and darshan was about to get over. Me and Aishwarya then went to each room and confirmed that there were no missing cases. Apparently we were all afraid of missing cases because of the crowd, but must appreciate the volunteers, they did a fantastic job.

Unforgettable experience at AMMA’s 56th B’Day – 1

I am sure those who read this will definitely enjoy this. Thus I am expecting lots of comments from all my friends. I know its huge but please don’t skip anything in between… . So let me start.

I am going to share my 4 days’ experience at AMMA’s(Mata Amritanandmayi Devi) Bday celebrated here in amritapuri. This time the main event for AMMA’s bday was vidyamritam. Let me tell you something about vidyamritam first.(If you know about vidyamritam you can very well skip and move to the next paragraph)

Vidyamritam is a scholarship scheme for students, initiated by Mata Amritanandmayi Math(MAM) about 2 years back in Sept 2007.About 35,000 students benefits under this scheme. These are students(here after termed as beneficiaries) from 6th STD till 12th STD and are from Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.These beneficiaries are selected on the basis of :-

1. Orphans.

2. Semi-Orphans.

3. Below Poverty Line(BPL).

MAM provides scholarship of Rs. 1800/- to each beneficiary every year in installments. Kerala alone covers nearly 12,000 beneficiaries. Apart from this scholarship various competition like elocution, pencil sketching, painting, poetry writing and essay writing were organized across the state of Kerala. This was first phase. Second phase was Semi-finals and Finals which was held at amritapuri itself. First prize winner was awarded a prize of Rs.5,000/-, Second prize winner was awarded with Rs.3,000/-, Third was given Rs.2,000/-. Apart from this there were 5 consolation prizes worth Rs.500/- each were also given.  Around 9,000 beneficiaries were expected to be here in amritapuri from all over Kerala. It was also expected that atleast 1 parent will accompany them. So in total we were expecting around 19,000 to 20,000 people for this vidyamritam program from all over Kerala. Beneficiaries were given their first installment of Rs. 450/-.

Many of us gave names as vidyamritam volunteers to the concerned faculty. Next day(22nd Sep, 2009), I was shocked to hear from my HOD that I was selected as a Student Coordinator from Amritapuri Campus for vidyamritam. Since I was knowing about vidyamritam I was having 2 expressions on my face. One was, I was extremely happy that I am given this opportunity and other was I was quite tensed thinking of those big numbers which were in thousands. Apart from vidyamritam there were 13 other areas like crowd control, plate washing, food serving, stage decoration, media, drinking water etc..etc.. where volunteers were required. For each of these department 2 student Coordinator were selected. On 22nd Sept, 2009, there was a meeting of all the student coordinators, where I came to know that my the colleague is Aishwarya from S5 BSc CS. We also came to know that the overall faculty coordinator for vidyamritam was Br. Anand shenoy. There were two more faculty co-ordinators. They were Miss Geetha M, HOD Department of Information Technology and Mr. Binu P K, faculty Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

Why they are named so!!!

Once I got a mail from one of my friend regarding the origin of name of various IT companies. I went on searching for a single site which can provide me  the details on history of various companies and origin of their names. But I was unable to find a single site containing this information. However I could get the full history of a particular company. I thought of creating one with the help of Wikipedia. This is something all people (especially people related to Computers) should know….

Lets check out how some of the famous companies are formed and  named.

YAHOO!

In January 1994, Jerry Yang and David Filo were Electrical Engineering graduate students at Stanford University . In April 1994, “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web” was renamed “Yahoo!”, for which the official backronym is “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle” Filo and Yang said they selected the name because they liked the word’s general definition, which comes from Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift: “rude, unsophisticated and uncouth”. Its URL was akebono.stanford.edu/yahoo. The word Yahoo!, represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and action and is barely human.

GOOGLE

Google began in January 1996, as a research project by Larry Page, who was soon joined by Sergey Brin, when they were both PhD students at Stanford University in California. They hypothesized that a search engine that analyzed the relationships between websites would produce better ranking of results than existing techniques, which ranked results according to the number of times the search term appeared on a page. Their search engine was originally nicknamed “BackRub” because the system checked backlinks to estimate the importance of a site. A small search engine called Rankdex was already exploring a similar strategy.

The name started as a jockey boast about the amount of information the search-engine would be able to search. It was originally named ‘Googol‘, a word for the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. After founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin presented their project to an angle investor, they recieved a cheque made out to ‘Google‘.

MICROSOFT

Following the launch of the Altair 8800, William Henry Gates III, (known as Bill Gates) called the creators of the new microcomputer, Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), offering to demonstrate an implementation of the BASIC programming language for the system. After the demonstration, MITS agreed to distribute Altair BASIC. Gates left Harvard University, moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico where MITS was located, and founded Microsoft there. DOS (Disk Operating System) was the operating system that brought the company its first real success. On August 12, 1981.It was coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the ‘-’ was removed later on.

Swine flu–>Take Precaution

Swine flu is spreading in a drastic manner. There is panic in almost all over the world. Many states and cities in India have been locked and no person is allowed anywhere without a proper medical check up. Even schools and colleges have been suspended for many days. It is a communicable disease and is effecting many. It is spreading in a rapid manner from person to person. I think everyone should know the symptoms of this disease and should create awareness about this. Everyone should take precautions against swine flu.

Its important to note that swine flu is just an influenza A H1N1 virus. It is just another type of flu virus, that causes our typical seasonal flu symptoms. Swine influenza A (H1N1) virus has components of pig and bird influenza viruses in it, so that humans don’t have any immunity to it. This is the reason why it would become a pandemic virus (have the ability to cause a global outbreak) because it could easily spread from person-to-person.

Swine Flu Symptoms :-

Symptoms of swine flu infections can include:

• fever, which is usually high
• cough
• runny nose or stuffy nose
• sore throat
• body aches
• headache
• chills
• fatigue or tiredness, which can be extreme
• diarrhea and vomiting, sometimes, but more commonly seen than with seasonal flu

Signs of a more serious swine flu infection might include pneumonia and respiratory failure.

Swine Flu High Risk Groups :-

With regular seasonal flu, infants and the elderly are usually thought to be most at risk for serious infections, in addition to people with chronic medical problems. Swine flu high risk groups, people who are thought to be at risk for serious, life-threatening infections, are a little different and can include:

• pregnant women.
• people with chronic medical problems, such as chronic lung disease, like asthma, cardiovascular disease, and immunosuppressio.
• children and adults with obesity.
• diabetes mellitus.
• people aged 65 and older.

Serious Swine Flu Symptoms :-

More serious symptoms that would indicate that a child with swine flu would need urgent medical attention include:

• Fast breathing or trouble breathing
• Bluish or gray skin color
• Not drinking enough fluids
• Severe or persistent vomiting
• Not waking up or not interacting
• Being so irritable that the child does not want to be held
• Flu-like symptoms improve but then return with fever and worse cough

Take Precautions Against Swine Flu :-

Everybody should be using some basic precautions to avoid swine flu. Here’s some ways to take precautions:

• Stay home whenever possible. Ask your support team to get groceries, walk your dog, bring work home from the office, or whatever else you can delegate.
• If you develop a fever of 100.5F or higher, call your doctor right away and start drinking plenty of fluids. Stay well hydrated and get a diagnosis and treatment for whatever is causing your fever.
• If you cough or sneeze, cover your nose and mouth with a tissue and then toss it out. No tissues handy? Turn your face into the crook of your elbow, to keep germs from flying away.
• Wash your hands often with soap and water or alcohol sanitizer – this will kill most germs.
• Avoid people who have a fever, cough, or sneezing, or complain of any flu-like symptoms
• If you feel like you are developing flu symptoms, don’t wait to see if it will just go away. Call your doctor or nurse practitioner and ask for advice or an appointment.
• Follow all local health recommendations. For example, you may be asked to put on a surgical mask to protect others.
• Antiviral Medications: The recommended antiviral drugs for H1N1 flu treatment are oseltamivir (brand name Tamiflu) and zanamivir (brand name Relenza®). Both are prescription drugs that fight against swine flu by keeping flu viruses from reproducing in your body. Your doctor may or may not suggest you take them. It will depend on how serious your infection is and your related co-morbidities (for example chronic lung disease).

Please spread awareness about swine flu among your freinds and family. Please include articles on swine flu in your blogs also. Take precautions and consult doctor before you are effected.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”Prevention is better than cure“!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Quick Reference to Linux Commands!!!!!

Many of us find it very difficult to remember the general linux commands(especially for a person with short term memory loss, like me ). Thus, everytime I Google for a particular command. I then thought of a page which will give a quick reference to the most common linux commands. Here it is–>

I will keep updating this page whenever i come across a command which is not included. I would request viewers to help me  increase the number…..

1. adduser :- This command will automatically add a new user to the system. The Bash script can be found in /usr/sbin if it needs to be changes.

2. alias :-

—–alias help=man – The alias command allows you to substitute a new name for a command.

—–alias long=ls -al – An alias can also contain command line options. Unless the alias definition is included in your

.login file it is only temporary.

3. apropos :- Display command names based on keyword search

4. at :-

—–at 1:23 lp /home/index.html – The at command runs a list of commands at a specified time (e.g. print @ 1:23).

—–at 1:50 echo “lp Job Done” – This uses the echo command to send a message at 1:50 saying a print job is done.

—–at -l – Lists all scheduled jobs; an alias for the atq command.

—–at -d 5555 – This will cancel job number 5555; an alias for the atrm command.