Move over Marx, Twitter is here

Revolution is no longer the long-drawn process it once was. If the events that took place in what is the most backward region on Earth last month are any indicator, we have just seen the birth of a new hero in the fight for justice: Social Networking. Opposition supporters talk near graffiti referring to the social networking site "Twitter" in Tahrir Square in Cairo Consider this: One slap to one vendor in some forgotten alley in Tunisia, his resulting suicide, a Tweet, and one page on Facebook, sparked off a movement on a scale never seen in modern times. Some call it the 'Butterfly Effect' - about how the fluttering wings of a butterfly can set off a tsunami half a world away - but for the Africans, cause and effect were very much in the same country, city and square. Egypt, Jordan and Yemen are on the verge of collapse, indeed, civil war. The agent of change: Social networking.

There are reports that spending too much time on Facebook, Twitter and the likes lead to people getting prone to eating disorders and often ruin their social life: How Hosni Mubarak, Samir Rafai and Ali Abdullah Saleh would wish this were true of the Arab world. In the UK, the Britain Police inspection body is only too aware of the efficiency of social networking sites in organising protests. Authorities will have to move faster to help contain the increasing number of protests, an Inspectorate of the Constabulary report said. "Large numbers of protesters can be organised in hours and change their focus in minutes through the use of social media and mobile phones," the report said. "Those responsible for commanding events must plan with this adaptability in mind." An opposition supporter lifts a placard at the front line near Tahrir Square in Cairo.

The report singled out UK Uncut, a protest group organised literally overnight by Twitter users upset at the government's plans to slash public spending and perceived tax avoidance by major British companies. The group has used social networking sites to help coordinate their actions, including a live mapping service intended to help protesters dodge police cordons.
The report said that police forces -- many of whom have long been working to expand their online presence -- would have to consider how best to communicate with tech-savvy protesters.
All said, police forces the world over have been reduced to playing the catch up game with a people determined to not remain quiet anymore. Voices, hitherto lacking confidence and hence considered unimportant, have begun to be heard, and the internet is the loudspeaker.
How? Social networking sites, if nothing else, are accessible, and, above all, affordable. There is no cost of printing pamphlets, no problems about 'reaching the people' and thousands can be mobilised with one click of the mouse. They are a far cry from the European and Marxist traditions of organising demonstrations that are prevalent in the subcontinent.

A Trinamul Congress rally at Esplanade in Kolkata. In India, protests take days to organise: First, posters sprout up all over the city; next, an autorickshaw/handcart/Maruti 800 passes by in the narrow lanes blaring propaganda through rustic loudspeakers, making sure to mention the date and venue of said protest. And sure enough, on D-day, thousands turn up by the truckloads; rallies and flags would throng the streets; and by 6pm, after much sloganeering, everyone one dusts off, packs up, goes home and ponders over a day well spent.
In Egypt, it was Google executive Wael Ghonim's Twitter post, the day before he was whisked away by Cairo's police, that launched the Egypt uprising. One hundred and forty characters summed up three decades of angst: Pray for #Egypt. Very worried as it seems that government is planning a war crime tomorrow against people. We are all ready to die #Jan25. January 25, 2011. The day the internet ceased to be just a cache of information, and became the platform for the oppressed. A sign of better times. And for India, such a movement might just be waiting in the wings.

Source: India Syndicate

Journalist to Launch www.sabkileak.com

The disclosures made by WikiLeaks have given a blunt and candid assessment of how American foreign policy is conducted. On Right Left and Centre, Wikileaks revelations has not only embarrassed America and exposed America's Diplomatic secrets but also India and several other countries. WikiLeaks has succeeded in hitting the reset button on International relations and politics.
India has become a hot spot of corruption, what with mega scams like the CWG, 2G, and Adarsh scams breaking out impoverishing the country's exchequer by 100s of billions of rupees. Politicians, fat-cat industrialists, and bureaucrats have formed an unholy nexus, which is bleeding Mother India like never before. The rich is getting richer, while the poor is being pushed deeper into the abyss of abject misery and poverty. How can we tackle this problem? Do we need an Indian Julian Assange to lead a crusade against our corrupt netas and babus?

In a way WikiLeaks has helped the common people to know the true faces of their politicians and leaders. Though it seems to be a wonderful source of true information, unfortunately the Indian government has made it an offence to own any website based on the lines of WikiLeaks.

Supreme Court advocate Pavan Duggal, who specialises in cyber law, points out that starting a site like WikiLeaks could make the owner liable to paying a fine of up to Rs 5 crore per contravention under the IT (Amendment) Act, 2008. One may even attract a criminal liability of three to ten years in jail under various statutes and the Indian Penal Code.

“At one side where the government gives each and every individual the right to freedom and information, on the other side they are restricting the citizens from their expression. Is this justified? There should be a media like WikiLeaks in India which will expose the corrupt practice of our leaders,” says Amar Pawar, a BPO employee.

As per the RTI Act, information sought had to provided to the citizen within a period of maximum 30 days, but citizens in our country have to wait for more than two years to elicit any information from concerned departments. List of pending cases runs in thousands and remains without addressed. Since the voice of the common people goes unheard most of the times, their issues remain unnoticed. A journalists group plans to come up with a website named www.sabkileak.com which would be solely based to inspire transparency, exposure of evils for wider interest of nation; and thereby to bring blots on our system to books. Several cases go pending even though government officials and contractors have access to skeletons-in-the-cupboard, they find it risky to approach courts or journalists or any civilian out of the purview of government service on the grounds of safety of their interest. Thus, www.sabkileak.com shall facilitate relaying of such material uploaded by such government servants; who wish to expose evils in the system.

“People must get to know the truth of their leaders and its government. This can lead to bad apples being dropped off from the basket. Policies that have direct influence on you can be debated with justice. The country can eventually move forward due to its transparency. I would support www.sabkileak.com since it is serving the nation for betterment,” says Chandrashekhar Shetty, a resident of Bhandup.

When AV contacted some of the personalities, here is what they said:


YP Singh, Ex-IPS officer - Looking at the corruption rate, there is a need of WikilLeak like website. I welcome www.sabkileak.com which will help the people to know the true faces of corrupt politicians. People are aware of corruption happening in the governance but no one protest or take any action against it. SabkiLeak will help to strengthen the people’s power to fight against corruption.

Shaina NC, BJP spokesperson Mumbai Unit - If SabkiLeak is for the welfare of the people then it would be fine but if it is used for blackmailing purpose then it would turn as a huge problem. I welcome this website and hope to see it soon.

Abbas Kazmi, Advocate - SabkiLeak should be handled by a strong and prominent personality. If these types of website come into existence, then hundreds of corruption cases will come into light. This will help the country to grow at a faster rate.

Amin Solkar, Advocate - Initially RTI proved to be a powerful tool to curb the issue of corruption to a great extent. But, today hundreds of RTI cases are pending. SabkiLeak will help the nation to overcome this barrier.
Vijay Mukhi, Cyber Expert - It is a great move. This will help the common people to know how corrupt their leaders are. Thus, it will help nation to bring the issue of corruption to.
source- http://www.afternoonvoice.com/

HINDU, MUSLIM GODS ABUSED, STRIPPED ON FACEBOOK

Facebook is the most famous social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. But, this social networking site has become the modest weapon to abuse, insult and express hatred towards religions. Distressingly, a facebook page named Hindu has several images of both Hindu and Muslim gods cropped and merged with nude human bodies. Not only this, the page also includes pathetic and adult comments.
The owner or developer of the website http://www.hindunet.org/ has misused the facebook by creating a page with contents hurting sentiments of both Hindu and Muslim religion followers. The page has 79,872 followers and their only reason to be there seems to abuse other religion. Very sadly, there are number of images in which the Hindu gods are shown in compromising position. Whereas, there are also images which a pig is shown holding the holy Quran. Some pictures are so distressing that it cannot be explained. “It is surprising to know that these kinds of pages are entertained. Isn't there anyone to moderate? Facebook should look into this matter,” says Kiran Raghavan, a Bank employee.
The images can be found on the link http://www.facebook.com/ pages/Hindu/24525368223?v=photos. In one of the images, three Hindu gods are shown as 3 idiots as in the movie poster. Another one shows a pig resting over the Kaba of Mecca. Almost every deities are been abused. Every post is related to sexuality.

Harish Gupta, a resident of Borivali says, “Facebook should ban these kinds of pages which is spreading hatred towards other religions. People should protest against these anti-religion pages and make things safe for the future.” Adding further he said, “We should not get instigated rather we should live in peace and love. All religions are equal.”
Few months ago, Pakistan had banned facebook for a month of time due to the abuse made towards Islam. "Many pages are been created to target religions but still no proper actions have been taken. It is necessary that admin department of facebook should take care on these kinds of sensitive issues since this can result into a major physical war between the existing religions. Virtual war has already started this kind of stuff may also adversely affect the cyber space of many countries," said Mohammed Shaikh, a Dahisar resident. “These pages are intentionally made by people who possess evil intentions. Facebook is used by millions of people with different mentality and approach towards life. Though we cannot stop their evil thoughts but they can be definitely banned and discarded,” says Rehan Ali, a businessman. When AV contacted Vijay Mukhi, he said, “Government must issue letter to these kinds of websites and put an end to the insult of any religion. The miscreants should be booked under IT Act.”
www.afternoonvoice.com

Basics to Become Hacker without getting caught

H e can easily tweak these according to his needs and become hacker. This is the way the term was used when Bill Gates was inventing Windows. Those who are often referred to as hackers today, should actually be called "crackers" - people who do not have unauthorized access, like a safe-cracker. If you doubt me, and want to know how to be a hacker then do a search on the term "professional hacker," and you will find many professional and legitimate computer training courses being offered. They are the ones learning the real hacker secrets. Everyone has heard of one individual or another that was caught while hacking computers that belonged to this or that organization. Because hacking into computers is highly illegal, it should be mentioned that this article will not mention any real specifics about the subject, and this author would rather gladly encourage you to become a real hacker - professionally. This article, will however, give a brief overview of criminal hackers, some of their methods, and a few things you can do to make your own computer safer from hack attacks. Here are those things you need to learn on how to become a hacker. It should go without saying that the first thing that is needed is to learn about computers. This means study. A lot of reading is involved along with just plain old-fashioned learning how to use a computer. Then, of course, there are the special aspects of computer study. The places where the tips are learned is often two-fold: a friend who has access to a computer, and a variety of places on the Web. But this is also an interesting thing - if a young person has the ability to learn, and wants to learn can use hacking tutorials- then why not take the time to learn the right things - things that can earn him a lot of money in the legit world? Is it possibly that it could be the friend he has that turns him away from the good? Search for tools on Hackers Websites and forums. Special hacker Web sites, where hackers congregate, exist on the Web - as does every other known group of people - whether legal or illegal. Some of these are known to be hacker chat rooms, hacker forum, and regular hacker sites.
It is in these Web sites, and possibly some of the people that he may meet, maybe only online, where he will learn the hacking basics, and learn how to hack. Some of the tools that a hacker may use are often varied and constantly changing. One such tool that was used last year allowed a hacker to gain control of the computers of those who simply mistyped the word Google - when trying to get the popular search engine. This automatically directed them to a special website that would give them such malware items as Trojan downloader’s, backdoors and spyware. Another tool would be the robot spider. These can be sent out and put on automatic and will look for ports of access into your computer. These spiders are running around all the time and some say that they may hit most computers that are online - up to 50 times a day. Other tools use email attachments. It is claimed that as much as 65% of all email is spam. And as much as 1 in about 30 emails contains a virus, or some form of malware. This is why having your own virus and spam protection is a must, as well as a good spyware remover. Someone is busy. Once someone has been hacking information on a computer they will often leave a Trojan file that will give them further access - often more than one file. Then they could use your computer to send out spam attacks - without you even knowing that it is taking place. Or, they could simply be hacking your personal information off of your computer. These are just a few of their tools.
One of the first things that someone would learn about hacking tutorials when studying to be a hacker is how to cover their tracks. Of course, some are better than others. A young hacker is less likely to know all the little things that an expert hacker might know. Besides, the young hacker may be trying to impress others - and get a little careless about covering his tracks. This is why younger hackers are often caught. An older hacker, on the other hand, will rarely leave any tracks. They know how to use their victim's computers as a tool for a launching place to get into another computer - leaving a phony IP address. The truth is, and it is a good thing, that computer programmers are getting better software, and hardware (firewalls) that are constantly doing a better job - both in keeping hackers out, and in recording IP addresses better for tracking purposes. There will always be hackers, and there will always be hackers in prison. The legislation is definitely turning against the hacker - with some hacking crimes becoming equal to terrorism, these days. Kevin Mitnick, a well-known hacker, had the Federal prosecutors accuse him of having caused $291 million in damages to corporate computers. A serious crime, and he remains in jail because of it - unable to touch anymore computers. Even by learning some of the wrong type of hacking basics through hacking tutorials, a young person could start down a wrong path. Hacking computers, though often glorified on TV, is still criminal.

source- hack alerts

BJP TO PROTECT HACKERS IF THEY PROBE IN EXPOSING CURRUPT POLITICIANS..

How To Tackle evil groups on Facebook

Facebook is one of the fastest growing social networking websites on the Internet. Each day countless numbers of people flock to Facebook.com and join up with visions of reconnecting with people and having the ability to maintain contact with people they know. But there are hundreds of such disadvantages too, so far face book never had any provision or option to give thought before deleting any profile if it is reported by more than fifty people. I n the recent past it has become trend over face book if you want to eliminate someone’s existence due to your personal enmity you just create a group and ask them to report and the profile used to be deleted. Now the new option says if your profile is genuine and you are victim of such circumstances then you can very well write a mail to face book customer care or profile managers, about your problem. They will definitely look into the matter before removing any such profile.

The second option is that if you know the person who initiated for the elimination of your real and genuine profile, which has caused you losses, trauma or inconvenient position as per the need of situation you can initiate legal action against the said profile, but to do so you need to have all his profile details and also seek info from Face book under right to information.
There are many advantages to becoming a Facebook member and once you've successfully integrated yourself as a savvy user you'll see just how Facebook is a great tool to use for many purposes. That being said, you should be aware there are some significant drawbacks to Facebook as well. After you get started, chances are you'll begin to see the disadvantages. The good news is once you recognize the drawbacks; you can avoid these pitfalls and make your experience an advantageous one. There are a few more disadvantages of Facebook other than above mention:

Most people find after becoming a Facebook member that interaction tends to become time consuming. If you are hard-pressed for time, it's important to set time limits for yourself or you'll likely find it's highly possible to lose valuable time that could have been more productive elsewhere.The time consuming aspect of Facebook doesn't have to be a problem as long as you don't let it and stay in control.Some people find once they've become immersed in the Facebook culture they become addicted. Depending on your perspective, spending too much time on a single website with nothing else to show at the end of the day may be a huge disadvantage. Many find once they log into Facebook and begin poking around profiles, walls, groups, applications and the plethora of other activities Facebook offers, hours have gone by. This can become a problem in one's personal or professional life if the time spent on Facebook begins to take hold of one's life. For those who are prone to log-in constantly all day long to check out what's happening in their circle of Facebook friends, this may become problematic, especially if feeds are sent to e-mail and cell phones with new updates that make constant log-ins compulsory. A Facebook addiction can be construed as a disadvantage because of inordinate amounts of time spent on the website and self-imposed time limits aren't set. It's important to recognize the addiction signs so a Facebook membership doesn't become a problem.
Any time you open any sort of online account, you give up a degree of privacy. While most sites the private information you enter remains between Even the most distinguished product can have its disadvantages and can cause some predicament with one's character. Here are some of Facebook's disadvantages when it comes to relationships, emotional procrastination and depression, industry, cyber stalking and superficiality. Talk about long distance relationships, Facebook would be the one answer friends, family and lovers can count on. Though conducted on a distance, the system can still connect relationships right that very moment. But because relationships are built and strengthened just because of an Internet site, it tends to become weaker and it supports less emotional and most especially physical contact. Some relationships tumble down due to facts like these. Because Facebook adapts a free-flowing information environment, some uses it to target on other's emotional depression. Others send out procrastination just to bring down a specific person or even bully a student in the lower years. Targeting the emotions may cause a negative attitude towards a person's social relationship, physical activity, and academic issues. Even if the system overflows with so much advantages that one can be joyful of, there are still numbers of flaws that one can pinpoint. Internet industry is greatly affected by sites popping out to render a technical community. This is where the rivalry starts. The crowding is also becoming an issue. The program is considered as a negative diversion especially to the schooling industry, affecting students to divert their attention. Cyber stalking is one thing. Barging into someone's privacy is another. Come to think about it, cyber stalking and invading one's privacy goes hand in hand. A person who is engaged in cyber stalking tends to know everything about a person and uses it firsthand. A lot of a user's personal information is so accessible that almost everyone, even those who know you but you don't know of, can view it.

There are those who would want to be recognized as someone even in the Internet society. But thanks to sites like Facebook, some are already being characterized superficially because of the user's identification of their personal favorites. It's like being one with the world and being one with the trend without forming any kind of identity that one can point out to be unique. The important thing about having Facebook is that a person be discreet in the information that is given out. Privacy and other things stated above can be prevented if the user won't give out any kind of information that he considers private. There are groups on face book which actively works in reporting fake profiles just on the basis of assumptions or evil intentions..To avoid all above mentioned procedures the best you can do is stop participating in such evil intentions of a person.