De multifold coverup

Take this scenario:

A large bunch of (not particularly intimate) criminals have evidence of each others crimes. They'd rather not be prosecuted at all, so in the interest of their own safety do not 'rat out' any of the others.

Now, lets thicken the plot a little - one of these criminals gets caught for one crime in which a few other folks are involved. He's going down... there's no escape for this guy at all... he's in a particularly bad mood because he gets the feeling that someone took him down and doesn't feel like he should take the rap alone. He rats out the other folks involved in this particular crime.

We now have a few folks going down - some of their enemies decide to kick-em-while-they're-down assuming that they don't have proof of any of their own crimes. Things start getting more complicated now because now all of them have started thinking along the lines of 'if I have to take a fall, I'm pulling everyone else in with me.'

Suddenly, there's chaos in parliament. All the thievery, murders, scams, embezzling, laundering, kickbacks and lies have started hitting everyone, but the politicians have started warring... none of the parties are covering their 'friends' let alone their enemies. Some of them think that by starting one more controversy they can lessen the scope of their own prosecution by diverting attention away from their own issue. In most cases, this next controversy involves more people. With any luck, most of them will kill each other (metaphorically if not literally) and we'll be left with the few misfits in our government with some form of ethical standard. I'm just hoping there's not going to be a truce call between the 'dons' before the bloodbath's finished. It's a little sad that the only time the Delhi police have averted a full on terrorist strike, the terrorists were planning on doing us a favour - destruction of the parliament building would have been upsetting, but the place could definitely use a good fumigation.

De Shopping Experience

With e-commerce set to jump out of the bag with the coming of actual broadband and 3G in India, you'd think it's safe to get out there and buy stuff online here...

WRONG!


It's neither safe, nor prudent to give any of these web sites too much of a chance till they start respecting privacy and/or up the security on the data that you have to give them. I've had some pretty sad experiences with spam happening from places I'd have least expected it to come.

The Setup
It all started with me getting so much spam on my old Hotmail account that I more or less stopped using it altogether. It had been relegated to that old account where I had a few subscriptions, or that I gave to any website that required registration... and my personal address? Well, that's personal... why let anyone see that at all?

Unfortunately, I found that I was getting more spam in my inbox than in my "Junk mail folder", and the spam management and amazing search functionality on Hotmail just didn't help at all (searching for the word "dentist" yielded no results despite the fact that bulk of my inbox was filled with mail with the same word in the subject). I needed another way to sort through that account - frankly, I only wanted to keep it since it's one of my first e-mail addresses and if anyone still uses it they should be able to (eventually) elicit a response from it, so once a month I check it.

I've found that the best (and easiest) way to track spam is to use your own domain with a mailbox there for every site you may have low trust issues with. It's quite convenient for companies (like amazon.co.uk@mydomain. com) so you remember the login details (since if you reached the website, you're bound to know what email address you've passed them). I've managed to take it to a level where it takes a matter of seconds to setup an account for someone, access it automatically with a password shared across accounts, and with limits only on the collective size of inbox, I've found I'm relatively sorted on this part. Once you're sure that they're not evil spammers, you can give them your proper e-mail address.

So there I was... I felt comfortable with this system of distributing email addresses. It confuses people and gets funny at times as well... I've been asked a few times if I work with Dell (while on the phone with support).

I'm guessing majority of the leaks start at customer care. We need to educate the call centre employees on privacy and ethics. Most of them wouldn't think twice about giving anyone their own addresses and phone numbers out and wouldn't think of it as a breach of agreement or even privacy. I don't think anyone would bother trying to hack into many of the customer databases... it's easier to hang out outside the call centre (I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to get the location/address through the phone) and offer someone a couple of hundred rupees for all the email addresses.

To help or not to help
It's really sad where all I get spam from. Oxfam India was responsible for my receipt of mail offering to "Make it stronger. Last a lot longer." It should be good enough that I contribute to their causes in cash - why would they sell my data?

Travel issues
You want to book flight, train or bus tickets or a hotel room from/in India online? Yatra delivers quite a good experience on the actual business side... on the side business, I've received spam from LIC (which IMHO is just about acceptable seeing as it's a respected Insurance company - just the source of the email address and the option to opt out should be included in the mail). One thing I DIDN'T expect from them was to get a Facebook invite from Shalini Ahuja - you're thinking this would possibly be a bot or a very lonely person? The invite said :

Lowest Fares on www . EaseMyTrip . com Just Compare Fares Once Before Issuing Tickets Online.... Also Earn Upto Rs.50,000/Month or More by Joining EMT Franchise Network !!

Sounds like a competitor to me... does this mean all Yatra customers were sent FB invites from EaseMyTrip?

A company that wanted to sell projectors and services related to projectors has contacted me on my Yatra account. This information also seems to have reached an "offers" website, who have offered me "Resort homes" in India.

Does this mean that Yatra sells user data? Probably not - one rogue employee or someone may have given this data out. I don't get too much spam through them... a total of 4 emails that I've managed to track - it's a little bit of work. In fact, I'd spoken with some pretty senior people (at Yatra) about this and haven't received any more spam on that address.

Khojguru has managed to get my Dominos pizza email address and send me mail about it. They even included a link to allow me to unsubscribe from their list - I didn't want to click on it since this would confirm that it's an active address and allow the spammer (Khojguru) to validate this as a "good lead". The next mail I got on this address (some insurance comparison site) actually said that it was being sent from kgurumail.com, so at least when Khojguru sends my mail address on to more spammers, they keep me in the loop.

An online auction site sent me spam at my book my show address, and were nice enough to include a coupon just above the (unused) unsubscription link.

There's an email provider here who (apparently) pays you back for using their email service and in the spam they've sent to my Dominos account (again via Khojguru), they've even mentioned a donation they've made to charity, aside from offering me great deals.

Dominos gets the prize for versatility though... from email that pays you to use it to "Compete in yacht size? Nowadays it is of no use - boost your bed energy!"

The Bad
Okay, so now the story gets a bit murky... an internet provider (Spectranet) sent my Ferns and Petals account a flyer about affordable long distance calling... heck, if an internet provider buys/obtains this data illegally, who's stopping them from sharing their customers data or even spying on the actual data that's being exchanged by users online?

My Ferns and petals account also received junk from The Economist offering me a subscription - hey at least they're keeping it classy! Or maybe not... IndusLadies sent me a newsletter, and offered to take feedback/unsubscription requests which lead to a "sendfnpemail.com" url, but then ALL links do... it's almost like they're running campaigns for people who want publicity and using their customers mail addresses to send all of this crap out. Bad, bad FnP! No Froyo for you!

All of these so far are just standard sites or organisations that are either too stupid/enethical to hold my data with a degree of respect. They're not really very big on the online shopping front.

I've had so much spam at my Ngpay address it's not funny. Ngpay is a service which partners with online retailers, travel sites, gift sites, movie sites... it's an aggregator of sorts, but it's mobile! It delivers a near seamless experience (or had in the past when I used to use it), but since they have to pass on your contact details to their partners, someone or the other (read: fnp.in) would start sending you spam. I don't hold this against them, but would like them to try it the Google way... not pass the actual email address, but a time limited alias which could be deactivated on confirmation from the customer.

The Ugly
Shop Your World... this one actually deserves a separate post, but hey, I'm not here very often :)

I got a flyer from one of my banks telling me I could now shop on Amazon.com or bestbuy.com in Indian Rupees, have the product shipped to India, and get to see the complete cost (delivery to my doorstep) upfront... they'll handle purchase, shipping, customs duty and delivery, and I get what I bought at the US price plus a bit on shipping and tax. It winds up a lot more cost effective for me to buy this way... it also winds up a lot more convenient - at one point, if you bought something from a US store and had them ship it here, they'd give you a call when it reached customs and you'd have to go pay and get it out.

Great concept! Ebay.in has a similar concept, but they only handle particular suppliers from the US and ONLY ebay listings. Now I can get stuff from the US or UK at a reasonable price (Services here are cheap and involve cut-throat competition, but many products are generally much more expensive here), and I don't need to have an address abroad or have anyone pick it up, or have anyone bring it down... it reaches my door for a few rupees more.

A serious shopping site is the LAST place I'd expect to get spam from... one that my BANK recommends? I registered, left my mobile number, email address, house address, "spam" mobile number; a freely distributed number, and a phone in the shopping cart. I got spam from MTV. The spam was addressed to "Dear Sunil", so they hadn't just sold the address... the name was specified as well. I managed to catch an online agent to chat with and asked if they sold information. When I was told that this was against policy (as I'd already seen on their website), I persisted and was told that they didn't. If they're not selling or distributing my data and someone else has it, there's only one other natural assumption that springs to mind... they're low on security and/or have been hacked into, and data stolen. I don't really think I want to use an e-commerce site that's been hacked into, especially with the response I got from the agent... I had the transcript emailed to me. So far no one has gotten back to me - heck, maybe they lost my data :-D

The transcript of the conversation:

info: Please wait for a site operator to respond.
info: You are now chatting with 'Aditya'
info: Your Issue ID for this chat is LTK166010377008X
Aditya: Welcome to Shop Your World
Aditya: How may I help?
shopyourworld.com@mydomain. com: Hi Aditya, I'd registered on your site and had considered buying some things from there. I created a specific email address for your site
shopyourworld.com@mydomain. com: I received spam on this email address yesterday
shopyourworld.com@mydomain. com: I would like to know if you are distributing/selling my data
shopyourworld.com@mydomain. com: because this goes against the privacy policy mentioned on your website
Aditya: We do not share our Customer's Database with any other Company
shopyourworld.com@mydomain. com: then your system has been hacked into
shopyourworld.com@mydomain. com: which is even more of a concern
Aditya: I will pass this Information to the IT team
shopyourworld.com@mydomain. com: the only place this email address has ever been typed is on shopyourworld.com
Aditya: Ok
shopyourworld.com@mydomain. com: not good enough
shopyourworld.com@mydomain. com: I'd like you to have your management team contact me as this is a rather serious issue
shopyourworld.com@mydomain. com: I'm just glad I didn't buy anything from you or my credit card details might have been floating around the internet as well
Aditya: Like I said, I will share this Information with the IT Team to look into the matter and check if there are any gates open for the hackers to peep into our database.
Aditya: As of now we haven't received such Complaints, but considering this is the first, we would like to do something about it and avoid such complaints in future
shopyourworld.com@mydomain. com: if I don't get a revert from your management team in the next three days I'll blog this.
shopyourworld.com@mydomain. com: I don't think you're getting how serious this issue is
Aditya: The Credit Card Details are not stored in our database any which way as we use a 3D secure payment gateway
Aditya: You will have to go through VISA or Mastercard verified gateway for every transaction
shopyourworld.com@mydomain. com: I'm not going to waste any more time chatting with you. Please make sure someone contacts me about this in the next three days
Aditya: So security of your Card details shouldn't be a concern at all
info: Your chat transcript will be sent to shopyourworld.com@mydomain. com at the end of your chat.
shopyourworld.com@mydomain. com: selling the data would be enough of an issue - I got spam from rishik85@gmail.com with the subject MTV GANG NEXT 2.0 Auditions, which would suggest you've sold my information to an MTV affiliate.
shopyourworld.com@mydomain. com: the mail was sent from a Tata Teleservices internet account
shopyourworld.com@mydomain. com: 114.143.128.162 was the IP
Aditya: We will have this checked
shopyourworld.com@mydomain. com: please have whoever contacts me at the given mail address provide a contact number
shopyourworld.com@mydomain. com: I will call back
Aditya: I have passed on the Information to the concern team
Aditya: We have your contact details registered with this Email ID
shopyourworld.com@mydomain. com: now you're getting my point - I've given you more details than I'd typically give to an untrusted site. So you can have them call me on my mobile.
Aditya: Sure
Aditya: You should get a call within 24 - 48 hours
shopyourworld.com@mydomain. com: thanks
Aditya: Cheers!

It's been a week and a day... should have been enough time for them to get back to me... they haven't. Maybe HDFC (and ICICI) should consider security of their partner sites - the sites themselves don't seem to care too much.

De genius without

The inspiration for this came partially from a TED talk which I'd encourage you to watch before reading:

De genius without

and paranoia rears its head

and lays it on the comfy bed

the sounds of silence scream and whine,

the experience was all mine.

The genius with me, writing down 

the words bombarding me, which begin to frown 

I did it all! He says, you see,

it wasn't you, it was only me! 

The writer then, put the pen down

and turned to the genius, who began to frown 

So tell me this, who brought the path?

I took the turns, and faced the wrath! 

Creativity is a form of life
which doesn't take this kind of strife.
The writer and the genius
without each other are not quite us.

Pushing of De Tao

So I'm sitting on the plane, thinking about what a great time I had over the weekend in Hyderabad and decide to write something. Life came to mind, so I thought I may as well write about that.

While I was writing, I was listening to music on shuffle and ironically a song I haven't heard in a while played. Ironically, because it's called 'Wasted years', so the pome sounds a little sad at times, but ends on a positive note.

I think I've realised I need to push now, but despite spending most of the last 15 years attempting to embrace change, it still psyches the hell out of me.

This 'Pome' is my way of explaining to myself that second chances exist. There is always hope, but planning in life is what I've missed doing in my endless quest to live in the De. I now plan to be the oldest kid alive :-)

For DD & Jo

My eyes are open.
I am awake.
I thank you both
for the gentle shake.

Pushing Tao
------------------
The brook flowed on
He went with the flow
The rush of life
The best way to go

His life was full
His vision strong
The way it flowed
His time would be long

In his state of bliss
He flowed with Tao
Laugh lines on his face
Ran over his brow

The world was youth
Those lines set in
Laughter and joy
Friend and kin

The stream flowed on
Cutting paths through time
Life was the joy
Of song and of rhyme

Childhood came
With the people less grown
The time was ripe
He yearned for his own

The forks in the stream
He never noticed
They must have existed
But they were all missed

The river flowed on
Cutting ox bow lakes
Comprehension crept in...
He'd made his mistakes.

The flow of the river
Began to slow down
The delta was nigh
He longed to see ground

He had no choice
And into the ocean was thrust
A new beginning
This time Tao will be pushed.

De return of Des

So I've had writers block for almost two years now. I used to love writing, and think I still do, and even though I've had enough material to write (with all the stuff that's been happening over the last couple of years), I just haven't gotten around to writing it.

Bad excuse. I got on a reduced work week, so for four months in the past (and a few months in the future, depending on how busy work gets over the next few months) I've been putting in four days a week instead of five.

What would you do with the spare time? The one day a week on a weekday that you've got to yourself? Home improvement? Extra work? Consulting? Setting up a business? Getting on the stock market?

So what I've done so far is think about setting up a solar panel fabrication plant (small scale, low efficiency, lower cost solar panels). I thought this would be a good way to do something interesting while helping people (would be ideally suited to rural areas where electricity transmission isn't really upto reasonable levels), while keeping me busy and employing a few people to get the work done. It's also a very green thing to do. I did a little research on it and found that it would be cost effective, but I've been just too lazy to execute. The excuse I've been using was the lack of funding. Getting space anywhere near home would involve pots of money that I just don't have, which brought on the next plan...

The fact that I'm on a four day work week helps out in that for one weekday, I've got time to get on the markets and see how they're swinging... and they're swinging... I'd get addicted and wind up losing most of the money I have (and probably some I don't) if I didn't put a cap on what I'm putting into the markets, so I decided that if I have money that I can afford to throw, I'll throw it in and see if I can make some more... if I lose it all, I won't feel too bad about it since it was "extra" cash. Enter the 1 lakh cap.

During my purely experimental stage, I managed to pump in the entire amount on stocks that dropped... and they dropped pretty far down. I was left with roughly 70% of the value that I'd put in... in such a situation (where you're sure they're going to go back up), you normally wait. But hang on... this was investing where I wanted to trade! So I decided to up the ante a bit and put in another 100K, only this time, I'd try day trading... managed small profits, went on a holiday to Turkey and saw my "investment" shares pick up like mad. Cashed out as soon as I could (on hindsight, this was probably a mistake since they went up by quite a bit more after that). I was left with 250K and a holiday (mostly) paid for by the markets. I decided then to up the total to 250K on investments and 100K on trading recently - after I realised that annualised, my profits stood at 98%. I don't expect anything like this if I trade one day a week on a regular basis, but a little extra cash never hurt anyone... much...

Okay, so I got carried away. I always do. I lost sight of the goal. I wanted to make a bit of money on the side so I could carry out the plan. But then land is expensive, and this money; although it's not exactly small, is nowhere near enough to cut it. I refuse to gamble more money on a market that goes up and down more on emotion than facts, so what next?

How about using the day off to do what I enjoy the most? Enjoyment? I'm now the sort of person who's not truly happy unless I'm partying as many nights as possible - and a few days as well. I decided to overdo it a bit and wound up pulling late nights every night of the month for a few months now. I've taken 4 days off in the last couple of months or so when I wasn't out drinking at night, and at a friends wedding recently, drinking in the day time wasn't set aside either.

I do enjoy a drink or six, but then I'm not getting the sort of exercise I should be getting. Podgy isn't a word I'd like to be associated with, but at this rate, that's where I'm going to be in a couple of months.

So this one day a week I'm thinking I'll start using for the markets (for a couple of hours) and exercise, to compensate for the wilder portions of my hedonistic lifestyle. It would probably also be a good idea to get my room setup. Having thrown most of the furiture out of here, I think it's time I get off my beanbag and paint my wall or something.

Come to think of it, maybe I should start using the time to get some writing done :-)