Friday, August 29, 2014

USB Condoms From ZD Net


USB Condoms
From ZD Net-Techhive
When you connect your mobile devices to USB ports to get a much-needed recharge, do you worry about what else that USB port might be up to?
The USB port is a wonderful concept – after all, being able to transfer data and power through a single connection seems genius, but how do you know that your device isn't leaking your secrets in exchange for that power top-up?
If you're worried about juice-jacking, then this is the device for you – a $10 USB Condom designed and built by security R&D consultation firm Xipiter.
This is a small and unobtrusive dongle that sits between your device and the untrusted USB port, allowing your device to be recharged without fear that your data will be stolen or your device infected with malware.
It works by electronically disabling the connector's data pins, which converts your USB cable into a charge-only cable, and thus prevents data from being transferred to or from your device.
All you have to do is pop the USB condom on the end of your charging cable, and you're ready for a recharge.
The USB Condom is available in three different flavors: Type A, Mini B, and Micro B connectors.
For $10, this seems like a must-have for road warriors and other folks who find themselves having to recharge their devices from untrusted USB ports.

My Dreams-XI-File 07=Encounter at the peak of a Mountain-Updated



Encounter at the peak of a Mountain

The dream
This dream was related to mountain climbing.
I was lucky to be born in the hill country, where the mountains were less hilly and the climbing was not treacherous. As kids we were lucky to have a sports-master who inculcated in us in sports including marathon running. So when we decided to cut school and venture into the unknown, there was comradeship and willing companions.
This grew into the explorer's club in the university.
In later years, I wanted to lead small groups into expedition only after adequate research. One of these expeditions lead to almost catastrophe since the subject recruiting was not strict enough. There was a guy who should not have accompanied the little team, who was bringing down the morale to an extent that I had to risk my life to safe all members without much of a hush and not making the guy aware of my rescue plan and emotions building in me. I knew my inner feeling were put to test and risking life on senseless bravado was total misconception.
I gave up this exercise after this episode.
I had a similar drama with my family and kids without any assistance in a high mountain by the seaside in New Zealand.
We managed to steer the course by sheer courage and impromptu decisions. My earlier rescue operation gave me insight an adequate experience not to panic in a crisis.
The dream was similar to the real life episode which brought my adrenaline high.
I will cut short the dream that went on for almost six hours and the elephant part of the dream I will describe later.
We had climbed a very steep mountain in three groups.
Strangely the groups were made on ethnic lines religious identities.
Let me say this mountain was a place for religious worship which even had some link to the heaven.
My part was for the Buddhist group and it was the steepest and the riskiest of the three faces of the mountain.
I cannot remember the ascending part of the dream but, the dream I remember was in mid flight.
We were descending down and had come to the safest part of the descend almost close to the foothill and the camping site for preparation for the ascent.
Let me in comparison to the Nallathanni in Adam's Peak's foothill.
I was the last one in the descent, which was my adopted role.
There were three of us.
One was one of my batch mates who was ambling down after a major cramp. He was a guy who won't accept any help in spite of the disability and I deliberately avoided any verbal or physical help. I watched him from above and another guy just passed me. I quickened myself to this guy who was racing down and caught him just before he could reach my friend who was struggling.
The mentality in these episodes is to reach the summit first and descend also first. I do not like these guys and do not give any responsibility them in any capacity. They are as bad as shy guys who bring down the morale. Both sheepy guys and the bravado types are hindrance to good mountain experience and fun.
Equally nobody wants to go last or one but the last. The guy would want to beat the injured and score a point at exit point.
I told him that guy is trouble. Do not overtake him but follow him to the bottom. Only volunteer, if he is desperate trouble.
Now that cleared my lot and delegated part of my responsibility to one of the members, I decided to do my own bravado.
I decided to go across the Muslim part of the route which was little bit treacherous and seen nobody (it was not my business anyway) struggling downhill and not wanting to waste my energy, decided to come down the part of the face that was for the Christian friends and was the easiest of the three faces we used for the expedition.
It was getting dark and that was one reason for me to take the short cut which was not illegal on our expedition criteria.
I miss the plot at the very beginning and I went across wrong bend and went into complete unknown territory.
I could not find my way back to the base and there was something like snow forming under my feet and there were no rock marks or surface visible except my boot marks which were vanishing like quicksand.
I hit the panic mode.
Which was unusual but meandered down all the time and I quickly realized that I was on the fourth face that we did not mapped out before our climb.
Bit crazy.
Anyway with courage and stamina I went downhill and saw a group of people sitting down at an advantage point and enjoying a barbecue. For the first time, I came to my senses and raised towards the group without any shame.
They were quite please to see me and to my pleasant surprise, there was one of my old students in the company. The introduction was brief because of that connection.
I sat down sipping a bit of beer and looked down for a panoramic view.
I must say we were stupid to climb the other three faces which were nothing but treacherous.
I asked my student how did you discover this part of the mountain.
He said it was a top secret among the senior students and only a very few were privileged to know it.
Beside one has to take permission from the Rubber Plantation company to cross their property before approaching this spot.
Besides, we did not want our teachers to know where our free time was spent.
It suddenly dawn on me that this part of the mountain face for the revelers and the atheists.
I realized the validity of not having a religion in my dream.
It was a very nice feeling and less complicated.
My student guided my down the easy path through and the Rubber plantation to safety in about 20 minutes.
I was ready for quick meal and dream mode again.
Interpretation.
Are you meditating? Was the first thing Maha asked me.
Not a lot.
But what are you trying?
Inter-religious group.
Not at all.
I am becoming an atheist after seeing the revolting BBS.
How did you end up in heaven?
It is easy.
Unlike you guys/girl we dogs did not have a religion to brag about.
But we had a different kind of a religion.
What is that?
Only please your master and his/her family.
How do you practice it.
Simple.
Faith.
Devotion.
Companionship.
In that case all company CEOs of the capitalist world and nature end up in heaven.
They only want its workers to devote their entire life even neglecting the family.
No, No.
They end up in hell not heaven.
What is the difference.
They have this 20 / 80 dividends.
That is that 20 percent of the top brass get 90% of the profit doing sweet m nothing.
The 80% do the donkey work and share minimum wage and 10% of the profits.
We as dogs do not charge anything.
Our service is free.
In that case it is better to be a dog than a CEO.
Yes, but there is subtle discretion we have to make.
Never become a CEOs dog.
Why?
They also end up in hell with their masters with their extreme devotion to the cause.
One has to become a dog for a Simple Simeon.
But what happen to stooges of political bosses.
Same scenario as the dogs of the CEOs.
Hell, my dear.
What happens to BBS guys?
They follow their political masters to special part of the Hell with no integration with other hell dwellers.
Why?
Apaya (Hell) director loves his post and does not want it to be hijacked by the BBS top guy.
Maha disappeared in a flash fearing any interaction with BBS.

 Elephant part will come as a separate episode.

I had a very hard day.
Then after a light meal, having fed the dog and the fish went to sleep.
I had two dreams that lasted probably 6 hours, I was woken up at 3.30 A. M.
One on Sri-Lankan Elephants, the other on peach of a mountain peak.
For a change I will leave the Maha's interpretation, without the dream part to save my time and go back into my dream world.
I have a dream type to tell you.
See you later.

Encounter at the peak of a Mountain

The dream
Could yu gess the dream or your vesion of the dream.
Place it under comments.

Interpretation.
How did you end up in heaven?
It is easy.
Unlike you guys/girls,  we dogs did not have a religion to brag about.
But we had a different kind of a religion.
What is that?
Only please your master and his/her family.
How do you practice it.
Simple.
Faith.
Devotion.
Companionship.
In that case all company CEOs of capitalist nature end up in heaven.
They only want the workers to devote entire life even neglecting the families.
No, No.
They end up in hell not heaven.
What is the difference.
They have this 20 / 80 dividends.
What is that 20 percent of the top brass get 90% of the profit doing sweet nothing.
The 80% do the donkey work and share minimum wage and 10% of the profits.
We as dogs do not charge anything.
Our service is free.
In that case it is better to be a dog than a CEO.
Yes, but there is subtle discretion we have to make.
Never become a CEOs dog.
Why?
They also end up in hell with their masters with their extreme devotion to the cause.
One has to become a dog for a Simple Simeon.

But what happen to stooges of political bosses.
Same scenario as the dogs of the CEOs.
Hell, my dear.
He disappeared in a flash.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

My Dreams XI-File-06-Updated


  My Dreams XI-File-06

This again a short dream.
I was in two places, as it were.
May be video conferencing but bit of bizarre nature.
Let me say there were at least two families not closely knit but coming to an adventurous stage of coexisting or cohabiting in a cafeteria of some kind.
All were getting ready for a lunch or dinner.
There were entrees and liquor and the like not in liberal quantities but somewhat on ration.
Let me say like a typical Sri-Lankan wedding with limited number of guests and tables and chairs.
But this scenario is much more on a miniature scale.
Minimum of two families but maximum of three in each.
It is like a match making party with two families with Kupuwa or the match maker in the middle.
Since this middle man or something similar hindrance was there neither party was making an advance but making some boring exchanges.
Not loggerhead but painfully boring.
I was getting uneasy not knowing to find an easy way out of this stalemate not any visible signs of checkmate in place.
We had not come to the main course, still on entrees and suddenly, there was something like gooey on the floor.
Bit like chocolate or “chock ice” cream scattered like a puppy (dog )shit.
Then suddenly a little girl in grubby attire came in with a broomstick and started removing the dirt on the floor.
Her dress was dirtier than the dirt on the floor and it looked very pathetic to say the least and revolting.
Then a middle aged women came in, probably her mother or her master to take her place.
She grinned and said this place is better.
If you go to a shanty in the seashore in Sri-Lanka, this is perfectly normal and this place is much better even without cleaning.
That was her way to dodge the issue at hand.
I was annoyed and woke up immediately.
I was relieved of the tension inside me.
I did not want to go back to sleep for a while.
But did not want to forget the dream altogether and penned it down immediately (before I forget) to be sent to Maha.


Interpretation
Maha was quick to respond.
Well, are you having lot of lunch parties or chocolates with liqueur inside as entrees.
No for the first and yes for the latter.
I skip my lunch now.
Why?
If I save my lunch I can feed my dog.
If I feed my dog, I have to starve a bit.
You mean to say dog food is cheap.
On the contrary.
Dog food especially imported is expensive but human food is like dog food anyway.
If there is anything by the name of human food whether imported or local it is expensive, now.
Fuel is expensive.
If you have two meals a day one has to live in the darkness without electricity to save on the fuel bill.
If you want to have some lights in the night one has to skip a meal.
Which is more expensive, fuel or food?
Both.
Even fodder is expensive, I mean the grass.
That is why milk food and cheese are expensive.
Besides my dog loves cheese, so I am going through a vicious cycle of satiety and starvation.
If my satiety is satisfied the dog suffers and my dog's satiety is satisfied, I am on starvation diet.
I prefer the latter and my belt does not to hold my trousers in hemline and slip down my bottoms.
Having seen this my tailor, jokingly said, you need a brace to hold it up.
I told him, it has come down by three inches.
He said two inches is enough to slip it down on anybody.
Now I am wondering whether to have a brace or more food or starve the dog.
Is that complicated Sri-Lankan life now.
Yes.
When I was there as a paraya or stray dog the life was very easy, know.
It is this Bulath (betel) regime know, Bath (rice) as a promise, there is enough Bulath but little Bath (rice) for satiety.
In any case when there is betel in the mouth, one cannot have rice as a delicacy.
I think Bulath is an antidote to Bath or satiety.
Aren't you interested in the interpretation?
Yes, my lord.
In time to come there going to be food scarcity in a global scale.
It is all due to global warming, droughts and floods.
When the temperature rices above 40 degrees, most of the varieties of grain will be fail to produce enough yield and gradually become extinct.
There is no time for the drought resistant strains to get establish in time.
There will be chaos, especially in the tropics.
Sri-Lanka will be like Dubai.
The regime will have to pay the debts before the grain stock.
There will be political upheavals of unprecedented scale.
Parties are for only for two families and that is also when wedding are being held in secret location, never in hotels.
People who are hungry will get the smell of any party and they invariably gate crash as cleaners.
Then the mayhem follows.
That is why I stop the dream in mid stream.
Then he vanished without a trace.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

My Dreams-XI-File 05-Updated

 My Dreams-XI-File 05

Space Encounter

This was an interesting dream episode. 
I was deep into sleep and I felt like if somebody was scanning my thoughts and emotions.
It was just like the close encounters of the alien type.
Whatever, thought moment that had arisen in my brain was as it were hijacked or stolen or scanned, to see what I was thinking.
For instance, if the thought of a dog came into my mind, the scanning was not for the picture of the dog in my head but in what context (of the thought) the thought moment had arisen in my brain.
Say, fear or caring or possession.
If the thought was say about a cricket match.
It was not the current state of the match or the ball by ball commentary, the scanner was interested.
It was the state of my mind and the emotions that were aroused that were scanned.
It was not the text but the context or the intent that the scanners were looking for.
It was bit of a science fiction of Freudian type.
I got a nice feeling about it and at the same time felt this scanner was linked to a super computer.
It was not scanning individual subjects but it was global in nature and the group of people, as whole was scanned.
Say, it was scanning the Bodu Bala Sena outfit in action, it was scanning the entire lot (those upfront and those behind the scene plotters far away from the scene of action were monitored) for the motive/s stated and the ulterior motives and emotions of the designers were scanned.
Freud would have been happy if he had this super computer for his psychoanalysis.
It was, as it were, all human emotions were scanned before these prospective aliens hunters or explorers landed on this planet.
The moment this alien thing came into my mind, I was woken up abruptly.
In the back of my mind, I wanted to record, the first alien encounter and get the full credit to my name.
Alas, I realized that it was only dream.
This was 2.30 A.M in the morning and I went back to my sleep for further sojourn in the dream world.
I was not left stranded.
I was in the dream world again as it were the continuation of the previous episode.
This time the scene was strange but somewhat similar to a street market of the ancient type.
But on this occasion, I was the one who was doing the scanning from above, not the aliens.
As it were, I was hijacked by the aliens to do their spy work without any payment.
I had volunteered to work free to strike another first by a human in a close encounter.
There was a group of guys collected together and the elders were removing cloths out in the open in front of their kith and kin. They hardly had any cloths but wearing vestiges or rags, not worth wearing.
The looked like our Veddhas of ancient time.
Then in the same group some were assembling what looked like a Giant Arrow in preparation for combat.
It shape was similar to a rocket and in preparation of launching.
Then as I was scanning, at a little distance in a higher plane there was a group clad only covering the bottoms with bare tops, somewhat similar to priests in a Tamil Kovil.
They were in whites were parading up some giant steps that led, as it were to the heaven.
Then there was another group which looked like traders trading some precious metal hidden in ornamental things and leaves of medicine.
It did not look serene like the priests marching up the giant ladder to heaven.
This was like dark side of Colombo port where traders are dealing with illegal stuff.
In other word they were smuggling.
Then there was another group which gathered on the embankment of a river struggling to get on board what looked like a hastily constructed and poorly equipped ferry.
The fifth group was in a large airport with few airplanes ready to board passengers, in fact thousands of fleeing subjects waiting in a queue to get on board the few seats available and a large contingent of security personnel were checking their travel documents.
Only a few were allowed to board.
Interpretation.
This looked a unique situation related to Sri-Lanka.
Somewhat similar to tsunami but of a bigger magnitude.
Maha's explanation was mandatory.
He was quick to respond with broad smile.
You are getting more and more dreams.
Have you been eating a diet which stimulate dreams?
No, Sir.
I am having few episodes of memory loss in wakeful state.
It not a good thing in my old age.
Memory loss is an early sign of dementia.
I am training myself to remember all my dreams to activate my memory potential.
Unlike in the past I record them in short form and then try to put the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle.
Naturally, I forget most of my dreams but send you only the interesting ones for interpretation.
I also discovered a hidden potential.
If I am in a good dream and woken up (not by you) but due to mosquitoes or some bodily irritation like wanting to go to the loo, I go back to the dream mode and continue with where I left.
Coming back to this dream it looks like the dream is related to Sri-Lanka and they are in panic mode.
Is that so.
Yes, it is.
It very simple.
It is related your scientific prediction related to global warming and small islands getting encircled by rising sea water above 4000 feet.
My goodness, my city is under 1600 feet.
Don't worry, you have long gone, this dream is well into the future.
Let me start with the fifth group.
Who are they?
They are the IMF guys and girls who have come on the final round of debt collection.
They want to vanish with all the wealth.
There was a big crowd there, Know?
Yes those who had some connection were following the IMF traits.
Then what was the fourth group.
They were the guys and power brokers aligned to the central bank and the politicians with shoddy deals.
They were trying to pilfer whatever left in the country onto their own coffers, illegally of course.
They are the counter current to IMF.
The third group is the Tamils of Indian descent trying to reach heaven in a rush.
The fourth group is the Sri-Lankan Muslims trying to flee to Middle East.
The fifth group is the modern Veddhas trying to escape into space in a space craft of their own design.
What was the outcome?
Who survived.
None except the few IMF guys who had private planes and the Indian Tamils who piled up on the steep mountains survived.
Rest succumbed when the sea water hit the land in a flash never seen in the history of this planet.
It was all a mad rush and there was no time.
It was end of the world for most of the Sri-Lankans.
If they had some airports in the hill region instead near the sea, they would have saved a few thousands.
What happened to the animals, especially the elephants.
Unfortunately, elephants had gone extinct by this time.
Birds escaped to higher ground with many of the smaller animal species.
Wilpattu and Yala were under water and there were no animals reserves left.
Can you tell me the time scale.
I am not suppose to tell you.
Why?
Then you would stop dreaming for future and he disappeared in a flash.

My Dreams-XI-File 06
Space Encounter
This was an interesting dream episode. I was deep into sleep and I felt like if somebody was scanning my thoughts and emotions. It was just like the close encounters of the alien type.
Whatever, thought moment that was arisen from my brain was as it were stolen or scanned to see what I was thinking.
For instance, if the thought of a dog came into my mind, the scanning was not for the picture of the dog in my mind but in what context (of the thought) the though moment arisen.
Say, fear or caring or possession.
If the thought was say about a cricket match.
It was not the current state of the match or the ball by ball commentary, the scanner was interested.
It was the state of my mind and the emotions that were aroused that were scanned.
It was not the text but the context that the scanners was looking for.
It was bit of a science fiction of Freudian type.
I got a nice feeling about it and at the same time felt this scanner was linked to a super computer.
It was not scanning individual subjects but it was global in nature and   the group as whole was scanned.
Say it was scanning the Bodu Bala Sena outfit in action, it was scanning the entire lot (those upfront and those behind the scene plotters far away from the scene of action were monitored) for the motive/s stated and ulterior motives and emotions were scanned.
Freud would have been happy if he had this super computer for his psychoanalysis.
It as if were all human emotions were scanned before these aliens landed on this planet.
The moment this alien thing came into my mind, I was woken up abruptly.
In the back of my mind I wanted to record, the first alien encounter and get the full credit to my name.
Alas, I realized it was only dream.
This was 2.30 A.M in the morning and I went back to my sleep for further sojourn in the dream world.
I was not left stranded.
I was in the dream world again as it were the continuation of the previous episode.
This time the scene was strange but somewhat similar to a street market of the ancient type.
But on this occasion, I was the one who was doing he scanning from above not the aliens.
As it were, I was hijacked by the aliens to do their spy work without any payment.
I had volunteered to work free to strike another first by a human in a close encounter.
There was a group of guys collected together and the elders were removing cloths out in the open in front of their kith and kin. They hardly had any cloths but vestiges or rags not worth wearing.
The looked like our Veddhas of ancient time.
Then in the same group some were assembling what looked like a Giant Arrow in preparation for combat.
Then as I was scanning, at a little distance in a higher plane there was group clad only the bottoms and the top was bare, somewhat similar to priest in a Tamil Kovil.
They were in whites were parading up a giant steps that led as if to the heaven.
Then there was another group which looked like traders trading some precious metal hidden in ornamental things and leaves of medicine. It did not look serene like the priests marching up the giant ladder to heaven.
This was like dark side of Colombo pat where traders are dealing with illegal stuff.
Then there was another group which gathered on the embankment of a river struggling to get on board what looked like a hastily constructed and poorly equipped ferry.
The fifth group was in a large airport with few airplanes ready to board passengers thousands of fleeing subjects and a large contingent of security personnel checking their travel documents.

Preview NOW and interpretation and rating later.
These X-Files with interpretation will come with a difference.
I am developing a search engine to rate them from 0 to 5, like the Stupidity Index.
In relating to relevance to current political climate, whether they are astute or not, ambiance, downright outrageous, the like.
Rating 4 to 5 will be in the blog site and rating 0 to three will be in a digital book form soon.
So you have to bear with me till I reveal the Maha's interpretation for a future date.
This I believe, this will revisiting guest to my site and my own EGO by having more than 100 his a day.
The font will be on blue when the interpretation is activated.

I have decided to publish readers version of the possible outcome with the Maha Brahma or else their own version of the extended or second part of the dream under,
 Comments below!

Debian the Mother of all Linux and God Father too on the reverse of the DVD.


Debian the Mother of all Linux and God Father too on the reverse of the DVD.

I started Linux with Fedora.
Before that Knopiix.
Debian was my “Bellyache in Linux” when I started Linux.
Debian is the mother of all Linux.
But my entry was Live CDs (Knoppix to begin with) and Mandriva (later Mandriva- and still later Magiea) and PCLinux.
My biggest bellyache was finding the 6 working Debian.
Having found it took nearly (I did not know anything in Linux having come from Windows.
That made me to read “Joy of Linux” to get the fear out of my system.
By six months I was having Linux in an old IBM computer with 4M graphic card (not 4 GiB).
That speaks of the minimal resources Linux uses at start up.
Now Debian is my “Heart Throb” and currently downloading ( All in one images) both 6 for archive and 7 for use with very few torrent leeches and seeders.
Once downloaded, I will leave my computer running (I have stop my Linux computers running 24 hours to save electricity and we pay highest electricity tariff in this part of the world) as a seeder for others to build up enough connections so that download time becomes shorter.
Mind you my one month electricity bill enough to pay for year subscription of Linux magazine which often comes with a double sided DVD with Linux distributions.
I hope they will have an article on Deabian on the next issue.
This is belated birth day from me.
There guy who update the Debian Documentation in France.
He was a nice Linux guy who translated that into Linux.
Apart from USA, France is the country with lot of subjects are community and social minded (unfortunately not so in UK-only very few guys and girls).
I suppose Linux cannot Root in UK country side like cricket.
Debian can be God Father of Linux too.
It has over 66,000 packages which Apple and Microsoft could never could catch up.
I hope I live to see its 40th birthday.
I am geriatric you know and I started trying Linux when I was well past fifty.
It is said old dogs can learn new tricks.
Yes it is.
Puppy Linux is my favorite, if I exclude the above.
Puppuy is getting fatter with SimpleLinux (147 issue now) with many tiny and mature versions.

From DistroWatch
Finally, we are happy to report that last week the Debian project turned 21 years old. On August 16 the following message appeared on Debian's website, "Today is Debian's 21st anniversary. Plenty of cities are celebrating Debian Day. If you are not close to any of those cities, there's still time for you to organize a little celebration! Happy 21st birthday Debian!" Debian is not only a respected distribution, especially popular in the server market, but it is also the basis for other well known distributions such as Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Raspbian for the Raspberry Pi. Happy birthday, Debian!