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Net Gains (Jan 20, 98) |
After carrying 5 introductory articles about the Net, Bombay
Times officially christened the column Net Gains in the third
week of January 1996. Which means that Net Gains celebrates its
second anniversary this week. Net Gains turns two !!
In the last three weeks that the Net Gains year end contest
has been on the Net, responses have been pouring in, along with
feedback about the column. Every bit of constructive criticism
that has sent in will be read and will be worked on. The sad
part is that it took a contest for feedback to start flowing -
come on guys this is the Internet - interactivity and all that
jazz - if there's something you like (or don't), do email me.
However,
there are certain factors outside my control - like the frequency
of publication and the size of the column. But do keep emailing
me with things you'd like to read more about in Net Gains - the
column's yours yaar !
To keep you busy till the next anniversary, Net Gains has one
web page for you. But this page is unique in that it is an index
with links to 229 mini sites that focus on freebies available
on the Net. So start looking up each one of the web pages that
belong to the Tripod Feebie Pod (http://www.tripod.com/pod_central/pods/freebies/).
Yenjoy !! Keep in mind, however, that you may not be able to connect
to the Net this Republic Day if the Devil of the Digital Domain
(DODD) has his way.
VSNL's student server was hacked last Saturday as pointed out
by Net Gains reader Bhushan. So when anyone dialed the students
server for around 12 hours, instead of getting the usual welcome
message from VSNL, users got a big message condemning VSNL's service
and security. Take a look (message reprinted exactly as displayed)
:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!THIS SERVER IS HACKEDD!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DEAR ALL, THIS MESSAGE IS FOR ALL THE STUDENTS WHO HAVE BEEN SUFFERING
BCUZ OF VSNL'S POOR AND INCOMPETENT SERVICE! BEING THE SOLE I.S.P.
THEY HAVE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF ITT AND HAVE GIVEN US A NO GOOD
, POCKET-BURNING, PATHETIC SERVICE -- A PATHETIC SHELL ACC.!!!
THAT TOO WHIHC ISS SO DIFFICULT TO GET THRU! & TCP/IP WHICH
SO FAR HAD BEEN FOR Rs.15000!!!!
WE HAVE SUFFERED ENUFF BCUZ OF VSNL'S MONOPOLY! THEY HAVE ONLY NOW REDUCED TEH RATES BCUZ ISP IS BEING PRIVATISED!! THEY SUC! BIG TIME! I , D.O.D.D. , TODAY VOW TO MAKE LIFE HELL FOR VSNL!!!
EVEN TODAY VSNL IS NOT GIVING US STUDENTS THE SERVICE WE DESERVE . THE MAJORITY OF MODEMS THAT THEY HAVE FOR THE STUDENTS ACC. ARE OF 33.6 KBPS , BUT HAVE BEEN SET TO 19.2 KBPS. !! Y??!! I ASK THEM Y??!!!
HAYS- 16+48+32+32 = 128 ( 33.6 KBPS)
MULTITECH- 44+16 = 60 (19.2 KBPS)
MOTOROLLA- 32 =32 (33.6 KBPS)
WORLDWIDE- 15 = 15 (19.2 KBPS)
TO PROTEST AGAINST VSNL'S MONOPOLY AND THEIR PATHETIC SERVICE & SECUTIRY , INTERNET SERVICE IN BOMBAY VIA VSNL WILL BE BORUGHT DOWN ON THE 26TH JAN AT 12:00 PM . FOR 1 HR. ! THIS IS A PROMISE! THAT MEANS NO INTERNET ATALL IN BOMBAY ON THAT DAY! WOA! VSNLSUXXX!VSNLSUXXX!VSNLSUXXX!VSNLSUXXX!VSNLSUXXX!VSNLSUXXX!VSNLSUXXX!
from D.O.D.D. and Eddie
P.s Hey buddy what time r u coming to college on mon? :))
After this attack, DODD got in touch via email explaining that
he hacked VSNL's server just to highlight how poor the security
on their server is - even a 19 year old student like him could
crack into the server. DODD also mentioned that he had access
to anyone's mail on VSNL. So what happens to people and businesses
that send confidential information via email ? True, there are
ways to encrypt email, but how many people care to do that, assuming
that the mail is private ? DODD ended his email claiming that
any of VSNL's servers can be brought down in less than 5 minutes.
Hope this incident serves as an eye opener to VSNL and also
to us subscribers. And DODD n Eddie, since you're probably reading
this, your point has been noted - don't carry out your threat
on the 26th. Innocent subscribers will be the losers
- for no fault of theirs too. And as the saying goes - there's
light at the end of the tunnel - the ISP monopoly will end soon
!
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