Category: views

2010-2019: Reminiscing My Thirties

The year is almost complete. In a matter of hours, we will step into a new decade and I will look back at the past ten years with a mix of emotions.

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The Illusion of Control

Way back in 2004, one of the world’s largest soft drinks company pulled their “pure” bottled water product off the shelves because it had been contaminated with bromate, a cancer-causing chemical. In July 2010, a major tobacco maker admitted that child workers as young as 10 were working in tobacco farms related to them. Now in March 2018, a whistleblower (& thorough investigation) helped show that a data analytics firm might have abused data leak from the world’s largest Social Network.

While it might look inappropriate to compare the above three cases, it is worthy to note that they could have just got away with it, if not for some really gritty people/ media working behind the scenes helping to identify and put the pieces of the puzzle together.

Eventually when it comes to lawsuits, be it a major corporation exploiting children living in poor nations or a renowned firm causing health hazard, very little was done (or will be done) to punish big companies. In fact, large firms have the tendency to march on and make their brands even more powerful than before. End of the day, more harm will come to the economy (at least in the short term) by closing them entirely.

In case of the data leak you are more closely impacted no matter how insignificant you think you are and, if you have not realised it already, the best candidate to do damage control should a similar case arise in the immediate future.

Image Source: Internet

While it cannot even be classified technically as a data breach, that the data mined from Facebook along with promoted ads and a slew of fake news (allegedly backed by a “rival” superpower) eventually might have helped tilt the political climate of what is arguably the world’s most advanced nation. But I would like to keep this post far from politics and more close to real point of concern?—?what can you do to control the information being shared.

Towards a Secure and Safe Internet

Encrypted World

Around one year ago, Google Chrome announced that they would begin marking all sites that are not encrypted with HTTPS as “not secure” in their browser. This move essentially started shaming websites by displaying a “Not Secure” marker in the address bar. However this happened only when the site collected passwords or credit card info.

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Cyber Security Learnings & 2018 Resolutions

Image Credit: Networecon.com

In the past, new year resolutions have been a miss-hit for me. I have had my run-ins with the usual suspects:

  • Physical fitness ambitions that were, simply put, over-expectations.
  • Financial goals that simply ruined my everyday happy living.
  • Commitment to family life that was easily hijacked by my techno addictions.
  • Blogging pledges that soon turned into woeful unread posts.
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The Art of Minting Money Online

Many years ago an ‘unknown benefactor‘ from Nigeria dropped me an email about a “once in a lifetime offer” that was simply too tempting to pass! You see, a very distant relative of his had recently passed away leaving billions of $ in unclaimed property. For unbeknownst reasons, all I needed to do now was to pass on my bank account and address details, so that my pal from Africa can work out finer details & help me claim a fortune and share it with me!

This would sound familiar to so many of us who were spammed a decade or so ago. In fact the same story has done so so many rounds, that we all started to crave for a change from this cringeworthy storyline, if not for a way out of spam emails!

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The Perfect Vision

I stood in front of a little wooden box
Mellow at first touch,
And coarse by the next
Curious, I slid open its crest.

It had two pairs of glasses
One rimmed with a golden frame
The other all rotten and rust
I decided, that try them I must.

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Weathering a Storm

I am jittery as I write this. My hometown Chennai is in the news for all the bad reasons. For those of you who are living under a rock, this is one of Indian metropolitan cities. Wikipedia might be able to give more stats about the population and other stats.

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A Spark of Life

Several decades ago when we were waking ourselves from a nightmare that the world war was, all eyes turned East to salvage some pride. It needed a Gandhi for the world to come to the realization that what we really needed was a war without weapons, a fight without words.

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Evolution with Changing Times

I was probably around 14 years old when I was first exposed to a real boy’s toy – a mid-90’s gaming console. It wasn’t mine, of course, but that of a friend. I knew then that I’d found my first love, but also felt that handling stuff like these was probably just once in a lifetime opportunity for me.

I wouldn’t notice then that my bare necessities were evolving. Little did I know that, in under a couple of years, consoles like these would be obsolete and that my life will be inundated with electronics (of all sort) in more ways than I’d care to remember!

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The Flower

From the barren land
Will rise a Kingdom
Where this story shall be told.

A small fortress of green
Shall sprout from nowhere
Holding a spirit divine.

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