Calls to end US domination of the internet

Submitted by Karthik on 26 August, 2005 - 11:54

India, China and others are spearheading calls for the end of US control over the DNS root servers that are the foundation of the Internet. While these servers are controlled by a not-for-profit organisation named ICANN, which liaises with world governmental bodies via the GAC, many governmental bodies are not satisifed with the existing structure as ICANN still falls under the jurisdiction of the USA.

Furthermore, recent statements by the US government have confirmed the view that it is looking to maintain indefinite control over the domain name system.

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NIC unveils open source forum

Submitted by Karthik on 24 September, 2004 - 13:20

India's National Informatics Center has launched a Web site to share the government's experiences with open-source software.

"The purpose of this site is to spread the knowledge base that we have assimilated so that others can also build applications using free and open-source solutions," he said.

The site will focus on database software and JDBC links, as well as Linux system integration issues, said the spokesman. It will also handle, "data migration issues, language issues for both JSP and PHP applications… and drivers for Linux".

The site still seems to be in it's early stages. ZDNet has this story.

Photo-IDs to become mandatory in cybercafés

Submitted by Karthik on 23 September, 2004 - 03:53

The cybercrime (sic) police in Bangalore are implementing steps which will make it mandatory for cybercafé owners to log the identities of all their customers and make them available to the police when required.

"The government order will be introduced in a few days and will take effect immediately. The rules have been approved and the governor has given his assent. Only the formality of it being published in the gazette is pending," said P. Ravindranath, DIG Economic offences, who is attached to the Cyber Crime Police Station. This move was initiated when the cyber crime police found that a number of cyber crimes they had investigated and handled, originated from cyber cafes where anonymity was virtually guaranteed.

Read the full story here.

Biometric ATMs for Indian villages

Submitted by Karthik on 23 September, 2004 - 03:34

CIOL has a report on a rather ambitious program which will very likely see the introduction of finger-print based ATMs at various rural sites across India.

n-Logue information solution VP, Elizabeth Alexander said that these ATMs would be clubbed along with the Chiraag kiosks. The TeNeT group in association with ICICI Bank has developed the ATM, which are specially designed targeting the villagers.

The ATM costs Rs 40,000 and come with only cash deposit and withdrawal options. For the convenience of the villagers, TeNeT has devised a new system, whereby the user need not remember his PIN number, but the web camera and the thumb impression device installed along with the ATM will authenticate the person.

The ATMs will be housed in Chiraag Internet kiosks which have already been setup. The article also outlines plans to introduce internet enabled medical kits which will allow doctors to monitor and diagnose patients in remote locations.

NASA pumps $400m into nuclear space probe

Submitted by Karthik on 23 September, 2004 - 03:15

NASA has awarded Northrop Grumman a $400m contract to co-design the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (Jimo) space probe - slated for a rendevouz with Jovian moons Callisto, Europa and Ganymede some time after 2012.

The Jimo project has generated a certain amount of controversy due to its uranium-fuelled nuclear fission reactor - which creates electricity to drive the "nuclear electric propulsion (NEP)" system. In simple terms, NEP uses the electricity produced by the reactor to ionise propellant atoms which can then be ejected at high velocity from the vehicle's propulsion system by magnetic or electrified grids. NASA has already proven this "ion drive" technology aboard Deep Space 1, although electricity for the thrusters was in that case provided by solar panels.

The Register has this piece.

Authorize.net DDoS-ed

Submitted by Karthik on 23 September, 2004 - 03:11

Credit Card processing firm Authorize.net has been the target of large scale DDoS attacks for the past few days.

The start of the attack, on Sept. 15, coincided with the company laying off 12 percent of its work force. But retribution was not considered as a motive for the attack, because the company had received an extortion letter before the layoffs were announced, Schwartz said. He added that the company is cooperating with federal law enforcement to investigate the attacks and find the source.

Read the full story at CNET News.

Mars rovers roll on with new funding

Submitted by Karthik on 23 September, 2004 - 03:05

NASA has agreed to fund the Mars rover project for six more months, allowing the two robotic vehicles to continue to study the red planet.

Following an earlier extension, funding for the project was supposed to end Sept. 13, but on Tuesday NASA announced it would continue providing money so scientists could work with Spirit and Opportunity, the two robots driving around the surface of Mars.

The two robots have performed well-beyond the expected term of the project and likely will give a shot in the arm to the growing robotics industry. The project was originally expected to terminate in April after three months, but because the robots continued to function, NASA extended the project. Earlier this month, the rovers endured the climax of the Martian winter and lost contact with Earth for 12 days, but contact was recently recovered.

News.com has this story.

Digital Music's Next Big Battle

Submitted by Karthik on 7 September, 2004 - 02:50

TR has a report on the growing popularity of digital radio piracy, using a software named TimeTrax.

TimeTrax is on the forefront of what will likely be the music and technology industry's next world war: the recording of broadcast digital audio. "We're at the beginning of the next P2P," says Jim Griffin, CEO of Cherry Lane Digital, a music and technology consultancy. "Peer-to-peer is small by comparison." What has Griffin and others interested is the concept that when radios all broadcast digital music signals, programs such as TimeTrax will allow users to search for and capture songs similar to how they do it today with programs such as Kazaa. Instead of grabbing a song from someone's hard drive, users will pluck it from the air via a digital radio signal. It's a new situation, which in part is what makes TimeTrax such an interesting case.

Click here for the full article.

India home to No. 1 online poker site

Submitted by Karthik on 6 September, 2004 - 12:47

ET has a rather interesting article which states that a company named Empire Poker (legally based in the British Virgin Islands) together with Partypoker, based in India, run the world’s largest online poker room.

While the article itself is hazy on the details, a little digging around brought out the following details:

  • EmpirePoker is just a skinned version of Partypoker.com with a few add-on features - they both use the same software.
  • Partypoker.com is owned and run by a company named iGlobalMedia, which is apparently based in India.
  • iGlobalMedia write the underlying software for these online gambling sites and license it out to other sites.
  • The domains in question are all registered in the British Virgin Islands or in the Dominican Republic. There is no mention of India in any of the DNS information, nor on any of the sites.
  • iGlobalMedia, a privately held company, founded in 1997 as a five member operation, has since grown to over 180 full-time professionals, managing over 100 on-line gaming sites, with operations in the Caribbean region and India. In short, iGlobalMedia is a leading Internet gaming company successfully managing more than 3,000,000 hits per day, millions of dollars in monthly deposits, and one of the largest and most impressive systems on the Internet today, with more than US$200 million in financial transactions and over US$4 billion in wagers annually.
  • The actual owner of empirepoker.com is based in the Netherlands.

Altogether, a rather dubious setup, especially when you consider that gambling is illegal in mainland India. Click here for the original article.

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