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Showing posts from September, 2010

Aardvarks (Aard = Earth Vark = Pig) to Zorillas (Fox in Spanish)

Many have asked me to give more details as to why my blog is called Aardvarks to Zorillas. The idea was to make it much more interesting that saying A to Z, anything goes. To get to know as to what are the various elements that I am blogging here about  - from Information Security, History, Religion, Technology and Science. They are not scientific treatises, but general journalistic write ups with their grammatical errors ( I leave them there, for the fact that these are made as rambles - Rambles are just a thought process that just comes about over time and they are typed into the blog in one go, no proof reading, no relook into what has been typed, no editing... Rambles as it ought to be. The idea of the blog is also to just vent my thoughts, the time when I do not find somebody to bore to death. Just to record the thought and it makes for interesting reading after a few months. You would be surprised at the prose that had flowed out of your head, no semantics, but clearly the use

QR Codes - Data in a square

QR Codes have been in vogue for nearly two decades particularly popular in Japan. With the advent of the Android platform, we have oflate started to see a lot of information in the form of QR Codes being pushed across in billboards, magazine covers,advertisements. With the density of information that these QR codes affords, we would be seeing a slew of applciations that would use these codes to deliver content as well as become a preferred way to digitize content through a modus that is easy and simple. Already we are seeing product labels having these codes embeded to find more information, this is for the discerning customer, who wants to check the details of the product before they purchase the product. This can contain information that is useful for the customer, like product details, where they are procured from, a nice little recipe or to lead you to a set of web sites or a way to call them or register the product. The different applications that this can be put to is tremendou

The Problem with Biometrics

Biometrics is touted as the solution to all identity problems we have. It is like Manna from heaven that would solve all the problems associated with user IDs and passwords and tokens and make everyone so unique because of the fact that they have finger prints, retinas, face geometry, hand geometry, wrinkles on the face and whichever set of controls required to ensure that the person identifying himself is him/her. However, this identity is under pressure from a set of technologies, that helps in recording it in such minute details that with advances in technology these could be replicated without much ado over time. Lets look at Cameras with super sensitive irises. These Cameras with high resolution sensors to the tune of 50 Mega Pixels announced recently by Canon and other Japanese Camera Leaders, makes you wonder, if your iris is protected at all. Can somebody take a shot of your iris or a shot of your fingers, make a copy of it and run away with your identity. It is a possibility