Friday, December 09, 2005

[compilers_nitw] New poll for compilers_nitw


Enter your vote today! A new poll has been created for the
compilers_nitw group:

HOW MANY ARE GOING TO HOME THIS HOLIDAYS

o GOING
o NOT GOING


To vote, please visit the following web page:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/compilers_nitw/surveys?id=2071094

Note: Please do not reply to this message. Poll votes are
not collected via email. To vote, you must go to the Yahoo! Groups
web site listed above.

Thanks!







Saturday, December 03, 2005

Vacation

The winter vacation begins from 6th wish u all happy holidays.
( I am gonna stay back at college for project :( )

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

[compilers_nitw] Important information !!!

Hello friends
you must be knowing about "AMDOCS" company , they are organising a conference in the month of Jan in Pune for one day .
They have invited one student from our class ( only for 3rd year C.S.E.) and providing travelling allowance for 2 tier A.C. on both sides + accomodation facility in pune but with the condition that person who get selected for this conference have to sit for amdocs at the time of placement.
So those who are interested in attending the conference , submit ur bio-data in T&P section as soon as possible. For more details contact T&P section .
*please pass this information to others ( only 3rd yr BTech C.S.E.)


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Saturday, November 26, 2005

[compilers_nitw] project in winter

frns...
it's message from somyajulu sir, tat if any one intrested in projected in winter .so all of those intrested may collect in their office on 2'nd DEC. in their office....he said to discuss the problem/project there...so  hopefully u all guys/gls. will spread over this info. to others classmate , those unaware of tat...
BEST OF LUCK FOR EXAMS............

ANKUR...


Ankur Singh Sachan


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Friday, November 25, 2005

Exams

So the end sem exams are comin up..
heres the schedule for CSE III year

28/11/2005-- OS
29/11/2005-- DBMS
30/11/2005-- EEA
01/12/2005-- TOC
02/12/2005-- ICA

Thursday, November 24, 2005

[compilers_nitw] IC lab schedule

 IC lab schedule
8-10
10-12
12:30-2:30

Monday batch (Roll no. 49-72)
First person of each group has to go from 8-10,
second at 10-12 and so on. Exactly what it was in the skill
test.

For Tuesday batch the schedule is
2:30-4:30
4:30-6:30
6-8
First person of each group has to go on 2:30 and so on
Please note that there is overlapping of half an hour
for the last batch. Last batch has to report on 6 only
This is the final schedule for the lab.


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Saturday, November 19, 2005

[compilers_nitw] Alumni interested in Open Source At NITW

Hi Frns


Hope every one accomplished the DBMS mission. And there is a good new to you all. Yesterday I have
got a mail from our alumni with subject Open Source At NITW.

It goes like this :

.................................................................

Hi,

My name is Siddharth Vijayakrishnan. The two are cc'ed in this mail are
Carthik Anand Sharma and Palaka Sasidhar. All of us are RECW alumni
('97-'01) and are currently either studying or working. Since we left
college, all of us have been active in the open source software world
with Carthik having been part of a very popular blog software
[wordpress] development team. We are now interested in being involved in
setting up a Linux User Group (LUG) in the college.

During our days in college, we were hampered by a few factors
- Lack of fast access to internet [This made getting software and
   documentation difficult]
- Not enough information on how to start

These are the two problems that we want to address. We are willing to
contribute time and a limited amount of resources if students are
interested. I guess we can mobilize some more alumni to get involved.
Please get in touch with any of us, in case you are
interested. We'd also like you to pass this on to anyone who might be
interested (Putting this mail up on the mess notice boards/CS dept
notice board might be a great idea)

Regards,
Siddharth

...............................................................

        In Reply to this,

we wrote:

.................................................................

Hi Siddharth Vijayakrishnan,

this group (compilers_nitw@yahoogrops.com) is related to current 3rd year BTECG CSE. We are very
grateful to have a mail from U.

As U told...........

"During our days in college, we were hampered by a few factors
- Lack of fast access to internet [This made getting software and
   documentation difficult]
- Not enough information on how to start"..................

the same is the case with us now..............

this idea struck to our mind but we are unable to implement.
may be now with your cooperation we can give a start to our ideaz...

our problems with infrastructure goes like this .......
   no net provider ...with consistent speeds ....!!!!
   even the college have no IDEA of providing net !!!
   the lab nets are scarse ....!!! (god knows where they are ..)
   even the department is deficit for staff .....
                  ---  9 members managing 500 students of CSE .......
(so, we may be expecting a very good guidance from ur side ...)

definetely there is a good scope for all of us to be a member of this group and contribute to open
source...

as the first tribute of our enthu .....
just 2day  we have pasted ur maill in all the messes and departments....

K Gangadhar
3/4 BTech CSE

.................................................................

         The response to our reply is:

.................................................................


Kenguva Gangadhar(gangadhar_kenguva@yahoo.com)@2005.11.18 08:46:43 -0800:
> Hi Siddharth Vijayakrishnan,
Call me siddharth :)
>  
>   this group (compilers_nitw@yahoogrops.com) is related to current 3rd  year BTECG CSE. We are
very grateful to have a mail from U.
>  
>   As U told...........
>  
>   "During our days in college, we were hampered by a few factors
>    - Lack of fast access to internet [This made getting software and
>      documentation difficult]
There are ways we can get around this problem. Since most of you
probably have access to a pc in your hostel rooms, we could set up a
network of sorts within the hostel. If that doesn't work out, we could
set up a repository with the latest software dumped on it and students
could burn cds and use what they want. We can ensure that you get the
software you want. As a start, we can provide
installation images of a few linux/bsd installations plus regularly and
other regularly used software.

>    - Not enough information on how to start"..................
>  
>   the same is the case with us now..............
Right - and this is what we want to remedy. For a start, I think it'd
be a great idea if you could get together a group of interested students
on a weekend - Two or three of us could come over and hold a sort of an
informal session for about an hour or two.   
A few things that can be done
- Demos of installation of various versions of linux/*bsd
- An overview of various development tools like gcc,gdb etc
- An overview of the various ongoing projects in the open source world
   and where contributions can be made
- A Q&A session with students.

The infrastructure requirement for this kind of a session will be
limited to a hall (NSH/NCH would do nicely, a classroom would do as
well). If some kind of internet access can be arranged, then it would
sweeten things a great deal - you could talk to someone at the CC (is
Prof.Anjaneyulu still in charge ?) and see if something can be arranged.
A good way to do this would be to have the CS association or the IEEE
arrange for an event, so that it gets a bit of publicity. Let us know if
something like this can be done and then we can work out the dates.

>   this idea struck to our mind but we are unable to implement.
>   may be now with your cooperation we can give a start to our ideaz...
>  
>   our problems with infrastructure goes like this .......
>      no net provider ...with consistent speeds ....!!!!
>      even the college have no IDEA of providing net !!!

some things never change. :)

>   just 2day  we have pasted ur maill in all the messes and departments....
Thank you!
>  
>   K Gangadhar
>   3/4 BTech CSE

When you are replying, you need to do a 'reply all' so that both
Carthik and Sasidhar get your response. If you are using a web client
like yahoo mail, copy the email addresses from the Cc list of this mail
and paste them in the 'To:' field of the reply

Regards,
Siddharth
.................................................................

          So I would like the CSEA members to throw light on this aspect by organizing necessary
events.


          Finally, Wish you all the best for End Sem


Bye
Gangadhar


     
           
__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com


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Thursday, November 17, 2005

[compilers_nitw] hara prasad(not another forward)

Dataquest India-IDC-NASSCOM Best Indian Tech Schools Survey - IITs Way Ahead of Others and A Few Noticeable Surprises
 
The time of the year is back and we are again viewing frenzied activities amongst the students for getting admission in the best colleges in the country.  As engineering profession enjoys a privileged position in Indian minds getting admission into premier engineering colleges is the most coveted dream for any student and their parents. But with an ever-increasing number of colleges to choose from and lack of any standard means of evaluating these colleges there is a lot of confusion in the student fraternity. “Which college to choose and which one to put on second priority” is the biggest challenge faced by the would-be-engineers and their parents.
 
Appreciating the need, Dataquest India, IDC and Nasscom came together to start a definitive study that would be conducted on an annual basis and would rank different Tech schools on various parameters. To add recruiters view into this study it is decided that perception of IT companies would also be included thereby giving it a more holistic view. The findings of this pioneering exercise are ready now. Here are the highlights.
 
The DQ-IDC-Nasscom survey has taken into account both objective assessment of the institutes and perception of the recruiters. Four broad component of the objective assessment are placement, infrastructure, intellectual capital and industry interface. Total 116 engineering colleges participated in this study from different corners of the country.
 
The top ranks are devoid of any major surprises with IIT Kanpur, IIT Bombay, IIT Madras and IIT Kharagpur getting the top four honors. But the rest in top ten do spring up a few surprises in form of IT BHU, Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology and Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology featuring in them while some ‘perceived’ heavyweights like BITS Pilani & DCE getting knocked out of the top 10 list. IIT Delhi is the only premier institute that is not covered in this exercise as they decided not to participate for some internal reasons.
 
The ranking of top ten T-schools are shown below:
 

Top Ten T-Schools

Overall Rank
RANK BY
Objective Assessment
RANK BY Recruiters' Perception
IIT Kanpur
1
1
1
IIT Bombay
2
2
2
IIT Madras
3
5
4
IIT Kharagpur
4
6
3
IT-BHU Varanasi
5
4
8
IIT Guwahati
6
3
21
NIT Warangal
7
7
12
NIT Trichy
8
8
7
Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, Patiala
9
9
10
Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, New Delhi
10
12
16
 
 
A pleasant surprise is IIT Guwahati, which is ranked 3rd position on objective assessment while it is at 21st position on recruiters’ perception. According to Parijat Chakraborty, Head, User and Communication Research of IDC India, “This new IIT is yet to establish its brand image among the recruiters, as compared to its elder brothers. However, they are doing a better job in putting their houses in order”.
 
An opposite scenario is observed for BITS Pilani. It enjoy an impressive image among the recruiters (5th position) while on objective assessment they score way below at 25th rank.
 
Placements in these engineering institutes have seen a general upturn with the salary increase of 10-15% over last year. IT majors Like Infosys, Wipro & TCS are the top recruiters and in some colleges they have recruited over 100 students by themselves.
 
The complete findings of the survey could be seen in the forthcoming issue of Dataquest magazine, www.dqindia.com.


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Monday, October 31, 2005

Combating Spyware

An Introduction to Spyware
If you believe the stories, the Internet is not a safe place. At every
click, you run the risk of your computer being silently coerced into
giving up passwords, credit card details, and private documents. You
hardly dare visit a new Web site for fear of being targeted by this
malicious software. Fortunately, the reality is somewhat different, and
in this course, you'll learn the truth behind spyware.

WARNING
This course covers concepts and topics in depth that are capable of
causing damage to your computer. Be sure to read the course and follow
instructions with care, especially where malicious software is being
discussed!

First of all, it's important to understand that the term spyware is
often used as a generic catchall category that lumps together a number
of distinctly different software traits. A perfectly normal application
can easily be classified as spyware because of a single function it
performs, when in reality, the function in question is legitimate. For
example, the File menu in Microsoft Word; when you click it, a list of
the most recent documents the application used to access is visible at
the bottom of the menu.

This type of functionality is called a usage tracker and is harmless;
in fact, it enhances your experience and productivity. However, if a
hidden application running on your computer without your knowledge
silently tracks every document you open, and then stores this
information for later use, it's considered malicious.

You'll find out about spam, the other part of this course title, in the
second half of this course.

Web site cookies are an interesting extension of usage tracking; not
only do they allow Web sites to provide personalized interfaces such as
user accounts, but they also allow in-depth tracking of Web browsing
behavior. Adware works on a similar principle and is also generally
harmless, although often irritating. You've probably seen some
shareware or freeware applications that, instead of having limited
functionality to encourage you to register, display context sensitive
advertisements in a window. It's common for shareware applications to
use adware techniques to earn their creators some money through advert
syndication, especially P2P (Peer to Peer) clients such as Kazaa or
eDonkey, shown in Figure 1-1.


Adware

There are a number of privacy concerns with adware, mainly because the
advertisements displayed within the application are retrieved from a
remote server on the Internet. As each advertisement is requested, the
remote server logs your computer's IP (Internet Protocol) address and
the time of the request, as well as other details. If you use the
application over a period of time, the owners of the remote server can
easily do the following:

Build a picture of your usage of the application.
Note the times you're most likely to be at the computer.
Note the length of time you use the application.
Note what you like doing when you use the application.
P2P Clients

P2P clients are also often the source of less innocent, true spyware.
In this case, the term spyware is used to refer to a specific type of
malicious application rather than as a generic term. A common technique
with many of these clients is to silently include a spyware application
within the installation process. The Kazaa P2P client is notorious for
doing this and includes (among other things) an application called
Gator.

Gator is also a Trojan application that masquerades as a legitimate and
useful program when, in reality, it's anything but. It integrates
itself into the operating system and monitors which Web sites are
viewed and which applications are accessed. This information is used to
display pop-up advertisements directly on your desktop, containing
supposed special offers for products that might interest you. One of
the most concerning "features" of Gator is its ability to store
commonly used information for Web page forms. This is great if you want
to save yourself from repeatedly entering your name and e-mail address,
but not so good when Gator remembers your credit card number and gives
it to Web sites without your consent.

Malware

Finally, and most seriously, there's an application category known as
malware. This is software specifically designed to invade your
computer, hijack normal operating system and application functions, and
actively prevent you from removing it. The only difference between
malware and a generic virus is that malware generally makes itself
known through its visibly destructive actions. Some well-known examples
of malware include the C2.Lop program, and the infamous CWS
(CoolWebSearch). Some variants of CWS actually invade the Microsoft
Windows networking subsystem, integrating themselves with the operating
system, which makes them difficult to remove.

The Problem with Spyware

At first glance, the spyware issues may seem quite obvious and easy to
avoid. Unfortunately, the hallmark of really good spyware is that you
don't know you're about to become a victim until it's too late. As
mentioned, although spyware is commonly associated with malicious Web
sites, it quite regularly gets bundled with legitimate software by less
than scrupulous developers. And just to really push the point home,
many software developers include a clause in their EULA (End-User
License Agreement) that prevents you removing the spyware if you want
to continue to use the application. The eDonkey P2P client is just one
example of this.

Although spyware tied to applications is relatively easy to avoid or
disable, Web-based spyware is a whole different game, as discussed in
the following sections.

Browser Hijacking

Web-based spyware usually targets security vulnerabilities within Web
browsers to install itself and modify the browser's functionality. This
is commonly referred to as browser hijacking. The most basic form of
hijacking is home page hijacking. As the name implies, a Web site
author can use JavaScript functions to set a browser's home page to any
Web site he selects. Although this may seem pointless and nothing more
than a minor inconvenience, if the new home page is full of syndicated
advertising banners, the author can quickly generate a lot of money
from hijacking Web browsers. If you're unlucky, the new home page is a
malware download site that infects your computer.

This is probably the most marked difference between spyware and
viruses: Whereas virus writers have to remain anonymous on threat of
prosecution, spyware authors actively publicize and financially benefit
from their malicious actions. The money they earn allows them to hire
expert programmers to create more sophisticated spyware, perpetuating
the cycle. There are a number of companies that actually provide
spyware development services, and will create custom spyware
applications to your specifications. It's a very thin legal line, but
companies continue to try and follow it.

Spyware Categories

Economics drives the entire spyware industry, so it's no wonder that
its creators want to make spyware as hard to remove and avoid as
possible. The vast majority of Web-based spyware falls into one of
three categories:

Toolbar hijacks: The most common types. They place a custom toolbar
within your Web browser that displays advertisements and tracks your
Web browsing.
Functionality hijacks: Prevents your Web browser and operating system
from functioning normally. In some cases, they pop up application
windows and advertisements on your desktop at random.
Dialer applications: Forces your computer to dial premium rate and
international phone numbers at random times.
It's often a fine line between spyware and legitimate software, because
many spyware applications include useful functions. A good example of
this is Alexa, which monitors the Web pages as you browse and displays
links and advertisements related to the page content. Some users may
find this a handy way to find related products and information, whereas
others may consider it annoying and an invasion of privacy. Alexa is
owned by Amazon.com, which does give it some legitimacy.

An Introduction to Spyware Mechanisms
All Web-based spyware is dependent on being able to use features and
security vulnerabilities within a Web browser to infect a computer.
Part of the reason that spyware is difficult to defend against is that
the features used to infect a computer are often the same as those used
by legitimate software to enhance functionality. The first step in
defense is to understand how spyware and malware work.

The life of spyware can be split into the following three stages:

Exploitation: Occurs when a malicious Web site exploits a feature or
security vulnerability in your browser and gains enough access to your
computer to start causing problems. It's an unfortunate fact that Web
browsers, especially Microsoft Internet Explorer, have plenty of
security flaws in them.
Infection: When the payload (the part of the spyware that actually does
the damage) is downloaded to your computer via the security hole
created in stage one.
Operation: Takes place as the spyware completes its tasks, such as
displaying toolbars, sending Web browsing information to its creators,
or dialing premium-rate phone numbers.
Misuse of Features

All Web-based spyware is dependant on being able to exploit features
and security vulnerabilities within a Web browser to infect a computer;
without the features and flaws, infection isn't possible. One of the
most common methods of attack is through ActiveX controls. These are
small programs downloaded to your computer to provide special
functionality not available through basic HTML (Hypertext Markup
Language) script, such as a Web-based interactive pie chart creator.
However, because these are executable programs whose purpose is to
extend the functionality of the Web browser, the developers of these
controls have extensive access to the internals of both Windows and the
Web browser.

Similarly, the active scripting functionality within Internet Explorer
is a two-edged sword. Many security vulnerabilities have been found
within both the ActiveX management system and the active scripting
system, and the access these systems are granted by default makes it
extremely easy for a malicious Web site to infect a computer. Internet
Explorer Security Zones, a topic covered later in the course, are
supposed to prevent these types of security issues, but unfortunately,
even this system has been proven unsecure.

Browser Helpers

Once spyware has exploited a security vulnerability, the payload is
installed on the victim's computer and usually hijacks Web browser
functions. The most common hijack technique is to use a BHO (Browser
Helper Object). A BHO is a DLL (Dynamic Link Library, a special type of
executable file) that has complete control over Internet Explorer,
allowing it to monitor and change anything it wants.

When Internet Explorer starts, it looks through the Registry for all
installed BHOs, and loads each one in turn. Although this may seem
perfect for little other than spyware, it's actually an extremely
useful plug-in system. Download managers and other utilities, such as
FlashGet or GetRight, use BHOs to seamlessly integrate their functions
with Internet Explorer to enhance its functionality. Although BHOs are
commonly associated with toolbars and visible functionality changes,
there's no requirement for this -- it's perfectly possible for a BHO to
be installed and never announce its presence. Perfect for spyware.

Linking Web Browsing and Windows
Other types of hijacking exploit the tight links between Internet
Explorer and Windows. It's common for spyware to use Windows policies
to force the computer to act a certain way; for example, to change the
Internet Explorer home page, and then set a policy to prevent you from
changing back. This type of hijacking can be very difficult to reverse
because it uses the Windows security system. In other words, to remove
it, you actually fight Microsoft's security mechanisms!

Spyware can also use the multiple ways Windows knows to automatically
start an application on boot, ensuring that the spyware is always
running. Once running on a victim computer, many types of spyware
actively seek out antispyware tools and attempt to disable them. They
also manipulate the Windows networking system to prevent the
unfortunate user from even downloading antispyware tools. Many of these
programs are deliberately named to sound like legitimate operating
system files, for example svchost32.exe; the legitimate Windows program
is named svchost.exe and deleting the wrong one can cause serious
damage.

Trojan Web Pages

One problem that's becoming more widespread is the use of Trojan Web
page techniques to keep a computer infected. Newer versions of Windows,
such as Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Windows Server 2003, use
custom Web page interfaces to provide access to operating system
functions. If spyware infects these pages, no matter how many times you
delete the spyware-related executable files and Registry entries that
appear, every time you access the infected management page, the spyware
reinfects your computer. This is a technique used by the CWS malware.

Although this may seem like a desperate situation, things aren't as bad
as they sound. Although spyware is annoying, a security risk, and in
some cases very difficult to get rid of, all is not lost. It's your
computer and you have overall control over it. You can remove most of
the spyware and malware either manually or with an automated tool. Best
of all, most spyware is very well known and removal techniques have
been studied in depth by antispyware researchers. If you do have
spyware, it's not the end of the world.

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Welcome to Blogging

We had a rough time keeping up with all the mails last week and there were a lot of accusations and finger pointings as to what to post and what not ...so heres a blog for u all...post anything u like as much u like no barriers.... if u want to join as a writer to this blog just leave your name branch and email as comment to this post...
happy blogging:)