NADRA will 'authorise' phone connections?

Heard this on the radio to work: "New cellular phone and landline connections will be given after online verification by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA)," says Interior Minister. The story offers no other details on the statement. So, if NADRA keeps giving a server error for extended periods, does it mean getting a cell or landline connection will become a pain? Could there have been another way to curb "terrorism" through the phones? I thought the ID card copy attached to the forms is supposed to serve as a verification anyways.

This is to announce the sad demise of Suprnova.org.

'They' got em too! Suprnova.org, one of the most popular bittorrent website, will be forever be loved and remembered by the traces of torrent files it has left behind on our harddisks.

Hotmail Reloaded.

Hotmail finally decided to do something for its customers without extorting money from them, and is now offering a 250 MB inbox for new users after a one month verification period, along with 10 MB attachments. However, the older accounts of Hotmail are still stuck at a paltry 2 MB. So do we now have to sign up again to get a larger inbox or are they imposing a one month period for 3 year users of Hotmail as well?

Blogger Confession

“Blogs have turned me into a nervous person. Reading them makes me want to run around in circles squeaking like a beaver,” excuse me, Annalee Newitz says this. I say, “It was already in my heart.” Bloggers! confess this or discuss this.

Habib Bank selects Symantec to secure IT operations

Habib Bank selected Symantec Client Security and Symantec Enterprise and Corporate Anti-Virus Solutions for roll out across 3300 users in the organisation in partnership with IBM Pakistan and IOP. Habib Bank joined Symantec at their executive meeting rooms during the GITEX 2004 exhibition in Dubai held earlier this month. Symantec,the leading company in Internet security services, has worldwide operations in 38 countries.
Source

Federal Cabinet approves Broadband Policy

Quote from a press release: "The Minister for Information Technology Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari on Wednesday unveiled the government's broadband internet policy, setting the stage for what he called 'an affordable, always-on, broadband high-speed internet service' in the corporate and residential sectors across Pakistan.
He also announced reduction in IP bandwidth rates from US$ 3,950 per E1 per month to US$ 2,000 per E1 per month with monthly copper rental for DSL reduced from Rs 771 per month to Rs 250 per month, monthly PRI rental reduced by 50 per cent, domestic bandwidth rates reduced by 25 per cent of the existing prices to facilitate peering services, and DXX connectivity also reduced by up to 63 per cent. 'We expect that as a result of the implementation of this policy, the number of broadband subscribers will increase from the present 29,000 to about 200,000 in about two years as tariffs drop substantially and the number of operators providing broadband services increases rapidly,' said Awais" Really? What do you guys think of the policy?

Story on local IT companies from employees' perspective

Spider is doing a story on the working conditions of IT professional in the local industry. We'd like insight and comments from people working at different software houses/ IT companies/IT departments in Pakistan. We are not approaching the companies directly as we want to hear the employees' point of view.

Payscale

• What's the Initial Payscale for entry level in your organization?
• Whats the payscale for people with experience?
• Does your company have a formal appriasal(pay increase) system? Is it followed? If its not a formal process, do your employers live up to their promises of pay increase?
• Do you get ad hoc or scheduled bonuses in addition to your base salary?
• Do you get any other perks in addition to your base salary e.g. medical insurance, a car, etc.? If yes then, please specify which ones.
• Salary appraisals are [pick one]: Annual, Half-yearly, Quarterly, Ad Hoc.

Work timings

• Usually at what time do you reach home after work when you are on a deadline and under normal circumstances?
• Do you need to work on weekends to complete your assignments? (At least one weekend per month.)
• Do you need to work during later hours of the day (i.e. after sunset or late in the evening) to accommodate activities with international customers?
• Is your job goal-oriented (i.e. need to complete assignments irrespective of the time taken and working hours are generally flexible) or time-oriented (i.e. you work from Xam to Ypm irrespective of the workload)?
• Does your company have a formal policy for off-time (vacations, sick-leave, paid-leave, etc.)?

Organization Structure & HR Issues

• Is your organization partnered with any industry leaders such as Microsoft, Sun, Cisco, etc.? If so, which one(s)?
• Is your company certified under any standard such as ISO or CMM? If so, which one(s)?
• Does your company have a formal, documented employee hierarchy?
• Approx. at what rate does your company hire or induct new manpower. Pick one: Monthly, Quarterly, Half-yearly, Annually, Ad Hoc.
• Does your company make use of internees i.e. people who are in the process of getting a degree and also working in some capacity while they are studying?
• Organizational Stability -hire, fire, quit rate?
• On an average how long do employees stay with your organization?
• How long has the senior most employee been with the organization?
  

Project Management

• Do you have a dual-role as far as working on projects is concerned? E.g. you are a coder and also a technical writer, or an analyst and also a QA person?
• Is the project well managed?
• Does your company have people with specialized job descriptions? Such
• as analyst, coder, tester etc.
• Do you have formal and experienced project managers on your team(s) or does a senior technical person play a dual role?
• Do you use any formal tools for tracking and working on projects e.g. MS Project, bug tracking tools, project communications tools, etc.?
• Does your company's project management function take into account the input of your whole team before drawing up milestones, deadlines and plans, or commit those based on their own judgement? Are the project deadlines realistic?

Any additional comments? Insight?


Send the answers/comments to zq@spider.tm or you can post your comments here.

Please mention the name of your organization, the name of the institute you studied from, along with the year of graduation.This is important so that we know how many different organizations/institutes we have covered and the demographics of those who have responded. If you dont want to be named in the article then please mention that in your mail. I ensure the confidentiality of your mail. The last date for sending in your answers/comments is January 15th 2005.

[more questions added on Dec 23 2004. Thanks Merlinx]

10 Worst Spyware

For those who use Cool Web Search please now know that it's a spyware!

You can read them all here and from this threat list too.

Be warned!

A 'critical' bug in IE 6.0

The bug, which has been confirmed on a fully patched Windows XP system with IE 6.0 and Service Pack 2, could allow a scammer to display a fake Web site with all the attributes of a genuine, secure site, including the URL and the icon indicating SSL security, according to researchers.

"Ordinarily, to spoof a site you have to have some issue on the Web site that you want to manipulate, which restricts what you can do," said Thomas Kristensen, chief technology officer at an independent security firm Secunia. "Because this is embedded in IE by default, it's possible to inject content into any Web site. There's no way for a Web site to protect itself against this."

For example, you go to say, paypal.com. Following best-practices, you even look for the little padlock icon on the bottom right of your Internet Explorer, thinking the website is surely safe. Not so. With this bug exploited, the scammer/hacker can 'hijack' your browser. The address bar will show paypal.com with all its attributes but all the content will be provided by the hacker.

"After you set up Microsoft Windows Firewall in Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), you may discover that your computer can be accessed by anyone on the Internet when you use a dial-up connection to connect to the Internet," Microsoft said in a knowledge base article.

The update was not included—or mentioned—in the five critical updates Microsoft released earlier this week, also mentioned in this blog.

Gary Schare, director of Windows product management at Microsoft, said it was "an unfortunate oversight" that the SP2 update was shipped without notice. Notice to whom?

Anyways, Microsoft did release a patch for the vulnerability after it was found by the security firm Secunia. The patch can be automatically downloaded through Microsoft's updates website.

Most Bloggers Women

Where are the tech savvy women? Word is that women blog more and abandon less than men.

IT-related seminars in Pakistan

How many of you find seminars conducted here useful? Ever attended one? Do you find yourself slouching at the backseat for the heck of attending or looking forward to anything related to "IT" put together in local hotels? Recall any that proved a cut above?

From personal experience, seminars conducted to explain "internet security threats", "ebanking", "ecommerce in pakistan", and "digital divide" have rarely provided anything one hasn't come across on the net. The programs put together by most organization combine "basic definitions" with "case study"--an approach that comes off as very theoritical and dry. My pick: TMT Ventures once hosted a very good roundtable on "VC funding problems and prospects" where the audience was as proactive as the guest speakers.

Yahoo goodies

As strange as it was for consumer electronics giants Philips to re-join the PC market, Yahoo has started branding a few of its own consumer goods.

I was skeptic at first at the idea of seeing a Yahoo DVD player (I mean a Yahoo DVD player!!!) but the designs are really cool.

MSN Web Messenger

Some long time back I posted a link for an online web based MSN Messenger (Messenger on-the go) however there were concerns on the credibility of this non-Microsoft service would save and use your password.

However, worry not Microsoft now offers the same service MSN Web Messenger and you now know your password is safe. Handy if your corporate environment has blocked the MSN port. You can now beat the administrator ;)

Just make sure to allow pop-ups from the site for it to work.

IE losing its market share

All the doomsayers who hoard anti-microsoftism (you are right, it’s not a word) deep within their hearts, rejoice! The market share of Microsoft Internet Explorer has dropped.

More and more people are using alternative browsers like Mozilla’s Firefox and Opera to view the Internet in all its glory.

The total usage share of Microsoft declined 5 percent and the total usage share of Mozilla (the company behind FireFox) increased 5 percent

Yeah, the market share dropped like 5 percent. Microsoft still holds the lead at a comfortable 87-88 percent. Big deal?

'A potential Achilles' heel'

When will the net stop endangering geographical boundaries? This via SQ: 'Former CIA Director George J. Tenet yesterday called for new security measures to guard against attacks on the United States that use the Internet, which he called 'a potential Achilles' heel..."in this age when we still think the Internet is a free and open society with no control or accountability...ultimately the Wild West must give way to governance and control." The director is concerned about more and more organizaitons linking up to the net, making 'the system' vulnerable.

SANS Top 20 Vulnerabilities - The Experts Consensus

These are the top rated vulnerabilities that folks at FBI found. In fact these are two Top Ten lists, one being for the Windows platform and one for the Unix platform.

Another good thing is that it not only shows the problem, it gives out possible fixes and related links. Comprehensive.

I'd say that this list is not for the casual surfer. Reason? Well, most of the TOP vulnerabilities are for stuff like remote access services or web servers like Apache etc, to name a few. Unless of course you run your own servers or the system registery is your playground, you might find all of the list not that helpful. But as expected, web browsers and email and even messengers are on the list of vulnerabilities. It is worth a look...even an attempt at prevention is always better than the cure.

Blogging War - Episode 1

According to eWEEK, MSN is set to launch its own blogging service titled MSN Spaces, which will also allow users to share music lists and photo albums easily. MSN previously launched the Japanese version of MSN Spaces, still in the beta version. I'm personally looking forward to MSN Spaces - hopefully they'll introduce features Blogger has yet to offer. I suppose MSN really is feeling the heat, what with Google's purchase of Blogger. After the recent browser and e-mail wars, maybe a blogging war is next?

NCR: First big-time hire by a tech MNC

NCR, represented in Pakistan by Teradata, have established the first "global consulting" center by a tech multinational. This means that the company no longer just sells software [as most big companies do]. It now supports services for its CRM setup for clients in Middle East, Europe and Africa through skilled techies based in its Islamabad office. 75 locals have been hired and the target is set to reach 150 by next year at the Center of Expertise and Teradata Professional Services. The company also became the first software house to reach CMM Level 5 certification. Sigh. I hope certification speeds up for some players in the industry.

Entries are also invited for the 6th NCR Awards. Deadline: December 22nd. Some categories allow 'self-nomination'. Hurry ;~)