Login with an additional security layer…

I have recently come across a security layer implementation on several websites, specially where you may have your PII (personally identifiable information) stored. I am curious to understand how it is going to help the hackers. The way the instructions were given to

setup this information are as follows:

1. setup a user id and password
2. answer one or three questions – a way to remember and recognize you as you.
3. provide an image or a text that you know and possibly an information that you provide the website to recognize you or for you to recognize you are logging into the right site.
4. when you login the next time you would enter the username and the password (provide your credentials) and proceed further. At this time you would be prompted with the key (either text or an image) that you had picked during setup process, and you proceed further saying you recognize it.

 

well, unless otherwise I missed reading the instructions right, this might help for an end user to trust the site so possibly avoid phishing situation to an extent, but this may not help for a website to know if it is a genuine user logging in. Applications provides the clear text key or an image, and the user can proceed further.

Do you have any insights as whey this kind of authentication is used?

When I read wrong, please tell me….

My daughter has learned this somehow, I don’t know from where she did, but when she is reading a book, or tells a story from the book (from the pictures in the book), she wants to make sure she reads it right, that she conveys her thoughts right. She appears to be so open to get the feedback from us, and asks us to let her know and correct her when she reads wrong.

It is interesting that not many grown-ups are that open when they are doing things and most often we think we are doing right, and We don’t feel good to receive any feedback. Understood, both giving and receiving feedback is an art and add something called ego to it, makes it so hard to be able to openly give or receive feedback. I think it is also, to some extent, a “trust factor” – how well you trust a person who is giving you a feedback.

Mommy can you please watch me color….

I am often amazed looking at the children that most grown-ups tend to be more self centered and so much self-conscious that we tend to hate others watching over our shoulders. If you are a software developer, you are most likely be self-conscious on who watches over your shoulder.

When we are home and my 4yr old is in the mood of activities, be it writing numbers, alphabets, some addition, or coloring or playing with toys etc., she always wants us to watch over her. She wants our attention to be on her all the time. She makes us to play roles, making us her teachers at school or making us her classmates, and so on.

She starts coloring and gets makes sure to set the checkpoints and ensures she has our attention. “mommy, can you please watch me coloring”, “mommy, can you please watch me writing a,b,c,d…” etc etc…

At the end of the task she brings her work for review . There is a lot that we can learn our forgotten lessons from children.

"baski hodeyodhu" sit-ups or in other words "SuperBrain yoga"

 

hmm.. apparently we thought this so-called exercise, that we were given in our school days –

both in schools and at home, as a punishment. I would go to school a little late, and we would two kinds of punishments when we missed the very first part of the school, which is Prayer session. 1. Run around the field for two complete rounds 2. perform this sit-ups that we used to call “baski” in kannada.

Well, it was indeed treated as a punishment back then.

(picture source: h t t p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSwhpF9iJSs)

Other instance when we would Perform was before Lord Ganesh as part the prayer – at home and at hindu temples. performing this for 21 times is a general practice. As kids we never knew there was a scientific reason behind such an activity. Although growing up, we learned that there are nerve endpoints in ear lobes that helps triggering the brain activities.

It is now both funny and interesting to see this is being named as “Super Brain Yoga” and would be interesting to learn who is filing a Patent on this discovery!!

I am sure the number “21 times” would also have some scientific significance. A related context i remember is, if a new activity to become a habit, you must continue performing the activity for 21 days. I can relate this 21 times to the “5-minutes-a-day” as the put across in the attached video and it takes aobut 5 minutes to perform this activity 21 times.

Interestingly, wikipedia does not have any entry about this brain yoga yet.

Store groceries in transparent containers….

Recently received an email about seeing a dead mouse in a bag of lentils. A person bought a 8lb bag of toor dhal took out some to prepare food, and poured the remaining to a canister. While doing so, noticed something unusual and figured it was a dead little mouse. hmm… that’s not good. glad they took it back to the store and communicated an issue to the distributors or packing company.

At times, it might be an accident that things get into the sacks of grains at the packing locations, however the best thing that we can do from our side to be cautious is, I think to have these poured into our own transparent canisters (like this person did) so contents can be visible and we be alert before cooking them.

Moral: Pour the grains out of the non-transparent bag into a transparent air tight containers before using any part of it.

How ’bout a virtual personal assistant…

… for our everyday routine tasks? The one who can recognize us and be there to get routine electronic stuffs for us? Noticed a write-up on Seattle-PI – [http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/401934_msftintel02.html] that mentions about a potential software product that acts as a virtual personal assistant and helps us in our tasks. That would be great. Few excerpts from the article:

“ability to make sophisticated decisions about the people in front of her, judging things such as their attire, whether they seem impatient, their importance and their preferred times for appointments“

“Intel is working to bring similar levels of processing power down to tiny chips that can fit into just about any device“

“elevator that senses when you are in the midst of a conversation and keeps its doors open until you are done talking” –> that’s a great idea, however, i wonder if other people waiting for elevator would get annoyed with this approach.

finally, what is exciting was
“… this as a $10 billion potential market that will give rise to 15 billion brainy devices by 2015“

more … http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/401934_msftintel02.html

Economy and Housing …

I came across a post on Hannah’s blog post pointing to a video that describes / narrates

several people [link] living in Tents having lost their home, job, cars, etc.. This is probably the worst of the economy I have seen.

Few days ago, there was a similar conversation about this kind of situation and some one said, there might be a day when we open the news papers and see “these many have given up their lives to get away from whatever their situation.” Well, that’s a failure to think that route. I believe NOW is the time we need to get creative. Necessity Influences Creativity. What kind of businesses are able to weather this turbulence?  We often see people getting together and help each other at the times of natural disasters like earthquakes and floods. I think this is another disaster and situation gets better, and looks like we need to pay the price.

BangaloreBlues has a post about small business / local convenience stores. He says “Looks like the smaller businesses have survived better ”

What are some right things people can do to survive and get back to warm homes in addition to looking for their jobs in this situation? Agreed it depends on their skill set and willingness to perform the task.

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