Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

This is just a rant on how the war on Terror is affecting our regular lives.

Those of you who know me know that I love taking photos. I used to take photographs at the drop of a hat of anything and everything I found interesting. But now I am scared to do so. You never know when some idiot is going to decide that you are a terrorist because you are dark skinned male in his 20’s and doing something thats too complicated for his/her tiny brain to comprehend…

A couple of days ago I was driving back to New Jersey from New York via one of the tunnels and I saw the machine they use to clean the tunnel walls and I wanted to take a picture of it as its something unique and interesting. Surabhi and Vinit both told me not to because photography is prohibited in the tunnel and that it might get me in trouble so I didn’t take the photo, but I wanted to… and will always regret that I couldn’t. Whats there in the tunnel that I would capture with my camera phone that I couldn’t find on the internet? There are photos available online of the entire system and its not like the stupid thing changes every year…

When I took a photograph of an interesting advertisement I saw on the subway station a few days ago I actually stopped and thought about whether it was safe to take a photo of a stupid poster without getting in trouble. How bad is that? A couple of years ago I wouldn’t have even thought about it and would have clicked multiple pics from different angles. Now I had to look around make sure no one was paying attention and then take the picture. Basically I had to hide what I was doing… which I shouldn’t have to, I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

Then on my way back I was reading the PATH Rules and regulations (What can I say… I was bored) and they have some serious restrictions on taking photos in the Path station also. According to the rules I can’t take a photo in the path train without being accompanied by a PATH employee and after having filled out a bunch of paperwork. How sad is that? I agree with the fact that they won’t let you take pics of the emergency gear and the control systems but whats wrong with me taking a photo of me and my friends sitting in the PATH on my way to having a good time in the city? Though to be honest I haven’t been stopped by anyone yet.

Whats especially annoying is that we are missing out on so much… If this goes on and more and more photographers stop taking photos then the future generations won’t be able to look at how the local subway/shop looked a generation ago. They won’t have any pictures/references of the daily life of everyday people all they will have for reference are the glam shots and the posed pictures which are approved. This would suck…

The spontaneous photographers give you an unrehearsed snapshot of a particular moment. I hate taking posed pictures as I rarely like the way they come out. The best pictures I have taken are the spur of the moment random shot of something that looks interesting, of someone doing something silly or just a person going on with their life naturally. It gives you an deep insight into human nature. Think about it, if a person knows that they are about to be photographed they will act differently no matter how hard they try to be casual and act normal. It shows in the picture. A spontaneous photograph is a photo of a person/object that is taken when the subject is going on with its daily life. Its natural and it shows. Its an art form and unfortunately its dying.

The worst part is that I am staying in New York and the photo opportunities over here are endless and I can’t take it… 🙁 Well its the same thing in any major city but… you know what I mean. New York is unique. Though Delhi also has some amazing photo opportunities and the next time I am there I will have my new camera so will photograph everything. Just wait and see…

– Suramya

Interesting post about problems that can be caused when a person dies without sharing their passwords. I have posted about this earlier over here

The main issue I have with sharing passwords is privacy, do I really want people to be able to access my data when I am dead?

Lets say I share my password with someone with instructions to only use it when I am dead, how can I be sure that one they they won’t get bored and start going through my emails/documents… Before you say anything, yes I have a low opinion of everyones honesty (including mine). I wouldn’t want to be the one that someone decides to share a password with.

Another issue is that I change my passwords constantly and at any given time I have ~ 5-6 (Probably more) different passwords in use. I have a hard time memorizing them so I expect others will have a harder time and since no one wants to memorize anymore useless data they will probably write it down somewhere. Now if their system gets compromised my data is also at risk because they wrote the passwords down which is not cool.

One of the solutions people suggested was to use a dead mans switch. Basically in that case if you don’t do something for X no of days your info/password is sent to someone. Its an interesting idea but the problem with this approach is that; what if I don’t log on to the system for X days because I got busy or forgot or was on vacation. It would still send out the data to everyone because I didn’t log on. I guess in the future we can have a device that can monitor a person’s heart beat or brainwaves and then when all activity stops it opens up the information but for now we are stuck with a manual process.

When I am dead people can feel free to go through my documents and most of my computer files. The stuff I don’t mind sharing is already unencrypted but the stuff thats encrypted has been encrypted for a reason. If I wanted to share it, it would have been unencrypted. The same goes for my email. I can think of no reason why someone would want to go through my emails when I am dead and no I don’t think I will get murdered with the one clue to identify the killer in my email.

What are your thoughts about this? Do you have a dead mans switch or something that will open your data to everyone when you die? If so why? If not, are you planning to?

Source: Schneier on Security: Dying with your Passwords

– Suramya

A couple of days ago I was talking to Surabhi and she said something to the effect of how come you don’t post stuff like you used to on your blog… you know stuff like how you feel about something or what you think about it? So I was like, hmm good question. Guess I haven’t been thinking much about stuff recently, or when I have I got too lazy to post about it.

So here’s some of my thoughts on Movie Piracy:

Last week I went and saw X-Men: The last stand. Yes I actually went to the theatre to watch it. The big deciding factor was that it actually released in India at about the same time it released in the US. I like watching movies and I don’t want to wait for over 1-2 months for a movie I want to watch to be released in India.

One of the examples is: Underworld: Evolution. I really wanted to watch this movie. I had been waiting for a while for the movie to come out and when it finally released I checked the local movie listings to find a theatre that was playing it… Guess what? It hadn’t been released in India yet. I waited for almost a month before giving up and watching it online. I wanted to see it in the theater but since it took almost 3 months (give or take a couple of weeks) for it to come out in India and by then I had already seen it elsewhere and thus didn’t go watch it in theater. If they had released it at the same time I would have seen it in the theater.

Another example, during X-Men they were showing the trailer for ‘The Punisher’ and I was like why are they showing the trailer for a movie that old… then at the end of the trailer a message came up that said ‘Coming soon to a theater near you…’ and thats when I realized that it hadn’t been released in India yet. What the hell… The movie is more than 6 months old. Why don’t they release it world wide at the same time? If not the same time then release it within a couple of weeks. So that people like me who actually want watch the movie will watch it in theaters instead of downloading it.

Other than the delayed launch another big issue is censorship in India. You take any movie and you will find that its been chopped up like anything and its not just the nudity vulgar scenes (Those I can understand.. somewhat) its cutting up stuff like jokes, fights anything the censor department felt like. Case in point: Bad Boy’s II. The movie is a Action/Comedy movie correct? If you ask someone in India who saw it on the big screen they will be like ‘What comedy’ the movie was an action movie. Guess what? the censors chopped out all the jokes in the movie… and the movie ended up making no sense.

Watching the X-Men I got the feeling that some of the scenes in the movie didn’t quite flow together so I think the censors might have taken a go at it also… Wont’ know for sure till I get the DVD and watch it.

So in my opinion why is movie piracy so strong in India:

1. The movies are launched in India a long time after their launch in the US. People don’t want to wait to see the movie.

2. The movies are censored so much that it doesn’t make any sense anymore.

3. The ticket prices are high (My dad suggested this reason. Not sure I agree with it).

What do you think?

Thanks,
Suramya