Good article on how to Encrypt partitions using dm-crypt.
– Suramya
May 16, 2005
May 14, 2005
Should privacy end when you die?
I was reading the archives on the GPG mailing list and saw this really interesting conversation going on about what all should you put in a safe to make life simpler for your loved ones in case you die. One of people suggested that you should always put your PGP/GPG key in a safe deposit box so that if anything happens to you your documents etc can be decrypted.
This started me thinking, do I really want people to be able to read my emails/personal correspondence etc when I die? I don’t mind them having access to my financial stuff/legal papers/programs etc but I am not that comfortable with anyone reading my email’s.
The reason is not ’cause I don’t trust my family or friends, its just that my emails/documents might have some stuff that I don’t want people to know about and this cover’s not just my secret’s but other people’s information also. You might ask, What other people’s information? Its your email isn’t it?
Go through your email archive, look for any correspondance you had with a friend that is supposed to be a secret. You might be discussing a person issue with a friend or giving them advice on how to deal with something that they don’t want to have publically known. Or just something thats embarrasing for them. In my case there is a good posibility that I have archives of emails where I discuss some friend’s personal issue with them and that issue is something they don’t want to disclose to anyone. Did you find anything? I sure did. There are a lot of things that you don’t want to tell, or more accurately there are a lot of things that your friends don’t want you to tell.
So what gives me the right to disclose all this information to my survivors when I die? Just because I am dead doesn’t de-classify the information. The person whose secret it is might still want to keep it that way. So what do you do in such a case? Do you remove the ability of your family to access your emails/diaries etc to protect the secrets, denying then the pleasure of remembering you by reading stuff you wrote, your thoughts etc, or do you go ahead and tell all?
What would you do? There is no one solution for this and I am sure people can argure about this both ways. If you have some time do post a comment and let me know what you think about this issue.
– Suramya
May 13, 2005
Had fun at Surabhi’s Birthday
Yesterday (12th May) was my sister Surabhi’s 22nd birthday. Its hard to believe that she is 22 (Maybe ’cause she usually acts like a10 year old on a sugar high)…
We (Vinit, me and Surabhi) cut the first cake at 12 am on the 12th. Since it was late only the 3 of us were there for the first cake cutting. But we did celebrate her birthday properly by going for dinner at Olive Garden on Route 3. It is a great restaurant and the food there is amazing. We got there at 9:45 pm and were joined by Piet, Emily, Pranav, Reema, Sandeep, Hanny and his Girlfriend.
Spent a good 2 hours enjoying the food and the conversation. Then drove home to cut the second cake. After the cake was cut we all stayed up till 2 am talking. Then since everyone had work the next day they all decided to split. I did take a lot of pics and will post them sometime soon.
Now I am tired but can’t sleep. Let see what I can do to pass time till I fall asleep.
– Suramya
May 12, 2005
Web Browser Forensics
The following article on SecurityFocus teaches you how to perform a basic forensic analysis of web-browsers and find the information they cache about our surfing habits.
Article Part 1: Web Browser Forensics, Part 1
Article Part 2: Web Browser Forensics, Part 2
– Suramya
General update of my life
Hi Everyone,
As some of you probably have noticed I havn’t been posting stuff on my blog for the past few weeks. It has been a crazy couple of weeks and I blame: Lazyness -> Lack of time -> Lack of sleep (In that order) for the delay in posting stuff on the site.
Site Update:
Site is back to normal. Working on the new versions of the various scripts I wrote (IM2Email, Collage Generator) and should have the new versions up soon.
Life Update:
These past few weeks have been especially good as I have gotten back in touch with friends I hadn’t talked to in over 5-7 years. first I met-up with Karishma (We were in 11th & 12th together) for lunch 2 weeks ago as she is also working in NY right now. The funny part was that we have both been in NY or the tristate area for the past 2 years(5 years for me) but neither of us knew about the other person being in NY. We had a awesome time catching up with each other’s lives. I did take a camera with me to the meeting but got so caught up in talking that forgot to take any pics. 🙁
The got in touch with Shashank (we were in 9th and 10th grade together) on Yahoo Messenger. It was nice chatting with him after such a long time. Wish I could have met him Face 2 face also but he is in India right now so unfortunately that isn’t possible right now.
Weekend Update (7th May – 8th May):
Drove to DC for Ruth’s graduation. Me and Vivek left NY at 3:45 am on Sunday and got to DC at 7:15 am after driving nonstop the entire way. Attended the graduation, had lunch roamed the city, had dinner and slept for a few hours and then left from DC at 4:00 am to arrive in NY at 7:30 am. Unfortunately both of us had work so we left for work almost immediately. (I will post a more detailed version of the trip in the Photogallery when I post the graduation pics)
As you can guess a lot more happened during this time but I don’t feel like typing it all out. If you are very curious email me and I might tell you about it.
– Suramya
May 11, 2005
New article posted
Hi Everyone,
Just finished writing a new article on How to Install Debian from Scratch and have posted it in the Linux Tutorial’s section of the site. Debian From Scratch (DFS) is a special version of Debian which gives the user complete control over what software is installed and where it is installed. Think of it as Linux From Scratch install but with the Debian advantages (Ease of maintainence, installation etc).
Since DFS give so much control over what is installed where on the system its esp suited for servers as there are no unwanted programs installed which in turn makes it easier to harden the server
Check out the article and let me know what you think.
– Suramya
Tools to display Folder Permissions in Windows
Tools that will display group and user permissions on a set of folder:
– Suramya
May 10, 2005
CSS Cheat Sheet
ilovejackdaniels.com has shared this really neat CSS cheat sheet shown below.
Thanks for shaing guys 
CSS Cheat Sheet:
– Suramya
May 9, 2005
May 8, 2005
Monitor Per protocol/port bandwidth usage
These programs will generate a per protocol/port bandwidth usage information on a given server:
– Suramya