Monday, October 29, 2007

Amazing Authentication

I came across this amazingly done authentication for website on net the other day.

My brother is in finance company. He has got account in this news site. He has got a user ID password the usual and a card.
The card is of the size of credit card and it got a small screen and a small window, couple of holes and a button. You have to press the button to start the card. Then press your thumb in the finger print window. Not the whole thumb just part of it. The Card will check the print and will go in Sync mode if it is correct print.

Now log on the site with user id and password. On the site the similar card like your will start flashing. Hold your card in front of it. The card will synchronize itself and will show you a 4 digit no. in the small screen it has. You have to type this no. on the site and then you are in.

What really caught my fancy are few things:
1. The site applies two way authentication very cleverly
2. The card validates the print. That would mean you don’t have to carry the device for taking finger print at all places.
Let’s say you go in a café which does not have this device then you are stuck. Not with the card. You don’t need the device.
3. I don’t know if the site keeps database with all finger prints. But validation through card has removed any need of such database. Generally any individual will be very wary of having his fingerprint with some other company. Lest the security is not enough, if the print gets stolen. N no. of possibilities. Plus card authorizing the print also means that the print will not be sent any where through wire. No chance for hackers.
4. How the card synchronizes with site is a question. My guess was the card has photo sensors. Which detect the sequence in which card on site flashes and presents you with a 4 digit no. This is really cool use of technology. Never seen any software using such technique so effectively!
I later found the card uses BUnit personal authentication device. More about it on:
http://www.idsa.org/idea/idea2005/s1201.htm

All in all cool use of technology!

Really Really Liking a Book

When can u say u really really liked a book?

Here is my definition.

You buy a book thinking it will be good.
You start with it and voraciously read it day and night to reach the end as fast as u can. Then u keep it aside.
After few days u feel like reading it again. U tell urself that I will not take long time this time. I will just read out the parts I liked most.
But surprisingly u find urself reading each and every line. Very slowly in laid back attitude. U want to read each and every detail savor it. And u take long long time to finish it up this time.

Ah yeah, then u know u really really liked the book!!

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Down the Memory Lane

Tried to get my room a little neater just so that to make my mummy a little happier. Got the old diaries written, so long back, when I was in school, college. Now a days I hardly write diary, should start that again. Its amazing reading it later on :)

Small, small incidents! So innocent and cute :)

Whenever you look back and see, you feel like you could have done few of the things so very differently. You feel like you were so naïve then. Over reacted, Not reacted, at some times Wrongly reacted! Perceived few things wrongly, or let’s say not so correctly. Things would have been so very different if I would have reacted differently.

And I am quite sure I will feel exactly the same when I will look at today few years down the line. :D :D

Impossible Relationships

“Impossible Relationships…” Louis Edward (Richard Gere) in Pretty woman.

So true!! isn’t it?

Long back I had gone for a cousin’s wedding at my native place. Lot of places to go there, Uncle’s and Aunt’s. Many cousins. I used to roam around whole town whole day. I was sitting in one of the cousin’s place with one more cousin. Three of us were chattering away. My aunt came out asked her daughter if she will take milk. She said “Of course”. She asked me, I said “Well, sure why not?” My aunt didn’t bother to ask third one. She went in, came out with two glasses. I asked my third cousin why she is not taking it? She said she doesn’t want to and went off. I didn’t think of this incident much about that day. Childhood is so innocent. When I think of it today, I realize how mean it was.
Lots and lots of things happened after that. The meanness came out in more ways than one. Today we hardly share any relation with them despite the relation.

A small gesture, a small incident is enough just enough to tell you about the person, to tell you about the future of the relation. Most of the times you just let it be. Some times you do get emotional. You want to stir it in right direction. Some times it will work. Some times it won’t. Some relations will grow in stronger, some not so no strong. We give a chance to few relations while we tend to cut off few while few just fall apart apparently hardly for any reason.

Why? Well no answer to that really. So what remains for you to do is just do what you feel like doing!

In the end what you get to say is just that, “Impossible Relationships!!”

Nature’s Music

I was doing something in the kitchen. Radio was on with quite some volume. And rain started. Big fat rain drops. The radio’s volume was all drowned out in all the rain tapping music. :)

Wow!!

Friday, October 26, 2007

Out of Action

Not been able to update the blog for a while now! N now when I get time it’s because I am not well :(
Being out of office is fun. Really! But not when you are out of action, sitting at home, taking medicines and sleeping off half of your day. I am surprised at my appetite for sleep now. I can actually sleep away whole day! But anyways, I think this is helping me getting well faster. So why not?
Chalo too sleepy to write anything more! :D