The Myth of the New India

#185 more like mohd attas achievement shows arab achivement in highh-rize civil engineering

going by zeemax`s logic, mohd atta invented planes....

zeemax: you know squat about these things..you wouldn`t know a computer virus from a virus that crawled up your rear when I pointed out the simple fact that pakiland has no infosys,wipro, tcs etc..

please don`t make yourself look like a bigger idiot than you already are..

you need to pick up computers for dummies..in the meantime, read this

A program called ``Elk Cloner`` is credited with being the first computer virus to appear ``in the wild`` -- that is, outside the single computer or lab where it was created. Written in 1982 by Rich Skrenta, it attached itself to the Apple DOS 3.3 operating system and spread by floppy disk.

The first PC virus was a boot sector virus called (c)Brain, created in 1986 by two brothers, Basit and Amjad Farooq Alvi, operating out of Lahore, Pakistan. The brothers reportedly created the virus to deter pirated copies of software they had written.[1] However, analysts have claimed that the Ashar virus, a variant of Brain, possibly predated it based on code within the virus.

zee, why are you being proud of negative achievememts like virus productions? next you will be proud of minars of pajabi skulls that the central asian invaders erected.

Lol ... you head-waggers ... I see the Burnol didn`t work!

Do you really think that two brothers from Chah Miran, who had never had any IT education nor had ever been abroad, who had in fact first first seen a computer in 1982, had even known about and much less read the theories of Fred Cohen etc you nicompoops invoke? These two guys were geniuses as you`ll see below. Time magazine chased after them all the way to Iqbal Town, Lahore ....LoL

History:
Some ten years ago, two unknown brothers from ``Chahmiran`` a lower middle class area of Lahore shot to prominence as a brief message started to flash across thousand of computer screens in the USA. ``Welcome to the Dungeon (c) 1986 Basit * Amjad (pvt) Ltd. BRAIN COMPUTER SERVICES 730 NIZAM BLOCK ALLAMA IQBAL TOWN LAHORE-PAKISTAN PHONE: 430791,443248,280530. Beware of this VIRUS.... Contact us for vaccination...`` In no time at all, corporate America was in a fix. Unsure of what the message meant, or what its implications could be, American computer users panicked and the tiny 3.5 kilobyte virus was immediately dubbed as the first alien assault on American computer culture. As Ross Monroe of Time magazine shuttled between Singapore, Delhi and Lahore, desperately trying to figure out the size of the `story`, the architects of the Brain virus were completely unaware of their handiwork. Amjad, Shahid and Basit Alvi, the three co-directors of Brain Computer Services, were too busy trying to expand their share of the tiny but rapidly growing computer market in Pakistan to notice what their little virus had led to. ``When we were contacted by Time magazine, we were extremely surprised at panic it had caused,`` says Basit the youngest of the Alvi brothers. `` In fact, we were quite amused since the panic was totally unnecessary.`` That, however, was not how Time magazine had described the proliferation of the Brian virus. `` Bah!`` retorts Basit. ``Since that episode, we have lost all faith in the western media. They quoted us out of context, put words in our mouths and did just about everything that you would expect from a cheap local publication run by one`s arch rival. When we read the story we could hardly believe that it was carried in what is supposed to be the best newsmagazine in the world. It was journalism at its yellowest.`` Basit`s contempt is not unfounded. What no American journal had the courage to admit at that time was how badly the virus had hurt America`s painfully cultivated image of the world`s leading copyright protector. Almost overnight, it had shown Americans to be the world`s biggest copyright violators. Every time the virus found a new home in the USA, it signalled one more copyright violation by an American. The stair created by the Brain virus dies down as soon as American realized that they were only hurting themselves by calling for action against the authors. But for the Alvi brothers, it marked the beginning of one of Pakistan`s most innovative computer service bureaus. It was only in 1982 that the middle of the Alvi brothers, Amjad, first came across a real PC. Before this, computers for the three brothers had only existed in flashy magazines that Amjad used to scrounge from the various kabarias in Lahore. In 1982, Sinclair, a British company, was introducing personal computers in Pakistan and since its distributors in Pakistan were mainly businessmen, there was no technical back up available. Amjad Alvi went to a small office at Empress Road, which was selling Sinclair computers, just to look at the wares and soon realised that the people in the office did not look too happy with the merchandise. The reason: too many clients had returned with machines that had stopped functioning properly and the company had no means of repairing them. Relying purely on his native intelligence and interest in electronics, Amjad offered to help and within three days he fixed the first machine. The next thing Amjad knew was that he had become a regular repair facility for Al-Khair. ``We were all very excited and although we only made 3,000 rupees in all those months that we worked for Al-Khair, we were finally amongst computers,`` remembers Shahid. In those days, there was only two-computer vendor in Lahore, both of which were operating without any technical assistance. The Brain Computer Services soon became the only reliable installers and trouble-shooters on the home computer scene. This situation persisted till 1986, when BCS was turned into a full-fledged company and the Alvi brothers started to import their own hardware. Their reputation served them well and Amjad soon flew off to Singapore where he took up a job as a system support manager while using his free time to export computers to Pakistan. ``By 1989 we were doing quite well and could finally turn to matters other than making money,`` says Shahid. ``We had always regarded ourselves as missionaries in this business and not just profit-oriented businessmen.`` The first step in these ``other matters`` for the Alvi brothers was to provide free e-mail services to all those who purchased their hardware from them. ``We started at a time when many computer users in Pakistan did not even know what e-mail was. Some even refused this facility because they simply could not believe its low operating cost. They thought we were trying to con them,`` recalls Shahid. E-mail soon caught on in the Lahore and the next step for the Alvi brothers was the Internet. Needless to say, they were among the first Internet providers in Pakistan and their current projects is to extend the Internet facilities to 10 major and 20 small cities of in Pakistan with the help of Pakistan Telecom. ``Our aim, indeed our mission, is to spread Internet as far as we can,`` says Basit. ``We are trying to make it as cheap as possible.`` Critics, however, point out that their service is by no means the cheapest on the market. However, this mission may be difficult to realise in the near future, because of the utterly whimsical duty structure that the Pakistani authorities have developed for computers. To bypass the need for a reasonably powerful computer if one is to surf the net, the Alvi brothers are setting up an Internet research center which, to begin with, will have 20 terminals for researchers. It will operate like a library with its regular members entitled to use it whenever they need to. The scheme sounds a little like the cybercafe in the West and the Alvi brothers are certain that it will catch on in Pakistan as well. ``Our experience has taught us that the Pakistanis are very good at understanding technology. They are a great people to take to new technologies provided one can get them going.`` Once their cybercafe is underway the next step on the Alvi brothers` agenda will the Intranet, an exclusively Pakistani facility which all subscribers can surf free of cost. Towards this end, they have started working on E1 Internet line in a joint venture with Singapore Telecom as their Internet backbone, which will bring this facility to another 10,000 Pakistanis. ``But we must keep one thing in mind,`` warns Shahid. ``No matter how hard we work on spreading the net, the real job can only be done by the government. Unless the government takes it upon itself to turn the net into a premier mode of communication for Pakistanis, any number of private concerns will only be able to do that much.``

Now please stop the head-wagging and let me leave. Go squat on railway tracks. You`ll never be intellectually superior to Paks.

Re: krishna_abcd #180

FWIW, ideas of self-replicating programs date back at least to von Neumann. The existence of such programs is a consequence of Kleene’s Recursion Theorem. Ken Thompson’s widely read 1984 Turing Award Lecture shows how to use ideas of self-replication to bootstrap a Trojan Horse into a compiler in a way that would be very difficult to detect. These ideas had wide currency for decades before those two clowns in Lahore wrote that stupid virus.

Below is a timeline for computer viruses. The first viruses were NOT written by Pakis. Also, the theory and the practice was already well known at the time they wrote their virus - the difference is that they wrote it for the MS-DOS system, so it was not a ``discovery`` or ``invention``.

The ``bootstrap`` system is the method by which OS code copies or replicates itself - it is typical of ANY computer - that`s how the OS is read off of a boot disk or CD - the Pakis did NOTHING new.

Somehow, it does not surprise me that two Pakis should have been interested in writing malicious code that harms millions of computers. There is something just right about that.



1949
Theories for self-replicating programs are first developed.

1981
Apple Viruses 1, 2, and 3 are some of the first viruses “in the wild,” or in the public domain. Found on the Apple II operating system, the viruses spread through Texas A&M via pirated computer games.

1983
Fred Cohen, while working on his dissertation, formally defines a computer virus as “a computer program that can affect other computer programs by modifying them in such a way as to include a (possibly evolved) copy of itself.”

1986
Two programmers named Basit and Amjad replace the executable code in the boot sector of a floppy disk with their own code designed to infect each 360kb floppy accessed on any drive. Infected floppies had “© Brain” for a volume label.

1987
The Lehigh virus, one of the first file viruses, infects command.com files.

1988
One of the most common viruses, Jerusalem, is unleashed. Activated every Friday the 13th, the virus affects both .exe and .com files and deletes any programs run on that day.
MacMag and the Scores virus cause the first major Macintosh outbreaks.

1990
Symantec launches Norton AntiVirus, one of the first antivirus programs developed by a large company.

1991
Tequila is the first widespread polymorphic virus found in the wild. Polymorphic viruses make detection difficult for virus scanners by changing their appearance with each new infection.

1992
1300 viruses are in existence, an increase of 420% from December of 1990.
The Dark Avenger Mutation Engine (DAME) is created. It is a toolkit that turns ordinary viruses into polymorphic viruses. The Virus Creation Laboratory (VCL) is also made available. It is the first actual virus creation kit.

1994
Good Times email hoax tears through the computer community. The hoax warns of a malicious virus that will erase an entire hard drive just by opening an email with the subject line “Good Times.” Though disproved, the hoax resurfaces every six to twelve months.

1995
Word Concept becomes one of the most prevalent viruses in the mid-1990s. It is spread through Microsoft Word documents.

1996
Baza, Laroux (a macro virus), and Staog viruses are the first to infect Windows95 files, Excel, and Linux respectively.

1998
Currently harmless and yet to be found in the wild, StrangeBrew is the first virus to infect Java files. The virus modifies CLASS files to contain a copy of itself within the middle of the file`s code and to begin execution from the virus section.
The Chernobyl virus spreads quickly via .exe files. As the notoriety attached to its name would suggest, the virus is quite destructive, attacking not only files but also a certain chip within infected computers.
Two California teenagers infiltrate and take control of more than 500 military, government, and private sector computer systems.

1999
The Melissa virus, W97M/Melissa, executes a macro in a document attached to an email, which forwards the document to 50 people in the user`s Outlook address book. The virus also infects other Word documents and subsequently mails them out as attachments. Melissa spread faster than any previous virus, infecting an estimated 1 million PCs.
Bubble Boy is the first worm that does not depend on the recipient opening an attachment in order for infection to occur. As soon as the user opens the email, Bubble Boy sets to work.
Tristate is the first multi-program macro virus; it infects Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files.

2000
The Love Bug, also known as the ILOVEYOU virus, sends itself out via Outlook, much like Melissa. The virus comes as a VBS attachment and deletes files, including MP3, MP2, and .JPG. It also sends usernames and passwords to the virus`s author.
W97M.Resume.A, a new variation of the Melissa virus, is determined to be in the wild. The “resume” virus acts much like Melissa, using a Word macro to infect Outlook and spread itself.
The “Stages” virus, disguised as a joke email about the stages of life, spreads across the Internet. Unlike most previous viruses, Stages is hidden in an attachment with a false “.txt” extension, making it easier to lure recipients into opening it. Until now, it has generally been safe to assume that text files are safe.
“Distributed denial-of-service” attacks by hackers knock Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, and other high profile web sites offline for several hours.

2001
Shortly after the September 11th attacks, the Nimda virus infects hundreds of thousands of computers in the world. The virus is one of the most sophisticated to date with as many as five different methods of replicating and infecting systems. The “Anna Kournikova” virus, which mails itself to persons listed in the victim`s Microsoft Outlook address book, worries analysts who believe the relatively harmless virus was written with a “tool kit” that would allow even the most inexperienced programmers to create viruses. Worms increase in prevalence with Sircam, CodeRed, and BadTrans creating the most problems. Sircam spreads personal documents over the Internet through email. CodeRed attacks vulnerable webpages, and was expected to eventually reroute its attack to the White House homepage. It infected approximately 359,000 hosts in the first twelve hours. BadTrans is designed to capture passwords and credit card information.

2002
Author of the Melissa virus, David L. Smith, is sentenced to 20 months in federal prison. The LFM-926 virus appears in early January, displaying the message “Loading.Flash.Movie” as it infects Shockwave Flash (.swf) files. Celebrity named viruses continue with the “Shakira,” “Britney Spears,” and “Jennifer Lopez” viruses emerging. The Klez worm, an example of the increasing trend of worms that spread through email, overwrites files (its payload fills files with zeroes), creates hidden copies of the originals, and attempts to disable common anti-virus products. The Bugbear worm also makes it first appearance in September. It is a complex worm with many methods of infecting systems.

2003
In January the relatively benign “Slammer” (Sapphire) worm becomes the fastest spreading worm to date, infecting 75,000 computers in approximately ten minutes, doubling its numbers every 8.5 seconds in its first minute of infection. The Sobig worm becomes the one of the first to join the spam community. Infected computer systems have the potential to become spam relay points and spamming techniques are used to mass-mail copies of the worm to potential victims.

2004
In January a computer worm, called MyDoom or Novarg, spreads through emails and file-sharing software faster than any previous virus or worm. MyDoom entices email recipients to open an attachment that allows hackers to access the hard drive of the infected computer. The intended goal is a “denial of service attack” on the SCO Group, a company that is suing various groups for using an open-source version of its Unix programming language. SCO offers a $250,000 reward to anyone giving information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the people who wrote the worm.
An estimated one million computers running Windows are affected by the fast-spreading Sasser computer worm in May. Victims include businesses, such as British Airways, banks, and government offices, including Britain`s Coast Guard. The worm does not cause irreparable harm to computers or data, but it does slow computers and cause some to quit or reboot without explanation. The Sasser worm is different than other viruses in that users do not have to open a file attachment to be affected by it. Instead, the worm seeks out computers with a security flaw and then sabotages them. An 18-year-old German high school student confessed to creating the worm. He`s suspected of releasing another version of the virus.

zeemax #170

`` I had been responding honestly to your questions assuming these were genuine. However, by the above remark you have exposed yourself to be a typical hindu bigot.

Piss off.``

Explain to me what is bigoted in my below remarks.

`` On a side note
5. they suck the oxygen of the professionals job market in USA/UK - we will see how many Pakistanis born after 1980 make it big in USA. ``

Competition from Indians and Chinese makes it hard. Sep-11 does not help Pakistanis in USA. All the success stories you mention are folks who graduated in the 1970s and 1980s.

If members of the Pakistani elite cannot get their sons and daughters into cushy professional (medical or high paying engineering/management) jobs in USA
and UK) what other options do they have ?

Tell me how a conservative Pakistani who wants his wife to be at home is going to live in Siicon Valley especially given outrageous housing costs.

#176 by dost-mittar

Well .. guess both of us are right in our own way. I agree with your examples of, say Tata Indica which I believe they`re now going to franchise to small manufacturers, which I think is a simply wonderful idea. Godspeed to them and other innovative entrepreneurs of India.

To conclude, I will say that the fundamental difference in yours and mine respective approaches, crystallized through this exchange are as follows:

-Your approach is that accelerated growth is only achieved through un-leashing the entrepreneurial spirit of the people, not the state sector. This is agreed.

-My approach is that un-leashing of the entrepreneurial spirit of the people indeed results in accelerated growth, but is not in the larger and long-term interests of a large and mostly unskilled/uneducated population, till the time an acceptable level of overall human development is achieved. Where profit is the sole motive, benefits centre around a certain class, and ultimately result in oligarchies.

Rgds.

P.S. I find it rather tragic that you are a consultant for the Candian Government, but the Indian Government has not found fit to benefit from your services.

#157 by zeemax

However, I think I`ve proven my point that Pakistani techies are far, far superior to Indian techies.

Yaar Zee, where are the brilliant and far, far superior to Indian techies Paki techies?

Microsoft Imagine Cup: India team bags prize

Excerpt:

``India`s Team Avengers comprising Mohit Bhargava and Mitushi Jain bagged the 3rd prize in the Interface Design category.``

zeemax#143:

I think that people underestimate the importance of common sense. Personally, I am skeptical about any theory, however beautiful, if it does not make sense to me. Marx`s theory is a perfect example: it is beautiful and promises you a paradise on earth where the state will provide everyone with what he needs and only ask him to contribute according to his capacity; eventually there would be no need even for a state which would wither away in a communist state. The only problem was that Marx overlooked common sense, that people are motivated to work by either greed or fear and not necessarily by loftier motives; soon after communist takeover, Stalin realised this fact and introduced incentives such as ``Stakhnov award``.

I think that work ethic is not independent of external environment faced by individuals. Chinese were universally criticised as opium induced lazy bums only a generation or two ago, until Mao to his credit changed the culture of that nation. Even in India, people who visit places like Infosys or Hundyai auto plants cannot stop praising the work ethics displayed by workers there - it`s all a question of right incentives and managerial talent. And believe me, I have seen enough gora protestant time-servers during my working life in the Canadian government to doubt the validity of the Protestant work ethic.

As regards the Indian automotive industry, it was stuck in the 1950s until the Suzuki people came along and started assembing Maruti with CKD kits and gradually moving into 100 per cent indigenous production. If Birlas and Premier people had been allowed to expand production and adopt modern technology, it is not inconceivable that Indian auto makers would have entered the North American market before Datsun and Toyota did (both of them started producing cars after India). My own cousin who had a small auto parts company in Gurgaon producing indiffrent quality products for Indian public sector, was forced by the Maruti people to upgrade his quality and is now producing IS 9000 quality products at internationally competitive prices for Maruti. His margins have come down drastically but higher volumes have more than compensated for lower marging. Tatas went one step further and produced the first Indian designed and engineered car, Indica, which is successfully competing with foreing giants without any govt. subsidy; now they are all set to produce a cheap car which would sell for less than Re. one lakh and are going to do so in the Communist West Bengal. They could do so because Nehru let them continue producing their Tata trucks in collaboration with Mercedez Benz even after the Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956.

I know that there are examples of successful state enterprises, esp in France and even the Soviets had a very successful weapons industry (though not governed by market rules). Now, however, even the French are dumping the old model which does not stand the test of globalisation. I think that we in Canada have stumbled upon the right balance, letting the private enterprise unleash the wealth producing energy of individuals while letting the state provide a fairly generous safety net.

#171 by zeemax on August 11, 2006 1:28am PT

Aww...reality really hurts doesn`t it..

zeemax: You know squat about IT or the history of viruses/worms/trojans...so please don`t show your ignorance..

ahmadmadani#136:

It`s always instructive to interact with you. From your interacts, it appears that you have your medical problem well under control; so keep taking whatever medication you are taking, listening to classical music (try some new fusion music coming out of South India combining Carnatic music with western instruments - see Indian film Morning Raga for a sample) and keep your mind occupied with activities like interacting here. I am fine and making full use of my retirement and government pension to travel as much as I can, hence the absence from chowk.

My memory re. Air India is somewhat hazy but I think that it was nationalised following the Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956 which reserved all air aviation for the public sector. But you are right about Nehru liking JRD Tata and, I believe, he let him carry on with the management of Air India even after its takeover. This changed after Nehru`s death (I recall that there was controversy with Desai wanting Air India to stop serving liquor during inflights).

Yes, air aviation is booming in India and even the middle classes have started taking to domestic and international flights. I saw travel bargains to Singapore for as low as Rs. 10000. Group travels are becoming popular with travel agents arranging for Indian cuisine during trips abroad. And one can search the Internet for flights which are as cheap as travelling by train in the airconditioned second class. But the infrastructure has not kept pace, esp. at places like Delhi. I landed at Delhi airport four times during the last three months and each time, the plane had to circle over Delhi for half hour or longer before it could land. While Delhi and Mumbai airports are being modernised, unfortunately, our Marxist friends are creating hurdles in the way of modernising other airports.

#171 by zeemax

But, to be fair, the only head-waggers (oops sorry Harish) with any originality were the two who started Hotmail. Rest are all code coolies.

And Zia Chisti plus the two Lahore brothers equal how many? In any case, writing code does not require a great deal of originality, which is what the argument was.

BTW, being a head-wagger/code coolie is any day better than being a suicidal Jihadi. Last heard, most of the arrested in the UK plot to bomb airplanes are Brit-Pakis, two of them are said to have visited the mother ship, Pakistan in the last few days and even had money wired to them from there.

#171 by zeemax

But those two brothers never developed on their own invention, but rather went into the ISP business .... So they can`t cut code???

As they say, one swallow does not make a summer. One Zia Chisti or one piece of code, however brilliant means diddly squat, because there will be exceptions everywhere. In India, you`ll find at least one coder in every lane. When Pakistan attains the reputation that India has, where even advanced chips and avionics for fighter aircraft are being designed these days, only then can you say Pakistan produces brilliant techies. Until then, your claim will sound as hollow as Musharraf`s when he said Pakis speak better English than Indians do and Pakistan will continue to be known as the breeding ground for the other ``IT``.

#164 by arjun_m

Pakis can`t cut code for shit..

LoL ... you idiot ... the first `self replicating` piece of code ever written was by two Lahori brothers which left the `entire` world gasping for breath ... and scrambling for antidotes to funny messages popping up on their screens alongwith a Lahore phone number. It was called `Brain` .. remember? LoL .. I can see your head wagging ...

It was completely harmless though and just a prank ... later other techies caught up and turned it into something vicious called a `virus`. But those two brothers never developed on their own invention, but rather went into the ISP business .... So they can`t cut code???

Git ....

But, to be fair, the only head-waggers (oops sorry Harish) with any originality were the two who started Hotmail. Rest are all code coolies.

This is my last post on the subject. If it itches, apply Burnol.