SSL: JOURNEY TO A SECURE TRANSACTION

• SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer
• Secured sites display a padlock in browsers URL and a green address bar
• SSL encrypts the information you are sending across the server

Electronic world …. Electronic payments.. Sure you guys must be aware about the e-payments we come across in our daily lives. Did you ever wonder, how is it actually happening? Is it even secure?

World in our hands, sitting at our laptop we are purchasing whatever we want from online shopping sites, getting our recharge done online, transfer money without even visiting bank .. All we can say boon of internet banking.

Did you guys ever notice how the bar in our browser turns green with a lock in starting when the page is redirected to ICICI internet login page or perhaps any other transaction site?

To answer this curiosity of your let me introduce you to the world of SSL, a protocol behind our safe transaction saving us from the dark world of hackers!!!

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. It provides a secure connection between internet browsers and websites, allowing you to transmit private data online. Sites secured with SSL display a padlock in the browsers URL and possibly a green address bar if secured by an EV(Extended Validation) Certificate.

The SSL protocol is used by millions of e-Business providers to protect their customers, ensuring their online transactions remain confidential. A web page should use encryption expected to submit confidential data, including credit card details, passwords or any personal information. All web browsers have the ability to interact with secured sites so long as the site's certificate is from a recognized certificate authority, such as Comodo.

When a digital certificate is installed on a web page, users will see a padlock icon in the browser address bar. When an Extended Validation Certificates is installed on a web site, the address bar will turn green during secure sessions.

The primary reason why SSL is used is to keep sensitive information sent across the Internet encrypted so that only the intended recipient can understand it. This is important because the information you send on the Internet is passed from computer to computer to get to the destination server. Any computer in between you and the server can see your credit card numbers, usernames and passwords, and other sensitive information if it is not encrypted with an SSL certificate. When an SSL certificate is used, the information becomes unreadable to everyone except for the server you are sending the information to. This protects it from hackers and identity thieves.

Trusted SSL providers will only issue an SSL certificate to a verified company that has gone through several identity checks. Certain types of SSL certificates, like EV SSL Certificates, require more validation than others.

So if your web browser is giving visual clues such as a green lock or a green bar, it ensures you are browsing through a secure, trusted web site.

MICA: My Intelligent Communication Accessory

•         Provide alerts and notifications and many more features.
•         Will come in two styles - black water-snake skin and white water-snake skin.
•         You can prioritize the contacts from whom you will receive information on bracelet.
•         You can control the information that filters into the bracelet via an online portal.

MICA: My Intelligent Communication Accessory is a bracelet designed by computing giant Intel and New York-based fashion retailer Opening Ceremony.

MICA collaboration between Opening Ceremony and Intel, celebrates the conglomeration of intelligence with fashion statement and it’s time for the women to go techy without compromising their style.

Priced at $495 the device will provide alerts and notifications, including SMS messages, calendar reminders, meeting alerts and other notifications sent directly to the wrist display. Rather than carry a display at the top of the bracelet, MICA is designed for women to glance at and swipe notifications from the insides of their wrists. Also, two-way wireless data communication through a 3G cellular radio will be available without the need to pair with a smartphone. The device can charge wirelessly or using a USB cable.  And users will be able to set up VIP contact lists to filter who can reach them via the bracelet.

The device has its own mobile connection, meaning it doesn’t have to be paired with a phone, and comes with two years of free AT&T Inc. data service.

Crafted from premium finishes, 18k gold coating and a curved sapphire glass touchscreen display MICA will come in two styles -- one will have black water-snake skin, pearls from China, and lapis stones from Madagascar, while the other style will include white water-snake skin, tiger's eye from South Africa, and obsidian from Russia. The cuff-style device opens via a clasp and has a 1.6-inch sapphire touchscreen that sits at the bottom of the wrist.

The device will be introduced officially at Opening Ceremony's spring/summer 2015 fashion show on Sunday, during Fashion Week in New York

Messaging

Discrete on wrist messaging, calendar, and event vibration-based notifications. Respond quickly with customizable messages.

Priority Notifications

Assign the “important contacts” you receive notifications from.

Calendar

See your upcoming Google and Facebook appointments and respond to requests.

Time to Go

Intelligent reminders powered by TomTom let you know when it’s time to leave for your next appointment.

What’s Near Me

Access Yelp search and ratings to find restaurants, shopping, and establishments nearby.

Connected by AT&T

MICA is connected by AT&T’s mobile broadband network and includes two years of wireless service with the device purchase.

Battery Life

Up to two days of battery life

Remote Access and Security

Remote access, locking, and device locator

You can control the information that filters into the bracelet via an online portal, accessible via computer or smartphone. There you can change the background patterns of the device’s display screen, load up your Gmail accounts, connect your Google and Facebook calendars, and log in to your Yelp account.

RETINA SCAN : PASSWORD IN YOUR EYE

• A bio-metric identifier known as a retinal scan is used to map the unique patterns of a person's retina
• uses the unique patterns on a person's retina to identify them
• The pattern of variations is converted to computer code and stored in a database.
• retinal patterns may be altered in cases of diabetes, glaucoma or retinal degenerative disorders
• the retina typically remains unchanged from birth until death

Authentication is the process of verifying that a person is indeed who they claim to be.

Biometric authentication refers to using a physiological characteristic to perform that verification. Biometrics offer some security advantages over other authentication methods, for example an eye cannot be stolen like a key card or forgotten like a PIN or a password, and biometrics cannot be shared between individuals. At the time of enrollment, documents or other means are used to identify the individual, and the biometric measure is captured and stored for future comparison.
We forget our highly secretive combinations, so we frequently have them reset and sent to our cellphones and alternative email addresses. We come up with clever jumbles of letters and words, only to mess up the order. We sit there on the login screen, desperately punching in a code we should know by heart.

A biometric identifier known as a retinal scan is used to map the unique patterns of a person's retina.

The idea for retinal identification was first conceived by Dr. Carleton Simon and Dr. Isadore Goldstein 

A retinal scan, commonly confused with the more appropriately named "iris scanner", is a biometric technique that uses the unique patterns on a person's retina to identify them. The biometric use of this scan is used to examine the pattern of blood vessels at the back of the eye.

The blood vessels within the retina absorb light more readily than the surrounding tissue and are easily identified with appropriate lighting. A retinal scan is performed by casting an unperceived beam of low-energy infrared light into a person’s eye as they look through the scanner's eyepiece. This beam of light traces a standardized path on the retina. Because retinal blood vessels are more absorbent of this light than the rest of the eye, the amount of reflection varies during the scan. The pattern of variations is converted to computer code and stored in a database.

Retinal Scan technology maps the capillary pattern of the retina, a thin (1/50th

 inch) nerve on the back of the eye. To enroll, a minimum of five scans is

required, which takes 45 seconds. The subject must keep his head and eye

motionless within ½” of the device, focusing on a small rotating point of green

light. 320 – 400 points of reference are captured and stored in a 35-byte field,

ensuring the measure is accurate with a negligible false rejection rate

Eyeglasses and contact lenses present no problems to the quality of the image,

and the system further tests for a live eye rather than, say, a lens with an image

printed on it, by checking for the normal continuous fluctuation in pupil size.

The human retina is a thin tissue composed of neural cells that is located in the posterior portion of the eye. Because of the complex structure of the capillaries that supply the retina with blood, each person's retina is unique. The network of blood vessels in the retina is not entirely genetically determined and thus even identical twins do not share a similar pattern.

Although retinal patterns may be altered in cases of diabetes, glaucoma or retinal degenerative disorders, the retina typically remains unchanged from birth until death. Due to its unique and unchanging nature, the retina appears to be the most precise and reliable biometric, aside from DNA. Advocates of retinal scanning have concluded that it is so accurate that its error rate is estimated to be only one in a million.

Retinal scanners are typically used for authentication and identification purposes. Retinal scanning has been utilized by several government agencies including the FBI, CIA, and NASA

Advantages

Low occurrence of false positives

Extremely low (almost 0%) false negative rates

Highly reliable because no two people have the same retinal pattern

Speedy results: Identity of the subject is verified very quickly

Disadvantages

Measurement accuracy can be affected by a disease such as cataracts

Measurement accuracy can also be affected by severe astigmatism

Scanning procedure is perceived by some as invasive

Not very user friendly

Subject being scanned must be close to the camera optics

High equipment cost

Refrences:

http://www.giac.org/paper/gsec/253/eye-scans-authentication-biometrics/100763

http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/07/16/eye-tracking-could-outshine-passwords-if-made-user-friendly/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retinal_scan

D DAY

• D day: unnamed day set for beginning something offensive.
• Best known D Day: 6th June, 1994.
• The Normandy landings were the largest amphibious operation in history.
• It marked the beginning of the end for Hitler and the Nazis
• Movies directed on D Day: The longest day and Saving Private Ryan

Considering the dictionary meaning of the team “D Day” , “D Day” is the unnamed day on which an operation or an offensive is to be launched or a day set for beginning something.

In the military, D day is the day on which the combat attack or offensive attack is to be initiated.
The terms D day and H hour are used for the day and hour on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. They designate the day and hour of the operation when the day and hour have not yet been determined, or where secrecy is essential. For a given operation, the same D-Day and H-Hour apply for all units participating in it. When used in combination with numbers, and plus or minus signs, these terms indicate the point of time preceding or following a specific action. Thus, H−3 means 3 hours before H-Hour, and D+3 means 3 days after D-Day. (By extension, H+75 minutes is used for H-Hour plus 1 hour and 15 minutes.) Planning papers for large-scale operations are made up in detail long before specific dates are set. Thus, orders are issued for the various steps to be carried out on the D-Day or H-Hour minus or plus a certain number of days, hours, or minutes. At the appropriate time, a subsequent order is issued that states the actual day and times.



The best known D-Day is June 6, 1944 — the day of the Normandy landings — initiating the Western Allied effort to liberate mainland Europe from Nazi occupation during World War ||. However, many other invasions and operations had a designated D-Day, both before and after that operation

Do you realize that by the time you wake up in the morning 20,000 men may have been killed?
Churchill to his wife the night before D-Day

The Normandy landings were the largest amphibious operation in history. In one day, 175,000 troops landed on the Normandy coast crossing English Channel, with the help of more than 5,000 ships, crewed by 195,700 personnel from the Allied navies and merchant navies.
 The fighting continued for 10 weeks until 19 August.
 

After the defeat in Normandy, the German forces in Western Europe were so reduced that the American, British, Canadian, Polish and Free French armies advanced to capture Paris by 22 August and Brussels by 1 September.

There are 17, 769 British war graves in the whole of the Normandy battle zone.

Without D-Day, Adolf Hitler would have deployed many more divisions to resist the Red Army. He would have had more time to develop, and deploy, his modern weapon of terror, the V2. The war might have continued indefinitely.

At the very least, the Iron Curtain which was established in central Europe in the late 1940s might have been built 600 miles to the west, between Britain and the continent.
The significance was that a successful landing in Normandy paved the way for the Allies to liberate all the Occupied Countries of Europe. (They all did it too, except for the Soviet Union who kept the countries it "liberated" for itself).

It marked the beginning of the end for Hitler and the Nazis as the Russians were racing to Germany from the East and the rest of the Allies were doing the same from the West and also through Italy.

Once a beach head was successfully established and men and supplies started pouring in to mainland Europe, Germany was finished - it was only a matter of time.

Movies directed on D Day: The longest day and Saving Private Ryan

CLOUD COMPUTING: THE HUB OF STORAGE SPACE

• Its like third party database to store your information.
• Can support any type of information... audio, video etc.
• Cloud is nothing but the collection of various computers, servers and data storage systems
• Examples : Box, Google Drive, DropBox etc.

Cloud computing refers to saving data to an off-site storage system maintained by a third party. Instead of storing information to your computer's hard drive or other local storage device, you save it to a remote database. The internet provides the connection between your computer and the database.
On the surface, cloud storage has several advantages over traditional data storage. For example, if you store your data on a cloud storage system, you'll be able to get to that data from any location that has Internet access. You wouldn't need to carry around a physical storage device or use the same computer to save and retrieve your information. With the right storage system, you could even allow other people to access the data, turning a personal project into a collaborative effort.

Some cloud storage systems are small operations, while others are so large that the physical equipment can fill up an entire warehouse. The facilities that house cloud storage systems are called data centers.
At its most basic level, a cloud storage system needs just one data server connected to the Internet.
Client when wants to store information on server send data over the server through web based interface and can access the same stored information whenever, wherever required through the same web based interface indeed there in an internet connection. Its like client interacting with the database being maintained by the third party at some distant location but all the access authorities are with the client itself.

Cloud is nothing but the collection of various computers, servers and data storage systems that create the "cloud" of computing services.
So the client side system ,be it is the desktop, laptop or even the phone serve as the front end and the back end is the “cloud” the third party database i.e. servers, systems where all of your data is getting stored and this front end and back end are connected via internet called middleware.
Implementing cloud computing requires lots of space as the owner of the backend need to ensure the availability of data of the client at any required point of time. These backend servers can also fall prey to the technical failure so to avoid losing data ,client’s data is stored over multiple servers also known as redundancy so that if one server fails, the client can still successfully retrieve data .

5 of the best free cloud storage and their features:

Google Drive: 
Free storage: 5 GB
Max file size allowed: 10 GB
Desktop apps: Windows, Mac
Mobile apps: Android, iOS coming soon

DropBox :
Free storage: 2 GB (Get more space through referrals.)
Maximum Storage: 18GB to 32 GB
Max file size allowed: 300 MB via browser, unlimited via desktop
Desktop apps: Windows, Mac, Linux
Mobile apps: Android, iOS, BlackBerry


Apple iCloud:
Free storage: 5 GB
Max file size allowed: 25 MB for free users, 250 MB for paid users
Desktop apps: Windows, Mac
Mobile apps: iOS only

Microsoft SkyDrive:
Free storage: 7 GB
Max file size allowed: 2 GB
Desktop apps: Windows, Mac
Mobile apps: iOS, Windows Phone

Box:
Free storage: 5 GB
Max file size allowed: 25 MB
Desktop apps: Windows, Mac
Mobile apps: Android, iOS, BlackBerry

WHY QWERTY PATTERN ?

• Devised by Christopher Latham Sholes.
• Originally letters were arranged in alphabetic order.
• Alphabetic order causes keyboard stroke become tangled.
• Also leading to staining the document frequently.
• QWERTY arrangement leads to splitting up of commonly used keys to avoid jamming.
• Alphabets which are mostly used are accessed fast following the QWERTY pattern.
• same layout is nearly optimal for pure speed, as it tends to cause the fingers and hands to alternate.

Still used to this day, the QWERTY layout was devised and created in the early 1870s by Christopher Latham Sholes, a newspaper editor and printer who lived in Milwaukee.

The first model constructed by Sholes used a piano-like keyboard with two rows of characters arranged alphabetically.

Originally, the characters on the typewriters he invented were arranged alphabetically, set on the end of a metal bar which struck the paper when its key was pressed. 

the characters on the typewriters were arranged in alphabetical order; Letters that placed close together on the keyboard became tangled with one another as the operator had learned to type at speed, forcing the typist to manually unstick the type bars. This also caused staining the document frequently and jams in typewriter machine.

Initially in 1870s, An associate suggested using nice trick by splitting most commonly keys to speed up typing, so that they also don’t get tangled very often. Rearrangement of keys introduced the word QWERTY, the most commonly used modern-day keyboard layout.

The logic behind such an arrangement is that the alphabets which are most needed can be accessed fast.

QWERTY layout was designed to let people type as quickly as possible, without jamming a mechanical typewriter. As it happens, this same layout is nearly optimal for pure speed, as it tends to cause the fingers and hands to alternate.
A simple A to Z layout, would really slow down people as it would overload some weaker fingers and waste the stronger ones. It would also tend to require more side-to-side motion. Considerable wrist strain is also thought of.

This arrangement is now widely accepted.

iOS 7 FEATURES : COMMING THIS FALL

• Landscape Multitasking
• Today provide traffic info
• Video Zoom
• Air Drop
• Find my iPhone
• Manual App Updates and many more .....

1 ) Manual App Updates – Apple said iOS 7 will be the first operating system to automatically push updates to all your applications so you’ll never see that red number hanging over your App Store to remind you to download an update. But in case users prefer managing which application updates they download, iOS 7 offers a slider that can disable automatic updates, which can be found in the Settings for the iTunes and App Stores.

2) Landscape Multitasking – In all past versions of iOS, double-clicking the home button brought a row of icons at the bottom of the screen that showed which apps were open. Since multitasking has changed in iOS 7, letting users see full app previews of all their open apps, Apple has made it so users can see which apps are open in landscape mode too, and quit any of the apps simply by swiping them up. Multiple apps can also be closed at the same time in iOS 7’s landscape multitasking.

3) Apps Ask To Use Microphone – Past iOS builds only asked users if it was OK to access the phone’s location data, camera or Photos app. In iOS 7, users will see that apps will also ask permission to access the device’s microphone, which might make worrywarts less concerned about their privacy.

4) Automatic Day/Night Mode – Much like how GPS devices will automatically switch between day and night color schemes, Apple has introduced features for its new turn-by-turn directions in iOS 7 where the app will automatically switch from day to night mode based on the current time and an ambient light sensor to help judge whether different modes should be activated sooner or later.

5) Dynamic Font Size – For any and all apps that support “Dynamic Type,” users can select a font size in iOS 7 that works system wide, simply by visiting the "General" section under "Settings" and selecting "Font Size."

6) Today Provides Traffic Info – The Notification Center has been one of the more useful features in iOS, but many fans don’t necessarily like it. Apple hopes to change their minds in iOS 7 by making the Notification Center much more personal, and therefore even more helpful. In the new Today section, which basically lines out a user’s entire day based on their appointments in Calendar, iOS 7 will also tell you the weather outside in case you need a jacket or umbrella, but one feature Apple has overlooked is its ability to provide traffic information on places you frequently visit, so just like Google Now, iOS 7 will let you know if you need to give yourself more time to get from A to B.

7) Better Music Controls – In iOS, double-clicking the home button from the Lock Screen gives you a few music controls so you can pause, or rewind, fast-forward or skip through songs. In iOS 7, users can also scrub along the song to get to a certain part directly from the lock screen.

8)  Application Blues And Blueprints – Apple never gave downloading applications much thought in previous iOS builds, but in iOS 7, downloading and updating apps isn't only easier, but it’s also more standardized and organized. Even though apps will automatically update in iOS 7 by default, apps will feature a new blue dot to indicate they’ve been updated, and new apps that are downloaded also now show a blueprint of Jony Ive’s Vitruvian Man-esque app design, which centers on exact measurements and proportions, rather than a dim preview of the actual app.

9) Video Zoom – It may seem like a small addition – it certainly wasn’t mentioned at Apple’s WWDC keynote – but being able to pinch to zoom your videos while recording is actually a major feature in iOS 7. Even though the zooming quality when taking photos in iOS has never been great, the sheer ability to zoom dynamically during a video shoot creates a plethora of possibilities when it comes to creative filming

10) Air Drop -To share photos or documents with others around you, Air Drop in iOS 7 lets users easily see contacts and other users around them, and easily share information with a simple tap. Much better than having to tap someone's phone with yours.

11) Find My iPhone -Find My iPhone is now much improved for iOS 7. Users now need their Apple ID and password to turn off Find My iPhone or erase their device completely. Find My iPhone can also display a custom message, even after the device is erased, which again requires one's Apple ID and password for full reactivation.