The road just taken

"In the past 5 days what we have seen is nothing more than ways to get into systems and networks ... find flaws ... ways to hack into them and finally secure them. It’s a system, an OS and they all talk to each other in a protocol, the language. There can be 2 possibilities a mis-configuration or an inherent vulnerability typically one of those overflows which you exploit. I believe systems are simple... not as complex as you might think .. yes they have become kinda complex because today what you see is the result of the efforts of millions of people out there. A hacker is made by his perception not just technology! .. watch out for clues! And since you have a higher of understanding of these systems and can play with peoples private data.. be responsible enough to protect it.

5 days and we have had a lot of technology.. some of the terms might not have been your cup of tea... You know what .. in a class of 50 students hardly anyone understands/realizes what is being taught .. those who sit at the back and those who sit at the front .. trust me hardly anyone does! .. how many of you realize what relativity is?? Heheheh .. Never mind if you don’t understand some concepts ... No one does understand it .. i never did .. what’s more important is given due time and efforts from your side you will eventually realize how beautiful they are. I did that lately and am still doing it...

Now.. If you are asked to go to the Sugar Factory behind this hotel room, and secure this network can you do it?"

And they answered after a lot of confusing seconds ... "we may not! however we can make an attempt to scan the network, find vulnerabilities and exploit them.. suggest for some measures for securing them, we got some tools that will help us."

What could be more interesting than listening to the deeply thought answers which come out of your kids who have been taught since the past couple of hours... I can’t say, yet at this moment it feels a bit more than being satisfied. However the start had never been so interesting though!

2nd May, 2008, hot burning sunny morning, 10:30 AM., Kini Watar, Kolhapur, that was the place. I had been awake since morning 4:30, as my volvo dropped me on the highway from where I had to move to one of the rural parts of Maharashtra. Past night was just lovely as she were just as close as the stars in the night sky.. to be reborn the other morning! After a long hour drive crossing the lonely roads, green fields, women making cow dung cakes, people getting ready with bullocks heading to their lands for cultivation, finally I reached my hotel room. The air was never so fresh! A part of my assignment was to conduct a small session for the next 6 days on IS Security for some 16 young people(kids)!!

... ... ... ...

Sometimes what you expect is something which never matches all that you get. Quite often you are amazed by the array of things which make that instance!! At times we tend to do things which might have never been a component of our thoughts yet in those times when you do it you seem to be delighted from within .. a deep sense of excitement may be... I don’t know.

What I am seeing in front of my eyes is just wonderful! A lab of 8 machines, with 16 on roll to learn security, machines are distant apart... no networks... Students all dressed in wonderful garments.. I am no expert but have a fair understanding of underlying systems and for the next 6 days my biggest challenge would be to transfer my vision of computing to these young kids, even if that vision itself is so limited by my declining inability to remain in pace with the fast pacing technology ;-) The chilled rooms with decent whiteboard and young markers filled with fresh ink, and the fashionable interiors of the corporate stay far. Aint no data center ... or people with experience ... however there is something in them! ... even if their backgrounds aint that supportive.

That was the start. Disconnected machines, no internet, not well facilitated labs! Deep frustration because the power aint there and no backup facilities in place! Your plans don’t work, times rolling on, you got 6 days lot to do .. and things aint in the right place. For a while you feel like calling up the boss and screwing up every god damn thing as the possibility of doing something is challenged by increasing problems.

You stay? You walk away? You try fixing the problem? Again choices ..

Big books of management call it motivation of self... I guess it aint that way. What is real is the sheer look into their eyes pointing at you and lips just bound. They don’t speak for they are a lil afraid of the power you hold, and would probably accept anything you say, yet their eyes haunt you each moment with millions of questions. This doesn’t work .. that failed .. Reasons would surely make your life easy but can you sleep with those questions? That triggers the motivation I guess!

The blend of ignorance with a deep urge to explore could have never been so amazing for I myself was on the other side of the table 2 years back and hardly figured out the importance of what was being taught! It was never so interesting i confess. May be I was weak or may be they just lacked the passion .. whatever. The fact remains it doesn’t really matter much of where you are, you may be at the best schools with the best resources failing to take advantage of what you have, or you may be at a remote site with a strong urge with nothing but understanding and realizing the bigger whole. Probably what matters is the individual! Of course you might have your own conclusions; mine are just an inference of my span.

Amidst lot of hassles the story finally began at 2 PM. A couple of virtual machines connected together on a Acer Travelmate forming a sexy virtual network with a laptop at the connected at the other end on the wireless.. funnie huh! It all starts with you deciding who your enemy is, particularly the host or the server, followed by discovering the personality of the target machine/network. Techies call it enumeration! Crypto's the puzzle you got to solve to break through the so called passwords hehehe ... Everyone would love to but these are complex mathematical monsters to be handled ... However simple! Some might just break in yet that’s not all ... the theory of software - vulnerability - exploit, what I call comes into action then. Apply it anywhere and if the rule applies, with due amount of time and patience you probably get into a remote host/server... without the owner ever knowing it. Damn once in a while you get to see such beauty though! The story continues as we approach 2AM post midnight, and strangely there’s no sign of sleep! I guess that’s an early morning! Lots to cover, times moving on!

Another morning supposed to be brighter than the previous one :-) Kini/Watar(Kolhapur) is quite close to the nature with hills spread across its length and breadth. Plain fields, with rows of sugarcane as far as your eyes can reach. Life is not fast paced, as some of you would expect! Day starts with a prayer, and some fresh sugarcane/mango juice, followed by a trip to the land where you spend the whole day tilling it. As the evening approaches these people move back to their homes where wives wait with nicely prepared Bhakri/Puranpoli etc... It’s not same for all though, however that’s the generic kolhapuri way! On tour you often try to move out to places near by, trying hard to explore the beauty it beholds.

How about a class on a hilltop? I suggested!

And we were on. Their reluctance of joining me stemmed from the sheer fact that I was from a big place .. hahaha. I wanted to experiment with what was original and not fake. Finally they agreed to take me on a ride in the tractor to the hills. It was 3 PM on 4th May that we started to the hills. Hilltops, sea shores, ships, aircraft, speed has always been a reason of my inner fascination. Little did I know that this trip i was going to spend a whole night on the hilltop below the stars amidst the strong wind! What you think does happen! Maybe. We were on the top by evening and the sun set right in front of my eyes underneath my feet ! ... The breeze was strong and cold... i tried to go wherever my eyes could take .. my mind was free ... yet the eyes were searching for you in all things .. It was a nice experience, but the streaks of the memories of all those moments, her conversations, her absence, his suggestions, his small queries ... filled up my lone seconds as the stars started becoming younger and brighter... i missed you more than you can think dear.

Spending nights on a hilltop is as fascinating as crazy! Yeah its kinda adventurous though! You just got to protect yourself from animals ... and most importantly the strong wind! So what we had was a barren land and 2 hours of time to set up a small place where we can spend the night!.. the tent and the campfire! Of course we got to prepare the food!... The tractor, of Ferguson make served right for the tent and the open barren land the kitchen. Ever wondered how early men lived! .. Hehe I practically understood the value of firewood .. match stick .. most importantly what water could mean ;-) I guess the snapshots would describe it a lot better than my words!

The food we prepared was not that sexy, however had the basic ingredients to satisfy the hungry stomach... interesting huh! A round-ground conference, as i saw it .. wherein each of us was a delegate, holding a plate and the inventory of food right in the middle. The space was lightly illuminated by the starry sky and huge halogen we had carried along. Honda genset did work there... Hats off to the inventor .. :-)

No one kept track of time, while we still had to finish up a couple of things starting with ways of breaching 802.11 networks! On the hills we bake and there goes another session to explore the wireless. Two laptops (Acer and Lenovo), 6 virtual machines, 1 Netgear Access point, 1 Linksys WGUSB adapter ... that was used to construct the wireless network for demonstration underneath the tent! ... And damn it did work hahahaha..... to my excitement .. they pinged each other in the dark night .. on hilltop.

Damn the signals were smart enough to resist the strong wind ... Amazing ... We saw how to capture Wifi Traffic and fiddle with the 128 bit wep keys ... and ways to break and secure them followed by the strategies needed to implement an ISMS, securing an IS Enterprise as a whole. "What do you see from this altitude? Vast green land ... with some multicolored patches .. some houses and stuff like that. An organization is nothing more … its technology enabling people to work in a process helping the organization achieve its objectives. Your responsibility would be to make sure that the information, since we are in the knowledge economy, has to be protected. You got to make sure that confidentiality integrity and availability triad is achieved and aligned towards the organizations IS objectives. You got to be a keen observer from the hilltop and got to observe minute things at the bottom ... find the threats .. associate the risks .. evaluate the impact and make sure you use technology and principles you have learnt to minimize the impact!... What are you doing??? Probably helping the organization become secure.... that’s what we do... and you have started doing it ..."

As the heat started rising we were done with the schedule of IS... i was a lil happy for i had done it .. of course with no idea of how much of my vision was translated .. for I myself was lost in translation .. I had started climbing downhill to fetch some jungle berries .. water and of course make some new girlfriends downhill... I get back to those days when 3 of us, cuz she used to lie down under medication 3 hours away from Bam, got up early morning at about 3:30 AM and board the JTC, coach to BBSR. I was a lil adamant on sitting beside the window .. i like it .. pushing my kidde beside me and 2 of us guarded by him at the extreme end. It was not that fun .. but i liked it .. for then we could see the early sun rise .. green fields and hills ... I used to stare and wonder that someday I would climb one ... and be on the top. Now it was ... I was climbing.. of course in the absence of my 3 partners .. One among them who fails to remember who i am... ... Like the beautiful berries, and trees who have been waiting for years hoping someday someone would come and sit under the shade for sometime .... we still hope someday she just calls us up ... recognizes that I am her part. Someday not yet...

Time had come to wrap up ... we were done with all that had been planned .. of course with slight disruptions in the original plan .. rightly proving "change is inevitable" .... I had my share of time for driving the tractor as they all cheered up while I drove it … Unlike other vehicles the accelerator is on the top and the tractor has to be accelerated by hand .. Steering it was a lil tough ... yet that was fun ... Team-work, Patience, Energy to explore, Planning, Life at the smaller ends... Never knew it had to teach me so many lessons. Slowly in mind and swiftly in action we were moving back for a formal meeting back at my hotel room .. biding farewell for yet another journey may be ..

It was not the nicely built AC room or the sexy datacenter or the well built decent furniture’s nor the decent people … just some aspiration... and their strong urge to discover was all I had ... I stand here in awe of their infinitesimally small comprehension of the big world out there .. yet we had started it ..

I wonder what has remained... What has persisted...? Wonder if we meet sometime... wonder if all that we discussed would generate some business value in their lives... The night ages as I climb up the bus getting a window seat again with none beside… moving back to where I came from.. Through the Pune express highway .. however that’s not all, with the juice in my hand and thoughts of her whose face is a lil clear, freezes within me as I doze off in the freezing air of the artificial ac. There’s no network, no chips, no bytes ... just silent contemplation and a longing for her ... conversations.