Paranoia - Security lapse - Google - Gmail - Orkut - Blogspot - Google Check Out

I am paranoid; no qualms about it.

As an astute netizen would know, all the listed softwares/sites are owned and managed by Google. Also now-a-days whatever Google does is 'considered' path breaking.

Amongst all these sites, I believe one can easily be tracked i.e. via the net.
Google --> used for all your searches. Usually you do it while you are logged into your gmail account.
Gmail --> where all your 'supposed' personal interactions in the digital world take place. Having a gmail account is equivalent to owning a Ford Mustang in the 80's (trouble).
Orkut --> the all socialising website where you fratrenize with your friends circle. Information plenty. Private information is even more.
Blogspot --> the place where you are reading this. Your online 'Mother'. Blog is the place where you can pour yourself, empathize, consoled, exuberate, exhilarate.... So in some effect your life story.
Google Check Out --> cherry on your icecream. The one stop .com site to shop all your needs. Whats more, to promote the site there have been whopping (only) 10$ - 20$ discounts to all major shopping places; Buy.com, CircuitCity, BestBuy, Toys-R-Us etc.

Did you get the grave picture of the loss of your security? Your private information? Your life as you knew it? Let me try to paint the paranoid picture I have in my mind.

One day, near future, suddenly the FBI wants to know all about you. You may have committed a crime or may be not. FBI wants to profile you. The agent (Smith a la Matrix), I guess, will take some simple steps. Search you on google.com, get to your orkut profile, know quite somethings about you, get to your blog site, read what you have written then subpoena google to give out your gmail and google checkout information. And you are mapped in super quick time. Does this not sound scary to you? Don't you feel that somebody is watching you in your bedroom. I believe one of the Judge in an American court said (in a ruling in the recent past), one's house is a fundamental place of privacy of a citizen of this country (USA) - it should not be violated without proper authority and reason, else it constitutes the breach of the First Amendment.

In the digital age we are ourselves losing our privacy. Don't blame others, blame yourself and Google. How difficult is it for google not to record your every search in a local file on your desktop, tie it up with your email id (which you are logged into perpetually). At the end of the day they can easily piggy back the info - store it in their unlimited database.

We already know that every email of yours is read, read by a computer program. Send an email to yourself with simple line saying 'I am listening to Kannada music', when you open the email you will promptly see an add of either musicindia.com or udbhava.com. Send you 'plan to attend your friends shaadi', and you will see a shaadi.com ad pop up. Your writing is Davy Jones Locker for Google. With your search pattern, secretly recorded as I described above, Google can easily run a cross product of the two sources and narrow your likings.

Over this is Orkut, where people tend to pour over details of their life as if it is no-body's business. Open any profile in Orkut, you will see their gory details of their love, despair, music choices, communities, unfiltered information in their scrap book, PHOTOS, place of stay and so on. The worst part is you put your real name there! It is like committing suicide in the privacy land. With your original name Google links your 'original' info with their gmail info and then your search pattern. If you had mistyped in Google as 'bj' instead of 'bjs', your tendencies are known.

Blog spot or Blogger.com. What can be said of this. You are reading this on blogspot. With the supposed new version -- also big BS comparison Battlestar Galactica with Lorne Greene : Battlestar Galactica with Edward James Olmos :: Old Blogger : New Blogger, touted on their start-up page -- the familiar gmail account is used to login. Another point of connection. See how the Primary Key (gmail) is being omnipotent in use? You think it is convenience, the devil thinks the prey is almost in the noose. You pour yourself out on the blog (ofcourse I write this with a bit of hypocrisy myself, but I try not divulge much of personal info). My email id is hopefully anonymous. Ofcourse I could be easily mapped by my IP address, but that atleast involves another company in the middle. Don't inundate your blog with your personal info, please. One of my com-padre from Italy used to say when asked why he does not have a blog, 'I don't want my life to be known to others'. This was in 2003, way back when blog was yet to become the fire it is now. He had the sense not divulge things on the net.

Google Check Out (GCO): The mother of all sins. You give your street address and your credit card info for Pete's sake. Jesus! Ofcourse you would give your email id [I have never used GCO, not even for the petty 10$ rebate]. Every deal published in Fatwallet and Slick Deals, the members suggest using 10 or 20 off using GCO. Dudes or Duds (you figure it out), you are giving your house key to a complete stranger and the biggest STALKER Google. What more do you need, Google now knows what you shop! You can expect tailored ad's in your mail box soon. Earlier your purchases used to be stored in single locations Circuit City or Bestbuy, but never the twin would meet (until they merge - which I don't see happening soon). Now with GCO you are numbered.

If this is not enough to scare you then I don't know what will. Every other week on msnbc the Red Tape guy warns about security breaches, stolen social security numbers, siphoned-off bank accounts, unsafe debit transactions, unscrupulous charges on your debit cards by the banks - pretty soon I am sure he will write of the biggest spy agency, Google. People you take so much care in choosing your password for your bank account, hire a locker to store your valuables, but you give away your most personal information for a penny, NO FOR FREE. Remember you been warned, if you have read till this point.

One day for sure Enemy of the State will prove to be true, so will Irobot. Aside: Interesting point to note is that Will Smith has acted in both movies and he is paranoid. Don't over depend on technology, don't use Google for every thing. Exercise some caution.

Don't say Google is God, Google is a Dog sniffing and recording every detail of yours.

At this time I remember the song by Julie Gold, 'From a Distance', where she said 'God is watching us', I guess it will be soon be sung as 'Google is watching us'.

Mehchina Kannadiga 2006

Yes we are to vote who amongst the ever dwindling population of Kannadiga's, is a contributer to our state and society.
(Mehchina Kannadiga is concept being run by Deccan Herald on their website)

First - It is not me.

Now with me out of the way - let me consider some candidates and their contributions.

Rajkumar is a front runner amongst many individuals; but I have not seen one act of kindness to the society from this person. I don't know of his contributions to any ashrams, orphanage, old-age homes or acts of charity. Would somebody let me know (post comments) about Rajkumar's philanthropy. His contribution to cinema was long ago - pre 2006, hence his achievements need not be counted in 2006.

Naryan Murthy, nothing less can be said of the man and his wife. They have been very generous in giving out both wisdom and aid. He is a leading candidate in my books. From leading Infosys and the establishment of charitable institutions, this man has done it all with a great conviction and rigor.

Retired Chief Justice Venkatachala, the BUSTER of corruption. Well his contribution is so-so. We all know EVERY politician is corrupt - but strangely! Not even one corrupt politician was raided and their assets questioned. Strange? Few lower level corrupt government servants have been netted but the big fishes still take large bribe. So his contribution towards cleansing Karnataka is a quarter-done. This leads me to a question, is Venkatachala corrupt? To stay in the job he did not execute his duty of cleaning the top rungs of the ladder - hence he implicitly paid bribe to the upper 'creamy' layer. Don't tell me it is difficult to obtain proof - for heavens sake there are tapes/CD's floating in the market of Somashekar receiving bribe.

Some people mention Anil Kumble. Atleast I know not of his contributions to the public (jana samanya). Maybe he has done something, so he would be a contender. But I guess his contribution to cricket is more.

There a host of erudites/literary/scholars who have been penning and contributing in Kannada. My apologies for my ignorace in not knowing their names. But I silently acknowledge their efforts.

Vijay Mallya, the KingFisher man. In his own way he has contributed to our society. I guess he bought the Tipu Sultan sword back (was it with a private collector in London?). But his better contribution would be with his business acumen he has created substantial wealth for his investors. Two or so years ago the UB shares were trading at around ~200 Rs. On Dec 29, 2006 it traded at 864 Rs with a life time high of 914 Rs in the year. So one would have quadrupled the money in a couple of years time. Though the share holders are spread all across the country, some of them are in Karnataka too - hence they would have benefited. Money is not everything but it is something. In 'Other People's Money', Danny DeVito says something to the effect of, 'I want you people to have some money so that you could atleast have decent burial'. So money is needed.

To ALL the Kannada serials on ETv, UdayaTv, Chandana etc., I request you to improve your Kannada. Surely you are not the Kannadigas of the year. You people are the sour grapes of our society. Half of the actors speak trash Kannada. The Uchharane (enunciation) is completely off. For 'urgadlae', you say 'hurgadlae', 'satyanarana' becomes 'satnarayana', 'haedaru' is 'aedaru'. The stress factors on the words are gone too! 'Uchharane' is uttered as 'Ucharane'. 'Hasu' is 'asu'. Common actor(s), you are everyday's face to Kannada and you are so hopeless. The biggest cuplrit is Shivaraj Kumar! The son of great Rajkumar whose pronunciation still rings in my ears. Rajkumar's utterance in his movies were so resounding. The vibration of his vocal chords were clear, crisp and sharp. It was a delight to listen to him. If you don't believe me, listen to his famous Babruvahana (click on 'Yaru Teliyaru Ninna...' link on this page, if you don't get it, go to udbhava.com and search for babru) duel at the fag end of the movie. Enthralling! And his son, is HOPELESS!

Now come the politicians. They are all hopeless. Everybody is corrupt - they get to their seats saying they are public servants, but their definition of public is only their house members. Their first aim is to fill their coffers, which have ebb-ed in the recent elections, second aim is to buy a new huge coffer to fill that up! They are shame to the clean ironed white khadhi that they wear. The significance of the pure white cloth, the simplicity of the fiber, the soft feeling yet able to retain the firmness, the dress which suited (and woven by himself) the MAN (Gandhi) is completely lost amongst these hooligans.

But I give my award of the extordinare (Mehchina) Kannadiga to a young kid. He will rule us in the future. His awe and poise are set to lead Kannada and Karnataka into the coming years. We will achieve the best of our abilities in the future for sure under his able leadership. He is our own Gowda, Nikhil Gowda.

NG has graduated from being a boy to an able leader. He 'created' an inaugurationn party (ruckus) on the leading stage of our state, not Vidhana Soudha but MG Road. He did his graduation party at the right time, (3am) in the morning by sharing a spirited drink (ideally should have been mango lassi as Bush toasted in the Rastrapathi Bhavan , but NG's drink is Beer) amongst his comrades and compadres. He announced his grand arrival to the thumping chests (read as bashing) of his constituents (waiters who were injured). In lieu of his eloquent speech (tirade of filthy language), he was thronged by his supporters (resoundly slapped and manhandled). Later under the customary act of departing with Z+ security (constable Anjanappa), he retired to his 'Vasathi Grahalya' (Victoria Hospital). Meanwhile his bullet proof car (Unregistered, Porsche - 911, worth 300,000$ - 300,000 x 45 Rs) was used as decoy whilst the dignitary was frisked away under the cover of darkness in a nondemeanor vehicle (read as auto). His graduation day and speech was entered into the record books/year book (read as FIR, first investigation report, at Cubbon Park Police Station). However they are yet to be published. Also a video tape of his eloquence has been recorded (CC TV cameras of the Empire Hotel which was mauled) but has not been released to the public in general, because of the security to the nation and its leader. So ladies and gentlemen mark this year as the ARRIVAL of the Jr Gowda or say yet-another-Gowda.

Nostradamus is associated with soothsaying, I say it is not difficult to harbinger at all. My prediction for the future is Nikhil Gowda will be our Chief Minister in some time. My guess is another 15 years, but he WILL become our Chief Minister. Look at his worthy characteristics, he hardly passed from Jain college because lack of attendance, where in there was some 'Deve'ine intervention on the college authorities to grant permission for the tests. Mysteriously he passed! All his colleagues passed! He is a true leader, because he brought 'We' before 'I' - all his non-class attending friends got to write the exam. NG has got a beautiful 'rath'. Where did all that money for a 3 month unregistered car come from? Was it a family heirloom, I wonder. I wonder if this should be a clue to Lokauyktha? Chief Justice Venkatachala are you reading this? This case is now buried - which we knew before even the investigation started! What a waste of money on the investigation. The apparent culprit for demolition of Empire Hotel is Syed, who is hiding in Singapore it seems. I was thinking the culprit was Dawood! My bad. Apologies to Dawood - dude you missed an opportunity to mark yourself in our glorious dusting, rotting, oxidating FIRs of Cubbon Park Police Station. Just have a thought of how NG would be treating the security personal posted at his house - people about twice his age will be yelled at, slurred at, addressed as bugger, addressed in singular - hogo, baro, toliyo, varso!

Nikhil Gowda is my Mehchina Kannadiga 2006.