I've finally got around to buying some cutlery for use in the kitchen. I've also bought lots of food during the weekend, so I'm stocked up for the week. It seems I'll be spending a bit more time in the kitchen now - near the oven, microwave, sink and maybe the dining table as well.

From now on, the kitchen isn't only going to be a place where I stumble into my flat mates - it will be where I make my grub. Food, here I come!

Dhiraagu WebSMS has been a dear friend to a lot of us. Some of us see it as a means of communicating with friends cheaply when we are strapped for cash while some others use it for more malicious purposes. Anyway, I took a different interest in it since its introduction some years ago.

Once upon a time...

When WebSMS was introduced, Dhiraagu relied on the interface scripts provided by Comverse for their SMS system purchased from Comverse. One part of the web interface had minor changes brought to sport Dhiraagu logos and copyright lines and was offered to the public as WebSMS. It was free for use and had no limits and no Dhiraagu signature lines appended. It was total fun! Ofcourse the fun was just beginning and I forayed into the scripts and ended up with access to the rest of the system that "websms" was actually part of... Dhiraagu then started to bring changes. I suspect these changes were politically influenced rather than being for their own financial or technical reasons.

First, Dhiraagu had a signature line appended to messages. The message was easy to get rid of by merely modifying the form data being submitted to the server. Ofcourse, Dhiraagu fixed it (sorta) in due time.

Next up, they decided to add user registration. It was still free thankfully. This was the first in a step of moves they've made to gather more and more specific data on the users. This initial user registration allowed anyone with an email address to open an account. This ofcourse meant, you can use throw-away free emails and aliases to open WebSMS accounts without revealing any real info on yourself.

Then few months later, the registration with email addresses was scrapped and people were required to have a mobile number to register. The old accounts were ofcourse purged after this change. This new change ruled out random people opening accounts and sending SMS - you needed to be their customer to send SMS via the web.

Sometime late 2004, they decided to limit the number of SMS to 10 per day per account. Now to implement this, they used a messed up implementation of sessions and cookies. When you login, you got assigned a cookie that set a key "Dhi" with a value of the form "12345%2cWanker%2cWho". Simply by altering the "12345", which is probably something meant to act as a session id, one could override the 10 SMS per day limit. By changing this value, you effectively assume the identity of another user - but all without any authentication! Simply change the number and you are good for another 10 SMS. Interesting thing was that user/session id didn't need to exist on their server - you could very well use 1000000 and move onto 1000001, 1000002 and so on for more SMS. I had the pleasure of getting my server blocked/ignored by Dhiraagu after I added this 'hack' to my Email2SMS service offered at the time via maldivianunderground.net - but the block wasn't placed until after my Email2SMS service had dispatched around 2000 SMS total using the 'hack' by the second/third day after they brought the "upgrade".

I should mention there were other interesting but less trivial flaws in the WebSMS system - like being able to reset the password for (all) users on the system via SQL injection. The database table they had, had the following fields (amongst others) : userid, username, password, mobileno. The login and password change facilities had SQL injection and logic deduction possibilities...

Soon after the 10 SMS limit "upgrade", in May 2005, Dhiraagu made another of its upgrades to make the messages that were being sent via the system seem to originate from the number of the WebSMS account holder. Uptil then, the originating number was "+000". This new upgrade killed the anonymity of messages being recieved by a WebSMS recipient. It killed the fun ofcourse and I had to find some way to get around it - just to piss off friends. It turned out Dhiraagu had simply appended the account holder's number to the cookie that is set when a user logins - and then uses that number from the cookie to represent the originating number whenever a SMS is sent. If you are having a hard time imagining how it looked, the cookie was of this form: Dhi=12345%2cJawish%2cJaa%2c770000. This opened up new possibilities! I could make SMS appear to originate from any number. I could make it that of a friend's or foe's. I could make the number an international one or even a landline one. Seeing my dad stare at the phone in disbelief when he received an SMS from himself was fun enough! Hehe.

Sadly, these "features" were fixed when Dhiraagu upgraded the system yet again in August 2005. No wild originating fun for now. I haven't messed around with it yet - much.

Psst. Tricks!

To finish off this lengthy post on Dhiraagu WebSMS, I'm sharing two neat tricks that you may like and still works on Dhiraagu WebSMS as of today.

No signature line: Don't want the "(Dhiraagu WebSMS)" line to appear in messages you send via the WebSMS system? Then simply add a equal sign ("=") as the last character in your post!

Long messages: Do you have some looonnggg message to send to someone and it's hard to fit in the 140 character limit that WebSMS imposes on you? Worry no more. You don't need to split the message into bits and send as separate messages and risk decreasing that dreaded 10 SMS limit you have for the day. All you need to do is disable JavaScript support in your browser temporary (It is an easy feat - consult your browser documentation on how to do this). When you type in the messages now, the limit counter will stay the same and you can go on typing forever. The messages are sent to the recipient as discrete SMS messages of text limit ~140 characters each. However, you will be penalized for only one SMS in the WebSMS daily limit counter.

Enjoy!

Update (14 Oct 2005): Dhiraagu has fixed the bugs that made possible the two tricks revealed above. Too bad

Holy Gawka Moly! I had my first cybernetics lecture today and guess who the lecturer is? It is none other than Professor Kevin Warwick! I was totally stunned. I sure am glad that he is going to be taking the next 10 weeks of lectures on "Machine Intelligence". I've obsessed about cybernetics ever since I read about his cybernetic implant that got him titled Cyborg 1.0, back in 1998.

I can't say much on cybernetics for now but I surely am impressed by Prof. Kevin. He certainly is a brilliant lecturer. His lecture today just flew past - it was totally engaging, enjoyable and thought provoking. He also made more than enough jokes that made the entire lecture theatre erupt into laughter. My favourite one was one on bees. He was talking about the differences in "intelligence" displayed in animals and humans. Bees, he said, have intelligence of their own sorts and we shouldn't be human-centric in going off comparing it with human intelligence as a reference. Bees do not need to have the same capabilities as a human, for it has its own abilities - like flying - which is not something humans can do - except for those who take certain drugs. Hehe. Not funny? Well, it made me laugh out loud!

Cybernetics at Reading University is quite big. The University cybernetics department is well stocked with skilled staff and the research being carried out is numerous and walks the bleeding-edges of science and technology. The department also got a 5 out of 5 at the latest UK government Research Assessment Exercise.

I hope everything continues on to be atleast on the same par as these first impressions...

The Muslims around the world are looking up for the moon to see if tomorrow is the 1st of Ramadan... While in the depths of the Indian ocean, in the scattered islands of the Maldives the Muslim populace silently wait looking up at their "moon" (better known locally as ---moon) to see if tomorrow is Ramadan or not.

I remember this particular "moon sighting" event back from the days I slogged for the President's Office with a diminutive salary but unique job title of "Web Developer". It was the first Eid during my time at the PO and as always I had to work late. Then around evening, I receive a press release from the "Press Unit" for publication on the President's Office website. I read the press release and just stood there in utter shock. Here with me was the press release regarding the moon sighting event that would be held that night and yes - the outcome of this colourful, televised/broadcasted live ceremony as well! There written in detail was the events of the ceremony complete with snips from any speeches. This was better than astrology. This was living the future right then and there.

Are even religious events and holy days rigged? Are they preset and predetermined for political benefit? I snapped out a fake reality and burst out of another bubble - I knew better from then on. I watched in amusement as whole events - with no exemptions for the holy - be planned and orchestrated with brilliant precision. I watched as everyone was hoarded in rooms and halls, dressed in their best attire and silently be made a fool of themselves. Oh well, just another exciting tale from my days at PO...

Anyway, let me steal a few lines from http://www.moonsighting.com/ regarding the start of Ramadan:

"Sighting Possibilities for Ramadan 1426
Ramadan: The Astronomical New Moon is on Monday October 3, 2005 at 10:28 Universal Time. Looking at the visibilty curve one can understand that the moon is in the Southern Hemisphere. The moon is about 15 hours old and being too low on the horizon for North America will set in 14 min. after sunset on west coast. It cannot be seen in North America nor anywhere East of USA October 3. On October 4, it will be visible in most of the world except most of Asia and Europe, where it will be 24 to 31 hours old and less than 2 degrees above the horizon, still not visible. In Europe and most of Asia, it cannot be seen until October 5, when it will be 48 to 55 hours old. Accordingly, the first day of Ramadan will be on Wednesday, October 5, 2005 for North America and most of the world, except most of Asia and Europe, Insha-Allah."

TTFN.

It's the weekend finally and I get to sleep a little (a lot?) longer. I woke up today to the sound of my Pocket PC declaring that it was the first of Ramazan. I am not sure how it came up with that announcement but today certainly is not the first of Ramazan - I should get around to reconfiguring Pocket Islam for the correct dates and location.

Past week has had many ups and downs. I finally got my luggage back about 3 days ago - yes, after 4 long days of waiting empty handed. It was such a relief to get all my gear back intact and totally made my day. Sadly, however, one of mom's kulhikaajaa packets had burst open and spread all over my clothes and I ended up vacuuming the clothes and the room. The airline isn't offering any compensation though and hasn't responded to my emails. Anyway, I don't think I'll fly Qatar Airways from now on.

On the same day, my girlfriend of 4 years came online after successfully avoiding me for almost a month to kindly declare that after a long period of reflection and thought, she didn't think we should continue the relationship anymore. Interestingly I wasn't surprised or hurt or depressed - I guess I had gone through all the scenarios in the weeks she avoided me. She has her own problems - studies, family, work and all of the rest of lifes confusing blessings to worry about. Well, I am free and single now... so, girls: let the flirting begin!

The enrolment, modules selection, health registration and all the other miscellaneous registration processes have also been dealth with during last week. I will be doing modules on cybernetics, maths, electronics, internet, software engineering and programming for the next year. Studies begin Monday and I am quite looking forward to it. Hopefully this will tickle my mind more than work has for the oh-so-many years. My tutor is a Dr. X. Hong specialising in cybernetics and seems to be a nice person. Well, I hope she is. She is supposed to be monitoring my academic and personal performance throughout the year and I surely don't want to be in her bad books when I need some favour or exemption.

My flat mates are a nice bunch. Everyone seems to get along with each other fine. Everyone's been nice to me and quite helpful too. Sadly, the cat has got my tongue so I end up keeping quiet most of the time. I have yet to figure out this introvertedness in me - maybe it's intimidation, maybe insecurity or maybe boredom. I have always considered myself to be an extrovert, confident and talkative but then again I think I've always taken a while to warm up to new people and not just foriegners.

Enough of my mundane blabbing for the time being. Tata.