Kadugodi Police & Cyber Crime

Recently, we came to know about a fraudulent website that claims to sell Nokia cell phones for throw away price, and it can only be purchased online using credit cards. As dutiful citizen four of P9 members went to Kadugodi police station, to alert the cops about possible Internet scam. Indians usually have unknown fear in meeting police, and we are brought up listening to dialogues like “how lowly and immoral this person is….he has stepped the doors of police station….no one in our lineage has stooped to such low levels of going to police station” …four of us mustered all courage and decided to go to Kadugodi police station….someone reminded us tht recently the police were under tremendous pressure to find a nagging criminal and they just arrested few youth who entered the station to give some complaint….and given the recent IISC attack….we could be unnecessary victims…but anyway we thought such things should not deter the dutiful law abiding citizens of this country……


Scene: Kadugodi police station
It’s a vast spacious compound, with a small dusty red façade. A constable was lazily leaning against the wall and looking at us…we gave a smile and thought he would inquire “what’s the matter?” hmmm…he did not speak anything and we did not want to report such a intellectual finding to a mere constable…..we went inside….the first room had few wooden tables…possible taken from ruins of Tipu sultan’s palace….a person seated on the chair was intently looking at few documents and making notes…….did not bother to see four able, young and imposing men walking deep into the station… the second room had lot more table and chairs and had “what we can interpret as jail” ..it also had a small computer room with a lady operator moving her finger all over the keyboard rapidly…and behind her is seated a thick mushed person….we thought they r using some complicated imaging s/w to figure out the identify of most wanted criminal….i just wanted to c what it is?..how it works…may be I can offer some imaging expertise….before I could peep in, a voice asked …..”yes hey who r u ..what u want?” …all four os us tried to explain him the possible internet scam…..certainly we moved him…not tht he appreciated us social responsible initiative…just tht he was completely disoriented and confused as to what the case actually is….he then tried to understand the situation clearly …so he asked us questions ….

Police:Ok…can u tell me in short..the scene of crime…place of crime,, victim of crime….time of crime..then we can talk about other details…

P9: aaaaa…place of crime…we looked at each other….place of crime?..its on Internet……

Police: (quite amazed) oooo!Internet…..hmmm… so what is the crime..
P9: sir! Somebody is trying to cheat people…we suspect this website(http://www.nokiaind.com/) is fraudulent…its not Nokia’s official website….

(Sudden interruption..)
Police: ok tell me Victime of crime…who lost the money…how much?
P9: None…atleast none of us….we already suspected it to be false…
Police: None?…if u did not lose money…why did u come here…none of u r victims….
P9: true! …but we want to alert u…someone else may lose?
Police: quite annoyed and confused….hmm…ok wait outside…talk to sub-inspector…..

As we were moving out, I peeped in the computer room to see the operator working in MS-Word……hmmm…after waiting for 10 mins…another constable came….he aske dus in Hindi….tell me whats ur problem..He just could not believe that ppl can come to police station and alert them about possible “mis-happening”……..he almost told us.. ” if none of u r victime…then whats ur problem…why the hell r u guys here…eating our time” …this constable seem to be more inquisitive than the other..he again enquired us from the beginning…..and he asked

Police: how did we come to know of such a website…..
P9: “got a mail”…..
Police: from whom
P9: from a friend
Police: who sent him..
P9: We understood his motive and said some unkown guy sent him……..
Police: ok…where did u get the mail..
P9: in our inbox:
Poloce: where is it?
P9: in our office computer..
Police: where is ur office?
P9: In whitefield…..
Police: where in Whitefield?
P9: behind ITPL…
Police: aaaaaaaaa!…so u got it in ur office which is in whitefield….actually this case shud be referred to ITPL police,…this is Kadigodi police….He was gleaming…as though he has successfully cross examined some criminal lawyer …..
P9: no internet is available all over….we came to nearest police station…our house is in kadigodi…
Police was insisting that we should go to ITPL station….

It took us a very loong time and effort to meet the SI. He was very decent person. He confessed his ignorance on the toipc and requested us to report the same to bangalore Cyber crime branch.He said, he would contact the Cyber branch and pass on the information;We left the station and planned to send a email complaint to cyber crime office...something never tht materialised...

Baptizing the group ……“Stirring the Hornet’s nest”

We are into a new project and that is to give a identity to ourselves, a group of 20+ ppl…all from the same institute, stretched out on mother earths lap…It all started with a simple job of opening a G~ group. Someone asked us to suggest a name….prompt came 2 names…..X and Y…each with solid backing by small disjoint subset of ppl….Supporters of X andY tried to persuade the rest to vote for their name with claims that it truly reflects our identity…certainly hornets were off the hive buzzing allover…
Mails started flooding the inbox, each suggesting new names, some with justification of what is means and others looked a expression of heightened mental activity….and some others were mutated versions of previously suggested names. After a week of intense and aggressive peddling of the issues against all the odds, the bureau embraced a name that allegedly had a mystical origin. No one could explain on how /who coined this word….and what it means….hmmm after much deliberation a meaning was interpreted out of it…the name is Platform9 or P9…I just love this word and I need no explanation for what it means…tough I am quite happy with the interpretation tht I suspect to be after thought.

Stocking Muscles and Money

Lot of things things happend this week. I joined Gym. I was motivated by my friend "Plato". After a thorough inquiry i found that 10:30 am to 3:30 pm the gym will be virtually empty. I really had to find such a slot for my work out to save some embarassments and as guessed i had tough time for first few days..I fell down while doing push-ups,, stretch outs....hmm things just did not stop at gym...after my first day work out...my entire shoulder, ribs, chest and neck were paining....I went to cafeterria to have lunch....and found difficult to hold the plates...I broke 2 glass tumblers in a week...
Things did not stop there...my second day at gym..i was walking, jogging...gasping breath on treadmill...the timer seem to move like tortoise....hmm...10 mins of walk was too difficult.....fortunately i cant just stop.....i may fall down......hmm a terrible thing happend...i was making all sorts of expression on my face...so much so that somebody walking along just stopped by and told..."u just hve to walk on that...u make expression as tough u r fighting 1000 elephants ...just tak eit easy..."i quickly realised wat i was doing...my mouth was peeking out...i was gasping breath ..and all the muscles in my face were shrunken..making an expression as tought i just tasted bittergoud....".immediately i had a gleeful smile on my face and was gently breezed along the treadmill and came to stop.....

Well the second thing that happened this week is "making money in stock market"...I had a bet with "Plato" on who will make 25K to 100K first?....Quite challenging.......Pray to god that i will fisrt and fast......

So for commign months i will be concentrating on Muscles and money..well i need to spend money to stock my muscles(to buy all that hifi supplement foods, ceratine monohydrade tablets).......did i hear ppl say "u need Muscle power to earn money"

Tele-Marketing: A Nuisance or Entertainment?

Yesterday, I was watching “Friends”. Lisa Kudrow (as call center gal) made me feel call center jobs cud well be entertaining for both the parties. Earlier I used to get peeved to receive any call that tries to sell me some stuff over phone, but now after seeing this serial, I thought I can covert these intrusive and invasive calls into nuggets of entertainment during work hours. One of my friends got a call from a bank to buy its credit card. Despite being irritated with the call at odd time, he politely refused saying he already has two. The lady at other end suggested him that three is ideal number and started giving a discourse on why one should have more number of cards. My friend, quite annoyed, asked her if she cud give him 1000 cards. The lady was bit confused and before she could speak anything he said, he has found a big Dinosaur Egg and tht he want to hatch the egg by incubating it with credit cards. Needless to say the phone was hung.

Deeply inspired by Lisa Kudrow and my friend Ramsu, I was awaiting a call from any merchandise, and I got one from Country club. Earlier, she has asked me several times to become member of Country Club and patiently enumerated all the benefits. I used to simply say “Not now or Its costly..” This time our conversation was as follows..

“ is any swimming pool “
“Yes sir infact we replace water every day”
“can I bring my pet animals to the club”
“yes sir”.
“Ok ..I am planning to get two of my Buffaloes. Will u charge me extra money for this?””(Giggling) No sir.. U cant bring Buffaloes…U can get ur dog”
“But u just said we can get our pets”
“Buffaloes are not pets”
“No they are…. I rear them….”
“sorry sir.. they our policy does not allow tht”
“Ok fine…next time if u call me. Make sure we can get all our pets..infact I am planning to get a pig this weekend … and I wud love ot get tht too…

Call hangs up….and I had my fun at work…

Months after Supreme court’s ban of “Unsolicited calls”, we still get calls asking us to spare few minutes to listen to a standard dialogue delivery. Its certainly intrusive and has negative impact on performance at work. We cannot again do wat Harsh Patak did. A better way out is to convert this harassment to fun by bullying the caller. :-)

The Call Center Chicanery

Servicing the customer needs has been the motto of every company. Be it soap or Software product. Call-Center gals play important role in the growth and retention of customer base for every company, and as in every job this too has its own strenuous expectations and need quality soft skills. It may be true that US customers shower call center gals with torrent of racial and sexual slurs, but I had terribly irritating experience from these gals who have niched a unique to keep themselves cool at work. Let me narrate my terrible experience....

Recently, I called my mobile service provider to enquire about a service that I had told them to activate. All Call Servicing Officer picked up the call and even before I cud complete my complaint, she put me on hold telling that she would verify the case in her computer, after around 3 minutes, she came back and told me to be online for some more time as there is some problem with her computer only to com back after 2 minute to say tht “ sorry sir, sever is down I am not able to help you now. Kindly ring up after 5:00 pm” I just rang up again with in few minutes, and this time I was lucky. My problem was fixed after 6 minute long interactive session. Few weeks later I had to call them again and this time again the same problem. After putting me on hold for 3 mins, the lady call Servicing officer told me “ server down.. Call again”

In the weekend, I happen to meet my cousin, who works as personal banking officer in IIICC bank. She said if pressure is too much then they politely tell the customer the standard template “ server Down. Plz come later”. Ofcourse, they do to annoy same customer with this message more than once. And some times they pack the message in extraordinarily user friendly interface. They have to say “ I am very sorry sir. Just give me few more minutes let me help you…. then “ oh god sir plz leave ur number here we will get back to you if server comes up before 8:00 pm”

Well…. having learnt the lesson. I alwys prefix my calls with this standard message. “ Hi, I called thrice earlier and I was told the server is down…. Is it fine now? Can u service my problem now”. Hmm As of now, I feel this template has positive effect.

Student Life .....

Last week was quite hectic- as usual. Yet another week to feel happy about being here. I cannot imagine working like this elsewere. This weekend was great revelation cum relaxation.I was just thinking about my school college days. When i think of past i am filled with mixed emotions.. But, very thankfully, i have trained myself to forget the dark.

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I recollect with sweet fondness of my quest to be independent and to different from others. I loathed to do something that has already been done,to research on something that is well established..its like re-discovering the wheel...... but what i lacked was patience and hard work. I was passionate about knowlegde and was once in spree to acquire everything from books....but in that i dissolved the sense of reasoning and logic..I was certainly an above average student, ..almost consistently in first decile of class... but never at top. As a student i was well aware of my weakness....I cud have given a try to be the first..... I always thought and continue to believe that being a finest and brightest student is gift of god.. i can imitate a to some extent with my pedantic strategems....but never reproduce the acumen the sagacity and shrewdness of god's produce..... I still hold on to this feeling... Arguably my mother says.. this is one of the many stupid reasons given by lazy people who cannot study. I strongly feel that a truly outstanding student is dispassionate, enthusastic and sincerely seeks knowledge and makes the job of the instructor increasingly useless by becoming self reliant.Alas!! I only tried to imitate .. I gave this as excuse to bunk classes and lectures.... I classified few lectures as boring, some as uninteresting and branded others as useless... This is feeling was further strengthend by my quest for independence, self reliant... I partially agree with my mother --- it was an excuse. I sincerely regret for this.. however given another opportunity i wud sit in the classroom with all my neurons clearly directed/ focused towards the lecture....Yup! still i feel strongly only a natural student can do this fete and i can imitate...

I am bit tired of writting this stuff... I will continue sometime later.....All i wanted to convey is my outlook of life.. why i lived so.. I still have sooo much life ahead... I am positive about it...want to live it with ehthusiasm and vigour...

And my rummmage continues......

Two months after creating this blog, i found some time to post my thoughts. ....and yea, i still continue to search for some unknown stuff everywhere... I wonder why god apparently gives so many choices...I try my best to keep my choice list as small as possible but alas! i still have to choose from the TWO. This has been most difficult for me., and i have been doing the ad-hoc stuff.. but anyway i never pined for the "road not taken"... Life has been so good all these days.. ..I am trying to get new meaning into life by delving deep into the culture of the past... there is immense urge in me to visit my childhood homes--hmm, My current job has vitiated me from doing so many things that are close to me....

I experience the sweetness of life but not able to express it. Its a sin. why?, well..if u enjoy life it means u enjoy every thing that makes up ur life--parents,friends,office-collegues, ...street-dogs,my surroundings bla, bla,bla... and its ur duty to give back as much as u receive....

Hmm, i will find the way out sooon....

My thanks to Deepak Jahagirdar for teaching me to blog....