Conned – Fake USB

I got outsmarted and conned by a fraudster and situation recently. I was late for office so I was in hurry . I  was approached by a person in scooter, I stopped as I thought he was going to ask for directions. He showed me four 32 GB Kingston flash drives in Kingston package and  told me some tale about how he acquired them which I do not remember as I was hardly paying any attention and was not interested.

Then he feigned innocence as if he is unaware of what it is worth. He offered me to test them and if I felt that they are good I can buy them.The offer seemed tempting so I decided to test it . So I took all four of them upstairs and broke open one and plugged them.

It showed 32 GB free  I formatted it to Fat32  and then I went to Kingston site and verified the seal the seal looked authentic. I tried entering the no. but the china site was not working. So I decided to test it by copying few media files and then disconnecting and reconnecting and see if they were working fine. It worked fine but slow and I was in hurry so I did not further testing.

So I went downstairs where he was waiting and gave him 3 USB sticks back and kept the one just that I have opened. He asked me how much I will pay I said 600 and he bargained for 800 and to buy more but I gave him 600.

Next two days I was happy thinking that it was either good obtained through illegitimate means or it was some Chinese product which is not guaranteed to last long.I told some of my friends and colleagues about this how it is too good to be true.But it was short-lived as two days later when I tried to copy some 2 GB of data to my friends comp it showed nothing on my friend’s comp.

After some research on internet I found out that I have been conned as it was 512 MB drive which has been flashed to show 32 GB.

So bottom-line is if something is too good to be true then it is not true.

Things that saved me from buying extra in hindsight were 

• He told me he is from Ghaziabad and I knew Ghaziabad is the biggest fake goods city in the India.
• I did not have lot of money in my pockets I only had 400 so I had to borrow some from building guard.
• The performance of  drive was slow.

Things that did not work in my favor

• I was in hurry.
• I  underestimated con people thinking they cannot make packaging almost like original with original looking seal.
• The guy’s innocent and suspicious behavior  acting was very good.
• I only copied files which were less than 512 MB had I copied a bigger file like movie file  I would have found out the truth.
• Most important point is he gave me full control like testing and fixing price so which made it seem like I was in control .

Here are few items to verify fakeness of USB drive :

1.Try using h2testw . It will write the complete size and verify it. This is sufficient condition but it will take long time as it will try to write full size.

 http://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/h2testw-14-gold-standard-in-detecting-usb-counterfeit-drives/

2. One faster way would be trying to format it to NTFS if it fails it must be fake .(This is necessary but not sufficient )

3. If something looks dirt cheap think again.

There are lots of other links on internet to detect fake USB drives and lot of people have been conned by EBay sellers.

So after discovering that I have been outsmarted , I was amused at my bêtise, I broke open the drive and to see the insides and saw handiwork of it being tampered .

In case you are wondering how it looks like here is pic of the package

Here is link which shows one :-

http://www.gadget.co.za/pebble.asp?relid=1349

Also check-out the

http://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/

Lies

You keep me in the dark

Until the difference from the truth

Becomes evident and stark

You play me around

Like a dog fetching the Frisbee

On the whistle’s sound

You give me false hope

Only to be disappointed like a person

Rappelling left with a cut rope

Why can’t you come clean?

Stop giving lame excuses and

For once just spill the bean

Because I am tired of being pushed around

Listening to same lines and

Being treated like a hound

IPL semis

Lets start with the team which has already made to semis :

Delhi is already in to semis with 16 points and four matches left because even if they lose all matches they will still make to semis

Chennai with 13 points and 3 matches left including one against KKR are favorites to go through

Rajasthan with 13 points have two matches including one against KKR so they are also looking  good

Lets have a look at teams which have matches against Delhi and Chennai, two strong but not invincible side as shown by Bangalore today.

Mumbai  to go through has to win its remaining two  matches against DD and CSK and still rely on other teams on not winning to go through.

Punjab needs to win against Deccan to have any real chance of going through.But it is only necessary condition but not sufficient because they have to still hope that Deccan does not win its remaining matches. With its matches against DD and CSK it is a tall task.

Bangalore need to win against Deccan because a loss there would concede them points and poor Run Rate of  Bangalore will force them out.

In order to go to the semis Deccan has one thing clear

Three straight wins guarantee semi final spot

Two wins from 3 games is sufficient to see them through in most case if they win against

1) Bangalore and Punjab both  as both team will be left with 14 points at max then while Deccan will have 16 and  MI will have 15 max

2)or Kolkata and Bangalore/Punjab on the basis of run rate (unless there is any dramatic change in run rates)

If it loses all three it is certainly out of semis as  Bangalore,Delhi ,Chennai and Rajasthan  will have more points.

Only scenario which can lead to multiple outcome for Deccan is single win,then it has to rely on Delhi and Chennai to beat its competitors.

Next three matches are important as they are decider for  the semis berth :-

DD vs. Punjab : Must win for Punjab otherwise they have to rely too much on their luck to go through

Mumbai vs. CSK : Must win for Mumbai else they are certainly  out

DC vs. KKR : DC must defeat KKR to make it easy for themselves

Watch out for rain and  KKR , they can certainly make somebody else’s life miserable if they prevail.

So lets see how things play out.

Deccan see through the see-saw battle

A good see-saw match was what I witnessed today.

Mumbai Indians are looking formidable side with Sachin, Jayasuriya, Duminy and Bravo . There young Indian players Nayar and Dhawan are good too. There bowling led by Maling, Zaheer , Harbhajan and Bravo looks good too.

Deccan Charger on the other hand have really great top but they have a really long tail which has again hampered the finish of the Deccan Chargers yet again. The addition of Dwayne Smith has further bolstered their explosive top compromising of Gilly,Gibbs and Sharma. The weak spot for them is the lax form of Laxman and no support from  Ravi Teja and Rao in middle order. So Deccan relies very heavily on its top to perform which they have till now. But recent games against Banglore and Mumbai has shown once the top 4 goes away they are not able to score runs and give  a decent finish to the game. Thankfully their bowling has been going well till now with pace duo RP and Edwards proving good support to each other. Pragyan Ojha has been good in the middle overs.

Going into the game I wanted Gilly’s team to win but on the back of my mind I knew Mumbai were more favorites to win as they have more evenly balanced squad.

Thanks to good batting at the top by Gilchrist,Gibbs and Smith it looked 200 within the reach. But once Smith , Sharma and Laxman departed due to good bowling from bravo  it was quite a slide from there one. What really put me off was how Rao got a set batsman of greater caliber run out. He should have crossed and let Gibbs survive. The long tail of Deccan and good bowling from Malinga made target of Mumbai shorter by 20 runs atleast.

Mumbai were curtailed well by tight bowling by Edwards and RP. But over from Harmeet let Sachin and Mumbai back on track. I think Harmeet would be dropped in next match has he was sloppy in the field and did not perform well with the bowl.Sachin and Duminy did well to propel Mumbai to half way mark at half time. At that time it looked like Mumbai were going to have a comfortable win. But as we have witnessed timeout has changed the momentum of the game . After timout Ojha took the crucial wicket of the Tendulkar and then bowled  couple of tight overs in tandem with Rao to gain the momentum back for Deccan. It was same scenario as Punjab to get 60 out of 30 but unfortunately for they did not have any set batsmen like Bopara once Duminy got out.

What surprised me was letting Rao bowl the 18th over instead of Dwayne Smith the more experienced person . It worked out well with going for only one six in the over. What I think Mumbai did wrong was after wicket of Tendulkar they slowed their momentum alot and let run rate climb high. The late charge by Harbhajan was great but it was just too much for him.

In the end Deccan won the game due to some fine bowling but they really need to finish the batting well by either ensuring the top stays till end or making change in team to include someone better than Teja and Rao.

With matches against Delhi and Chennai ,Deccan  is going to have tough test and will rely on top order and good bowling to do wonder as it has done till now.

At this stage Mumbai,Delhi,Chennai and Deccan look strong to go to semifinal unless Rajasthan does their last year’s magic.

Sri Lankan Tamils to India : Why so silent?

Indian Politicians and media were so enraged when Jade Goody said  a racial slur to Shilpa Shetty that they made it of national importance and hijacked  the UK minister’s main agenda and forced  it  on him.

But now when one of the most heinous racist crime similar to genocide  is being committed in Sri Lanka, why is Indian media and politicians ignoring it and showing the drama of Varun Gandhi. Are only racist words against celebrity by a white person of national importance and not the life of a normal civilian  subjected to bombarding under the veil of counterattack on terrorism ?

Have both  BJP (The Hindutva party) and Congress (The champion of common man) have been so blinded by Polls that they are giving this a miss. Both these party project themselves as self-righteous and moral , what is stopping them from raising this issue at global level.

Where is morality of Indian media which makes sure to push everyone else to gallows on issues of morality and righteousness.

Crashes,Connection and Changes

It has been sometime since I wrote my last blog, a few stuffs  have happened since then.I have endured two hard disk crash, change in broadband connection, and change of manager.

Hard disk crashes as random but  they seemed  in perfect agreement in my case.First my external 500 GB Seagate free agent goes berserk sometime in January ,So I submitted it for replacement but the person recording serial no. made mistake and wrote o instead of a 0(zero) which resulted in some phone calls and further delay of  a week. Seeing this as right opportunity my internal 500 GB Seagate hard disk decided to betray me. Note that these are both new hard disk  not older than 6 months. My older hard disk have not given me any problem like this ,touchwood. So I was reduced from 1 TB to 2 GB pen drive of read only Xubuntu Linux live CD  for about a week, till I got my external hard disk.

I decided to install windows 7 on my external USB hard disk but to my dismay I found it cannot be achieved. So  I installed Ubuntu on external drive and worked on it for a week, the experience with Compiz effects was good once I was able to install my display driver.Then I got my internal hard drive which I struggled to fit in the  slot (I just pushed in slot and was not able to screw it to case) and I was finally able to install Windows 7 . Well Windows 7  has been a delight at least.

After getting through this hard disk fiasco, my ISP decided to give me hard time. I was witnessing slow connection for a few days after which I decided to complain. The Airtel call center  guys were unaware of problem. It was only when technical guy came to my home I was informed of ‘Fair Usage Policy’ which dictates that unlimited connection of 384 kbps seize to be 384 and will become 256 once you have crossed upload + download limit of 25 GB. The sites were not updated still and Airtel help guys were not clear of details. It took a week to get clear details of this policy and sites were updated. So I decided to change my ISP, I contacted beam cable which never called me back . So I called Reliance Broadband which resulted in Wimax guy and broadband guy coming to my home. I refused Wimax guy as I didn't hear good reviews about it . After some documents ,emails and 500 rupees I was able to apply for reliance. I am not sure about exact days but after few days I got my reliance 1mbps connection(I decided to  upgrade to see how this affects my net life). I had asked Airtel guys for disconnection immediately but they have still not taken their equipments. Well with this sorted out things are fine finally.Although I have to solve reliance disconnection issue after some idle hours of connection which results in re-entering of password.

After changes at home were over, I got the news about change at work . So My manager has changed and my team has moved under new manager after some re-org. This change doesn’t requires much effort  from my part at least.

I witnessed weather pattern change also with summer coming early at Hyderabad. It was not even Feb. and  mercury had already risen. I thought Pune would be nice change from this hot weather but to my surprise Pune was no different than Hyderabad  on my short trip.

Well things have settled for now. Lets see how long that lasts in these turbulent times.

Tears of disbelief and despair

 

Tears rolling down the cheeks of two great players was a sight which we all saw after end of the Australian Open final. But the emotions conveyed by these tears where world apart. A tear of disbelief, a dream come true, joy  was followed by a tear of despair, helplessness, grief.

 

It was a match of  great player of all time against  great player at the moment. The best player of the moment survived in the end. "You need to win the point against him three or four times more than against all the other players" is what Verdasco said about his compatriot after losing in semis to him and rightly so. It was almost impossible to get through him as he was able to cover the whole world America to Asia without raising a eyebrow.

Although I had  believed Federer is really strong and can defeat Rafa but somehow he  just was not able to keep the momentum going in the last set as he handed the service  break to Rafa by committing a string of unforced error. The serving of both of them was not A-class. Overall it just didn't seem the A-game of  both the player.

Way Rafa has been improving over the year he seems very close to repeating the feat of calendar grand slam. I hope that Federer wins his 14th quickly but with each conceded win to Rafa , 14th slam is becoming further away from Federer.

Tipping Point to Six Degrees of Separation

 

I got fascinated by the word tipping point which I had used in my previous post. So I have started reading the book The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference  by Malcolm Gladwell .

I have finished reading the second chapter (which talks about connector,mavens and salesman ) and it seems a good read till now .

I used the tipping point word sometime back in the post and then I researched the word as I liked the word and I found the book. My curiosity went up for the book and I decided I am going to read the book. Incidentally my friend had this book but it took me a few weeks to get hold of it . In the book they mention six degrees of separation which I think most of us might have heard states that everyone is connected to everyone else within six links.After reading about six degrees of separation , I got interested about it and I found another book Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age. In effort to get more about this I searched it and I found the movie Six Degrees of Separation which I plan to watch now.

Tipping Point -> The Tipping Point ->Six Degrees of Separation->Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age ->Six Degrees of Separation (Movie)

This too got covered within six links !

The note

A dream untold resting in sleep
a bright picture lying in dark to weep
Warm blood splattered on cold wall
a big room filled with people looks small

so much noise in silent residence
natural expressions replaced by pretense
providing with answers abound
but right question yet to be found

what forces one to end something so dear
something hard to understand ,never clear
it has got to be love , they say
work they say is the reason in play

so many reasons to die they will give
but only reason to live is to live
says simply the note
that the dead had wrote