108/2011 Kathmandu -- Where sparrows greet you

The one thing which attracts me to Kathmandu is the chirping and frolic of sparrows everywhere. We have successfully banished them from all our towns and villages in India. In India, our children will see them only on TV, museums and blogs like this ::
http://manipalblog.com/2011/10/where-has-the-chirp-gone/. Or, if you want to see the real birds, come to Kathmandu.

partha

Comparing apples and oranges, statistically speaking.

R vs SPSS

Some time ago I gave a lecture in Nepal Engg. College Kathmandu (Changunarayan), on the use of FOSS in teaching. One of the examples I chose was about R (a FOSS package for statistics). One teacher took the standard and stale stand about "user friendliness" of SPSS with respect to R. The argument, predictably went around in circles. I now have a more profound anser to that person's remarks. Since I do not know his name, I hope he will be reading this blog, and will realise the fallacy of his arguments.

Please take a look at ::
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_statistical_packages

partha

Interesting property of Fibonacci series

When we take a look at Fibonacci series, through modulo arithmetic, we get some interesting observations :

http://www.math.temple.edu/~renault/fibonacci/fib.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisano_period

Maths is interesting, because there is so much beauty to discover.

partha

PS: This was a question in my exam for Kathmandu Uiniversity students.

How good is your password ?

To all my students who attended my recent course on cryptography and e-security, at Kathmandu University ::

Remember my long discourses on using strong passwords ? I found a cute tool which helps you visualise how good/strong your password is. IT gives you individual scores on various parameters which decide the strength of a password, and also an overall score for your password.

Great tool. Try it. Use it every time you choose a password.

The tool is here ::http://www.passwordmeter.com/

Never take chances with security.

partha

CRYPTO-V2 COURSE CHRONICLE

Crptography Course- V2 (KU2011-COMP560) website ::

http://www.freewebs.com/profpartha/cryptoKUv2.htm

Class #	Date	Events (Each lecture is for 2 hours)
99	2013/01/13	Lab session Recursive use of gpg for encrypting an entire partition or entire drive contents.
20	2013/01/11	Lab session. Creating a fortress. Recursive use of md5 and digital signature.
19	2012/12/30	Lab session . Key signing party. KU web of trust KUWOT.
18	2012/12/30	Lab session . Use of md5sum and sha1sum.
17	2012/12/30	Guest lecture by Prof. PR Adhikary. Algebraic systems.
16	2012/12/30	PGPNET review. Briefing on lab. sessions.
14, 15	2012/12/28	Guest lecture by Prof. P. R. Adhikary. Overview of Algebraic systems. SSL explained. X509 certificates. SSL protocol
	2012/12/25	LaTeX hands-on Workshop Day 2/2
	2012/12/23	LaTeX hands-on Workshop Day 1/2
13	2012/12/21	RSA overview. Overview of network security tools. IPV4 vs IPV6. Firewalls, IP chains vs IP tables. IPSEC. SSL/TLS. Root certificate.
11,12	2012/12/16	(09-hashmd5) Hash digests. md5 and sha family. Applications. Digital signatures. Use in creating a secure CDROM (How to build a fortress). {08-cryptstandards.odp}Crypto standards. DES, 3DES, AES. Elgamal, DH Key exchange.
10	2012/12/14	Review of GPG exercise. (07-numbertheory.odp)Number theory principles. Interruptions due to power failure.
08,09	2012/12/09	(06-pgp97.odp)PGP/GPG. Use of Konqueror, Kleopatra. Keys creation and management, encrypt, sign, verify, decrypt. Class interrupted due to power failure. (05-keys.odp)Keys management, Use of key server. Key strength. Video by Terrence Spies. (07-numbertheory.odp)Number theory principles.
07	2012/12/07	(06-pgp97.odp)PGP/GPG. Use of KGPG. Keys creation and management, encrypt, sign, verify, decrypt. Class interrupted due to power failure.
06	2012/12/02	(04.secure97odp) Cryptography contd. Using vi and zip for symm. key crypto. Extending Caesar's cipher. Viginere cipher. XOR cipher. Feistel networks.
05	2012/12/02	Invited lecture -- Dr. K jha. Principles of algebra.
04	2012/11/30	(04.secure97odp) Cryptography essentials. Sita and Rama in cryptography. Symm. key crypto. Caesar's cipher. Asymm. key crypto. Trapdoor functions. Factoring problem. Discrete logarithm problem.
03	2012/11/25	(03-linuxsecu.odp) How Linux does it. Security tools in Linux.
02	2012/11/25	(02-bewarealways.odp) Information security, basics, issues, threats, remedies. Internet fraud.
01	2012/11/23	(00-takeoff.odp) Course inauguration by Dean (Engg.). Take off lecture. Course Overview. Security awareness questionnaire.
xx	2013/01/20	Scheduled end of course.
xx	2013/01/24	Scheduled Final exam
xx	2013/01/27	Scheduled declaration of results

Cryptography at Kathmnadu

Prof. Partha's course at Kathmandu. Take a look :


http://www.freewebs.com/profpartha/cryptoatkath.htm

partha