61/2013 Cryptography has Indian roots

Conents removed for editing and updates

60/2013 Cryptography for e-security (crypto-v3) May 2013- July 2013

Cryptography Course (crypto-v3)- website ::

http://www.freewebs.com/profpartha/cryptoKUv3.htm
Each ession = 90 minutes

Class #	Date	Highlights
19, 20	2013-06-21	Closure and Debriefing session. Misc. security techniques :: steganography, hamming, chaffing, winnowing, shred. Exam details announced. Videos on : Alan Turing, Claude Shannon.
18	2013-06-20	Network security tools : SSH SSL Explained
16, 17	2013-06-11	Authentication. Testing password strength. Network security Tools. IPV6, IPSEC, PEM. S/MIME, SET, SSL/TLS.
15a	2013-06-12	Linux overview. Twin boot concept. Installing Linux/Ubuntu demo. Distributed copies of BOSS Linux.
15	2013-06-09	Authentication principles. Two factor authentication. Biometric authentication. Passwords.
13, 14	2013-06-07	Elementary number theory. Modular arithmetic. Fermat's little theorem, Euler's theorem. Factoring problem. Inverse Logarithm problem. Prime numbers. GCD. Euclidean algorithm and extended Euclidean algorithm. Overview of RSA algorithm
12	2013-06-06	Overview of some cryptographic standards. Feistel networks. DES, 3DES, IDEA. S box. P box.
11	2013-06-02	Hash digests. Essential properties. md family vs sha family. Merkle Damgard construction. Role of digests in digital signatures. sha3 competition and result. How to build a fortress with hash digest and digital signature.
09, 10	2013-05-31	PGP/GPG. Encrytion, decryption, signing, verfification with GPG. Keys and key management using Command Line. KGPG interface, Thunderbird interface.
08	2103-05-30	Security issues in operating systems. Linux security features. Introduction to PGP/GPG
07	2013-05-26	Security issues in operating systems. Linux security features. SE Linux.
05, 06	2013-05-24	Asymm. Key Cryptography. Intro: AKC, PKI, PKC, X509. Viginere Cipher, Feistel cipher, Pigpen cipher. Stream cipher vs block cipher. Encryption, signing. Videos: DH key exchange, suitcase analogy.
04	2013-05-23	Symm. Key Cryptography. Demo using zip, vi. Videos -- Ron Rivest, Bruce Schneier. Distributed copies of course DVD
03	2013-05-19	CE students (56) join the class. Cryptography fundamental principles.
02	2013-05-16	E-security overview. Threats, remedies.
01	2013-05-15	CS students = 19. Take-off lecture. Course overview.

59/2012 The birthday of Jesus Christ

I found the answer, at least an authoritative source, for the question I asked about a year ago ::
http://partha-the-prof.blogspot.com/2012/01/32012-when-was-jesus-christ-born.html
You can take a look at ::
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/new-testament/how-december-25-became-christmas/
and learn more about my enigmatic question.
Merry Christmas to all of you !
partha

58/2012 The hills are calling again

My next course on cryptography, at Kathmandu University, is announced. See : http://www.freewebs.com/profpartha/cryptoKUv2.htm.

partha

57/2012 Greedy and unethical

Greedy and Unethical

You want to buy a suitcase for carrying your stuff in your next voyage. You buy the suitcase, but find that the vendor/maunfacturer has put in some garbage already in the box. The stuff you find there is of no use to you, and it also robs you of the space you need for your own stuff. This is exactly what Seagate does, when you buy a portable external hard disk for your backups.

You are a diehard freedom lover, and cannot tolerate anything from the Micro???? junk pile. You find the whole disk formatted to an obsolete and unpopular format NTFS. The disk contains Micro???? executables which you do not need. You do not appreciate this disgusting and irritating intrusion. WTF, I paid for this drive and why is Micro???? pigybacking on my disk ? I do not appreciate unwanted things being stuffed on to me. By forcing itself on you, Micro???? is only making a laughing stock of itself. Linux users like me (aka freedom lover) can get rid of Micro???? created rubbish. This is what you can do (click for details), to give Micro???? what it deserves.

55/2012 Another legendary genius and his remarkable memory

Albert Einstein and his remarkable memory (or lack of it), are legendary.

There are a few far-fetched stories, like the one about him returning to his office and reading his own “GONE TO LUNCH. BE BACK IN 10 MINUTES” sign.

Or, how he lost his way one day, when going back home. He called up a taxi and told him-- "please take me to Albert Einstein's home" (knowing that all taxi drivers knew the house of a great scientist called Albert Einstein).

54/2012 The stuff that makes great mathematicians

Weiner was in fact very absent minded. The following story is told about him: When they moved from Cambridge to Newton his wife, knowing that he would be absolutely useless on the move, packed him off to MIT while she directed the move. Since she was certain that he would forget that they had moved and where they had moved to, she wrote down the new address on a piece of paper, and gave it to him. Naturally, in the course of the day, an insight occurred to him. He reached in his pocket, found a piece of paper on which he furiously scribbled some notes, thought it over, decided there was a fallacy in his idea, and threw the piece of paper away. At the end of the day he went home (to the old address in Cambridge, of course). When he got there he realized that they had moved, that he had no idea where they had moved to, and that the piece of paper with the address was long gone. Fortunately inspiration struck. There was a young girl on the street and he conceived the idea of asking her where he had moved to, saying, "Excuse me, perhaps you know me. I'm Norbert Weiner and we've just moved. Would you know where we've moved to?" To which the young girl replied, "Yes daddy, mommy thought you would forget."

About Norbert Wiener :: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener

53/2012 Ubunutu lovers will love this......

How to build an exactly similar ubuntu installation on another computer

(I have not yet tried this myself....partha)

Copied from :: http://www.shibuvarkala.com/2012/07/how-to-build-exactly-similar-ubuntu.html

Here is an easy way to build an exactly similar ubuntu installation on another computer. Run $ dpkg --get-selections >my_pakages on the machine that you want to clone. Install a clean copy of Ubuntu on the target machine. Copy the file my_packages to the target machine. Run the following command on the target machine. $ sudo dpkg --set-selections < ./package_names $ sudo apt-get -u dselect-upgrade Done.

52/2012 More bookshops to be discovered

Next time I visit Berlin, I hope I will, I have some more places to explore and discover. This includes some more bookshops .

51/2012 AI @ KU -- Course Chronicle

Each session = 90 minutes
Session #	Date	Events
??	10 Aug. 2012	Strike/disturbance in KTM. Sign off. Completed student evaluation report. Vacated office.
25	09 Aug. 2012	Evaluation of students. Personal interviews. Viva voce.
24	08 Aug. 2012	Fuzzy expert systems continued. Fuzzification-defuzzification examples. Defuzzification approaches. Wrap up. Limits of AI. LAST LECTURE
23	06 Aug. 2012	Fuzzy expert systems. Reasoning under uncertainty. Overview of logic -- binary logic, ternary logic, multiple valued logic, infinite valued logic, fuzzy logic. Fuzzy rule base. Fuzzification and defuzzification. Examples.
??	05 Aug. 2012	Strike/disturbance in KTM. NO class
??	03 Aug. 2012	KU Entrance exam. NO class
??	02 Aug. 2012	"Rakhi" -- holiday. NO class.
22	30 Jul. 2012	Student seminars. Rohit Amatya "Instant insanity". Chandan Gupta "Prolog features and examples".
21	27 Jul. 2012	Student seminars cancelled. Review. General discussions.
20	25 Jul. 2012	Robotics and AI overview.
19	23 Jul. 2012	Expert systems
18	20 Jul. 2012	Seminar on Prolog (Chandan Gupta). Seminar on Simulated annealing (Rohit Man Amatya). Discussions.
17	18 Jul. 2012	AI technologies. Overview of : Expert sytems, ANN, Fuzzy logic driven systems, Image processing systems, Banking systems, Intelligent programs, implantable medical devices, intelligent buildings.
16	16 Jul. 2012	AI programming. Desirable features. Panorama of languages. Overview of Prolog. Lambda calculus. Overview of LISP. SHRDLU.
15	13 Jul. 2012	Seminar on "Semantic graphs" by Sushil Shreshta. Seminar by Rohit Man Amatya on "Non- monotonic reasoning". Discussions.
14	11 Jul. 2012	AI in manufacturing.
13	09 Jul. 2012	AI in design. Concluding session.
12	06 Jul. 2012	Seminar/presentation by Chandan Pd Gupta : Genetic algorithms Discussions.
11a	?? Jul. 2012	AI in engineering. AI in design.
11	04 Jul. 2012	Extension of interval algebra. Events and durations. Episode analysis. Use of constraint logic programming. AI in engineering. AI in design.
10	02 Jul. 2012	Overview of temporal logic methodologies. LTL, LTA, interval algebrs, duration calculus, time Petri nets, hybrid Petri nets, Interval algebra s a semantic net. Use in temporal knowledge base creation. Checking inconsistencies. Post-mortem analysis. Glass oven example.
9	01 Jul. 2012	Seminar/presentation by Rohit Man Amatya : automated guided vehicles. Discussion on AGV.
8	27 Jun. 2012	Temporal knowledge and temporal reasoning. What is time ? Why should we bother about time ? Approaches to temporal knowledge : modal logic, LTL, quantified time, events and conditions, relative time, interval algebra.
7	25 Jun. 2012	Knowledge representation.Principles. Requirements. Precautions. Methods. Lists. Trees. Fault trees. Semantic nets. Rule based systems. Logic based. Relay ladders.
6	22 Jun. 2012	Seminar/presentation by Chandan GUPTA. Tabu search
5	20 Jun. 2012	AI problems, characteristics of AI problems, state space, state dependant problems, path dependent problems, search, informed vs uninformed search, heuristic search, depth first, breadth first, back tracking.
4	18 Jun. 2012	Issues in intelligence vs knowledge. Recognising human intelligence. Turing test. CAPTCHA. Learning. Objectives. End-results. Learning approaches :: supervised, assisted, Autonomous, unattended. Learning methodologies :: rote learning, Take advice, Learning by example / induction, Explanation based, Discovery, Analogy.
3	17 Jun. 2012	List of topics for seminar/projects. The nature of knowledge. Knowledge vs. intelligence. Knowledge vs. meta-knowledge. Why machines are not intelligent creatures.
2	13 Jun. 2012	Take-off lecture. Course modalities. NLP vs problem solving.
1	11 Jun. 2012	Course planning. Preparations.