In more ways than one, the Spurs have changed the course of history.

This year’s NBA season was a huge roller coaster ride. It all began with the Dwight Howard saga that honestly got irritating by the time it was over, continued with Kobe Bryant’s multiple foot/knee issues, Rajon Rondo returning from his injury as good as anyone could, and of course the Return, which underwhelmed, frankly as expected.

Amidst all of this, a plot was festering; a plot that had been hatching; a plot that has been changing and evolving for 17 years now. After last year’s horrific loss to the Miami Heat in 7 games, everybody (as usual) thought the Spurs were done. They were finally done. But they had other ideas (as cliché as that may sound, it’s true). The hurt of losing in the finals, coupled with the frustration of being a mere 28 seconds away from a championship would make any superstar crumble; But not a super Team, not this Spurs team.

As a Spurs fan, I believed in my team, but it wasn’t really clear from the beginning of the season. Pop’s adamant minutes restrictions for the Big 3, a few games lost due to certain injuries by almost every one, and the season didn’t begin with a frenzy of a bounce back. They lost their first games to almost all the contenders. They were swept by the Rockets and Thunder in the regular season, squared series with MIA and IND and beat the Clippers 2-1. They were winning a large number of their games though, begging the question if they were still good enough to beat the elite teams. We see now, they are.

But this isn’t about numbers, or about stats, as important as they are, as a fan; this is about a legend, about the story you get to tell your kids. The world is filled with hero stories; I know that’s what everyone likes. A man, faced with adversity, stands up, makes a bold statement and conquers it all. This in part is true, because it rarely happens that an entire group of people have an equal amount of motivation, hurt anger and dedication towards what they do, and all of those people are on 1 team. They played the most sublime basketball I have ever seen a team play in a series, I’ll admit, I haven’t been a basketball fan for very long, and I unfortunately haven’t watched MJ or Kobe in their prime, but that’s the thing; those eras belonged to people, the 90’s Bulls were MJ’s Bulls. The 2000 Lakers were Shaq’s team; the next three peat was achieved by Kobe’s Lakers. 

The history of sports is littered by these legendary stories. But this year’s spurs create a story very different. How would you begin the tale? This is a story of the year 2014. A great franchise that was … and you’d trail off in thought. Whose team is this? Duncan, Manu, Tony? Pop predicts that Kawhi is going to be the Spurs franchise player in a few years. If that prediction comes true, since he was the finals MVP, years from now, will people say this was Kawhi’s team? Or is this Pop’s team? Every player deflects this kind of argument towards the other. They feed off of each other’s success. They truly are a model franchise in sports. They have 2 father figures, one who yells, the other barely talks, Tony looks like a happy kid, Manu, well, behaves like a happy kid, Kawhi, Danny and Mills really are kids. It’s kind of an odd, worldwide family. 

I hope the system they have created is duplicated, enhanced and played with for years, so when the next generation watches basketball, we can say, this, THIS was the Spurs way. The beautiful way.

P.S: The Heat now know, first hand, A Million Ways to Die in the West!

All bits are created equal

Hello Internet,

So, how is everyone doing today? Probably reading this post with a lot of tabs open full of fun and cool stuff to check out! So, this is possible because of the awesome rules that govern how information flows through the internet, one of which is Net Neutrality.

Okay, so what is Net neutrality? This, is how Google defines it.

So, basically, it means, all data coming to you depends on what you request and not a prejudicial bias by your ISP. So, a hacker forum, netflix streaming, a wikipedia serach, a reddit AMA or even cat videos are equally important, since that's what you would like to view and/or share.

Let’s consider the information coming through internet, going through your router, into your system and displayed by your browser be a stream, not much unlike water (or in some cases; wine) through a pipe.

Some of these pipes span oceans, and continents through which a vast amount of data flows. These are extremely fast and you don’t have access to those, but even if you did, you wouldn't be able to handle it.

Our share (which we pay our service provider for) is a small section of that pipe that contains information we have requested for, and information we would like to share with the world. As I said before, this is data we want to view, or read, or download or share. We decide what comes through our section of the pipe.

So, some companies (read ISPs) argue that this hurts their capacity to provide fast lanes of internet to connect you the data superhighway to get certain information to you sooner. What this actually means, is that it gives them the right to put speed bumps on your existing road, and then provide the fast lane for a cost, which you were previously paying for anyway.

This, in effect gives the ISPs the right to block, or slow down their competitors information, certain websites they prefer, or get paid from, or even content they do not agree with. Which means, continuing with our pipe metaphor, it allows the ISPs to put a choker on the pipe of awesomeness that is free unrestricted internet.

So these ISPs want to ditch this rule and insert themselves in between you and the internet, turning into most annoying middle men in the history of humanity.

Okay, so

I would say yes, because, a.) A free and open internet is the single greatest technology of our time.

b.)You would be at the mercy of your ISPs to get content of your choice, be it ethnically diverse, full o innovative content, and of course, not geared towards a commercial market.

Think of it this way, when the water company delivers water to your house, they don’t get to decide what to do with it, neither do they get to give you a tap through which water flows slowly, and then turn around and sell you a “special” tap through which water never stops, depending on what you use for. As absurd as this sounds, it is a pretty good analogy for this concept.

So, what can we do? As internet citizens it is our responsibility to maintain this steady flow of amazing information without any middle men picking and choosing what we do, or do not see.

Please Tell the FCC to reclassify broadband internet as a title II common carrier telecommunications service by clicking this link.

Here's hoping I get to decide whether to finish my homework on my college website or watch cat videos on YouTube without having to worry about some people who may or may not like cat videos.

And if all of this doesn't mean a lot, take a look below.

Cheers,

Dhiraj

 P.S: Now that I think about it, I probably should've led with this!
Also, now that you know what it is, check out what John Oliver has to say about it here.

How to... NOT get hacked!

Hello people,

I know this is a little different from my regular posts, but with the amount of large data breaches in recent times, I just thought of writing this. Full disclosure: I am, in no way, a hacker yet, which is why I think this is the kind of perspective a lot of my non hacker friends will understand.

A lot of people look for a simple response, a key for a lock; a combination for a safe.

I always hear: I don't want all the details, can't I just install an anti-virus and be done with it? My response generally is: Well, sure(rolling my eyes! :P ). The truth of the matter is you can never be sure your system isn't going to be hacked (More on anti viruses coming up). But it doesn't mean you can’t prepare for it. It doesn't mean you make it easy for the hackers.

Following are very simple things that I feel can help make your system safer. The idea is simple, unless you are the invariable target; hackers are only looking for easy systems to exploit. If your system shows any form of defense, the most frequent response of a hacker, is to move on to a more easily exploitable system (albeit a non-intuitive one to many readers).

1. Passwords (at least 16 characters, difficult to guess and unique): This drum has been beaten by almost everyone I know around me in the security field. There was once even an instance in my cyber security class when my professor actually asked how many people had a password over 15 characters long, and there were, as far as I remember only 3 people with their hands raised. Passwords should be at least 15 characters with uppercase, lowercase numbers and special characters. Let’s take the next one, many times, hacks are as easy as clicking on forgot password for your account, and correctly answering the security question (hint: “my dog’s name”). In addition, many people have passwords based on the sports teams they support, the celebrities they follow, makes it easier to decipher.
                                                   Some of the biggest companies like apple, target, and now ebay have had huge data breaches. We just witnessed the single greatest internet bug very recently in heartbleed with un quantifiable amount of possible data loss. What do you do in such cases? You change your password when they ask you to, and use UNIQUE passwords for all your major accounts. Think about it, if your paypal and, say ebay password was the same; post this breach, both become vulnerable to exploitation. Ebay will ask you to change the password on their system, but the paypal account is still vulnerable. So, how then does one have so many hard to remember unique passwords? That brings me to point 2
2. Password managers: A lot of people may not know about these secure systems,  but managers like LastPass and 1Password are very good ways to have very strong unique passwords, and not have to remember them. What then, if LastPass gets hacked. It’s an important concern, but tough to explain in a paragraph. So, you guys can check out this post from lifehacker. Explains the pros and cons really well. http://goo.gl/Jxv3PD
3. Software updates: This is perhaps the most intuitive thing to do. It’s a common misconception that software updates are solely to give you better features or fix application bugs. In truth, most of these updates solve security issues. Please update your software regularly (hint: browsers: use atleast 2, firefox and chrome, and flash player).                                                                               Side note: Use ad block extensions on your browsers. Saves you a lot of trouble and takes care of a few hacked pop ups too.
4. Do not rely on Anti-viruses: Okay, engrave this on your TV, make a roadsign, write it on your coffee mugs, anti-viruses DO NOT stop you from getting hacked. The only job of an anti-virus is to ensure that malicious software does not run on your system and each individual anti-viruses definition for malicious is different. Hacks are performed in multiple ways, using simple hardware keyloggers, using phishing websites, sending e-mail spam, using code executing malware. All of these can be performed even if you have the best anti-virus fully updated.                                                       P.S: My aim isn't to tell you now to buy an AV, but to see the difference between viruses and other threats.
5. BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP: So, why did I write that 3 times in caps? Because it’s very important. It’s simple, if your system gets hacked; you need to be able to access your important data from another place. This doesn't just ring true for systems, even your phones, especially now since there are hackers who are using these new hacks they call ransomware. They lock your system (or now even your iphone) with an encryption and ask you to deposit bitcoins (anonymous online currency, difficult to trace) worth a certain amount of $ to an account in return for the password. Just think for a moment about everything you may have just lost if you didn't back your system up.
   
6. Be vigilant: If that anti-virus a shady looking company is selling, gives you unlimited indefinite subscription for ¼ the starting price of another AV (lets say Kaspersky), it’s probably a scam. These could in fact, be malware which can be further used to exploit your system. Take care of simple things like checking the address bar before entering your login info to websites, checking for the https lock sign (which almost every login page will now have), not running any shady applications on your system, just be very logical and responsible.

Either you ignore these questions, or you don't!

Your system is like your house; you put a good locking mechanism on your doors, shut them and turn the key to lock it. Do the same with your system. It contains your credit card, paypal, bank account details. Be careful with it! J

P.S: For more details, please feel free to contact me. You can leave a comment on the blog, or contact me on my e-mail.

Until next time,

Cheers!