Just in case

By M J Akbar

If India wins the World Cup,whom should I thank? Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac, Robert Mugabe or George Bush? Each one will have played his part. Assigning value to the different contributions is tricky, so the safest recourse is to go by the International VIP Pecking Order, and thank Goorge Bush first. It is only because of "in just a few weeks" George that we shall be able to see the World Cup undisturbed.

George Bush, to my regret, does not read Byline. I note this in the spirit of a chastised columnist, for who does not want to be read and recognised by the President of the United States? President Bush cannot therefore have read my emotional column a few weeks ago pleading with him not to start a war against Iraq during the World Cup tournament. I offered what I believed to be substantive and persuasive reasons in search of this postponement. Perhaps they touched some chord in the wonderful staff at the United States embassy in Delhi and they passed on the message. Whatever be the reason we can now be certain that the Americans will not launch their Iraq war in February. Alert readers will recall that Saddam Hussein began to dance on the head of the evil axis last year at precisely the time when Osama bin Laden disappeared from the American radar screen, to the shock of the watchers who thought they had trapped him in the mountain caves of Tora Bora in Afghanistan, the last major battle of the first phase of the American war in Afghanistan. Those caves were created for the mujahideen by the CIA in the jihad against Russia, but Osama, who fought in them, knew them better than those who had built them. A year later Osama still eludes the Americans, a fact that is rarely mentioned by President Bush. Unable to find Osama, the President began to search for- Saddam Hussein. Who are we mortals to discuss cause and effect; at best we can beg for more convenient time schedules. From late summer, last year President Bush began issuing ultimatums to President Saddam Hussein, promising that freedom-loving America would get the tyrant Saddam "in a few weeks". Speculation about the deadline has been rampant. The war has, for one reason or another, been scheduled for December, January and February, the last being a favourite prediction. All the elements would have been just right. The weather would be cool enough for the west's soldiers (by March the temperature can go upto 38 degrees). The weapons inspectors would have reported their findings to the United Nations. And by the middle of this month, Haj would also be over, removing the need of a gesture towards Muslim sentiments. In this scenario, the missiles would have begun to roar in the next few days.

Then came another determined speech by President Bush: he promised this week, once again, that he would get. Saddam "in a few weeks". I am extremely grateful for such consistency. If he can define "‘few" to extend to at least seven weeks then we can get the World Cup out of the way.

Tony Blair also deserves our gratitude, not for being a poodle of George Bush,’ but for creating a crisis over Zimbabwe. Mr Blair does not want any civilised nation to play in a country ruled by the dictator-villain Robert Mugabe. (The number of evil villains on the Bush-Blair list has been growing at affirmative pace over since they lost Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora.) This, at the moment of writing, has left the England-Zimbabwe match in doubt. England has asked for the venue to be changed to South Africa. The tournament organisers, who refuse to be bullied, insist that England must honour its commitments and play in Harare. England must now decide whether to save face or save four points in a group that includes Australia, India, Pakistan and Zimbabwe (Namibia and Holland are the guinea pigs). If England do not visit their host country Zimbabwe will be given the match and the four vital points that go with victory. If Australia, England's poodle, follow suit, then. Zimbabwe will end up with eight points from two matches they would almost certainly have lost. England and Australia will also, simultaneously, give India and Pakistan an advantage. Zimbabwe can easily defeat Holland and Namibia and walk into the Super Six round, leaving Australia, India, Pakistan and England to squabble for the three other places. India should be among the three, leaving England to rue their lost Zimbabwe match.

I hope you have now understood why we should be grateful to Tony Blair and Robert Mugabe.

Where does the President of France enter a game of cricket? Without Jacques Chirac on the sidelines both the Bush and the Blair scenario may have been different. France has, long with Germany and Russia, stubbornly opposed the American urgency on Iraq. If these European powers had wilted the Anglo. As if this were not almost certainly begun this week. As if this were not enough, France has taken a different line even on Zimbabwe, refusing to condemn Mugabe as a dictator. Tony Blair urged Chirac to cancel a scheduled State visit to France by Mugabe. Chirac shrugged and ignored Blair. Such support has steeled Zimbabwe's resolve to make England play where it is scheduled to play. Thank you, Monsieur Chirac. Thank you, Mr. Mugabe. Without you two I doubt if India would make it to the Super Six. All we want is India to get no a roll; after that, as the ad says, anything is possible.

So far, the only thing on a roll in India is money. Or the prospect thereof. It is not the bookies alone who are taking bets. Manufacturers and media and also betting huge sums that cricket will become maniacal, and brands that have invested heavily in the team's fortunes will get the mileage that they want from their spends. The biggest of the spenders are already visible; large sums and waiting to be unleashed with the first smell of an Indian victory. It is remarkable that the principal investors in the six-week picnic are countries that have no clue to cricket (is there a co-relation? I wonder). Sony, which has taken a major bet on the game through television, is owned and run by the Japanese and Americans, two peoples who publicly prefer torture to cricket. Judging by the investments made by South Korean companies, there is going to be some blowout somewhere in the Seoul economy if India whimpers back home in the first week of March. For the moment however patriotism is at Kargil levels. Television in flooded with jingles that seem to have confused the Indian team with India. I suspect that some of the lyrics have been written by scriptics with subversive minds. Note, for instance, the sly use of chakka in a couple of them. Surely they are not implying anything of that sort! It surely cannot have escaped everyone's notice that this word is very punprone. In colloquial Hindi it means eunuch. There is another one which begins assertively by claiming that our team knows its strength. Yeah: that is precisely what I am worried about. We have to overperform simply to stay in the reckoning. For a crash course on reality, turn to MTV where Cyrus Broacha is having a wild time with his version of the Indian team and Indian commentators. Like in all great satire, the fun is built along genuine faultlines.

Hype is making the players rich; it is also leading to exaggerated hopes. Will it affect the sponsors if after all the hype India does not perform? Will there be a negative effect on their brands? Unlikely. Marketing believes in an old Urdu proverb: Badnaam hue to kay naam na hoga? (Even if we become infamous, we still become famous.) As far as the players are concerned, for most it is cash-out time. This is their opportunity to make a financial killing. Most of this team will not survive till the next World Cup. Sourav Ganguly is already looking jaded. Even Sachin Tendulkar might lose his edge by then. Rahul Dravid is waiting to become captain, but if anyone of the senior lot has the ability to carry on till 2007 then it is he. The youngsters are unpredictable. All of them have potential. But no one has yet converted potential in consistent achievement.

I do not want to be a party-pooper, but we, as a nation, must plan for a situation where the Indian team returns home far more quietly than they went. How should we deal with the national depression that is bound to set in if the World Cup continues through the whole of March without our team in the game? My suggestion is that we should appeal to President Bush to launch his war against Iraq immediately, perhaps on March 2. We can all switch from Sony to CNN, and live happily ever after.

Virus attack revives cyber security issues

By Arvinder Kaur

As internet is slowly recovering after a virulent computer worm attack which crippled online traffic last weekend, questions are being raised about the security of netowrks all over the world as also the vulnerability of the system to attacks from terrorists or any disaster.

The attack, one of the most damaging on the internet in last 18 months, targeted Microsoft's database software and affected around a quarter of a million computers worldwide, with the world's most wired country, South Korea, being one of the worst affected.

Computer experts said the effect was similar to that of the ''Code Red'' virus, which brought internet traffic to a halt in the summer of 2001. In the same year, Nimda too made many local parts of the net unusable for people connected through those links.

The year 2002 also saw many attacks which further emphasised the importance of keeping anti-virus software up to date. The biggest during the year, however, was the Windows Klez worm which first appeared in March. The year also saw virus writers using the name of popular woman celebrities- Shakira, Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez to try to make people open an e-mail and unleash the virus.

According to Indian media reports, about 40 to 50 Indian websites, including those belonging to sensitive government agencies and corporate bodies, are being hacked or defaced by Pakistani cyber criminals every month.

Researchers warn that Internet has become much more vulnerable as it has become more commercial and key internet cables are concentrated in the hands of fewer organisations. In the early days, when net was still developing, there were multiple links and if one node disappeared, traffic could flow to other links

However, the increasing commer-cialisation of net has seen emergence of large hubs that act as key distribution points for some parts of the web. If one hub is attacked, all the links connected to it are affected. In this latest attack, at least five of the internet's 13 major hubs were targeted.

A major hub was destroyed during the WTC attack, which severed link between New York city and three New York counties.

Experts say in an era where a single click of a mouse is potent enough to lead to a full fledged attack, increased security of networks is no longer a luxury that everyone enjoys but has become a necessity.

With thousands of virus attacks taking place every year, network security is indeed the hot topic of discussion and it has become a major concern in boardrooms across the globe.

Realising the potential harm these attacks can do, more and more companies have started taking computer security very seriously and have dedicated technical teams who maintain and secure the company’s sensitive information round the clock.

A recently published book ''Network Security: A Hacker's Perspective'' says ''network security is of utmost importance... our entire lives are based on the presumption that our data is secure and our actions confidential this is hardly the case. Computer criminals have always been two steps ahead of crime fighting agencies and the targeted individuals who eventually end up feeling deficiencies.''

Almost every system connected to the internet is bound to find almost all of its services under attack sometime or the other and denial of service attacks, exploiting of trust relationship using IP spoofing are very common.

While big hubs are more vulnerable to virus attacks, small networks and companies can face any of these problems- removal of log files, cracking of passwords, Trojan/key logger attacks.

A computer virus is a self-replicating program containing a code that explicitly copies itself and that can ''infect'' other programs by modifying them or their environment such that a call to an infected program implies a call to a possibly evolved copy of the virus.

The term ''computer virus'' was formally defined by Fred Cohen in 1983, while he performed academic experiments on a Digital Equipment Corporation VAX system. Viruses are classified as being one of two types: research or in the wild.The first malicious PC virus was in 1986, and was called the brain virus. This virus was encrypted to add to its unruly nature.

It is quite impossible to configure a firewall or create a network, which is 100 per cent foolproof, without compromising on the services that the network has to offer. Instead, experts say organisations and individuals need to educate themselves as much as possible, about the methodology and working of computers.

Being aware and regularly updating one's network in tune with the latest happenings in the field of computer security is one trick that every internet user must have in his or her armory of defence against computer infiltration.

An unprecedented increase in the number of people entering the field of computer security has divided the earlier solitary enemy (known as computer criminals) into a number of more specific, totally distinct categories like script kiddies, harmless probe attackers and disgruntled employees.

Cyber-attacks can originate from a variety of sources, from hackers to sophisticated criminals or even terrorists. The ''Love Bug'' virus may have been the inadvertent handiwork of a Filipino student who says he released the virus by mistake, disabling millions of computers worldwide. Regardless of the source, the potential for damage to computer systems is growing.

However, Indian experts say though the Government has enacted cyber laws, there is not much awareness about security risks arising from cyber attacks nor is there any proper training for law enforcing agencies to deal with the crime.
PTI Feature