Raja Jasti’s Blog - Renaissance Thinking

April 8, 2009

Spies penentrate US electricity grid

Filed under: general — Tags: — Raja @ 9:22 am

Cyberspace helps people do good. But it also helps bad guys. WSJ reports a major security breach of  US electricity grid by cyberspies.

[Robert Moran monitors an electric grid in Dallas. Such infrastructure grids across the country are vulnerable to cyberattacks.] 

WASHINGTON — Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials.

The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven’t sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war.

“The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid,” said a senior intelligence official. “So have the Russians.”

The espionage appeared pervasive across the U.S. and doesn’t target a particular company or region, said a former Department of Homeland Security official. “There are intrusions, and they are growing,” the former official said, referring to electrical systems. “There were a lot last year.”

Many of the intrusions were detected not by the companies in charge of the infrastructure but by U.S. intelligence agencies, officials said. Intelligence officials worry about cyber attackers taking control of electrical facilities, a nuclear power plant or financial networks via the Internet.

Authorities investigating the intrusions have found software tools left behind that could be used to destroy infrastructure components, the senior intelligence official said. He added, “If we go to war with them, they will try to turn them on.”

Officials said water, sewage and other infrastructure systems also were at risk.

Digital samaritans

Filed under: Internet, general — Raja @ 9:11 am

NYT has a heart warming story on how people are using cyberspace to to return lost valuables to the original owners.

 

Rhonda Surman and her husband were hiking around some Bronze Age ruins in western Scotland last year when they glimpsed sunlight reflecting off burnished metal. It was an Olympus digital camera, lying on the ground.

The couple turned the camera over to the local police, but eight weeks later it was returned to them, unclaimed.

Ms. Surman, who lives in northern Scotland, did not give up. There were 600 pictures on the camera’s memory card, including some from a wedding and a couple’s European travels. Ms. Surman posted several of them on the Internet and, in the next few months, organized a group of amateur detectives who traced clues in the photos, leading them back to the camera’s stunned and delighted owner.

“I don’t think I’m nicer than anyone else,” she said, “but I thought the pictures showed a honeymoon. That was the bit that made me try harder.”

Plenty of people like Ms. Surman are acting on the same impulse these days and embracing a new role: digital Samaritan. The Internet may allow bad guys to stalk people or steal their identities. But it also makes it easier to give something back, because of sites and tools that can help people reunite strangers with lost valuables like wallets, cellphones and cameras.

Bravo!

March 18, 2009

Google mistrials?

Filed under: general — Raja @ 9:05 am

Here is an interesting story. More and more jurors are looking to google and the web to research cases, thereby violating legal rules, causing increase in mistrials.

Last week, a juror in a big federal drug trial in Florida admitted to the judge that he had been doing research on the case on the Internet, directly violating the judge’s instructions and centuries of legal rules. But when the judge questioned the rest of the jury, he got an even bigger shock.

Eight other jurors had been doing the same thing. The federal judge, William J. Zloch, had no choice but to declare a mistrial, a waste of eight weeks of work by federal prosecutors and defense lawyers.

It might be called a Google mistrial. The use of BlackBerrys and iPhones by jurors gathering and sending out information about cases is wreaking havoc on trials around the country, upending deliberations and infuriating judges.

The tentacles of the web are being felt in far away places, even court rooms. What is next? The judge announcing the veridict on twitter?

March 2, 2009

Credit Crisis Video

Filed under: general — Tags: — Raja @ 2:04 pm

This popular web video explains the current credit crisis in simple terms.


The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

February 7, 2009

Please raise my taxes

Filed under: general — Tags: , — Raja @ 1:56 pm

Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO, wrote a very interesting Op-Ed piece in NYT.

Please Raise My Taxes

By REED HASTINGS

Los Gatos, Calif.

I’M the chief executive of a publicly traded company and, like my peers, I’m very highly paid. The difference between salaries like mine and those of average Americans creates a lot of tension, and I’d like to offer a suggestion. President Obama should celebrate our success, rather than trying to shame us or cap our pay. But he should also take half of our huge earnings in taxes, instead of the current one-third.

Then, the next time a chief executive earns an eye-popping amount of money, we can cheer that half of it is going to pay for our soldiers, schools and security. Higher taxes on huge pay days can finance opportunity for the next generation of Americans.

Clearly, the efforts over the past few decades to control executive compensation haven’t accomplished much. Improved public disclosure was supposed to shame companies into lowering salaries, and it obviously hasn’t worked. In 1993, President Bill Clinton changed the tax law to effectively cap executives’ salaries at $1 million a year, but that simply drove corporate boards to offer larger bonuses and stock options to attract and keep talent. More recently, “say on pay” proposals would have shareholders opine on their boards’ compensation decisions, but “say and pay” won’t change the fact that luring a top executive away from another company is never easy or cheap.

The reality is that the boards of public companies hate overpaying for anything, including executives. But picking the wrong chief executive is an enormous disaster, so boards are willing to pay an arm and a leg for already proven talent. Putting limits on the salaries at public companies, or trying to shame them into coming down, won’t stop this costly competition for talent.

Of course, it’s galling when a chief executive fails and is still handsomely rewarded. But with the concept of “tax, not shame,” a shocking $20 million severance package would generate $10 million for the government. That’s a far better solution than what we have today, not least because it works with the market rather than against it.

Another advantage is that it would also cover the sometimes huge earnings of hedge fund managers, star athletes, stunning movie stars, venture capitalists and the chief executives of private companies. Surely there is no reason to focus only on executives at publicly traded companies.

This week, President Obama proposed imposing a $500,000 compensation cap on companies seeking a bailout. It’s a terrible idea. We all want the taxpayers’ money returned, and capping compensation at bailout recipients will just make it that much harder for those boards to hire and hold on to the executives who can lead their companies to compete and thrive.

Perhaps a starting place for “tax, not shame” would be creating a top federal marginal tax rate of 50 percent on all income above $1 million per year. Some will tell you that would reduce the incentive to earn but I don’t see that as likely. Besides, half of a giant compensation package is still pretty huge, and most of our motivation is the sheer challenge of the job anyway.

Instead of trying to shame companies and executives, the president should take advantage of our success by using our outsized earnings to pay for the needs of our nation.

Reed Hastings is the chief executive of Netflix.

January 19, 2009

Obama

Filed under: general — Tags: , — Raja @ 11:52 pm

Obama will be taking oath in few hours as the 44th US president but as the first african american to do so.

I never thought I would see this happen in my lifetime. It happened alright. But how?

It was a perfect storm. Obama is an extraordinary candidate  with a remarkable ability to connect with people and one who is very comfortable with his mixed race. He is very different from any of the previous african american candidates that tried without success. Unlike them, he did not feel the need to represent the grievences of african americans and therefore was not as encumbered by their weight.

His primary demcratic challenger was someone who was also trying to create histrory.  She is a woman. She was certainlyweighed down by the added pressures of trying to become the first female president. She was not just any woman but a former first lady. In retrospect, I am not sure if it helped or hurt her. Probably both. The great thing is that she will given an opportunity to play a very important role as the secretary of state.

He was also greatly helped by an unpopular outgoing president. The country is facing unprecedented economic and security challenges. Its global reputation and ability to influence is also in serious jepoardy. The country is ready for change. Obama is that change.

Finally, Obama ran a campaign that is unlike any other before in the history of US presidential elections. He disrupted the old campaign models. His rivals, in both democratic primaries and US presidential elections, didn not know what hit them. They were playing the game by the old rules. Obama rewrote the rules. He used the new media and the internet/web very effectively to energise a grassroot volunteer base and launch a direct-to-citizen campaign and fund raising model that older methods simply could not match. He defined how campaign2.0 should work.

It took all this for the US to have its first black president. But this is just the beginning.

I will say this. Obama is not just the first black president. Obama has an opportunity to be a US president for the ages. He has an opportunity to be remembered in the same light as Lincoln and Roosevelt. Obama will be taking his oath using the same Bible used by Lincoln during his inauguration. I hope this is more than a symbolic gesture, an acknowledgement of the great opportunity in front of him.

He must grab the opportunity and deliver. He needs to pull the country back on the right track and make sure it remains the most powerful country in the world over the next millenium. It is not going to be easy. But from what I have seen so far he has it in him to do that. He is assembling a great team. That is the sign of a great leader. He picked someone who fought him tooth and nail (sometimes quite bitterly) to be his secretary of state. That takes being secure with yourself. Great leaders surround themselves with people better than themsleves. He seems to be engaging republicans even more than his own perty men, and that is the sign of a great leader. The country badly needs someone that can rally everyone around a collective cause, not just democrats and young people. Everyone.

Will Obama bring the same inventiveness and resourcesfulness he showed during his campaign in rebuilding America?

I look forward to seeing what he can achieve and how the history will remember him. I wish him the best of luck. I hope tomorrow ushers the dawn of a new era.

January 18, 2009

Welcome!

Filed under: Uncategorized, general — Tags: — Raja @ 7:59 pm

Hello. Welcome to my blog.

My name is Raja Jasti.  I am an entrepreneur living in Silicon Valley.

In this blog, I will write about many things that interest me such as internet, mobile, media, business, entrepreneurship and entertainment. I hope you enjoy reading my blog.

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