Lahore – The first Computer Virus

The Brain boot sector virus (aka Pakistani flu) was released in 1986. Brain is considered the first IBM PC compatible virus, and the program responsible for the first IBM PC compatible virus epidemic. The virus is also known as Lahore, Pakistani, Pakistani Brain, as it was created in Lahore, Pakistan by 19 year old Pakistani programmer, Basit Farooq Alvi, and his brother, Amjad Farooq Alvi.

The brothers claimed that they only intended to infect IBM PCs running bootleg copies of a heart-monitoring program they created. The virus included a copyright notice with the brothers’ names and phone numbers so that people whose computers were infected could contact the brothers to obtain a “vaccination.” Numerous variations of Brain followed.

Welcome to the Dungeon © 1986 Basit * Amjad (pvt) Ltd. BRAIN COMPUTER SERVICES 730 NIZAM BLOCK ALLAMA IQBAL TOWN LAHORE-PAKISTAN PHONE: 430791,443248,280530. Beware of this VIRUS.... Contact us for vaccination...

When the brothers began to receive a large number of phone calls from people in United States, United Kingdom, and elsewhere, demanding them to disinfect their machines, the brothers were stunned and tried to explain to the outraged callers that their motivation had not been malicious. They ended up having to get their phone lines cut off and regretted that they had revealed their contact info in the first place. The brothers are still in business in Pakistan as Internet service providers with a company called Brain Limited where the program may still be in use to track copies of Apple //e heart monitoring software.

Courtesy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(c)Brain

http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2009/11/1110fred-cohen-first-computer-virus

 

Snapshot of Today’s Newspaper

Well, sitting here in Europe, what could we do, except to feel sad. One of the following news would get the attention of so called ‘global media’ machine (CNN and BBC) [News 1], while others would not. Interestingly for other medias this news either isn’t important or too common to report. Anyway the news reports the global challenges that we have followed by the Internal challenges [News 2], Economic challenges [News 3] and maybe ending with Ambition challenges [News 4]. Ambition in a sense that, we are now happy to be part of world cup (having qualified). We were champions of the world at one time.

News 1:

News 2:

News 3:

News 4:

Courtesy to jang.com.pk

VIP culture in Pakistan – a must read

Column by JAVED CHUADHARY, published in Daily Express today.

Pak-Iran Gas Pipeline – Big Project, big commision!!!

Astonished to see the agreed prices that Pakistan would pay to Iran for gas. Unfair Pipeline Agreement for Balochistan

Zardari involvement with Iran may have some personal economic benefits in mind. How can Zardari (and all elite class for that matter) support Musharraf’s accountability setting a precedence where he would be a definite target in the future.

The difference between Bugti and Musharraf

Everybody knows. But just for the sake of reminder, read the following story in Daily Dawn: Akbar Bugti was offered ‘safe escape,’ says son

And by the way in addition to Musharrafs, there are more respectables like, Sharifs, Bhuttos, Zardaris, and Altafs ready to run for their life. We salute the sons of the soil like Bugtis.

New Biography of Imran Khan

“Imran Khan and Benazir Bhutto” This used to be a romantic tale popular in our childhood. So there’s nothing surprising. Obviuosly a good story to sell a book. BUT if they had relationship of any sort at that time, Is there anything wrong with it? One of them is not with us. Imran Khan has many other allegations of this nature to defend. If he is so ’sincere’, he should come up and accept what he has been doing. If he has noting to loose, let the people decide. The story goes like that: Imran Khan and Benazir Bhutto enjoyed a close sexual relationship in Oxford

Obama’s speech in Cairo

At least some good words from Obama in his recent speech in Cairo:

Quoting the region’s three holy books, the Holy Quran, the Torah and the Bible, he evoked a future of ‘mutual interest and mutual respect,’ examining all sources of tension between America and the Muslim world.

‘America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition — in fact, they overlap and share several principles,’ he said.

He said extremists have exploited the denied rights of Muslims, adding that change cannot happen overnight.

However, the interests that the Muslims and the United States seek are more powerful and shared than the differences that exist between us, Obama said.

Islam is so clearly a part of America that there is a mosque in every state, he said, adding that nearly seven million Muslims are living in the United States.

‘America is not and will never be at war with Islam,’ he said.

See full story at:

Obama calls for new beginning between US and Muslims

Islam is a part of America, says Obama

Malakand Sharia – Unanswered questions

Malakand is a region in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. Named after Malakand Agency, a part of this region, it covers one third of the total area of the province.The area of Malakand Region is 29,872 sq. Km and its population is 5.52 million. The region is further divided into Chitral, Dir upper,Dir Lower, Swat, Buner, Shangla Districts and Malakand Agency. Although the bill of Islamic Law (Sharia) for Malakand division in Pakistan was passed almost unanimously by the parlimant, there were few voices against it: “This agreement was signed under the shadow of guns and most importantly the guns of Taliban had turned out to be more powerful than the guns of our Pakistan Army.” See link

In addition to issue of imposing the law at gunpoint, there are concerns about the very nature of laws itself blamed for brutality and violations of basic human rights. But there is an alternate view as well ( See link.) Further for West, it means providing help to militants in the region which would not be inline with war against terror. See link. Implementing law in one region of the country can escalate the demand for implementing it in other regions which can result in complete takeover of Islamists in the country with dozens of nuclear weapons. West recently started blaming Pakistan Army and ISI for purposefully remaining silent against Islamic extremists. In fact they blame army to support these factions. “The risk of an Islamist takeover in Pakistan is a myth invented by the Pakistani military to consolidate its hold on power. In fact, religious political parties and militant organizations are manipulated by the Pakistani Army to achieve its own objectives, domestically and abroad. The army, not the Islamists, is the real source of insecurity on the subcontinent. Sustainable security and stability in the region will be achieved only through the restoration of democracy in Pakistan. The West should actively promote the demilitarization of Pakistan’s political life through a mix of political pressure and capacity building. Enlarging the pool of elites and creating alternative centers of power will be essential for developing a working democracy in Pakistan.” See link .

Being a Muslim and Pakistani, I seek answers to the following questions.

1. Is Islamic law really horrific? What makes it unacceptable to the West? Are they afraid of potential of an alternate system?
2. Is Talibnization of Pakistan possible? Does majority of people of Pakistan support Islamic Law in its current form? Does majority of people of Pakistan support Talibnization of Pakistan?
3. What is wrong with accepting the will of people of a region?
4. Does not Pakistan has right to safeguard its own interests i.e. neutralizing the insurgency in a region by accepting demands of its majority?
5. What is war against terrorism?
6. What is the importance of Pakistan’s nuclear assets and Pakistan Army in the whole scenario?
7. What is the role of India, Iran and Russia as common stakeholders in the region along with USA?
8. What is the policy of China?
9. What should be the policy of Pakistan in current circumstances?
10. What is the future of Pakistan? Are we able to survive internal and external issues we are facing?

I seek your participation to answers these questions. Maybe we can compile it and float it on the Web.

Miracle of the Qur’an – Be careful

We see a continuous flow of mails related with ‘miracles’ of Quran and Hadiths. Some present statistical analysis, some mathematical proofs etc. Although, the analysis performed in some or many cases may partially be true, but there are reservations. Do we really need these kind of proofs for ‘authenticity’ of our religion? Doesn’t it drifts us away from the REAL thing.

I recently received such a mail from my friend.

that s quite interesting but in urdu, so i ll translate a bit of what it says. the email shows a graph with the X-axis being the number of the surah of the Qur’an (in total 114) and the Y axis being the number of ayah of the surah. So for Al-Fatiha, it is the 1st surah (x axis) with 7 ayah (y axis) and that is the place for the dot. surah baqarah would be 2nd surah (x axis) and 286 ayahs (y axis) and this is the place for the 2nd dot etc. and when you make all the dots and combine them you get the arabic word Allah and arabic world Muhammad as a result. both words appear in the same graph (as seen in image 3) and are only separated for ease of readability in image 1 and 2.
and later on it describes how the graph has been done in detail (scientifically and with aid of computers). blabla…didnt read that part.
i just found it quite interesting…

My comments: It look ‘amazing’ initially, but looking into it in detail, it just a matter of carving the ‘desired’ out of set of points. I may be wrong, but to me its just an intentional drawing of lines to get desired results. Just imagine points alone, you can make anything out of it. Example of one such intention is insertion of ‘paish’ and ‘zabar’ of Muhammad (PBUH); no such effort is performed for Allah. Just look at paish carved out of four points. Why these points were joined like that. The trajectory of right side of upper two points is not related to trajectory of left side from same points (How does author claims that it follows some kind of science (for example Neural Network)).

Pakistan image gallery – presentation made in Austria