HP Security Handbook

Was just reading some blogs and suddenly found this.

This handbook contains a chapter on Identity management. I should say, its lucid and wonderful. To read the other contents ...

Happy Andhra Formation Day - November 1st

Every time we get holiday on November 1st, sure everyone born in Andhra Pradesh remembers Sri Potti Sriramulu garu.

Is remembering him enough? Does enjoying a holiday alone, makes us a proud and responsible Andhrite?? I am sure we all dont think so. This person gave up his life just to bring this state to us. He gave up food, water, shelter comforts everything for us. Today the state proudly boasts of big time IT parks, huge growth in infrastructure and many other goodies. However, to the very truth, today there are many Potti Sriramulus out there who dont have water to drink and food to eat.

All of these people (freedom fighters) brought us freedom which we couldn't handle properly. Who ponders about this? I am sure all of us do, in our offices, at cubicles at social gatherings etc. Then why dont we have the right results? Because actions are pending.

The first best action which we all should implement is ... I think, we should vote. Every time there is election, wherever we are in India, we should make a point that we go back and vote, because we are educated enough to choose the right leaders.

The second best thing we can do is to save the natural resources like Water, Food, Vegetables etc.

I thought to mention my thoughts this way about a great day.

JAI TELUGU TALLI

Puzzling???

I have been to Visakhapatnam recently. I took a pic at the airport. Can you see the picture clearly and make out whats wrong there?

Ok, chance 2.

Got it? The emergency exit door in the airport was locked with a big size steel lock. I just wonder how did they get the idea of locking the emergency exit. This is how things are.

Is it really necessary to show verbal aggressiveness?

I think Indian cricketers are putting up a bad show. Why should somebody show facial aggressiveness or be aggressive verbally? Actions of the game are the ones which are supposed to be spoken, rather than shouting or using abusive language on the other team.

Phlegmatism should be practised by our team. When they are on the international stage they need to follow the law and rules. If the other team resorts to verbal aggressiveness and uses abusive language the team is expected to lodge a compliant with the authorities. Or, if the example of Arjuna Ranatunga be taken, he has asked his entire team to leave the field quietly when Muttiah muralitharan was given no-ball thrice mentioning his action wasn't right.

Similarly our countrymen can simply walk away from the field saying they used abusive language rather than retaliating in the same fashion. If done so, what difference exists between them and us.

My fellow countrymen, we are professionals and lets be so.

What is BSI according to Germany?

What is BSI according to Germany?

BSI is a kind of organization in Germany which is equivalent to NSA in USA. It is trying to provide standards and guidelines to all the government organizations as well as private organizations in their country. The countrymen who designed Enigma now have an organization something like NSA. Does that mean we are going to see new algorithms replacing Triple-DES etc?

Also there is a new framework coming up from SOx especially for Europe called the EuroSOx. People argue it would be similar, however.

CEC - SIM v7.x?

Are you hanging with any version other than 7_1_1???? If you are then get ready to be completely outdated soon. Yes you got it right ... it Sun Identity Manager 8.0 set to release very soon.

I have written the new features of 7.1 after it got released. This time I have the privilege of writing about 8.0 even before its release. The top best feature of this version would be Role Management.

Features:

Flexible Role Modelling
Bi - Level RBAC
Business Roles
IT Roles
Also provision for Multilevel RBAC
Offers Role Subtypes, defaults being Business, IT, Application and Asset
New Sub-Types can be created
Extended attributes on Role Subtypes

Now you will also be able to search on Role Subtypes, for example "all application roles" etc.

New Role Features ...

Activation:

• Required: Get activated directly
• Conditional: Rule based, i.e. if the user object is getting an update and it requires few other privileges then it is allocated
• Manual: Implicit
  

Role start date and End date: What other granularity can one ask for?

Role Change Approval Process: If the actual Role definition itself is set to change then it should go through an approval process.

These are very few of the amazing features of 8.0. Keep waiting for it to release.

SUN Identity Manager rocks.

LasVegas - Interesting facts

The casinos ...

1. Flamingo
2. Rio
3. Paris
4. Ballys
5. Ceasers
6. Harrahs

belong to One person. All these six are connected one to another via all modes, escalators, lifts etc and is called the LasVegas Strip.

The big three in Vegas are MGM, Ceasers, Bellagio. The musical fountain that shows up every evening at intervals of 10 mins is a feast to eyes. This is the only show that comes for free :-)

All remaining (Comedy, classic, nude) shows have a minimum entrance fee of $40.

CEC - The Professional Services Party

Wow ...

All these days it used to be like only me and harini working for SUN IdM PS-India and few interactions with people in the same in US. Only know by name.

Today Arun Shresta, my practice head threw a party to all the PS folks. I met, Rene Ugarte, Mark, Steve Hulme, Chris Timmerman - the geek, Tiffany Ryan, Greg Buchanan, Sharif, Manish Chopra and many other.

It was kind of home after meeting all these senior guys and having the tech talks with them.

The party went well, however being a vegetarian I dont think I had any much options. In a wonderful situation like this food was the only concern. Unimaginably bad. Well thats how the life of a Veggie would be in USA rather anywhere outside India.

CEC - Identity Management

Monday evening I attended the session on Identity managment. Johnny cope was there taking the session. It was supposed to be a deep dive session, however everyone started asking/discussing solutions to their client problems. However their team is currently, I was informed, are making a team which only takes care of preparing images and deploying on public access servers. Thus the presales guy who visits the client can directly login with his id and give them a demo. Also licenses to try the product online for a week or couple are being to be sold so that the clients can check the product for a while before taking the decision.

SUN Identity Manager rocks.

NetBEANS Plugin:

Many of us know the BPE will be scrapped off, phase wise and finally everyone is expected to use NetBeans to create all custom objects in Sun Identity Manager. Every version of NetBeans vs IdM war file there is a .nbm file that needs to be imported into the Netbeans. I got my hands dirty using the NetBeans 5.5 and SUN Identity Manager war file for 7.1.1. Its awesome to use Netbeans instead of BPE, except the heavy memory requirement NetBeans has.

Tuesday I would be attending wonderful sessions like RBAC, VIDT, Security Considerations for IDM etc. Will post it soon.

CEC - Indian Telecom scenario.

I attended a session on the telecom scenario in India with Vodafone being the case study. There are few amazing statistics that I would like to mention which I came to know.

1. Vodafone has presence in 62+ countries
2. 1.2 Billion population of India is almost greater than the population of both USA and UK combined
3. Only 20% of Indians use mobile phones. (There may be a scenario that one person may have multiple connections too)
4. 87.9% of the Mobile users in India use only Prepaid
5. Indian operators are providing the cheapest call rates compared to the entire world
6. The target by 2010 is that there would be 500Mn Mobile users in India
7. Vodafone just by acquiring Hutch got 30Mn subscribers which is almost 13% of its worldwide subscription

Aren't there facts amazing.

Will keep posting.

First updates of CEC??? Nope Vegas First

Vegas ........ ah what a place?

The first thing one needs to know is .... "whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" is the quote here. Its a different world altogether a fantasy world. You never know when its night and when its a day. At night the city just looks like gold spread all over. If there is money flowing anywhere then it is here. People just spend money like anything. The description of Vegas can be given better by a poet or a story writer, for a person like me, its simply speechless.

SUN has organized the conference in Hotels Paris and Bally's. I stay in the later. This is just in front of the Ballagio where the eleven stand and watch the fountains after walking away with the 16 million dollars. I was just watching the same today.


Everyone I met, during my journey to Vegas asked me only one thing, "Conference at Vegas???". And I didn't know what to say. Whatever may be it, the place is a wonderful one to visit in one's lifetime.

Will keep posting.

SUN - CEC 2007

Just a week away from now is the SUN Customer Engineering Conference 2007 at Las Vegas. Are you coming? Well this is going to be another exciting event from SUN with around 3500 people around the world including employees, vendors, partners etc attending it.

My area of interest would be Identity Management and SOA.

The highlights are ...

1. Free certifications for Solaris, JCAPS, Java and many other
2. Lots of techno videos
3. Prizes for bloggers ...

Oh what not ... CEC 2007 has everything to offer. Hope to see/meet great people out there.
Keep checking for more on this event in the next week.

Google Apps Provisioning API V2.0

Google is providing an API for user provisioning into Google applications.

Google Apps allows website administrators to offer their users cobranded versions of a variety of personalized Google applications, such as Gmail. The API provides functions for creating, retrieving, updating and deleting user accounts, nicknames and email lists. With the help of this API one can code their custom adapters for Sun Identity Manager or management agents for Microsoft Identity and Integration Server.

Go ahead and read on ...

1. Provisioning Reference

2. Java based API reference

However the point of note is the Provisioning API is only available to Google Apps Premier Edition and Google Apps Education Edition partners.

Another Moment of Pride

I have been invited again to take a guest lecture on Identity Management at SCIT. This time it was really good to take the class as my experience gave the right touch. This is the ultimate joy I find, as I teach at the same place where I was once a student. Happy me :-)

Lord SriRam explains how tough it is on Earth

I don't know who is the author, however couldn't resist posting it here.

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The Lord surveyed the Ram Setu and said "Hanuman, how diligently and strenuously you and your vanara sena had built this bridge several centuries back. It is remarkable that it has withstood the ravages of the climatic and geographical changes over centuries. It is indeed an amazing feat especially considering the fact that a bridge at Hyderabad built by Gammon using latest technology collapsed the other day even before they could stick the posters on its pillars."

Hanuman with all humility spoke "Jai Sri Ram, it is all because of your grace. We just scribbled your name on the bricks and threw them in the sea and they held. No steel from TISCO or cement from Ambuja or ACC was ever used. But Lord, why rake up the old issue now."

Ram spoke "Well, Hanuman some people down there want to demolish the bridge and construct a canal. The contract involves lot of money and lot of money will be made. They will make money on demolition and make more money on construction. "

Hanuman humbly bowed down and said "Why not we go down and present our case"

Ram said "Times have changed since we were down there. They will ask us to submit age proof and we don't have either a birth certificate or school leaving certificate. We traveled mainly on foot and some times in bullock carts and so we don't have a driving license either. As far as the address proof is concerned the fact that I was born at Ayodhya is itself under litigation for over half a century, If I go in a traditional attire with bow and arrow, the ordinary folks may recognize me but Arjun Singh may take me to be some tribal and, at the most, offer a seat at IIT under the reserved category. Also, a God cannot walk in dressed in a three-piece suit and announce his arrival. It would make even the devotees suspicious. So it is dilemma so to say."

"I can vouch for you by saying that I personally built the bridge."

"My dear, Anjani putra, it will not work. They will ask you to produce the lay-out plan, the project details, including financial outlay and how the project cost was met and the completion certificate. Nothing is accepted without documentary evidence in India . You may cough but unless a doctor certifies it, you have no cough. A pensioner may present himself personally but the authorities do not take it as proof. He has to produce a life-certificate to prove that he is alive. It is that complicated."

"Lord can't understand these historians. Over the years you have given darshan once every hundred years to saints like Surdas, Tulsidas, Saint Thyagaraja, Jayadeva, Bhadrachala Ramdas and even Sant Tukaram and still they disbelieve your existence and say Ramayana is a myth. The only option, I see, is to re-enact Ramayana on earth and set the government records straight once for all."

Lord smiled "It isn't that easy today. Ravan is apprehensive that he may look like a saint in front of Karunanidhi. I also spoke to his mama Mareecha, who appeared as a golden deer to tempt Sita maiyya when I was in the forest and he said that he won't take a chance of stepping on earth as long as Salman Khan is around."

Jai Shree Ram

Six years passed - the stains of blood remain

Six long years have passed by and the sight of the twin towers raining to sand and dust is still clear. A day when the entire world was taken back by shock. God knows who are all the people involved in and out other than our times magazine cover photo guy with the long beard, Mr.Laden, one quick question ... what did you achieve?


It has been a tradition world wide to punish brutally the innocent for mistakes of few. What is everyone achieving by spilling out the blood of their brethren? Where are we going ahead in this world?

Columbus came in to find new places to have better world and we started a word called Global village only to live together in peace and prosperity but not to test our new shiny explosive inventions against one another.

We are trying to reach mars, why? So that we can introduce some kind of terrorism there?

A common man be an American, a Palestinian, a Pakistani, an Israealian or an Indian never want a war. People who are hungry dont need bullets, rather need something to eat and some love to share.

There is nothing one can achieve by waging wars, Ashoka taught us this lesson and we still seem not to be interested to learn.

Its time we make this world a wonderful place to live but not a park of landmines. Lets spread love.

My condolences to all those families who lost their loved ones and salute to all those firefighters and armed personnel who lost their lives helping in those situations.

One among the many good features of Sun Java Identity Manager 7.1

May be its too late to identify, however a good feature in the new release of Sun Java Identity Manager, v7.1 is ...

This warning message when you go ahead and click on the Launch Setup button is a very good feature. In previous versions generally, many people used to forget that they need to place the necessary jar files in the lib directory for the database setup to work. However now it clearly warns you about the same.

A Review on Debug pages of SUN Java Identity Manager

Sun Java Identity Manager provides a set of JSPs to debug the activities of the system. These are most of the times left unused. The functionalities provided are amazing.

I have completed a review on all of those and posted the doc on the web expecting people to give a read and comment.

Chakde India

There was a day, when I was one among many other citizens of India, commenting bitterly on the performance of our team at the world cup. Felt they do not have commitment nor interest. Oh one cannot find words of our feelings at that time and just only thinking that the 11 have made a mess.

Today watching the movie, Chakde India, I truly felt I was wrong in my thoughts. No one goes into a game to lose. The only difference is some get right directions to go ahead and some unfortunately are deprived of it. Everyone has ego. All of the 11 players are champions in their own states. Thus fail to either coordinate or give attention to others. May be the army's rule of Break and Build should be adopted for a team to succeed.

Every point in the movie only showed that TEAM WORK is the only key to succeed. I have really learnt my lesson out of this wonderful movie.

How to make the Windows XP desktop completely clean?

For all those who hate to keep icons on the desktop

Window XP allows us to completely keep our desktop completely clean, however leaves the Recycle bin. Its like having a wonderful house with a dustbin in the front of the house. The key to remove it is ...

1. Goto the registry.
2. Find the following entry
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/
CurrentVersion/explorer/Desktop/NameSpace"
3. There would be 3-4 entries.
4. Find the one which mentions about Recycle bin
5. Export it to some backup directory - This is a MUST
6. Now delete it
7. Thats it - Recycle bin is gone.

Disadvantage: You cannot see the recycle bin anywhere anymore. (Dont worry, it still exists.) To access it anytime, all you need to do is just double click on the registry file you saved and it appears back.

This info may be very old to all the geeks around, however.