Bangalore Auto Complaint

I am sure that there are a lot of people in Bangalore who are truly frustrated by Autos in Bangalore. They violate all rules of the RTO by charging extra or refusing to ply to certain destinations or tampered/faulty meter. RTO Bangalore has come up with two email addresses to report these violations.

But I found it really difficult to complain. I think the only way we would complain is in the heat of moment. With smartphones you can send a complain anywhere. But then again there are these lazy people like me who find typing the details very difficult. This is besides keeping the emailIDs handy. So I decided to create this Android app which makes creating and sending the email a breeze.

You just need to enter the errant Auto's Number and details like to and from location. Next select the checkbox which is applicable in your case for the offense of the auto driver. You can optionally take a picture of the auto. Since you have a good camera on you Android handsets, you can take the pic of the number plate as well. Click on email button now fires up your favorite email client on your phone the mail composed for you. Just add your name and click on send to file a complaint.

I am sure your next question is going to be, “Who will take action on it?”. Well this is the first step towards disciplining the Auto drivers in Bangalore. Lets see what happens next. RTO guys have taken one step, let us take one more. May be we will reach the goal of disciplining the  Bangalore auto drivers.

You can download the app from Android Marketplace by searching for Auto Complaint Bangalore. Or use the QR Code below.

The most brilliant of Phishing mail

The follwing mail just landed on my inbox spam folder(thanks to Google). I could not resist but laugh at the infinite stupidity hidden in the phishing mail. I wonder how much more stupid the person who falls into that trap has to be.

Subject:  Confirm your ip address

Dear Value Customer,

True our promise to keep your HDFC netbanking account safe and secure from fraudsters,
our online security team has discovered some foreign ip Log Ons to your account from the
following IPs : 812.164.72.212 ,195.93.21.10, 195.93.21.34
Due to this,your netbanking has been blocked for your safety until you confirm your IP address .

Click here to confirm your Ip.
Please understand that this is a new security measure brought into
HDFC Netbanking for the security of your internet banking activities.

Best Regards.
The HDFC Netbanking Security Department Team.
© 2008 HDFC Bank Ltd. All rights reserved.

Ok Now that you have read it let me give you some amazing insights

1. Confirm my IP Address. D00d since when did I have a static IP Address.

2. Have a look at the examples of IP Addresses. 812.164.72.212. Awesome, I never knew we have IPV6 already implemented. I was thinking all this while that I was stuck with 255.255.255.255 being the highest IP Address possible(though not really). This IP has to be some foreign or alien origin. :-P

3.netbanking has been blocked until I confirm the IP Address. I dont get it, my IP Address changes at each logon anyways :-)

4. “© 2008 HDFC Bank Ltd. All rights reserved.” ??? well this is 2010 isnt it?? Just wondering what rights have been reserved.

5. More importantly, I dont have an HDFC Bank account :-P

Nokia WeMeet App is interesting

Nokia R&D invited some of us to preview their pilot project of WeMeet application. Its an interesting application. Its a simple application which allows you to have threaded sms conversation with friends as group chat generally does. Its a simple application though still in its testing phase or the pilot as the Nokia guys call it.

It has a simple interface (screenshots nicely compiled by Prashanth at TechBangalore). You can create groups in simple steps. Send message to friends is a breeze as  well. Just like other group SMS services like SMS Gup Shup, it allows you to send SMS to all your friends in that group in a single SMS. It sends a message to a local number in Bangalore(not a premium number), which in turn broadcasts this to all the people in the group. As this is currently only in pilot phase, its free and available only in Bangalore. To join create, modify and send message to groups an SMS is sent for your cellphone. When you receive an SMS from a group message, thats delivered directly to WeMeet application. If your application is closed, it will start up automatically and show you the message.

I think the beauty of this application is not the fact that it can send group SMS, but the fact that it can display the messages in a threaded manner is a killer feature. Another killer feature its that it runs also on S40 devices like my 5130 and others like 5310, 3600 etc besides the S60 based phones like the N and E series phones from Nokia. That kind of assures connectivity with most of my friends and family. Yeah we all trust Nokia with the low end phones.

The major difference between  this and other services is the location information which is encoded in the message so you can know an approximate location of the users. For phones which are devoid of GPS, the CellID & CBS messages are used to identify the location. This information seems to be optimally encoded in the SMS. It sure is really an innovative use of existing technology.

All said but this app is not without flaws. But then it being a Pilot project of sorts, it makes sense. Some limitations are like, max number of users in a group can only be 5 and only the creator can add new members. It crashed a few times on my 5130. One consistent failure I found was when trying to add a contact to a group from phonebook. It showed low memory error on my cell phone.

More information on it and downloadable apps are available at http://wemeet.nokiapaloalto.com/

So finally I get a phishing mail from Income Tax Dept :-)

This particular phishing mail was very interesting. It claimed that I got a refund from Income Tax Department. That too of Rs 820.50. Here is the complete mail for you.

Dear Income Tax Department of India customer,

After the last annual calculation of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are going to receive a tax refund of $820.50 Rupees.
Please submit the tax refund form and allow 3-5 days in order to approve it.
A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons.For example submitting invalid records or sending the form after the deadline.
To complete the form , please Click Here.

NOTE!
For security reasons your ip may be recorded..
Thank you,
Income Tax Department of India Online Department.

I love the fact that they are ignorant about me being a customer of Income tax department. I think I am more appropriately a victim of IT Dept.

But I was more in shock for the whether I am going to get $820.50 or Rs 820.50. I would have had been so very happy to get $820.50, But then I thought may be its a simple typo of some government babu. But alas, it was some stupid crook who is not smart enough to know English all that well or the ways of Babus.

Another reason was the ingenious use of http://tr.im . These smarties have used tr.im service to give the phishing URL. I guess its the best use of tr.im before it dies its natural death.

The forth thing that caught my eye was the Note. Not the note as in money but note as in notice. “For security reasons your IP may be recorded”. Dude, you could also tell that for security reasons you are taking over all my money, or wait does IP mean, Indian paise ??

I noticed this because Gmail filters did not detect it. Anyways it was interesting to read. Any please friends, dont believe in any of these unsolicited mails. 99% of the time, they are from crooks.

The 8 series fiasco for Indian Telecom Operators

Well its was well known that mobile numbers with 8 are going to start soon. But it so happened that my dear friend Daaku took a new Tata Docomo connection. Now the amazing thing was that it starts with 805xx-xxxxx. So now if I try to call this friend of mine, my Vodafone network tells me that its an invalid number. I was confused and so I asked my friend daaku to call me. I got his number in caller ID but calling it was again not possible. Obviously its not mistake in dialing the number, rather its a stupid things that Vodafone and possibly other networks too have done.

So here is my guess what has happened. Vodafone, takes the number +91805xx-xxxxx as 91 for country(that India), 80(Code for Bangalore) and 5 would be Tata Indicom as they provide landline with that series. Interestingly Vodafone seems to have not configured its network to this change which happened for mobile numbers starting with 8.

I tried contacting Vodafone customer care, they seemed to be unaware of the issue and they said they would get back to me soon(24hours it seems).

But the point here is, whats TRAI and DoT doing. Have they not informed the operators of this change or are the operators at lax. Who ever it might be, the fault must be found and it must be ensured that in future such stupid things do not happen.