Raj Agrawal – Page 19

Upping the Ante on Cell-Phone-Security – The New Law

May 13, 2012 by Raj Agrawal Leave a Comment

Losing cell phones is undoubtedly a sensation that can send our nervous system into doldrums. And one can’t always rely on a cell phone tracker to be able to outthink the potential mobile thieves. Cell phones have become so much more than just mere communication devices; they are our social hub, data storage safe, memory box, entertainment centre and whatnot! Losing all of this in one blow could possibly rupture a few nerves and give one a quasi cardiac arrest.

cellphone security — Analogical illustration

Now, to save the cell phone users from that sinking feeling, Senator Charles Schumer and New York City Police Commissioner are vying to come up with a new law that would virtually make cell phone theft pointless.

The New Law

This new law that is being formulated in the New York police drawing board is vying to make stealing someone else’s phone less desirable, while at same time making it impossible to be reactivated by thieves, if stolen. As things stand, once a phone is reported as ‘missing’ its carrier deactivates the device. Even so, a lot of potential damage can be done during the time that the phone takes to be deactivated. With the new law, which is scheduled to be implemented in November 2013, its MEID number – a unique electronic serial number – will be red flagged for a solitary database per carrier, which would mean that no one would be able to reactivate it at all.

This simply means that while in the past, a person could get the MEID number changed after getting hold of a particular phone, that won’t be possible now, since the number will be fixed. This connotes that you wouldn’t have to be a cell phone tracker aficionado to feel secure about your phone, you’d just know that no one but you could access your phone and its data.

Common Database

While Verizon has been making optimistic noises with regards to the new law, the fact that other carriers are also following suit and evolving to LTE and 4G technology means that there would be a need of a ‘cross carrier database’. This cross carrier database or a common database would help all networks and carriers ensure that stolen cell phones aren’t activated from other networks. Having a common database covers all the bases and outlets through which a human cell phone tracker or a mobile thief could possibly make use of someone else’s cell phone.

A Verizon spokesman has stated that once the law is implemented, 90 percent of American cell phone users would be supported by a humongous common database of unique ID numbers. This would allow all the carriers involved to disable any phone that is reported to be stolen.

Plan Of Action

According to resources, leading companies including Verizon and T-mobile would be working on developing programs to disable stolen phones. This should be done within the next six months. And then 18 months after that, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) would fuse them all together into the aforementioned common database, which would nullify the possible usage of other networks.

However, while we all wait for the plan of action and the lawmaking to materialize, if your phone is stolen you should still notify your carrier as soon as possible. There are some smartphones that have apps to erase your private data remotely, plus you can also ask your company if they have a cell phone recovery plan. For, even as things stand, some companies have an array of plans that could at limit the damage that losing your phone could potentially cause.

For countries except the US

There isn’t any word for any similar security initiative in other countries. It’s quite clear with the new and tighter initiative for cell phone security by the US law, other countries will follow, sooner or later.

Diablo 3 Pre-launch Trailer – What Is Diablo 3

May 13, 2012 by Raj Agrawal Leave a Comment

It’s just 2 days away, and you can already feel the excitement among the horde of fans out there. To stop them from attacking their offices, Blizzard have released a new trailer for their hotly anticipated game. Titled “What is Diablo 3”, this trailer gives us some basic info about the backstory and the different characters you can play with. It’s time people, it’s time!

Max Payne 3 Doesn’t Feel Like Max Payne At All…

May 10, 2012 by Raj Agrawal 5 Comments

Max Payne 3 is just around the corner. The third entry in Rockstar’s beloved franchise is looking like another hit in their collection. Rockstar has a history of making good stories, and this one looks no different. And we’ve missed bullet time, so it’s about time we get back to playing with time and wasting bullets along the way. But somehow, with the visuals and trailers, Max Payne 3 doesn’t feel like what we’ve come to expect from Max Payne; rather it feels like a completely different game, which leaves me a little disappointed.

The original Max Payne had put the players in a world which came to life in the depths of darkness. Darkness is what comes to mind when we talk about Max Payne; it has become synonymous with the series. And it’s not just a game mechanism, it is to beautifully-exaggerate Payne’s state of mind, and has been executed flawlessly in the first game. The second game ups the ante even further by taking madness to a completely different level. Hallucinations and nightmares ensue, which turn the game into more of a movie, better than most movies out there with similar story-lines.

And this is what I want to stress about the third part. It lacks the atmosphere. Okay, the trailer looks awesome, and the game might turn out to be a masterpiece. It also has multiplayer, which should be fun given the Bullet time element which will come into play. But still, it feels more like the game lacks a main ingredient that made the first two games so unique. Slowing time is a trademark feature of the series, but it has been implemented by many games out there. But what those many games don’t have is the setting and the eerie nature of the story. Max Payne 3 seems to have lost it as well.

On the bright side, the shooting mechanics are looking better than ever, and the player now has a multitude of options to handle each firefight. The classic 360 degrees action elements have been enhanced as well, in order to provide a more realistic feeling, while at the same time keep the fun intact. The graphics are looking spectacular. This might well end up becoming one of the best looking games out there. And the classic Max Payne sound track is there. It’s all there. It has all the makings of a great game, barring the one thing I might end up missing the most.

At the end of the day, it’s just a shot in the dark. What we have seen are just previews, which don’t signify what the full game might be like. Rockstar may be voluntarily hiding the atmospheric moments, so that we experience them first-hand without any spoilers. But of course, as a hardcore Max Payne fan, I can’t but express my concern from whatever I have seen until now. Whether it holds any value or not, only time will tell (which is ironical given how controllable time actually is in the game).