A captivating book indeed. A book gifted to me by a friend of mine, a book that I came across as I was just wandering around in Barnes and Noble and caught my eye. It sounded like a fairy tale with all elements in it - action, adventure, love, betrayl, cruelty, greediness, etc. No wonder it was made into a movie.
William Goldman publishes an abridged version of this S. Morgenstern's classic, where he has his animadversions inserted all over the place reciting anecdotes when he has heard this story as a kid from his father and as he recites the same to his grandchild.
The story is based on the land of Florin that existed somewhere between Sweden and Germany, before Europe was formed. Buttercup, the central female character, is beauty-personified from her birth to a poor farmer family but a tom-boy (loves horse-riding) till love strikes her. She falls in love with Westley, a handsome farm-boy. It's then she realizes that Westley has become a farm-boy to be close to his love. It's then when life takes a turn resulting in Westley becoming a pirate and Buttercup forced to sham princesshood after getting engaged to Prince Humperdinck of Florin.
Why does a prince marry a banal person? Because he doesn't want to marry a bald princess of neighboring country, Guilder, to settle ages-old enmity. Interesting things happen when Buttercup is kidnapped by neighboring state to avenge the insult suffered at the hands of Prince Humperdinck.
Various interesting characters evolve. Count Rugen is a cruel six-fingered count, assistant to the Prince in all his cunning plans. He helps the Prince in rescuing Buttercup when she is kidnapped. Will the princess be rescued?
Inigo (an excellent spanish swordsman who lives to avenge his father's death), Fezzik (a mighty and most adorable giant who loves rhyming words) and Vizzini (an evil plan master/executor) together kidnap Buttercup. But what are their intentions?
And then there is Miracle Max (a miracle man) who is thrown out of King Lotharon's (father of Prince Humperdinck) palace as he fails to cure the latter. Will he be able to prove his capabilities ever?
A must-read for all masala-movie/fairy-tale lovers as the story progresses from the Cliffs of Insanity to the Zoo of Death. Simon Morgenstern does a good job in building all the fictious places in Florin while educating his readers with Florinese history too.
Once done, do not forget to read about William Goldman. You would be shocked to know that William Goldman is an amazing fiction writer himself. I would caution enthusiastic readers to sustain from reading this link before the novel. :)
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Rootkits
Rootkits: Subverting the windows kernel is supposed to be the most happening book now-a-days. But, what are rootkits?
Rootkits fall in malware category, software that tries to take control of a system by hiding registry entries, files, etc. A term loosely applied to cloaking techniques used against security software like anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc. They are categorized based on the OS mode they leverage - user mode or kernel mode.
As the name suggests, malware is bad and we know it in some of its various forms as follows:
- Viruses try to spread by attaching themselves to files or programs and doesn't focus on hiding stuff.
- Worms are more known for spreading across systems, scanning networks, etc. Unlike viruses, worms can spread on their own.
- Spyware generally demonstrates a behavior analogous to more of spying user information, etc. This term has been loosely used along with un-consented installation of adwares.
- Trojan horses are destructive programs that fake themselves as good citizens promising attractive software. It can be virus or worm packaged such way.
Given the growth rate of spyware itself, big corporations are concerned about the threat posed by rootkits. Especially, given that most of rootkits cannot be eradicated without re-formatting the system. Windows has a bigger threat surface as opposed to other operating systems for obvious reasons.
Application-rootkits can be written easily in comparison to kernel-rootkits as the latter requires an in-depth knowledge of how device drivers are written, kernel mode APIs, etc. Also, a bug in a kernel-rootkit would cause a BSOD. That would mean bad for a rootkit author as detection is last thing that should happen from a hacker's perspective.
F-Secure has released a beta version of some early rootkit eliminator. One can find a very interesting read here where SONY apparently is distributing a rootkit along with some of its music CDs. Scary!
Rootkits fall in malware category, software that tries to take control of a system by hiding registry entries, files, etc. A term loosely applied to cloaking techniques used against security software like anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc. They are categorized based on the OS mode they leverage - user mode or kernel mode.
As the name suggests, malware is bad and we know it in some of its various forms as follows:
- Viruses try to spread by attaching themselves to files or programs and doesn't focus on hiding stuff.
- Worms are more known for spreading across systems, scanning networks, etc. Unlike viruses, worms can spread on their own.
- Spyware generally demonstrates a behavior analogous to more of spying user information, etc. This term has been loosely used along with un-consented installation of adwares.
- Trojan horses are destructive programs that fake themselves as good citizens promising attractive software. It can be virus or worm packaged such way.
Given the growth rate of spyware itself, big corporations are concerned about the threat posed by rootkits. Especially, given that most of rootkits cannot be eradicated without re-formatting the system. Windows has a bigger threat surface as opposed to other operating systems for obvious reasons.
Application-rootkits can be written easily in comparison to kernel-rootkits as the latter requires an in-depth knowledge of how device drivers are written, kernel mode APIs, etc. Also, a bug in a kernel-rootkit would cause a BSOD. That would mean bad for a rootkit author as detection is last thing that should happen from a hacker's perspective.
F-Secure has released a beta version of some early rootkit eliminator. One can find a very interesting read here where SONY apparently is distributing a rootkit along with some of its music CDs. Scary!
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