Marketing Ganga

Author: Shabbir Chunawalla

  • Mining Bitcoins – A Private Currency

    Bitcoins, the digital currency, was created by a developer or developers going by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009. Bitcoin is an open source product. It is a digital coin. It is a private currency. It can be mined. Massive computer resources are needed to auto-solve complex mathematical algorithms. Once the problem is successfully solved a bitcoin is generated.

    Source Forge, an on line platform enables the download of the Bitcoin mining programme.

    Bitcoins are purchased and sold against real currency at the prevailing exchange rate. ( $ 8.06 in India ). On purchase Bitcoin moves from the wallet of the seller to that of the buyer. Each wallet has its own unique 33 characters.

    Trading is done in pseudonyms. The wallet stores the history of every transaction.

    Many initial holders of bitcoins

    •  either mined these coins
    •  or received it as fees from overseas clients.

    Linden dollars is the game currently for virtual world. it is called Secondlife. It can be exchanged for Bitcoins.

    Bitcoin Exchange

    MtGox.com is the bitcoin exchange. You can sell the bitcoins through this exchange. The money will flow into your bank account in India.

    Trading

    Step 1

    Network with experts and learn the trends

    Step 2

    Open a Wallet

    Bitcoin.org or coinbase.com offer free wallet setups.Each wallet has unique id code. It is required for bitcoin buy and sell.

    Step 3

    Find a reputed Bitcoin exchange.

    MtGox.com is the largest.

    Buysell bitco.in is India centric.

    Step 4

    After creating an account with exchange, you can place a buy order and make payment to the exchange via wire transfer or other permissible payment mechanisms.

    When the transaction is settled, the Bitcoins are credited to your wallet.

    Snowden announced that he is ready to accept the donations in Bitcoins since the US has put a blockade on Wikileaks. That drew the attention of the world to Bitcoins. This protocol of Bitcoin was started by Satoshi Nakamoto, a mysterious person, probably a pseudonym derived from brands Samsung and Toshiba.

    The Bitcoin algorithm produces 12 Bitcoins every few hours. It is designed in such a way that the total number of Bitcoins will never exceed 21 million.This figure will be reached by 2020. Today, each Bitcoin is worth $ 600 but it had touched a high of $ 1200. As a digital currency, bitcoins reached a value of $1,130 in 2013. Since then, the value has plunged to $ 326, a fall of 56 per cent in 2014. In other words, it becomes the the world’s worst performing currency.

    Bitcoins are a store of value to the Web bucaneers and is immune to the government confiscation or deliberate devaluation. It, therefore, is the currency of choice for the old-fashioned money launderers and new age exotic salesmen. At the current value of $326, bitcoin as currency is deeply wounded.

    There are estimated 5000 Bitcoins in India, and the number is increasing.

    Bitcoins in its current form are bad since they use a protocol called TOR: The Onion Router that allows the giver and receiver to remain anonymous. This is the danger.

    The underlying technology behind bitcoin is known as blockchain. IBM wishes to adopt it to crate digital cash and payment system for major currencies of the world.Cash can be transferred and payments can be made instantly without a bank or clearing party getting involved. An open ledger for the specific country’s currency will be maintained. Bitcoin’s main technological innovation is blockchain or a ledger. It allows users to pay anonymously and instantly without government regulation.This ledger is open and accessible to all participants in the bitcoin network.It is not strored on a separate server and controlled by an individual company.The proposed digital currency system will work on similar lines.

    Instead of bitcoins, the dollars can be transacted. IBM is in talk with a number of central banks about the expansion of the blockchain technology of open ledger which could be viewed by eveyone using the system.The issues of money laundering and criminal activities will have to be addressed.Bitcoin is a decentralised network which has no overseer. Digital currency system would be controlled by central banks. Digital currency could be linked to a regular bank account of a person, possibly using wallet software.This could be integrated to the ledger.

    Indian investors are taking a closer look at the online payment system to understand its global potential.An alliance of all bitcoin companies in India has been formed in March, 2015. It is called The Bitcoin Alliance India.This body will represent the Indian bitcoin industry to governments and other organisations. It will spread awareness, enable adoption and aid entrepreneurship involving bitcoin.Angel investors and VCs finally warm up to the idea of bitcoin.

    Usually, 10000 to 12000 bitcoin transactions happen every day. Because of the Greek crisis, the transactions rose to 120,000 transactions per day in June-July, 2015. The price of bitcoin on June 1 was $220, whih rose to $285 on July 24. It is a 29 per cent rise. In Euros, bitcoin rose from Euro 213 on June 1 to Euro 260 on July 24 . It is a rise of 22 per cent.

    The process of generating new bitcoins is called mining. It is governed by mathematical algorithms. The supply is controlled and increases at decelerating rate. Each coin is a unique number. A person can quote the same number twice. It is a common problem to all digital currency transactions. The matters are further complicated by the fact that the coins are anonymous — they cannot be tied to an owner for validation.

    Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor has found a clever solution. Each bitcoin transaction is time-stamped and recorded in a virtual ledger — the blockchain. The blockchain confirms if a particular bitcoin is available for transaction. This blockchain is maintained by a peer-to-peer system of multiple computers. It can be downloaded by anyone. It can be cross-checked and so a fraud is difficullt. As Greek crisis increased the volume of transactions, blockchain processing slowed down, and a transaction which generally takes 15-20 minutes took over 5 hours.

    A number of Chinese syndicates mine bitcoin, China contributes a huge number of transactions. The stock market melt down at Shanghai also increased bitcoin volumes.

    City and Barclays propose to launch their own digital currencies.

    Hackers seize files on millions of computers and then subject the victims whose files have been seized to ransom payment in terms of bitcoins — a virtual currency that can be held in a digital wallet. It has not to be registered with any government and can easily be exchanged for real money. It should be noted bitcoins have appealed to the criminal element. There was Silk Road dealing in narcotics online using bitcoins as currency, which was closed down by the authorities DD4BC is notorious for attacking the financial firms. Even prior to the emergence of bitcoins, online extortion was in vogue, but the payment modes were cumbersome, say through prepaid cards. Bitcoins have facilitated the transactions. Victims are directed to several websites where bitcoins could be purchased. There is an attempt to lock all the files on a computer, and a payment is asked to unlock it. The sooftware CryptoLocker has been traced to a Russian mastermind. It affected several lac computers. There are new versions of this malware — TorrentLocker and Dirty Decrypt.

    With so much volatility seen in the real estate and equity markets, bitcoins have become a safer investment option. With Digital India initiative, money is bound to become virtual. It can be moved around easily.

    Bitcoins can be bought and sold online and can be remitted abroad — all electronically. A customer can use a bitcoin wallet to transfer money. It is estimated that India has 30,000 users of bitcoins and there are transactions worth Rs 200 crore a year in bitcoins.

    Bitcoin flounders in Australia as regulatory worries bite. There are concerns about the potential crime links of bitcoins. Businesses have stopped accepting it. There are 17 bitcoin exchanges in Australia of which 13 has  closed the accounts. It is the first coordinated shut down of bitcoin exchanges by a country’s banking system. It makes it harder for people to convert regular currencies in or out of bitcoin, threatening its long term value.

    The very technology that makes Bitcoins appealing is also responsible for its weaknesses. Bitcoins today store up huge value, earning the name digital gold. So far there was concern about the volatility in the value of Bitcoin. The current concern is about its recovertability.

    Block gain makes it decentralised and anonymous. As it is unregulated, it is attractive to many users. As we are aware, block chain carries a list of records or blocks which are tamper proof and revision proof. Each block contains a times-tamp — the encoded information of the time a transaction occured and a link to a previous block. The transaction takes place between two parties anonymously. The only identification is the digital signature. There is no mediator in the transaction.In financial transactions, a bank or a financial institution mediates. Block chain has open ledger design. It is cost effective as mediator attracts no fees. It is fast and transparent.

    The drawbacks of this technology are

    • the lost or forgotten password which cannot be retrieved. Thus Bitcoins stored in wallet becomes unrecoverable.
    • Insecure password can render the Bitcoin stealable. Stolen Bitcoins can be diverted to another wallet due to hacking or dishonest trading partners. Such transactions cannot be reversed or recovered. As Bitcoin transactions are anonynous, there is scope for dishonest traders to scam.
    • Hacking is common in the dark web or hidden web accessed by Tor.
    • Drug transactions are made through Bitcoins.

    There are suggestions to address the trust issue. Record of conventional currency swapped for bitcoin must be maintained. Reputation management programme should be implemented on the top of block chain. There should be tools to reveal the identity of one-use only bitcoin wallets. There should be tools to know the use of third parties to arbitrate. But such suggestion reduce Bitcoins to just digital hawala, and its attraction may fade .

    The Union Finance Ministry has invited suggestions on whether digital currencies such as Bitcoin should be banned or allowed but regulated. If to be regulated, should it be self-regulation?

    Bitcoin startups has jointly launched a Digital Asset and Blockchain Foundation of India (DABFI) as a self-regulatory body.

    Over-regulation kills an industry. Had e-commerce forms be regulated from the start, the segment would not have the grown the way it has. The best way to regulate is to allow the crypto currency exchanges to operate.

    These exchanges have KYC checks in place, anti-money laudering (AML) provision and suspicious transactions reporting  (STR) processes.

    They can help build an identity layer on top of this technology. There is a trail of every transaction. It can be traced back to the identity of the person. There could be a long transaction chain that needs to be traced backwards before the culprit is identified. These digital traces can never be erased.

    The self-regulatory body can co-ordinate with the government.

    There are four major aorrencies globally–Bitcoin, Etherium, Litcoin and Ripple. Bitcoin’s biggest weakness is the system’s limited capacity which can handle only seven trancsactions per second, as compared to thousands of transactions in conventional payment systems.

  • Amul and Manthan – A Shyam Benegal Film – The Churn Continues

    Manthan, a Shyam Benegal film of 1976, was about the churning of the agrarian society and a promise held by the milk co-operatives for them. Amul is the representative of this churn — it has farmer membership 3 .3 million. Its 85 per cent membership is of small and marginal farmers. However, the recent members who are joining the movement are the affluent farmers with big herd size of 30-50 animals, and having an automated dairy unit. This transition is being encouraged. They already have 5000 such large commercial farms.

    The NDDB estimates milk demand to rise to 180 million tonnes by 2022, as against 140 million tonnes today. Thus there should be an increase of 5 million tonnes per annum over the next few years to meet the demand.

    Instead of transporting milk to deficient states, the thinking today is to source milk there itself.

    In order to retain voting rights, farmers must bring at least 400 litres of milk per cow to the co-operative and the rest they have the freedom to sell anyway they like.

    Many families are dropping out of the system. Marrying into a family keeping animals is not attractive for the girls. The sons in the farmer’s family is gravitating to the jobs in the urban area. There is no life in dairying.

    The churn continues.

  • Telecom Malware

    As we import telecom equipment, it must be ensured that it does not pose a threat to the country’s security. Malwares such as virus, worm, trojan horse etc. spread through public Internet i.e. cyberspace, and try to attack network elements having an IP address. Telecom systems are generally not affected as they are largely isolated from the public Internet. However, there is always the possibility of malware being embedded in the systems being imported from hostile states.

    The ‘Stuxnet’, it is believed by cyber expert, was used to sabotage the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran where the Scada — Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system was deployed obtained from Siemens. The student attack disrupted the functioning of the PLCs (  programmable logic controllers ). The speeds of thousands of centrifuges were dramatically changed; thus damaging them. Their operational capacity dropped by 30 per cent. It was officially admitted. It is speculated that the supplier of Scada and outside agencies must have collaborated in this attack.

    There are instances of sabotaged industries plants and other high value infrastructure — power plants, nuclear installation, defence equipment.

    It is easier to detect computer worm affecting the Windows operating system. It is difficult to do so for malware hidden in large volume of software/firmware designed for industrial control systems such as telecom which do not employ well-known operating systems or programming languages.

    The Home Ministry banned the import of Chinese telecom equipment in 2010. To ensure the equipment is free from hidden malware, it was proposed that the source code ( running into millions of lines ) be deposited in on escrow account. The Chinese MNCs Huawei/ZTE agreed to meet this requirement. The European and the US MNCs refused to comply. Their plea was that it is proprietary software. The Chinese companies felt that it is next to impossible to detect a few lines of malicious source code—malware written in a low level programming language. Besides just like ‘star war’ programme, the telecom was real time software. Even if we have the initial version in the escrow account, it does not solve the problem. Software is never frozen. It keeps on evolving. Patches for upgrades are usually received by the telecom operators. Even these can carry malware. Due to protests, this stringent requirement is now removed.

    The Chinese equipment has been supplied to telecoms even in the public sector ( BSNL/MTNL).

    DOT is finalizing a telecom security policy. It is proposed to set up a Certification Centre to test imported equipment. It is proposed that a centre can be set up at IISC, Bangalore in collaboration with an MNC.

    It is a matter of concern that many private licensed operators have outsourced to MNCs the functions of operations and maintenance.

    Telecom systems are operated through hundreds of man-machine commands. Some of these commands are also given by foreign engineers from remote terminals. Hidden malware can be activated by these commands. Alternatively, it can be activated by an internal process triggered by a time stamp. A patch could be used as input to transfer the malware. 2G-3G operators treat telecom systems as ‘black boxes’ and depend totally on equipment vendors for technical problem solving.

    A multi-layered approach called ‘defence-in-depth’ is proposed. The layers include.

    *  policies and procedures

    *  awareness and training

    *  network segmentation

    *  access control measures

    *  physical security measures

    *  system hardening e.g. patch management and system monitoring.

  • Pinning Images : Pinterest

    It is the third most popular social media platform after Twitter and Facebook. It has a message for the media: a picture is worth a thousand words. It shows the rise of the visual web. It allows its users to share images by ‘pinning’ them. Instagram, acquired by Facebook, is another example. Facebook’s timeline feature is heavily driven by images instead of text. Printerest does not have ads on the site but publishers and brands can use the images to link to their own websites. It encourages companies to pin from various sources and to create pin boards for different types of material,

  • News of the World Scandal

    British judicial enquiry examined the Murdochs about News of the World scandal. Rupert Murdoch apologized for failing to take measures to avert the hacking scandal. He cast himself as a victim, and said that the scandal was hidden from the  owners‘ top executives. He seemed to blame the subordinates for not alerting him to the practices being used at the newspapers to secure its scoops. He predicted that the news business would be ‘purely electronic ‘ in five, 10 or 20 years. He cautioned the judge regarding regulatory measures envisaged consequent to the scandal. He said the press guarantees democracy, and we want democracy rather than autocracy. The Committee in its report indicated Murdoch by saying that he is not fit to exercise the stewardship of a major international company. It is now left to the House of commons to decide whether News International committed contempt of parliament, and if so what punishment should be imposed on the organisation.

    The work style of Murdoch has always remained a matter of debate, admiration and criticism. Prof Daya Thussu, West-minister University, UK has written about such working style. Some features of this style are

    *  focus on commercial interests

    *  ownership of the different type of media, and aggressively work towards it

    *  use political contacts regarding the ownership rights against the promise of good publicity.

    *  exploit rules

    *  put sensational and glossy programmes and news for commercial benefit

    This working style is confined to Murdoch group, but is more less extendable to other media groups too. The strictures passes by the committee are not thus restricted to News Corpn.only. The criticism against Murdoch is quite old. His media expansion in the UK and the work culture were matters of debate. It was alleged that in the UK, there was support from Thatcher and in the US from Regean. The media moghul sobriquet is thus not entirely on the basis of respect.

    The charge is not against an individual but against a type of work culture in the media organisations. It may be a political charge, but political system represented by the parliament has a right to raise it.

    We have much to worry here against the above background. Let alone the media owners, do the political forces here have even the courage to bring to book the errant journalists? How many times the individual rights and the right to privacy have been uphold while doing journalism? Murdochisation is not on decline. The politicians will have to tell the media at times, “ You have erred. You be responsible. “

  • Multiple Screens for  Films

    Previously, an analogue print of the film cost anything between Rs. 50,000 to 60,000. This cost has been brought down by digitisation to Rs. 10,000 to 12,000 per screen, a reduction by 1/5th. This itself is an incentive to a producer to release his films in more theatres. According to FICCI-KPMG Indian Media and Entertainment Industry Report, 2114, approximately 95 per cent of commercially viable screens have been digitised.

    An analogue print was heavy — it used to weigh 40-50 kgs. and was difficult to transport. These days an entire film can be stored in a pen-drive or downloaded directly into cinema hall’s projection room through satellite. Even storage rooms and trunks are not necessary.

    In 2004, Veer Zara was released in 625 screens. Dhoom2  in 2006 was released in 1000 screens. By 2008, Ghjiini was released in 1550 screens. In 2011, Ra.One  was released in 2900 screens. Doom3  had a release on 3800 screens in 2013. Kick  was released in 2014 on 5000 screens. It’s a huge rise in the number of screens since 2004 — almost 9 times.

    Prints are released across the metros and smaller towns at the same time. It reduces the scope of piracy. It enables a producer to exploit a territory commercially immediately. Previously it took several months to do so. The role of audience feed back has also reduced along with the simultaneous release.

    The digital format made a debut in 2007-08. Dhoom3  in 2013 was not released in analogue format at all.

  • Social Media and News Consumption

    The News Feeds stream of updates that we see on the Facebook is governed by a software code. Facebook in the US has become a major source of news—as many as 30 per cent of adults get their news on Facebook. Facebook, along with Twitter and Google News, has changed the news consumption habits of people. There is  an algorithm that predicts what users might want to read. Instead of the whole package of news, the fragments of news reach the consumers. It will be a serious challenge to the editors — the ability of the computers to curate news, the role which was traditionally played by the editor. Indian audience loves its ABCDs i.e. astrology, Bollywood, cricket and divinity. Social media users are expected to spend more time on their services—it is called engagement. More engagement has a positive aspect—exposure to diverse viewpoints and ideas. Engagement has a negative aspect—users create cocoons and filter out coverage they do not agree with.

    Social media has simply become a personalized newspaper.

  • Rap Music

    Rap music has to answer the question – does it reflect the violent times we live in or does it promote misogyny and incite violence ? The lyrics of rap stars are not acceptable. They are derogatory to a woman. At times, they make us uncomfortable. The commonly used terms are bitch, whores, d**k, n**ga, f**k, sh*t, pu**y, and damn. Young minds find an emotional outlet through music. Not all rap music is bad. Some rap music brings about positive changes in society. But bad rap has done better. It has been over-glamorised. Youngsters love rap lingo. They love listening and grooving to it.

  • Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon

    Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon moved the then PM Pandit Nehru to tears when it was rendered before a packed National  Stadium in the capital on a cold January 27 evening exactly 50 years ago ( 1963 ) by Lata Mangeshkar. It was penned by Kavi Pradeep shortly after the China War ( 1962 ). Pradeep presented a handwritten poem to Nehru when he visited Mumbai on March 21, 1963.

    Pradeep was walking on the Mahim beach when the words of this poem occurred to him. He borrowed a pen from a fellow walker, ripped out the foil from his cigarette packet and penned the first stanza. Mehboob Khan organised a fund raising concert at National Stadium and wanted an opening song from Pradeep. Pradeep roped in C. Ramchandra and Lata Mangeshkar, and the rest is history.

  • Organised Retail

    Organised retail has huge potential in India. One principal reason is the demographics of our country. There is a huge urban population of 377 million ( 2013 ). These very people boost the retail sales. There are 100 million working women ( 2013 ) in India. Almost 2/3rd of the population of India consists of the youth that is below the age of 35 years. Quick Service Restaurants ( QSR ), multiplexes and the thirst for new experiences are what will define the next generation of retail.