IEEE-MSIT I-CON (October, 2011)

ieee-msit

october, 2011

I-CON

In This Issue String Theory

Photoshop gyaan

Steve Jobs:

Radio Waves

The Bangalore Torpedos

A Tribute  IEEE

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ieee-msit I-CON INside

october, 2011

The Writings On The Wall 10 | IEEE, the Unexplored Symbiotic Endeavour:

A road less travelled; that made all the difference by Akshat Kulshreshtha

11 | The GINI Force by Daksha Goel 12 | String Theory by Rajat Vikas 14 | Winter School:

The turning point of my life

24 | Steve Jobs:

by Tushar Sharma

15 | Rootkits: todays top threads

A Tribute



16 | Time Travel by Disha Arora 8 | The S.I.G’s

2 | Messages 4 | IEEE MSIT:

the societal construct

6 | IEEE MSIT:

through 2010 and 2011

by Adweetiya

Special Interest Groups

22 | IEEE MSIT: School

Outreach Program

23 | The Bangalore Torpedo by Mohit Rathee

17 | Counter Strike: by Nikhil Garg

18 | Photoshop Gyaan by Akshay Kumar 20 | Radio Waves and MSITians: Project Radio Jove



Design Head: Mohit Rathee Coordinator: Akshay Kumar

by Tushar Sharma

Cover: Arjun Narain

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Messages Navin K Kapur Director, Maharaja Surajmal Institute of Technology It is a matter of immense pleasure that the activities of IEEE student Branch, MSIT are picking up a good tempo and providing the students and faculty a window to new technologies and inculcating a mindset for innovation. The launch of the bulletin will further strengthen the academic environment in MSIT and extend the reach of the IEEE message. My best wishes to the team members for continued success in their endeavours.

From the branch counselor Mrs. Vimal Gaur Branch counselor, IEEE MSIT At IEEE-MSIT, pursuit of excellence is a way of life. Our quest is to provide a platform to the students of our college where they can learn and develop skills outside of their classrooms. The focus has always been on excellence in all pursuits with an endeavor to bring out the best in each one of us. This bulletin is another step towards that mission of IEEE-MSIT. It is indeed a matter of great pleasure that the bulletin of IEEE- MSIT student Branch is being launched. This bulletin, I am sure, would provide all the required information and updates about the happenings in our branch. Also, it will help many students to become aware about our student branch and come forward with creative and new ideas to take it forward. I wish IEEE-MSIT all the success in its endeavor. May God give us the wisdom to tread the path of goodness with humility!



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From the chair Tushar Sharma

Chairperson IEEE-MSIT It is my pleasure, as chairperson of the MSIT IEEE student branch, to present to the readers the inaugural edition of our student bulletin, the’ I-CON’. Our student branch has been one of the most active student branches in Delhi over the past two years, and though the 20 or so pages in this edition will not be enough to elaborately show our dynamism and pro-activeness, this issue will aim at providing a glimpse of all that our students as well as our student branch has been involved in.

Ashutosh Varma

Editorial Department Head One of the first assignments of the editorial department was the making of the “I-CON”, a student bulletin that contains a gist of the events that MSIT IEEE has been involved in over the past two years, and also features some of the best (technical themed) articles that the MSIT students had to offer. Being an inaugural edition, the department had to start from scratch. Though seemingly a herculean task at the beginning, it has been one of the best experiences that MSIT has had to offer for our department members. From the collection of articles, to the nitty-gritty’s of designing and compiling them into a finished product, it has been an enriching ride. Hope our readers enjoy this literary sojourn!

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IEEE MSIT:

The Societal Construct “IEEE is the world’s largest professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity. IEEE and its members inspire a global community through IEEE’s highly cited publications, conferences, technology standards, and professional and educational activities.” – The ieee.org home page. Surely, if there ever was a place to quote a web page, it was the very first edition of our student bulletin, the “I-CON”. The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers is the world’s largest professional association for the advancement of technology. The IEEE Student Branch, MSIT IEEE is one of the youngest organs of our college. It was registered with IEEE USA in March, 2009 and that marked the beginning of our progressive and eventful journey. This branch was formed with the vision to promote innovative and technical ideas amongst all students and, to try and enrich the students’ knowledge beyond the standard curriculum of the college. One of our endeavors was also to obtain our goals by adopting innovative and environmental friendly methods. We started our journey with a mere strength of 30 members in 2009 and after just one year, this number grew to an amazing 115. The student branch was termed as the fastest upcoming branches in the entire Delhi Section, while the branch counselor



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received the rare honour of “Best Branch Counselor for an Upcoming Branch” at the Annual General Meeting of IEEE, Delhi Section. This year, our IEEE family has grown bigger and better, with 306 proud IEEE members. Today, this student branch stands as one of the largest branches in the entire Delhi Section and is a much talked about name in the galleries of IEEE Delhi Section. Though still very young, it has already brought to its name substantial recognition and achievements. Many seminars and workshops have been organized by the IEEE Student Branch from the time it came into existence. IEEE- MSIT also made its presence felt by participating in various Quarterly and GINI Meets. Student members gave their full cooperation in making these events a success. Our commitment to innovation and promotion of technical ideas led to our becoming the premium sponsor for the Annual Technical Festival, VIRUS-2K9, which was a carbon-neutral event. In this way, not only did we put a step forward and accomplish one of the major aims, but also achieved wide-scale publicity of IEEE in MSIT. In conclusion, one can say that IEEE-MSIT is growing at a fast pace, and progressing even faster in terms of membership, sponsorship and the activities under its belt. The day is not far away, when it will be one of the biggest Student Branches not only Delhi, but in India too.

The Branch Organization The operations of the branch are carried out by the joint effort and coordination of the various departments and the Executive Committee, under the guidance of the Branch Counselor, Ms.Vimal Gaur.

Members of the Executive Committee:

Tushar Sharma

Branch Chairperson

Akshat Kulsreshtha

Branch Vice-Chairperson

Jayati Mittal

Branch Vice-Chairperson

Yashika Narang

Branch General Secretary

Avineesh Arora Branch Treasurer

Daksh Goel

GINI Representative

Departments

The various departments of IEEE-MSIT are as follows: 1. Technical 2. Editorial 3. Web Development 4. Publicity

5. Public Relations 6. Sponsorship 7. Memberships 8. Event Management

These departments form a vital part of our student branch and each one of them is indispensable to the proper functioning of the student branch machinery. Each department has its functions outlined and works within these guidelines.

Discover more of what IEEE membership offers you. Visit our website. www.ieeemsit.in

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IEEE MSIT

Through 2010 and 2011 The IEEE-MSIT student branch was formed with the vision to promote innovative and technical ideas amongst all students and, to enrich the students’ knowledge much beyond the standard curriculum of the college. Many seminars and workshops were organized by the IEEE Student Branch in this endeavour. IEEE-MSIT organized its Inaugural Event, Focal Point on February 26, 2010 which saw a huge attendance of over 400 IEEE and non-IEEE students. The event Focal Point was an amalgam of two seminars on the two most upcoming technologies. Firstly, Dr Renu Pasricha, a Senior Scientist from National Physical Laboratory, was invited to deliver a lecture on “Basics of Nanotechnology and its applications today”. This session was followed by a Telescope-Viewing Session. The participants were introduced to the concepts of Solar Flares and were shown the sun spots. The Focal point ended with a seminar on “Astronomy and its recent Breakthroughs” by an eminent scientist, Mr. Prashant Jagannathan from S.P.A.C.E.



Another major event organised by IEEE-MSIT was a seminar on “Real world Management scenario and Marketing strategies”, in collaboration with Students for Development (SFD) on August 20, 2010. This seminar aimed to introduce the students to the nuances of the corporate world and the tips and tricks on how to survive the “Rat-Race”. Mr. Rajeev Babbar, Director, Vision Distribution Pvt. Ltd. and Mr. Vaibhav Dange, the Ex-Deputy Director, FICCI, the two distinguished speakers from the industry, were invited to the seminar for enlightening the audiences. Around 400 odd students from MSIT attended the seminar, ieee msit I-CON | october 2011

packing the Auditorium to its full capacity. On March 16, 2011, IEEE student branch organised a seminar on “Internship and Research opportunities” for 1st and 2nd year students. The seminar was given by IEEE-MSIT Chairperson, Tushar Sharma. Around 180 students from MSIT attended the seminar. The students were told about the stepwise approach towards getting the internship/training programme of their choice. The need for planning and social networking was emphasized upon. They were also intimated about some of India’s renowned organizations where they can apply

for research and training. The second half of the seminar was aimed to introduce the students to the benefits of joining IEEE and how IEEE can play an important role in fetching them a good internship. Also, they were introduced to the IEEE-MSIT framework and the various posts for which the members can apply for. On March 22, 2011,IEEE-MSIT organised another seminar on “Job opportunities after B.Tech” and how to prepare for GATE, PSUs, IES”. The seminar was conducted in collaboration with Made Easy, an institute for preparation of entrance exams like GATE, PSUs, IES etc. The seminar was given by Mr.Jiten and

On August 23, 2011, IEEE-MSIT organised the Annual Quiz Competition, the X-Quizite. The event was sponsored by KNiX. The event witnessed a huge turnout with a whopping 140 teams (around 280 students)participating. The competition was divided into two rounds. Round 1, the Pen-it-silly-um, was the written preliminary round. All the teams were divided into 4 groups and round 1 was conducted in 4 separate slots for the 4 groups. Top 2 teams from each group were selected for the second round. Round 2 had 3 sub-rounds, Citius, Altius and Mr. Arun, both from ‘Made Easy’. Fortius, which were written as well Around 170 students from MSIT at- as oral. Top 3 teams were declared winners and were awarded their tended the seminar. IEEE-MSIT organised a seminar prizes by the Director of KNiX. Xon “How to prepare for foreign edu- Quizite was a huge success with a cation” April 26, 2011. The Speaker, superlative turnout. It was a well Ms. Nupur Sharma, was a student organized event with all the quiz from London School of Econom- organisers and volunteers putting ics. The students were told about the in a lot hard work. X-Quizite was procedure to apply and prepare for enjoyed by all the participating stufurther studies in foreign universi- dents who were highly impressed by ties and how to face challenges in the the interesting questions and the surforeign environment. Students were prising answers. IEEE-MSIT is determined to oralso told about the various scholarganize and bring up many more ships that are available for studies abroad. The seminar was conducted seminars and technical/non-technifor only IEEE members and saw an cal events like these for the benefit of its members. attendance of 97 students. october 2011 | ieee msit I-CON 

The S.I.G’s The Student Branch of IEEE-MSIT has seen tremendous growth over the last few months, and among all the revolutions perhaps the most special one is the birth of the SIG’s or Special Interest Groups. We have finally achieved something that many other branches are still struggling to initiate. First of all, for those new to the concept, let’s have a quick recap of the definition of SIGs. What an SIG really is: • A special interest group for IEEE members. • A practical approach to technical aspects of the subject matter. • A gathering for discussion and information sharing between peers. • A ground to conceive and complete projects. • To solve problems as a team where even the Internet cannot help. • No head, no leader, no anarchy. • Everyone decides their level of involvement, and hence credit. • Members shall be given a chance to host seminars as speakers, given their knowledge on the topic. • Seminars will be FREE and OPEN TO ALL MEMBERS irrespective of whether they are a part of the SIG or not. What an SIG is not: • A place to baby-sit, spoon-feed, or tutor students. • An alternate approach to classroom teaching. • One-way information dispersal. • A free certificate, in fact you get nothing but knowledge.

MSIT branch. We all wanted a group where no one, yet all were equally responsible. Many colleges had tried and failed and initially so did MSIT. Many of the groups introduced found no takers and the ones that did, failed to get participation. An exception was Artificial Intelligence, which also managed to hold one seminar on “Gaming Industry AI” before finally being dissolved in May 2011. The idea was brought up again in 2011, at the quarterly meet at Manav Rachna. I attended the meet and found useful inputs in the group discussion on SIG’s, notably from the chairperson of the DTU branch. The new improved vision of the SIG’s was implemented within the next two months with proposals being requested as early as June. Proposals were collected, sorted, and merged into six groups, namely: • Linux Users Group • Open Source Open (O2S) • Robotronix • Social media & Networking technology • Java Joggers • Technoholik So far, we have seen a positive response to all the 6 groups, and many have already shown considerable progress thanks to both - the student participation and the dedication to their respective groups. We definitely hope to carry the idea further in the next session as well.

The idea was initially brought up by the 2009-2010 batch of IEEE-



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- Apurv Saxena, Vice Head, Technical Department, IEEE MSIT.





Special Interest Groups

Featured SIG: RobotroniX IEEE-MSIT has walked another year down the path of excellence, and it has been a year of discovery, creativity, joy and activities. One of the major activities of IEEE-MSIT includes development of SIG’s i.e. the Special Interest Groups in the college. Several SIG’s have been formed under IEEE-MSIT this year. One of them is our group. The Main Objective of our SIG is to introduce ‘Embedded Technology’, used in the field of robotics, to the enthusiastic beginners that will help them in increasing their understanding and practical knowledge in Entrenched Systems. Further, it will help in enhancing the knowledge of others having a prior understanding of the matter. Since technical events and fests which deal with an understanding of robotics are organized on a frequent basis in various colleges, this group will not only provide members with knowledge about electronics and robotics, but also promote their technical skills and allows them to participate in such events. We had our first session in September 2011, with twenty odd members and after that, there was no looking back. A number of students have shown their curiosity in the group. It is a matter of immense pleasure and pride that this group has provided the students, a platform to recognize their interest in the field of robotics. It has been our endeavour to provide the group members, a purposeful

and effective learning of the following applications like: • Microcontrollers • Obstacle sensor • LFR (Line Follower Robot) • Wireless Robots using encoders and decoders working on radio frequency • Seven segment displays • DTMF robots. At later stages, we will have interactive sessions on other aspects: • Evolving new ideas • Brain Computer Interference - EEG - P300 • Detail study about the electronics instruments around us. • Methods to repair household electronic items. • How embedded technology can help in Real Time. It is said that to reach the top of the ladder one has to start at the bottom. We have started well, but the question that arises in my mind is that, “What will take us to the top?” No doubt it calls for sincere hard work, deeper commitment, total dedication to the task at hand, taking problems head on, surging ahead with a greater determination, a dare to be different attitude, and leaving indelible imprints on the sands of time. With these, we shall not only educate the mind, but also the heart. - Akash Dang RRW Foundation ECE(II),3rd Year.

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The Writings on the Wall IEEE, the Unexplored Symbiotic Endeavour: A road less travelled; that made all the difference

. It was January, 2010, that two volunteers from IEEE MSIT came to our class to make an announcement. They told us about an organization I was quite unfamiliar with. They said that the IEEE memberships were open & the interview for the various executive committee & departmental positions were going to take place in the coming weeks. In the Blue line era, it used to take us around 1 hour to reach college from South Ex, and I recall that I & my friend Vishal Dhar asked almost every senior we met, “Bhaiya!!! Is it worth it? Will it help?” And the replies varied from the skeptical to the hilarious. Some said “Arrey kuch nahin karate, time waste hai”, while some said that it gives you experience & acts like a tool, which connects the notional formula-based education with the current technological scenarios around the world. One of my seniors in the 4th year at that time also said that it strengthens your CV. Many people, many answers. So I decided to get a first-hand experience (moreover 1300 bucks is merely 2-3 outings with friends, that’s it!). Finally on 27th January that year, I officially became a student member of this esteemed organization. As promised in the very next week, the leaving executive committee organized an interview session for various posts. I, like many others decided to give it a shot, (& Bingo!) I made it through, and was selected as the Vice-Head, Membership Dept. But the elation at achieving something good was short-lived. Within

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a week, loads of DB related work was assigned to me (but that’s something you obviously won’t be interested in). From the horse’s mouth: Now everybody is aware of all kinds of seminars & programs that the IEEE organizes, that’s why I am going to talk about something different. I had an interest in photography, and so immense it was that I had a digital camcorder at my disposal from since my class 8th, and that’s like 7-8 yrs ago! But all hobbies somehow took the backseat in wake of the tremendous pressure of studies. But through IEEE seminars & functions, I got the opportunity to revive this hobby of mine. But this time, I focused only on ‘still photography’, and can proudly say that I got the informal title of the “Official IEEE photographer”. Although it seems funny, it meant a lot to me. The section meet at IIT-D, was also a one -of- a kind experience. Finally, another special one was the Annual General Meeting of the IEEE Delhi Section which took place in the month of March this year. Each visiting member was given an 8 GB pen drive. IEEE also has a tie up with DELL, known as the ‘Employee Participation Program’ from where I got a decent discount on my first laptop! So readers, concluding my writing, “the IEEE membership is not about what it gives back to you, but is about how much you can extract out of your membership.”

-Akshat Kulshrestha (Vice Chairperson, IEEE MSIT)

The GINI Force IEEE student’s branch officer meeting was held in Madras on 8th march 2008. The meeting included the proposal and startup of a venture known as Global Integrated Network of IEEE (GINI). GINI is an initiative taken up for improvement, promotion and networking of existing branches and creation of new branches in R-10. As a GINI one has to formulate various plans and ideas for student activities and for the improvement of the student branches which can be further discussed with the Gini network of other colleges for the success of the plans. Quarterly meets of IEEE serves the purpose of providing a platform to enhance the GINI network in fact every quarterly meet has a specific GINI session in which one can discuss the problems faced by his/her respective student branch or by the IEEE student members and can get a solution for the same. As a GINI one gets a chance to interact with professors, researchers, scientists and several industrial people and experiences great exposure.

GOALS OF GINI 1. Add Value to IEEE Student membership. 2. Sustain smooth and ongoing interactions among the Student Branches and Section. 3. Help the Student Branches in coordinating with Annual Reports as well as other IEEE related documentations. 4. Conduct Membership Drives in all the interested Educational Institutions 5. LINK takes the responsibility of coordinating and grooming the new Student Branches in the initial years. 6. Identify potential volunteers and groom them to take up the leadership of LINK as well as other IEEE activities in the forthcoming year. -Daksh Goel (Gini Representative Ieee-msit)

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Winter School: The turning point of my life

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applied for the winter school at the NCRA (National Centre for Radio Astrophysics) in my second year made it through. The NCRA, a center of the school of natural sciences of the TIFR (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research), has set up a unique facility, the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) for radio astronomical research at meter wavelengths. GMRT is a very versatile instrument for investigating a variety of radio astrophysical problems ranging from nearby Solar system to the edge of the observable Universe. A group of about 30 students visited the GMRT as part of our winter school program. The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) consists of 30 antennas, each 45 meter in diameter, spread over a 30 km area, at Khodad, 90 km from Pune. It is the world’s largest radio telescope working at meter wavelengths. The site for the GMRT, about 10 km east of the town of Narayangaon on the Pune-Nasik highway, was selected considering several important criteria such as low man-made radio noise, availability of good communication, vicinity of industrial, educational and a geographical latitude sufficiently north of the geomagnetic equator, to have a reasonably quiet ionosphere and yet be able to observe a good part of the southern sky as well. We reached our destination late at night, had dinner and then moved to our guest house. We were later taken to the controller room, where Prof. Bhal Chandra Joshi from NCRA was busy monitoring a pulsar. The Control and Monitor System of a Radio Telescope provides the human interface to personnel like the Telescope Observers, Scientists and maintenance personnel for operating all the antennas. It monitors all parts of the telescope system for correct operation. GMRT has many sub systems like the frontend system, servo system, telemetry system, co-relater system, analog backend systems and fibre optics system. During the night, we were only able to see red colored lights blinking on top of some antennas from the terrace of the GMRT. Yet I was able to observe the large antennas using binoculars during the night. The next morning, after having breakfast, we moved to the seminar hall where there was a lecture by Prof Bhal Chandra Joshi on pulsars. The NCRA has also built and operates the Ooty Radio Telescope, which is a large parabolic cylindrical

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telescope. It is a leading centre for research in a wide range of areas in astronomy and astrophysics, and offers exciting opportunities to work in technical aspects relevant to radio astronomy such as analog and digital electronics, signal processing, antenna design, communication and software development, as well as many student research fellowship programs. Currently, Radio JOVE is not used at NCRA. I discussed my experiments and the Radio JOVE set up with professors over there, and asked them to introduce Radio JOVE as a topic during the winter school program. Prof Bhal Chandra Joshi at NCRA is very encouraging and he motivated me to carry forward with my Radio JOVE activities. It was the motivation provided by Victor Herrero, Dr R.K Tewari and Divyadarshan Purohit that encouraged me to travel down 2995 kms from my house to Varkala, Kerala to carry out amateur radio astronomy during the annular eclipse. I discussed my experience of the Radio JOVE with other students in the winter school, and asked them to participate in the Radio JOVE educational program. Recently, NASA had sent me one Radio Telescope in India as a student grant. This year my article was published in the NASA RADIO JOVE Bulletin. My work also helped me fetch a project with Stanford Solar center and they have sent me a SID monitor here in India. - Tushar Sharma ECE (4th Year) Maharaja Surajmal Institute of Technology

Rootkits: todays top threats I

n simple terms a rootkit is a program that maintains hidden access to a computer system. Generally it is installed like any other virus but the difference here is that rootkits are used to maintain the access with administrator privilidges. Generally before installing a rootkit an attacker would install a virus/trojan first and then install a rootkit after getting a user level access. The rootkit changes the entire working of the system. They are kernal programs that have the ability to hide themselves and cover up traces of activities that is work in a stealth mode. They replace certain operating system calls and utilities with its own modified versions and those routines. Types Of Rootkits:1) Hardware/Firmware rootkit Hides in the firmware which is not inspected for code integrity 2) Hypervisor level rootkit Modifies the boot sequnce to load them instead of the original virtual machine or operating system. 3) Bootloader Level rootkit Replace the original bootloader with the one controlled by a remote attacker. 4) Kernel level rootkit Adds malicious code or replace the original kernal and device driver code. 5) Library level rootkit Replaces original system calls with fake ones to hide information about the attacker 6) Application level rootkit Replaces regular application binaries with fake trojan or modifies applications by injecting malicious code.

Rootkits have evolved beyond the historical methods of hiding processeswhich included modifying the text of the ps program to lie to legitimate administrators. Even the most sophisticated threats became easy to detect by monitors that could compare the modified values against a known good value after all, in a healthy system, these values should never change. Unfortunately, attackers do not need to modify any kernel code to hide processes within a running kernel. In fact, they do not need to rely on manipulating the control flow of the kernel at all. Instead, adversaries have found techniques to hide their processes even from correct, unmodified kernel code. By directly manipulating the underlying data structures used for process accounting, an attacker can quickly and effectively remove any desired process from the view of standard, unmodified administrator tools. While the process remains hidden for accounting purposes, it continues to execute as normal and will remain unaffected from the perspective of the scheduler. Detection Of a Rootkit:There are four methods of detection of a rootkit:1. Integrity based detection Detection of changes in the static regions of kernel text and data structures. 2. Cross view based detection Enumeration of system files, processes and registry keys and comparing them to an algorithm used to generate a similar data set that does not rely on the system’s common API’s. 3. Signature based detection This technique compares characteristics of all system processes and executable files with a database of known rootkit fingerprints. 4. Heuristic detection It looks for deviations from normal system patterns and behavior to find unidentified rootkits based on the execution path hooks it uses.





- Adwiteeya Aggarwal

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COUNTER-STRIKE Counter-Strike (shortened sometimes to CS) is a tactical first-person shooter video game developed by Valve Corporation which originated from a Half-Life modification by Minh “Gooseman” Le and Jess Cliffe. Counter-Strike pits a team of counter-terrorists against a team of terrorists in a series of rounds, won by either completing the mission objective or eliminating the opposing force. Some of the popular maps: For Hostage Rescues: Assault, Havana, Italy, Militia. For Bomb Defusal: dust2, inferno, dust, nuke, train. STRATEGIES FOR THE GAME: (Some of the basic strategies by an avid gamer) 1. Know your weapons Know your weapons strength, weaknesses, and most of all how much ammo is in it. You should always be using the right weapon for the right scenario. Also make sure your backup weapons are loaded and they are binded in case you need to quickly switch back to them. Never Spray and Pray’ (Accuracy will keep you alive) 2. Stay with your teammates Never try to go off and play Rambo. Stay with friends and use team work to take out the enemy and stay alive. 3. Use Stealth Stealth is extremely important. Remember noise gives you away! Walking over grates, rooftops is especially loud, and don’t forget climbing ladders. Use a silenced weapon so you won’t give away your location. Use the side of walls to walk along to slow your

speed slightly and silence your steps. Even better you can crouch and use the walk key to slow and silence your steps. 4. Practice, Practice, and Practice: There is no substitute for practice. Players that get more out of practice our ones that learn techniques then slowly apply them in real live game play. - Nikhil Garg(2nd year, IT second shift)

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Radio Waves and MSITians

“The heights that great men reached and kept, Are not attained by sudden flight, They, while their companions slept, Were, toiling upward in the night.”

A

stronomy is a passion for me and I have been practising it for the past decade. During my first year in college, I was looking around for activities related to Astronomy, when S.P.A.C.E (Science Popularisation Association Communicators and Educators) came up with the idea of building a simple radio telescope to listen to signals from Jupiter, the Sun and the Milky Way. To begin with, one can look through clouds! Our eyes are sensitive to visible light and it is in these wavelengths that the first telescopes were designed. If we look up at the sky with a normal telescope, we can see mostly stars and nebulae. But when we look with a Radio telescope, we can see phenomena which are invisible to us - the remnants of supernovae, long collimated jets pointing away from galaxies mostly produced by black holes, and synchrotron emission from electrons with energy thousands of times their rest mass energy, from which one can map the strengths and polarisations of intergalactic magnetic fields. A radio telescope is different from an optical one in that it has no glass or mirrors. The wavelengths of radio waves are more than a thousand times longer than that of visible light. Most radio telescopes therefore use an antenna to collect radio signals from celestial bodies. The radio signals are converted into electrical pulse which travels down through a feed point from a coaxial cable to a receiver. I knew that NASA sells kits for such stu20

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dent projects under its RADIO JOVE Programme This will involve making both antenna and receiver. There was no parabolic dish so I decided to have a dipole antenna. I then had to select a frequency band to look in. One of the aims of the Radio Jove was to receive Jupiter’s radio emissions, which peak in strength near certain frequencies, the most accessible being 20.1 MHz. The NASA circuit of receivers converts a narrow band around 20.1MHz to audio frequencies and then you can listen to Jupiter emissions and record it as you record your own voice. Building radio circuits is non-trivial and is a somewhat different kettle of fish from the circuits we have learnt in our labs .When I started with this project, I didn’t know the theory behind radio telescopes. I went about learning it as required. As a result, I had to suffer in my sessional exams. But my enthusiasm always encouraged me to work under difficult circumstances. Working daily for about 2-3hrs after college was quite hectic. We study both Jupiter and solar radio emissions to better understand their magnetic fields and their plasma environment. Studying other planets always help us to better understand the Earth, which also emits radio waves by a similar process. Not only can we learn how these radio waves are created and how they propagate, but also learn about the interior of Jupiter. Similarly by studying the radio emissions from the sun, we can similarly learn about the magnetic field of the Sun.

I Received The Astronomical Signals! My first set up of the Radio telescope was done at Bal Bharti public school to teach RADIO ASTRONOMY to school students. I also took the telescope to NUH(nearly 80Kms from capital), as Delhi was too radio-loud a city for any radio astronomical observation. As the observations started, for consecutive days I received the same pattern in power, an increase when stars charts said the galactic centre would be in the antenna beam! This was sufficient evidence that the telescope was functioning as it should be. I listened the two types of bursts from Jupiter –L bursts (long burst sound like ocean waves) and S bursts (short bursts sound like popcorn popping). Many times, Jovian activity is a mix of both L and S bursts. When listening to Jupiter, on a particular night I found out that the Jupiter storms occur in a periodic fashion that may be to the order of 5-15

minutes. Solar bursts typically last from half a minute to a couple of minutes, and often sound like a rapid increase in background noise followed by gradual decrease, back to the original baseline level. My project on Radio Astronomy helped me to learn real engineering while making a receiver. I feel rather happy and motivated to complete this project successfully in my third semester. I had to face many challenges and am still facing them. My interest towards observational sciences has grown after entering college. I am still observing Jupiter and may be in a year or two would love to work on one of the larger Radio telescopes at the NCRA, TIFR (Tata institute of Fundamental Research). - Tushar Sharma 7tth semester ECE

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IEEE MSIT: School Outreach Program Dear readers, aliens or extra-terrestrials will not be our topic of discussion, but the sounds produced by heavenly bodies will assume importance here. The sun, the planets, and even the galaxies around us produce sounds (radiations) that we can’t hear directly. Radiations from these celestial activities can tell us a lot about the happenings of the outside world. We can monitor these radiations using various equipments.

Our voluntary works helped us in reaching the students extremely enthusiastic about Radio Astronomy. Around 15- 20 students of the school campus wanted to have their own Radio Jove set up, and were happy to receive guidance from our side. The session was accompanied by questions from students and print media personalities. Newspapers, both English and Hindi published articles on the ef-

With immense interest and enthusiasm towards this relatively new field, IEEE MSIT volunteered with four students of Ahlcon public School (Praful Sharma, Ayush Raina, Arjun Nair and Hardik Kumar), lead by a B.Tech student Tushar Sharma (Chairperson , IEEE-MSIT), and are participating in the NASA Radio Jove project. This outreach program was an initiative to foster science popularization and encourage technological innovations in society. After the successful attempt, now IEEE MSIT looks forward to starting a School Outreach initiative SIG (student interest group). AN INITIATIVE FOR SCHOOL STUDENTS On 5th May, 2011, as part of a science popularization activity, it was an immense pleasure to introduce the NASA RADIO JOVE to school students, especially the tiny tots. An outdoor session was organized on the school grounds of Ahlcon Public School to introduce the basic concepts of the NASA RADIO JOVE to school students. It was quite surprising to see that even the students of standards 6 and 7 were also immensely interested to learn about these Radio Bursts. It was a 5 hour activity which witnessed the participation of almost 300 students from various classes. The session was addressed by IEEE MSIT chairperson Tushar Sharma and GINI representative Daksh Goel. 22

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fectiveness of learning using the Radio Jove equipment. The response of the teachers on this topic was spectacular too. - Ashutosh Varma Editorial Department Head IEEE MSIT

The Bangalore Torpedo After a whole plethora of ‘peaceful’ articles, time to break the monotony (of the peaceful genre of course, the content before is much captivating!). This article is about an innovative piece of military engineering, The Bangalore torpedo, that was first devised by Captain McClintock, who belonged to the British Indian Army unit, the Madras Sappers and Miners at Bangalore, India, in 1912. He invented it as a means of exploding booby traps and barricades left over from the Boer and Russo-Japanese Wars. The Bangalore torpedo would be exploded over a mine without the sapper having to approach closer than about three meters (ten feet).

The Bangalore Torpedo is an explosive device consisting of any desired number of slim cylindrical explosive charges in metal containers (i.e. tubes). Any number of these containers may be attached to each other endwise. It is generally used against barbed wire entanglements against anti-personnel mines and similar small obstacles, and can be turned into booby-traps. When exploding, the Bangalore Torpedo clears a path 10 to 15 feet wide thru barbed wire. The weapon consists of a group of 10 loading assemblies, i.e. steel tubes filled with high-explosive which are either used singly, or in series with nose sleeves (forward end) and connecting

sleeves (for attachment end-to-end). Adopted by the U.S. Army during World War II, as the M1A1 Bangalore Torpedo, it was widely used by both the U.S. and Commonwealth forces. The use of a Bangalore Torpedo to clear a barbed wire barrier is depicted in the D-Day beach invasion scene in the films Saving Private Ryan, The Longest Day, Storming Juno, and The Big Red One as well as the games Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Medal of Honor: Frontline, and Call of Duty 2: Big Red One. The Bangalore blade, an updated version of the torpedo, is made from lightweight aluminum and uses explosively formed penetrator technology to breach obstacles which the original Bangalore would have been unable to defeat. It was developed in the United Kingdom by Alford Technologies and is intended for use with both standard army and Special Forces units that require a lightweight, portable obstacle-clearing device. In contemporary times however, the U.S. AntiPersonnel Obstacle Breaching System (APOBS) and the British RAMBS II rifle grenade breaching system are starting to replace the Bangalore for path-clearing due to their ease of use, effectiveness, and flexibility— they can clear a path several times longer than the Bangalore torpedo. - Mohit Rathee EEE 5th sem

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I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know, unfortunately, that day has come.”

years of unprofitability selling the Pixar Image Computer, it contracted with Disney to produce a number of computer-animated feature films that Disney would co-finance and distribute. The first film produced by the partnership, Toy Story, with Jobs credited as execu–Steve Jobs in his resignation letter tive producer,[56]brought fame and critical acclaim to the studio when it was released in This announcement marked the end of one of 1995. Over the next 15 years, under Pixar’s the most extraordinary careers in U.S. busicreative chief John Lasseter, the company proness history. Mr. Jobs not only co-founded duced box-office hits A Bug’s Life (1998); Toy Apple—and the personal computer industry Story 2 (1999); Monsters, Inc. (2001); Findalong with it—but decades later played a cen- ing Nemo (2003); The Incredibles(2004); Cars tral role in reshaping the music, movie, anima- (2006); Ratatouille (2007); WALL-E (2008); Up tion, and mobile-phone businesses. Surely, (2009); and Toy Story 3 (2010).Finding Nemo, as the great Michael Jordan had said, “there The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up and is no I in team, but there is in win”. And so is Toy Story 3 each received theAcademy Award there an ‘I’, in an i-pod, an i-pad, and even for Best Animated Feature, an award introthe i-phone. Each of them won, be it business duced in 2001. sales for Apple, or people’s hearts all over the globe. Steve Jobs was born in San Francisco. He attended Cupertino Junior High and Homestead High School in Cupertino, California, frequented after-school lectures at the Hewlett-Packard Company in Palo Alto, California, and was later hired there, working with Steve Wozniak as a summer employee. Following high school graduation in 1972, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. He dropped out after only one semester. In 1974, Jobs took a job as a technician at Atari, Inc. with the primary intent of saving money for a spiritual retreat to India, an intent which he fulfilled eventually, when he came to India and met “Neem Karoli Baba”, and returned with a faith in Buddhism, and a bald head.

A Tribute...

A decade later, Apple bought NeXT Inc, and Steve Jobs returned to Apple once again. Two years down, in 1976, Steve Jobs and Under Jobs’ guidance the company increased Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple. And the sales significantly with the introduction of the rest, as they say is history. In 1985 however, iMac and other new products; since then, apJobs was relieved of his duties at Apple, folpealing designs and powerful branding have lowing a sales decline and a deteriorating rela- worked well for Apple. At the 2000 Macworld tionship with the board of directors. Later that Expo, Jobs officially dropped the “interim” year, he started NeXT Inc. Jobs later claimed modifier from his title at Apple and became that being fired from Apple was the best thing permanent CEO.[62] Jobs quipped at the time that could have happened to him; “The heavi- that he would be using the title ‘iCEO.’The ness of being successful was replaced by the company subsequently branched out, inlightness of being a beginner again, less sure troducing and improving upon other digital about everything. It freed me to enter one appliances. With the introduction of the iPod of the most creative periods of my life.” Jobs portable music player, iTunes digital music bought The Graphics Group from Lucas film’s software, and the iTunes Store, the music computer graphics division in 1986. After distribution. On June 29, 2007, Apple entered the cellular phone business with the introduction of the iPhone, a multi-touch display cell 24

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but remained at the company as chairman of the company’s board.[66][67] Hours after the announcement, Apple Inc. (AAPL) shares dropped five percent in after-hour trading. phone, which also included the features of an iPod and, with its own mobile browser, revolutionized the mobile browsing scene. Jobs was both admired and criticized for his consummate skill at persuasion and salesmanship, which has been dubbed the “reality distortion field” and was particularly evident during his keynote speeches (colloquially known as “Stevenotes”) at Macworld Expos and at Apple Worldwide Developers Conferences. In August 2011, Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple,

Such was an overflowing gist of the man who has changed the way we compute, listen to music, or even the way we ‘phone’. We at ‘I-CON’, wanted to pay homage to one of the greatest visionaries and innovators of our time, and sincerely hope that the compilation is found informative and readable. The I-CON team (Source: Wikipedia) october 2011 | ieee msit I-CON

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ieee msit I-CON | october 2011