…Clueless

From what I saw on Zee Business, the iPhone is to be launched in India by Airtel on the 22nd of August. They also telecast a telephonic interview with some president of Airtel who confirmed that there would be no subsidy on the iPhone.

That final statement alone is a deal breaker for me. 3G is a long way to come. Free WiFi is not a realistic option. EDGE is really crappy in its current form. What is the use for a device whose USP is its ablity to connect to the Internet but has no means to do so in India? And now that Airtel has confirmed that there is going to be no subsidy, I can safely say that we must forget about getting the iPhone for anywhere around Rs. 8000 to 12000. Not that I’m dying to. Get realistic people. Buy an E71.

The last time I reported, Airtel Broadband was redirecting the erroneous traffic to a partnered website (onspeedsearch) where they displayed advertisements.

Just five minutes back, I noticed that erroneous traffic is now being redirected to a page hosted by OpenDNS. Now, I have no clue if Airtel has in some way partnered with OpenDNS to monetize this kind of traffic.

Another theory that is currently running through my brain is that maybe Airtel is redirecting its customers to the OpenDNS servers. This could be because of the recently disclosed vulnerability by Dan Kaminsky which makes all DNS servers prone to attacks. OpenDNS has already stated that it’s servers are patched. What I feel is that Airtel is unable to patch it’s own DNS servers at this point of time so they redirected their customers to OpenDNS. Obviously, there is no way to verify this and obviously this means that OpenDNS is the party that is profiting here.

I am still using the same DNS servers as mentioned in my previous post but this time I am redirected to :

http://guide.opendns.com/?url=badbadurl.in

badbadurl.in is used as an example here.

More discussion about this can be found at IBF.

Airtel has started redirecting traffic from dead links, non-existant domains and typos to a website of its own where it displays advertisements and a search box surrounded by some categories.

The search box is just a dummy form element because if you type in another term it yields no result. Airtel is in partnership with a website called onspeedsearch.com for this and a quick search on Google revealed that many other ISPs have also partnered with onspeedsearch to display advertisements for erroneous traffic on their networks.

Here’s a screenshot of the said redirected page :

The DNS currently in use are :

• 202.56.215.55
• 202.56.215.54

Seems Airtel is trying to earn from it’s customers’ mistakes. Sweet.

Update : For further discussion on this subject, check out this thread on IBF.

I was surfing the Internet when I came across another piece of news which suggests that iPhone will be launched in India on the 18th of August, 3 days after the Independence Day.

Vodafone will be joining the iPhone bash earlier than Airtel. The iPhone wll be available exclusively on Vodafone for the first fifteen days.

Source :

• India to Get iPhone 3G on August 18
• Vodafone To Beat Airtel To iPhone 3G Launch; Expected Next Month

One of my friends went over to the Vodafone store in Sector 19, Chandigarh yesterday. He wanted to book the iPhone. They asked him to send a message to a number (Airtel and Vodafone have been playing this stupid booking game since long) which I think is kind of an alert service since they have not asked for any booking amount.

Now, on to the main news. The sales representive told my friend that the iPhone would be priced at INR 8000. Yes, Rs. 8000 which almost equals to $199. Airtel hasn’t confirmed anything about their pricing. I highly doubt what the Vodafone people are saying. The iPhone has to be imported. Where do they include the duties etc in the price? And what use is a 3G device which mainly boasts of a rich internet experience when even their existing EDGE network is shitty and expensive with no good unlimited browsing plans.

But if it does indeed launch at Rs. 8000 then there’s nothing like it in the market. I would definitely not be one of the early adopters. I’ll just fiddle with the iPhone that someone buys and make up my mind if it’s really worth getting into a contract that would surely be expensive.

My only motive of buying the iPhone would be the rich Internet browsing it’s browser offers. I’m not in for the memory, the iPod etc. It’s just the phone and the Internet on the move.

Another news that was given to my friend was that the phone would be launched when the next month commences, i.e. August.

That’s all the news I have about the iPhone due to be launched on Vodafone and Airtel in India. Gotta hand it to Apple, they manage to create an amazing hype. People don’t even know what the iPhone is and are already dying to own one.

UPDATE: iPhone to be launched on August 18th, 2008 in India. Vodafone gets a head start over Airtel.

Yesterday, I voiced my concern regarding the website facebook.in which appeared a little suspicious to me. I contacted the folks over at Facebook and got a response from them today. Here’s what they had to say :

Hi Rahul,

We appreciate your concern. “http://www.facebook.in” is a secure Facebook login page. Please let us know if you have further questions or concerns or see anything else that is suspicious on the site. We apologize for any confusion.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

Emma
User Operations
Facebook

So, Emma from Facebook basically confirmed that http://www.facebook.in/ is a legit Facebook website and a property of Facebook. Thus, we can safely conclude that facebook.in is Facebook’s entry into India and probably will be the website to which the Indian users will get redirected in the near future. Facebook India is still broken and doesn’t work properly so I guess it is still more of a placeholder than a proper Indian version for Facebook.

A similar step was taken by MySpace (http://in.myspace.com/), Orkut (http://www.orkut.co.in/) and YouTube (http://in.youtube.com/) recently. Facebook will compete with Orkut, which is the leader in the Social Networking segment in India.

There is a kind of rush to get into the Indian market which is still in its nascent stage but has a whole lot of potential keeping in view the fact that majority of the Indian population is young and broadband penetration is increasing as every day passes.

Well, I’m a relieved man, now that it has been confirmed by Facebook that it wasn’t any scam.

So a guy named Rahul Vaid from Gurgaon published some “obscene” messages about Sonia Gandhi because of the fact that he hated her. Purely personal, right?

WRONG. The guy is locked up in Pune Jail and could face a fine of upto 1 lakh rupees or five years in prison. You heard it right people. Don’t think of even hating Sonia Gandhi. I say just stop forming any personal opinions for that matter. Everything could land you in trouble.

Our efficient Indian Police failed to track down the terrorists who sent emails after the UP and Jaipur blasts. They failed to notice a dead body of the servant lying on the roof of a house in which a girl was murdered and kept telling everyone that the servant was at large and was the killer. But some Congress Party worker doesn’t like what Mr. Rahul Vaid wrote on Orkut. He complained to the police and they swung into action. Hurray for the cops!!

You guys can suck my balls. I just hope the Shiv Sainiks don’t read what I wrote about them here on this blog and our efficient police comes knocking at my door.

Source

…and every Indian is celebrating as if they won a lottery.

So India finally did it!! Against all odds, India finally managed to win the Twenty20 World Cup. Yes, a World Cup… that’s quite an achievement for our team. Sreesanth probably took the most memorable catch of his life. Harbhajan bowled one of the worst overs ever. Joginder Sharma was his normal crappy self as always. But we won.

The whole of Chandigarh celebrated. People dancing. Roads jammed… guys on roof of cars… dancing… the police failing miserably to control them. Rickshaw pullers, daily wagers on their bicycles… howling. Foreigners busy clicking pictures of kids sitting on the windows of their cars. TV reporters following insane fans on scooters. This was the scene in Chandigarh.

I don’t wish to write anymore. I have my exam tomorrow and I haven’t studied a word. I’ll leave you with a video of people celebrating inside (and outside) Café Coffee Day, Sector 35, Chandigarh. Truly amazing. Wonder what’s there in cricket that unites every Indian. Maybe it was the fact that we beat Pakistan!! JAI HIND!!

EDIT : Check out the condensation and water droplets falling from the AC vents. Might give you an idea of how hot (and crowded) it was in there!! Fun, nevertheless… better than watching at the stadium.

I usually don’t visit social networking websites much but I was quite surprised to land on the front page of Orkut.com and find the Orkut logo coloured in the colours of the India National Flag. Good thinking on the part of the Orkut team to connect to and engage a substantial number of users on their network. They even have a number of polls up for the users asking various questions about the 60 year old baby, who is still growing… growing stronger day-by-day!!

A similar gesture for Pakistan (Aug 14th) would have been appreciated too by the users from Pak I guess. I wonder why the Orkut team didn’t do it. It most definitely has to do with the userbase from both the countries. From what I know, Indians dominate this social network after the Brazillians.

Click here for more info from the official Orkut Blog.

Jai Hind!