I heard from Ank last week about the status of his asianet broadband connection. Apparently some months ago, he had connected to the asianet server, looked around and found user accounts information including password information of their users in clear text. He then logged on other accounts and checked logs to discover that the accounts were being used by  other users [other than the accountholder itself]. He then chose an account with unlimited connection and used it during the hours that apparently were not being used by the account holder. This went on for 7 months after which asianet probably realised this was happening. So they called him and asked him to pay for using the unlimted connection. The funny thing is that I had heard from a friend 1.5 yrs back about a similar incident when asianet called him up during his 1st month of bandwidth stealing to warn him. And in 1+ years they seem to have done nothing about their security. Nothing far-fetched, but how difficult is to use some standard encryption to store password hashes.

Apparently, this is public information in Ank's classroom - how to get unlimited connection when you have a limited asianet connection!

Besides asianet are there any other cable internet providers in Cochin? I heard city cable is yet to come. BSNL data one seems good but their starter package is data based rather than time based: 250/- month, upto 400 mb only.  Looks like we are still a little far from fast reliable afford-able internet connections at home in India. And secure. I hope I am not violating any *rules* by blogging this.