“Let Your Pen do the Talking” NOVEMBER 2018 CAMPUS BEATS An Initiative by Department of Mass Communication Block chain Page : 2 Aalap Raju Page : 3 Cyber crime Page : 4 Sunitha Sarathy Page : 5 Mind your mind Page : 6 Prime Minister Narendra Modi felicitates Amma for her outstanding contributions to Swachhbharat initiative in New Delhi. Award for cleanliness again Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore, has emerged on top of the Swachh Campus Rankings 2018 of the Union Ministry of Human Re- source Development (HRD) for the second successive year. Over 6000 Ahigher educational institutions participated in the rankings which are part of the Swachh Bharat initiative of the Prime Minister. Th e ranking is based on a sustainability audit focusing on campus greenery, cleanliness and maintenance, toilet adequacy in campus, tree planting and community outreach in promoting Swachh culture. Dr. Sasangan Ramanathan, Dean of Engineering, Amrita Vish- wa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore, said: “Education for life, in addition to educa- tion for a living, is Chancellor Amma’s vision for the university. What is unique about Amrita is that our students get plenty of opportunities to participate in societal and green initiatives such as Amalabharatham cleanliness drives and Livein-Labs® experiential learning programmes in villages. About 1,500 students and staff members were part of the Swacchta Hi Seva on September 15, 2018, cleaning six locations in Coimbatore including Singanallur and MTP Road bus stands. Th is is a recognition for the their selfl ess eff orts.” Prakash Javadekar and Satya Pal Singh, Union Ministers for HRD, presented the award to Prof. Prashant R. Nair, Vice-Chairperson, Department of CSE at New Delhi on October 1, 2018 Prof. Prashant R. Nair, Vice-Chairperson, Department of CSE, recieving the award from Prakash Javadekar and Dr. Satya Pal Singh, Union Ministers for Human Resources Department. He gave important aspects of work should look for. Th is should be your Anusha Venkatraman public transport in India, for the better. culture using the Delhi metro and the motive all the time, he told the en- Put your Sreedharan, popularly known “I thought it would be better if I Konkan railway as examples. “In my gineering students gathered there.” as the metroman, credit- share with you my experience and opinion, four Virtues virtues are cru- Quoting Bhagavad Gita, he ex- ed largely for his ground- learnings in handling two of the most cial for success. Th ey are: punctuality, plained the importance of per- foot down Ebreaking work in changing the face important infrastructure projects integrity, professional competence, and forming one’s duty without ex- of Indian public transport, visit- the country has seen -- the Konkan social accountability or responsibility” pecting anything in return. ed Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham railway and the Delhi metro. Why I Elaborating each of the virtues A righteous performer of duty on February 26 inspiring stu- have selected them is because there with his own personal experienc- has no expectation. One should dents and faculty with his speech. are very many lessons for the whole es and examples, he taught an im- work without any attachment to Th e talk that spanned for more country to learn,” E Sreedharan said. portant lesson, that is valid to the the duty. Perform it with diligence. than an hour was conducted in One of the strange aspects of In- whole country -- if you put your foot Don’t bother about results.” he said. the jam packed Amriteshwari hall. dian politicians and their projects down and have a reputation for in- He interacted with the students Th e man, revered and respect- is that most of them fail to complete tegrity, then no one, not even poli- and staff . At the age of 83, E Sreedha- ed by all proved that he was much the project within the stipulated time. ticians can interfere in your work. ran, with his determination and more than just the metroman. But E Sreedharan, with his repu- “An engineer is not for himself. commitment continues to be an in- Rather than focusing on his personal tation and fi rm opinions , always en- He is for the country. A good pay spiration for to many, and one can life, he talked about two main projects sured that all the projects that were as- is only secondary. It is the oppor- surely say that the man is worth that changed everything in the fi eld of signed to him, was completed on time. tunity to serve the society that you every recognition he has ever got. CAMPUS BEATS ‘18 02 Blockchain: Th e Irony of Trust Digital signature all the subsequent blocks will get af- tirely depends on the computational Editorial Cryptographic Hashing is a mathe- fected and the whole block chain will power of the node called the miner. matical technique that will crunch data become invalid. Th is is called validat- Th e instant a miner fi nds the nonce Team ‘Campus Beats’ would like to (sequence of bytes) of any size to just ing a Blockchain, and it can be done value for his candidate block, he dig- extend a hearty welcome to all its a huge number called ‘the hash value’. quickly enough for even huge block itally signs and announces the block readers. Th is edition is packed with No matter who does it or how many chains with millions of blocks; just to the rest of the network. Every oth- an array of articles to get you through times it is computed, we still get the ex- a test to see the chain has been bro- er block simple computes the hash the day. For those of you who aren’t act same value for the same bit of data. ken because the hash of a block did and see whether it matches the right familiar with the inner windings of If the data changes even slight- not match the previous hash indicat- diffi culty and if it does, will accept it. the campus, this platform will ex- ly, the hash changes drastically. ed by the next block. So here is the Why should I accept a block pub- pose you to various disciplines in Vijay Krishna Menon Th e most popular algorithm for catch, if I am inclined at modifying lished by someone else? the fi eld of journalism.Unfortunate- Assistant Professor(Sr.Gr), CEN this is called SHA256 (Secured Hash the Blockchain, then I will have to me- A major mandate of the Blockchain ly, the dreaded part of college is to Algorithm-256) where 256 is the ticulously modify all the subsequent consensus is that a node should accept still facing the examinations with blocks too. So the obvious question an announced block if it matches the as much angst as you might have ow many of us know that number of bits in the hash value it done previously in your school days. Xerox is a company, and not generates. SHA256 (this is the same is who stops me from doing so? It’s hash diffi culty criteria, that is same Th e only thing that might be stop- a synonym for photocopy, or one used by the Bitcoin system) gen- not a hard task aft er all for a com- as saying, if it is mined. Th e miner ping you from doing so is the sleepy HCadbury too is a company that sells erate hash values between 0 to 2256. puter? Th e answer is equally obvious. also has to digitally sign the block he weather that started out as exciting chocolates? Th at will have approximately 10 Th e Blockchain Network stops me. has mined so any discrepancy in that and beautiful until it became grog- I think a majority do not. multiplied 77 times of numbers pos- Yes, now we are getting there. I am block’s data can be traced back to him gy and icky at its tail-end. Campus When a product becomes famous in sible. Generally, this number is very not alone; an entire copy of the same in the future. Sometimes it is possible Beats, on behalf of Amrita would long and is represented as a hexadec- Blockchain exists with every other that two separate miners will announce like to extend its wishes and prayers its brand name, people tend to forget the product for the company. imal sequence (a number system that node in the network. Blockchain is blocks with the same previous hash. to families aff ected in fl oods in Ker- has 16 distinct digits unlike the dec- not a result of just one computer in- Th e node has to accept both and watch ala and those coming back to their Th is is true for Bitcoin, and Block- imal system that has just 10 distinct serting data in a hash connected list, which of these blocks are going to normal life aft er the Kerala fl oods. chain too. it is a product of a network consen- grow in future. Th is is called the fork- Students of Amrita and the AYUDH If you are cyber socially active – numerals). Any data or document volunteers have contributed exten- meaning you are sold by Facebook will be reduced to the same hash value sus; every node agreeing up on each ing problem and it is resolved by wait- sively during this time of crisis. Re- and Google as their product – these every time we compute it, but given and every block that is created and ing and observing the longest chain. lief material, medical camps, on fi eld words are all over you, I ‘m sure.