All posts by Utkarsh

Solution designer with Firstsource solutions. A post grad in Networks and IT Infrastructure. Technology enthusiast, blogger, webdesigner, Network security aspirant and in love with electronics and gadgets. This blog is an attempt to share what I find interesting... almost anything @Mtaram on twitter and

Decent scrypt mining rig India

I planned to set up a mining rig which would allow me to play a game or two with almost all the eye candy one. I do test rigs and advice friends basis the component availability. I have focus on efficiency rather than just the statistics. I had planned to setup a R9 280x based rig but had to settle for a 270x as 280x was not available in India at that time.

The data is pertaining to India and alot better prices will be available abroad.

Following is the component selection list.

Motherboard: Asus M5A78L-M-USB3 32GB DDR3 AMD Motherboard – Rs 4600

ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 Motherboard: Motherboard

Processor: AMD FX-Series FX 6300 6-Core Processor (FD6300WMHKBOX) – Rs 7995

AMD 3.5 AM3+ FX 6-Core Edition FX-6300 (FD6300WMHKBOX) Processor: Processor

RAM: Corsair 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3 1600MHz Desktop Memory (CMZ4GX3M1A1600C9) – Rs 3250

Corsair Vengeance DDR3 4 GB (1 x 4 GB) PC RAM (CMZ4GX3M1A1600C9): RAM

Power supply: Corsair VS Series VS650 650W High Performance Power Supply (CP-9020051-WW) – Rs 4350

Corsair VS650 650 Watt PSU: PSU

Hard disk: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA – Rs 3740

WD Caviar Blue 500 GB Desktop Internal Hard Drive (WD5000AAKX): Internal Hard Drive

GPU: Asus Radeon R9 270X 2GB DDR5 – Rs 17580

Cabinet: Doesn’t matter (I bought Circle CC830) – Rs 4500

CC 830

Total- Rs 46015

Would have been Rs 56000 with a R9 280x.

One can opt for a cheaper processor for AM3 socket which would reduce the cost further. I wanted to game as well so didn’t want that to be a bottleneck.

The above can decently mine at 410+Khash/s at less than 70 degrees. The cabinet has 5 fans for the airflow.

I would recommend to buy a motherboard with at least 2 PCIE 16x slots so as to have room for upgrade if you wish to add another card for mining.

I had to order another Gigabyte motherboard which can support 2 full slot cards and another 2 on ix slots via riser cable.

I would also recommend a beefier power supply just in case you don’t want to run on two separate PSUs.

Refer this post for my mining commands and config.

[ultimatemember form_id=3874]

Dogecoin (Scrypt) mining at 425+ Asus R9 270x

We have setup a test rig to test Asus R9 270xDC2. Posting the image and the config command. I did try a lot of permutations and combinations and this is so far the best. Running for more than 5 hours now and very stable at less than 70 degree C

cgminer –scrypt -o stratum+tcp://stratum.dogehouse.org:3333 -uxxxxx -p xxx –gpu-fan 100 -l 1 –intensity 18 –thread-concurrency 21440 –shaders 2048 -w 256 –temp-target 85 –no-submit-stale -g 1

More on the details later. Please let us know of your setup, config and the results.

Global Bitcoin Conference 2013

Bangalore, India. Home to over 350,000 IT Professionals, it already has a very strong bitcoin base. Bangalore is a cosmopolitan city whose citizens have a penchant for buying gold to protect against the Rupee’s decline. We are hosting the Global Bitcoin Conference smack bang in the middle of Bangalore, at the beautiful Sheraton Hotel. Why not spend a long weekend here, with the GBC as the highlight.
Events are all inclusive and are mix of networking, learning and increasing awareness. The program is designed to provide an overview of where the virtual currency industry is today and its future potential, and our panel of top venture capitalists will discuss what business opportunities are on the horizon. We will try to keep the speakers time to 15 minutes. Short and sweet.

Shortage of Bitcoins

image

Sometime back I was struck by the rate at which Bitcoin value was growing. It hovered around 10 to 20 USD at that time. Then I went for my wedding and when I next saw it, it was already to the moon and back. Recently Bitcoin has proved its value and has been over $1000 since last couple of days. I got into cryptocurrency trading recently via BTC-E. The major challenge that one might face is getting the initial supply of bitcoins. I am not a fan of mining and considering that the green days of mining are well passed and it is not profitable for simple users, I recommend getting the initial bitcoins over the counter. I dont recommend bank transfers to exchange as these have long lead time and very high fee. Instead one can buy bitcoins from websites like localbitcoin.com or buy from friends if they have and are ready to sell.
Seeing the recent boom and huge demand for bitcoins the supply of bitcoins has become very apparent and people are finding it difficult to get hold of their first bitcoins.  I have had a good experience with localbitcoin.com with my transaction being completed in just 15 minutes.
It is easy and safe as there is an escrow but still I would say that do your research and see the feedback before getting into any transaction.
Let us know of other places to get bitcoins in india.

Bitcoin Meetup

Bitcoin_euroLately there has been a lot of buzz about bitcoin. We had the first Bitcoin meetup today with Sunny, Harsh, Uday, sorry for not remembering the other names. We had 10 of us and it was a long and very informative discussion which setup the context of many more such meetups to come.

For me this was a meetup after a long long time (I guess more than 3 years) after all the Bar camps and other meetups in Pune for Null, Clubhack, POCC etc.

The name bitcoin has been gaining a lot of traction among the tech geeks and we would give it our best shot to make it more understandable to non tech people.

image: http://osintblog.org

Long time no see!

Hi all

I have not been posting for so long, I believe it is more than a year now (let me just check that). Yes, it is very close to an year just 5 days short.

I was lost somewhere, in between I also got married and switched a job as well. I will try my best to be more frequent in my posts going forward. We have done so much in the last year and definitely would want us to share all our experience for the recent past.

Thanks for all your love and support.

Image courtesy http://www.msubretort.org

Basics of being anonymous

There are endless reasons to be anonymous or to increase your privacy. The most obvious is your personal freedom, do you like it when people watch you as you eat or kiss your girlfriend/wife in your sleeping room ?
It is rarely in your interest that your government, your Internet providers administrators/supporters or your company knows what you are doing online.
What illness are you googling about ? What porn do you watch ? What political party do you favor? Do you search pirated software ? The list is endless and everyone is affected.
There are more reasons to be anonymous. You could register multiple accounts on social networks (facebook, youtube, myspace, gmail, your favorite Internet forum,…) if you were anonymous. This is something a lot of people require once in a while, most get caught doing it because they lack knowledge.

The Internet just looks simple from the user point of view but in reality the protocols used to make this possible are very complex. The Internet was never designed to be a anonymous platform and as it grew the different governments of course had no interest that people could speak anonymously.

Every connection on the Internet has one thing in common: the IP Address. The data sent and received always contains a destination and a source IP Address, no matter what you did (email, surfing, file sharing,listening to a music stream or watching a video). This IP Address can be used to identify you (through the help of your provider, to break into your computer or to deny you access or track your access.
When surfing (using a browser like Firefox, IE or Opera to access HTTP pages) there is more information transmitted than you would ever guess! Your browser sends information about itself, about your operating system, your language and much more information.
This information also tells a lot about your identity and can be used to give you customized text but also against you.

The main factor is your IP Address, it needs to be obfuscated. Next your cookies need to be removed and finally your user agent should be changed.
Changing the IP requires a tool/service called proxy the cookies can be removed through your browser settings and the user-agent is also part of your browser configuration.

A proxy server can be configured in your browser network-connection settings. When using a online proxy your browser will send all data requests to the proxy, the proxy will route it to the destination and send you back the data. This is “transparent” to you as user, the destination will only see the proxy IP Address.

National Cyber Security Awareness Month

Each and every one of us needs to do our part to make sure that our online lives are kept safe and secure. That’s what National Cyber Security Awareness Month—observed in October 2012—is all about!

We always believed that there are n number of ways in which an event can go wrong. However, there is only one way an event can be successful- the best possible way.
The stage is set, the performers are ready; you are the directors, script writers, spot boys and bla bla characters. Its your day, your event and your life…

Team Matrix welcomes you to the National Cyber Security Awareness Month at SCIT, the college which has been steadily growing in its stronghold in Information Systems and Security.

The even is on 7th of October and will have eminent personalities from the information security domain addressing the various aspects of this mysterious domain.

Please visit SCIT website for more details

 

Bad Piggies

Bad Piggies

Get ready to see pigs fly!

From the creators of Angry Birds: an all new game from the PIGS’ point of view!

“Extremely fun and very challenging” — Kotaku

“The best title Rovio has released yet” – IGN

“4/4 – Must Have” — Slide to Play

“Bad Piggies is awesome, and needs to be a part of your iOS game collection just as much as the rest of the Angry Birds series” – Touch Arcade

“If you can’t enjoy watching a pig drive a badly constructed car off a cliff and onto a pile of dynamite, you probably don’t have a soul.” – Yahoo/BGR

Create the ultimate flying/crawling/rolling/spinning/crashing device and pilot the pigs safely to the eggs!

The Bad Piggies are after the eggs again — but as usual, nothing is going according to plan! Can you create the ultimate flying machine and steer them safely to their destination? Those tricky pigs have a few objects they can use, but they need your help to turn these into the perfect transportation!

With more than 72 levels, and free updates coming up, you have hours and hours of pig-crashing, exploding, and flying fun! Get three stars to unlock 18 more levels! HINT: Sometimes you need to play the level several times to achieve all the objectives — try building a new device or steering in a different way to earn all the stars!

Galaxy S3 has better display than iPhone 5

The Galaxy S3’s display is just 1.1 millimeters thick and offers the full color gamut of the NTSC standard. In comparison, the iPhone 5’s display is 1.5 millimeters thick and offers 72 percent of the standard color gamut.

With consumers increasingly concerned with the minute details and specifications of their mobile devices, the results are a win for Samsung, and further illustrates the point that Apple no longer leads when it comes to adding the latest and greatest technology. That was already highlighted by the fact the iPhone 5’s two biggest new features — a bigger display and 4G LTE — have long been found in Android devices.

Read more at http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57524291-37/color-me-prettier-galaxy-s3-display-outdoes-iphone-5s/

image via iPhone informer