This teenager can crack any code
Monday, 02 August 2004, 19:30 IST
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KOLLAM: Stephen Antony is only 19, but this computer sensation is already feeling the heat of his exceptional programming wizardry. The teenaged Indian geek has a police security net around him as miscreants once telephonically and by e-mail threatened his safety, asking him to develop for them a malicious code to bust bank ATMs. Two months ago, police provided him physical protection for 10 days and are now listening into all the conversations strangers have with him and scrutinising strangers seeking to meet him. The miscreants believe this undergraduate student can write such a code to make them instantly wealthy as he has already pulled a few programming 'rabbits' out of his brain. Many here believe he has the ability to achieve much more. Antony created one of Asia's first WAP (wireless access protocol, which helps wireless devices like mobile phones access Internet)-enabled educational website. It can be accessed by any WAP-enabled device like mobile phone, wrist-watch, enabled PDA (personal digital assistant) and calculator. This website has become the official website of his college now. Antony is currently a top-rated expert in the programming languages C++ and Pearl (a scripting language for websites). "I have innovated with several new technologies to prevent people from misusing and violating Internet protocols and the most popular among them is software such as e-mail harvester killer, e-mail tracer, Trojan monitor and parent's pal," Antony said. E-mail Harvester killer prevents the cyber fraud of miscreants using a malicious code to collect other people's e-mail addresses. This can help prevent spam mail - unsolicited mail sent out using mass mailing programmes. E-mail Tracer garners details including the geographic location of cyber miscreants who send out e-mail with malicious content. Trojan Monitor watches over the Trojans (malicious codes that infect computers in the guise of some other useful programme) in a system and finds out the beneficiary of its activity, who obviously must have planted it. Parent's Pal, according to Antony, has been the most innovative one, which could help parents and teachers and even cyber police to monitor children's activities on the Internet. "There are other similar child watch software, but mine helps monitor all activities including offline system usage, viewing of movies, music, other software and games. "It has even the ability to send real-time video of the system used by the child to any device the parents or teachers prefer," he claimed. Antony has been into web development since his eighth standard. "At present I am concentrating on a new concept," says the teenager. Claiming that he has named his new initiative "The New Face Of Internet", Antony said, "I am trying to find the new possibilities of Internet: how it can be more effectively used as a research tool and how it can help better as a secure day-to-day business tool. I have developed the tools required to keep the Internet secure." Antony's motto is "Knowledge is free and it should be granted free through which our resource increase." "That is why I am free for any one who requires coding help," says this cyber age neighbourhood wizkid.
Source: IANS
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