So there is a news spreading all over the internet about a wiz kid who developed an “independent operating system” and “a microchip embedded with a program providing kernel modules that enable two different environments and features of both the kernels in a single platform”.
If you haven’t actually seen this news yet, here’s a clip of the press release interview of the upcoming ‘prodigy’.
Awesome! Let us look at this ground breaking innovation and the so called patent. Is it really cut out to be as innovative as it claims? Or will it phase out with time?
Contributing Authors:
1. Saikat Basak
2. Krishnashish Gogoi (Aisheng Miso)
Special Mentions:
Krishanu Kashyap and Shritam Bhowmick, for bringing out some solid points in the comment thread discussion and for making the whole ordeal much less painful and much more entertaining. 😉
Notes before reading: The references to the photo comment thread used here in this article are screenshots of the actual comment thread. “Andrew Miso” is Afreed Islam. He has changed his facebook name now to Afreed Islam and deleted all the comments in that photo. This screenshot was taken by Aisheng Miso, one of the co-authors of this article (and one of the participants of the comment thread) and IN NO WAY IS HE RELATED TO ‘ANDREW MISO’; and for the record, he has no blood ties with him either (Please read that sentence without stopping to breathe). The same title in the Pseudonyms is an unfortunate collapse of fate’s working mechanism. A strong analysis of all the available resources such as photos, articles and patent documents has been conducted by Saikat Basak and presented here. Also, all forms of sarcasm, satire and rage are to be read with caution. Enjoy ;D
Chapter 1:
“xtuali the os is hardware dependent it runs only when physically flashed on to the my innovated microchip..cause the hardware that i invented is slightly difrnt from the traditional one’s it uses intel’s all new bay trail processor and also revobook has”
– Afreed Islam
What is this? No seriously. Why does he write like that? It makes as much sense as Lady Gaga’s clothes (not firing shots, really). And screw his writing. Why would the OS work in any other way if you actually removed the HDD and added some kinda flash memory instead? Is this what’s being innovated? This is the exact same thing if I install a Linux distribution to a pen drive using something like Universal USB Installer.
“as i said i made it hardware dependent so unix was the better option for me…to make it hardware dependent as unix is available on PA-RISC and Itanium machines. Solaris also available for x86/x64 based systems.OSX is PowerPC(10.0-10.5)/x86(10.4)/x64(10.5-10.8)”
– Afreed Islam
Implying that Linux doesn’t support those architectures. I mean, come on. Check the comment thread and you’ll find that particular quote by him as a reply to my comment about Linux. So he uses Unix because it supports so many hardware architectures and yeah that’s cool but…no wait. Our question is: WHY is Unix a better option than Linux when it supports as many if not more architectures than Unix? Funny how he speaks about hardware dependence. If I compile a kernel for x86, it’s going to run on x86. If I compile a kernel for PPC, it will work on PPC and not on x86-64. That’s the end of that.
Reference 1: Full Comment Thread.
Reference 2: Unix Architectures Comment.
Chapter 2:
Kid claims to have built,
“A microchip embedded with a program providing kernel modules that enable two different environments and features of both the kernels in a single platform.”
So there is a microchip loaded with kernel modules.
wow microchip! such kernel! much module!
Anyway, why do we need a special kind of microchip to use as a storage unit to store kernel module file? And how exactly does it ‘enable’ two different ‘environments’ in a single platform? I can just as well make partitions in my HDD to hold two different kernels and run them as part of a multi-boot system; and I end up achieving the same, after all his microchip is just a storage unit that substitutes hard disks, isn’t it?
Chapter 3:
Kid claims,
“A system as in claim 1 is used in place of a hard disk drive to run a device that performs logical and arithmetic operations comprising of:
a. A microchip with a controller circuit that is connected to the motherboard of the
device in place of a hard disk drive runs the device to perform logical and
arithmetical operations.”
So, the ALU (Arithmetic and Logic Unit) of the processor is replaced by the chip he claims to have invented.
This kid must possess more intelligence than that of all the employees of Intel and AMD combined. Is he even an earthling? He must be from outer space.
Jokes aside, he says that he uses Intel’s Bay Trail processor. I thought we were looking at an ‘invention’? Refer to the comment thread for more about his actual comment about Bay Trail Processor. Okay I’m sidetracking. Let’s assume he is talking about the ALU in the microcontroller. Why would you use that for logical/arithmetic operations instead of the actual processor, Intel in this case? Isn’t his microchip only about storage? We’re not professionals in this field so if anyone can help us that’ll be great.
And and nevermind that. Replacing Hard Disks with a microchip is his claim, his invention. Solid-state Drive says hello. His patent claims that there are no moving parts in his microchip, which is an advantage of his invention. SSDs perform a tap-dance because they have no moving parts as well. I’m so done here.
But no wait, can’t get enough of this, eh? Here, check this brilliant quote from the patent document.
The foregoing description of illustrated embodiments of the present invention, including what is
described in the Summary, is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise
forms disclosed herein. While specific embodiments of, and examples for, the invention are
described herein for illustrative purposes only, various equivalent modifications are possible
within the spirit and scope of the present invention, as those skilled in the relevant art will
recognize and appreciate.
Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah so you purposefully do not want the patent document to actually specify what this invention does. ‘Illustrative purposes only’. Maybe the RevoBook is for illustrative purposes as well that doesn’t serve any real service, just like this one. Oh and ‘those skilled in the relevant art will recognize and appreciate’, oh. I see. Recognition. Well, read Chapter 7 for the relation between recognition and this patent.
Chapter 4:
He talks about some modules that are being added to the kernel. Which kernel? Is this kernel written from scratch? Has he invented a new kind of kernel or a microchip? His so called patent does not clarify anything.
But in a rather heated facebook comment thread, some of the beans about this kernel have already been spilled. Take a guess? Linux? Nope. BSD? Nope. Have a look at this comment by him instead.
Of course, nothing against that but wait…Didn’t he claim this to be an independently written OS? What happened there?
So basically, he states that he bought a commercial license for Unix from Novell. So, how is this even an independently written operating system? It uses KDE as the desktop environment and Unix as the kernel. And I’m not entirely sure about Unix and Novell together either; as far as I know, Novell is behind SUSE, but then again Wikipedia says that Novell acquired Unix System Labs in 1993 so I’ll let that one go. 😉
Chapter 5:
We have the capability of running Linux and Windows software simultaneously on any Gnu/Linux system using Wine since ages.
So, running both Windows and Linux apps doesn’t really sound like much now. I don’t know why anyone would claim that. Oh and hey, some clever folks have gone ahead to explain to us that his revobook supports using both Windows and Linux-OS’s together. Hah! Back in our planet, we call it Multi-boot.
Chapter 6:
A look at his system (see image) reveals it uses KDE as a desktop environment. I shall not be surprised if it runs the Linux kernel and has Wine installed.
The picture clearly shows that this is a Plasma Desktop from KDE. The search bar, the tooltips near the icons, the menu for customizing appearances in the right hand top corner, it’s definitely KDE.
Chapter 7:
Finally the patent. Have a look at the patent status,
WHAT?? wait WHAT???? Such strong claims on a patent not yet even filed for examination.
Reference: http://ipindiaservices.gov.in/patentsearch/search/index.aspx
Enter ID: 473/KOL/2013
Chapter 8:
This is a personal chapter. One of the biggest surprises (sarcasm overload) that come off with this incident is how stupid Indian Media has become. They post stories without factually debating….actually, scratch debating, they don’t even look at what’s being reported. They didn’t test this ‘invention’, they didn’t verify any of the actual claims or compared with already existing systems. See, this is what ticks people off.
And would you seriously believe it? DIGIT published this story WITHOUT technical details, WITHOUT testing, WITHOUT verification. Also, where are those benchmarks we were promised in the comment thread? DIGIT is without a doubt one of the most popular technology magazines out there. Why did they copy and paste a story bluntly from The Hindu? Let’s not even talk about The Hindu today.
Reference: http://www.thinkdigit.com/Laptops-PCs/Guwahati-teen-develops-computer-system-that-uses_19819.html
And, EFY too. Why is this happening? Why is the same press release circulating national media without anyone questioning it?
Reference: http://www.efytimes.com/e1/fullnews.asp?edid=130438
Even OpenSourceForYou’s FB Page posted that news. Why are these news reports not being filtered, questioned, or verified? Why is the ‘inventor’ not being interviewed further to verify these for actual facts?
The answer: ‘Masala’ News. Yes, honestly. For international readers, ‘masala’ means ‘spices’ or ‘spicy’ in this context. Yes, that’s what this is about. Media is trying to sensationalize the fact that a 16 year old has invented something. It’s exciting, compared to explaining and verifying the actual facts. And in this process of sensationalizing a kid who barely understands the internals of an OS, they have forgotten to rationally analyze this news. Digit, EFY, Times of India, The Hindu, every local news channel, every national news channel: Congratulations.
Yes, we are mad. Truly mad and disappointed. We would usually be proud about an Indian coming up with such an invention but no, not at the cost of truth and false claims in front of the media that serve no other purpose but to further the interest of a few individuals.
Conclusion:
Money cannot buy happiness but it can surely buy patents, media attention and awards.
Not a quote-worthy conclusion but in all seriousness, a lot of other talented developers actually deserve this (or atleast some) kind of attention. The kid skipping school to finish coding his very own media player, the geek who updates his github profile with new and useful scripts hoping that someone would appreciate his work, the night-bird who sends small patches to large projects hoping to be accepted, I think these people deserve a little bit of appreciation for what they do out of their passion.
And then suddenly, they see someone circulating the news for developing something that already exists and making it big. Personally, we and a whole bunch of developers involved with operating system projects have felt as if we’re being stomped on our faces. We always appreciate true skill and talent, but this kind of false and deceiving claims in front of the media for the sake of fame (or whatever other reason there may be) is just outright disappointing.
Thanks for reading.
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Update, Feb 25th (Aisheng Miso): Aftermath and a few entertaining but unverified bits
Bonus Chapter:
Full credits for the material in this chapter goes to skilledchaos. He brought light to this in one of the comments below. To break it down, check Afreed Islam’s argument on why he used Unix instead of Linux again.
“as i said i made it hardware dependent so unix was the better option for me…to make it hardware dependent as unix is available on PA-RISC and Itanium machines. Solaris also available for x86/x64 based systems.OSX is PowerPC(10.0-10.5)/x86(10.4)/x64(10.5-10.8)”
– Afreed Islam
I completely overlooked the anomaly here. A guy who spoke with broken-Lady-Gaga English all throughout the discussion suddenly says a perfectly valid and well-constructed English sentence, even with proper capitalization and version numbering. Suspicious, considering the sudden jump in his manner of typing and speaking (not to mention providing unnecessary technical details up to version numbers). Here is the truth –
That section of the sentence is copied and pasted straight from this website.
Go ahead, check this link: http://www.diffen.com/difference/Linux_vs_Unix
Scroll down a bit and you’ll see that he typed out the EXACT SAME LINES. If a guy who claims to ‘invent’ something so revolutionary (that he names it ReVo Book, hah) needs to copy and paste arguments about his invention from Google (or any other site in the internet for that matter), it speaks volumes about his knowledge and capabilities.
You can read skilledchaos’s comment here: https://wowmoron.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/truth-behind-magic-operating-system-developed-by-std-x-student/comment-page-1/#comment-46
Some other interesting (unverified) findings:
Afreed Islam a.k.a. Andrew Miso a.k.a. @NdReW Mi$o (iNEluCtAble). He is a member of this hax0r group called Team Explosion. Their homepage – LINK: http://xhackers.tk (The Hacker Manifesto inside)
Free dot tk domain. Site was built using Zoho (ready made site templates). I’m not saying Zoho is bad, but read on and there seems to be some sort of connection.
They have a facebook page too: https://www.facebook.com/teamexplosion
They even claim ReVo IX (the OS) to be theirs:
Check his under-construction website for ReVoBook: http://revobook.tk
Dot tk domain again. And the site’s made with Strikingly (another free website builder or something, didn’t check completely). You can see the iframe with the strikingly link in the source of that page. One more connection with strikingly comes in the next section.
Aftermath:
This brings me to the Aftermath. The Aftermath of this blog post.
As it stands at the time of writing this post, this article has got over 7k+ views and 750+ Facebook shares. The wowmoron team would like to thank everyone who read and shared this post, and helped us propagate this news. We have got lots of people messaging us and thanking us for writing this up. We have an equal number of people sending us hate messages. It’s all fine and good. We just did our job.
Afreed Islam may be one of the brightest minds of the country. Heck, he probably is smarter than both the authors of this post COMBINED. But that doesn’t mean he has to use dishonest and deceiving means to gain media attention. The mango man in this country cannot handle technology too well. A few flashy terms and claims by a person in front of the media is enough to make them believe it’s real. That is a vulnerability that’s best not exploited. Here, I would like to quote Mr. Sandip Dev who said this in the most brilliant and clearest way possible:
“The thing is, yes this kid may know more about computers than other kids his age. That’s great. And he should cultivate that interest by all means. What he shouldn’t do is try to fool others just because your average guy is technology challenged. That’s dishonesty and that too at a very early age. We have had such a few cases already, Ankit Fadia being the most notorious of them.”
– Sandeep Dev
Another event triggered by this post, the rise of a new blog, TechTox.
A beautiful technology blog which has only one post. Supporters of Afreed Islam have come repeatedly to post here on the comments section with posts like ‘REVEALED! The truth behind wowmoron admins…’. Go ahead, take your shots at us. It’s not going to dis-prove everything we have stated here. The single post on that newly made blog describes ‘the startling story of an end user’s experience’ with some Linux distro. No logical relevance between facts stated here and someone’s experience with a distro.
Some facts about that blog:
- Hosted on a free .co.nr domain.
- Made using Strikingly….again.
- Manash Bhuyan, founder of TechTox, is the same guy as Manash Revolv MB in the photo comment discussions.
Of course, I’m not accusing anyone of anything. I don’t even have enough facts to back myself up on this one but I just thought it would give everyone some food for thought. To the team members of TechTox, wowmoron sincerely wishes you a happy and successful future. If you guys ever hire someone to code your website, let us know. Oh and if you plan on writing more than just one post, we’ll help :3
So, anyway, that’s all for my Bonus chapter. Thanks again to everyone who read and shared this. I may not have met you, seen you or talked to you, but I assure you, you have my deepest thanks.