Word: basit
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...most prized Indian sari styles - Banarasi and Kanjeevaram silks - are also facing new competition. Depending on the intricacy of design, it takes 15 to 30 days to weave one of these saris, which sell for $50 to $60. A Banarasi silk weaver, Abdul Basit Ansari, 37, has been working for the past 20 years weaving these garments, which come from the holy city of Varanasi. "The industry is facing lots of difficulties," he says. "This is primarily because the sale of fake Banarasi saris made in power looms has been picking up and also because of the sale of cheap...
...Salameh put their bomb in a van and drove it to the basement of the World Trade Center. The eventual explosion killed six people and injured more than 1,000. Within days the main suspects in the bombing were arrested--except for Yousef, who, using the name Abdul Basit, escaped on a plane to Pakistan just hours after the explosion. Says Dwyer: ``He masterminded every detail of the plot, including his own escape, which he pulled off more expeditiously than anyone else.'' Yousef's capture was the culmination of one of the most extensive and painstaking manhunts in U.S. history...
Amjad Farooq Alvi, 26, and Basit Farooq Alvi, 19, a pair of self-taught computer experts, are brothers who were raised in a middle-class suburb of Lahore. Amjad is the proprietor of the Brain computer shop. By all accounts he is the stronger programmer. After graduating from Punjab University with a degree in physics, he began devouring electronics texts and teaching himself the rudiments of computer repair and programming. For several years, he earned a living by fixing personal computers. By 1985 he had switched to programming, producing customized software that was, to his dismay, copied and used without...
That is when Amjad came up with the idea of creating a virus, a self- replicating program that would "infect" an unauthorized user's computer, disrupt his operations and force him to contact Amjad for repairs. Says brother Basit: "He wanted a way to detect piracy, to catch someone who copies." Meanwhile, however, the Alvi brothers had started doing some copying of their own, making bootleg duplicates of American programs and selling them at steep discounts. Eventually, they started injecting the same virus into some of those program disks as well...
Some, but not all. When Pakistanis came in for, say, Lotus 1-2-3, they were sold clean, uncontaminated copies. But foreigners, particularly Americans, were given virus-ridden versions. Why the special treatment for outsiders? The brothers' somewhat confused rationalization hinges on a loophole in Pakistani law. According to Basit, copyright protection in Pakistan does not extend to computer software. Therefore, he says, it is not illegal for local citizens to trade in bootleg disks; technically, they are not engaged in software piracy. Then why infect American buyers? "Because you are pirating," says Basit. "You must be punished...