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Rs 2,500 to eat in a stranger's apartment? With no big investment, hosts are earning lakhs with new dining trend
Rs 2,500 to eat in a stranger's apartment? With no big investment, hosts are earning lakhs with new dining trend

Time of India

time3 hours ago

  • Business
  • Time of India

Rs 2,500 to eat in a stranger's apartment? With no big investment, hosts are earning lakhs with new dining trend

In cities like Bengaluru and Gurgaon, a new kind of dining experience is reshaping the way people connect over food. Supper clubs—private, home-based dining events hosted by individuals—are gaining momentum, offering guests curated meals, intimate ambience, and deeply personal storytelling. With minimal upfront investment, some hosts are now earning lakhs each month through this emerging trend. From Home Kitchens to Gourmet Destinations At the heart of this movement is Bengaluru's Ma La Kitchen Supper Club, run by Aditya Ramakrishnan and Dongli Zhang. Inside their modest apartment, they serve a seven-course Sichuan meal, complete with pu-erh tea, Chengdu rap, and stories rooted in Chinese mythology. The setting is far removed from a traditional restaurant, but that's exactly what makes it special. Explore courses from Top Institutes in Select a Course Category Finance Operations Management Healthcare MBA Digital Marketing MCA CXO Data Analytics Degree Data Science healthcare others Data Science Design Thinking Leadership Cybersecurity Project Management Public Policy PGDM Others Management Product Management Artificial Intelligence Technology Skills you'll gain: Duration: 7 Months S P Jain Institute of Management and Research CERT-SPJIMR Fintech & Blockchain India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 9 Months IIM Calcutta SEPO - IIMC CFO India Starts on undefined Get Details The duo chose this model after realising that launching a full-fledged restaurant was too costly and complicated. Hosting in their own home gave them the creative freedom to design an experience on their terms. Over time, their supper club has become a profitable venture, reportedly bringing in up to Rs 6 lakh per month. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Villas For Sale in Dubai Might Surprise You Dubai villas | search ads Get Deals Undo A Revival of Social Dining Supper clubs have historical roots, tracing back to 1930s Hollywood, where they once served as lively venues for food and music post-Prohibition. Though they faded over the years, the concept has resurfaced in the post-pandemic era, as people increasingly seek out deeper, more meaningful interactions. Sharing a meal in a stranger's home now feels more inviting than ever. Archit Agarwal and Natasha Ratti Kapoor, a couple from Gurgaon, tapped into this appetite for connection with The LOST Table. What began as an Instagram-based initiative to engage their followers soon transformed into a popular supper club, with events selling out in minutes. Kapoor shared that the overwhelming response encouraged them to pursue it more seriously, drawing interest even from commercial brands. Unique Experiences Over Fancy Setups In Bengaluru, Anurag Arora's supper club, Apartment, has built a reputation for its creatively themed meals like 'Fried Chicken and Flowers'. According to Arora, the success of such events lies in the experience itself. He noted that diners aren't focused on location or luxury—they're drawn to the individuality and warmth of a home-cooked, well-crafted gathering. The model has also appealed to culinary professionals looking to showcase their craft in new ways. Pastry chef Jenny Clinta, based in Bengaluru's OMBR Layout, runs Sakare, a weekend-only dessert supper club from her apartment. For Rs 2,500, guests enjoy a five-course dessert tasting inspired by her Andaman upbringing and training in French techniques. Clinta believes the intimate setting enhances the emotional connection her guests feel with the food. Low Investment, High Return For aspiring chefs or food enthusiasts, the supper club model presents a promising alternative to the high-risk restaurant industry. The primary investment is time, creativity, and culinary skill. As Natasha Kapoor noted, more chefs are showing willingness to explore this route, driven by growing demand for distinctive and immersive dining moments.

Pro In Hosting House Party? Why Not ‘Sell Entry'? Trend That Gets Rs 6L Per Month For Bengaluru Duo
Pro In Hosting House Party? Why Not ‘Sell Entry'? Trend That Gets Rs 6L Per Month For Bengaluru Duo

News18

timea day ago

  • Entertainment
  • News18

Pro In Hosting House Party? Why Not ‘Sell Entry'? Trend That Gets Rs 6L Per Month For Bengaluru Duo

Last Updated: In India, the trend is growing fast. Diners are looking for something fresh and meaningful. It started as a way to connect with their Instagram followers. Bengaluru's Ma La Kitchen Supper Club is nothing like a typical restaurant. There's Chengdu rap in the background, endless cups of pu-erh tea, and stories about Chinese mythology told by the chef. The seven-course Sichuan meal is beautifully plated and full of flavour. But the most unique part? It all happens inside the home of husband-wife duo Aditya Ramakrishnan and Dongli Zhang. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mukul Khurana (@mk__pov) The concept of supper clubs started in 1930s Hollywood. They were glamorous events celebrating life after Prohibition. Over time, they faded. But post-pandemic, they've returned in a big way. People are craving social connections and are open to dining with strangers at someone else's table. In India, the trend is growing fast. Diners are looking for something fresh and meaningful. The LOST Table, started by Gurgaon-based couple Archit Agarwal and Natasha Ratti Kapoor, sold out in just five minutes. It started as a way to connect with their Instagram followers and has now caught the attention of brands and restaurants. In Bengaluru, Anurag Arora runs another hit supper club called Apartment. His events—like the popular 'Fried Chicken and Flowers'—sell out faster each time. 'People want special experiences," he says, 'and they don't mind whether it's at a big restaurant or someone's kitchen." New supper clubs are popping up across cities. Kapoor says this shows that more chefs are willing to explore home dining. Ramakrishnan, who started Má Là Kitchen with his wife Dongli, says a restaurant was too expensive and complicated. A supper club, however, made their dream possible. In OMBR Layout, pastry chef Jenny Clinta runs Sakare from her apartment. She offers a five-course dessert menu every weekend, priced at ₹2,500. Each dessert tells her personal story, from French techniques to island memories of her Andaman childhood. Her guests love the cosy eight-seater table and homemade touch. Supper clubs in India are here to stay. They bring people together through food, stories, and warmth—all from the comfort of someone's home. view comments First Published: Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

How China's Patriotic ‘Honkers' Became the Nation's Elite Cyber Spies
How China's Patriotic ‘Honkers' Became the Nation's Elite Cyber Spies

WIRED

time2 days ago

  • Politics
  • WIRED

How China's Patriotic ‘Honkers' Became the Nation's Elite Cyber Spies

Jul 18, 2025 11:28 AM A new report traces the history of the early wave of Chinese hackers who became the backbone of the state's espionage apparatus. Photo-illustration: Jacqui VanLiew; Getty Images In the summer of 2005, Tan Dailin was a 20-year-old grad student at Sichuan University of Science and Engineering when he came to the attention of the People's Liberation Army of China. Tan was part of a burgeoning hacker community known as the Honkers—teens and twenty-somethings in late-90s and early-00s China who formed groups like the Green Army and Evil Octal, and launched patriotic cyberattacks against western targets they deemed disrespectful to China. The attacks were low-sophistication—mostly web site defacements and denial-of-service operations targeting entities in the US, Taiwan, and Japan—but the Honkers advanced their skills over time, and Tan documented his escapades in blog posts. After publishing about hacking targets in Japan, the PLA came calling. Tan and his university friends were encouraged to participate in a PLA-affiliated hacking contest and won first place. The PLA invited them to an intense, month-long hacker training camp, and within weeks Tan and his friends were building hacking tools, studying network infiltration techniques, and conducting simulated attacks. The subsequent timeline of events is unclear, but Tan, who went by the hacker handles Wicked Rose and Withered Rose, then launched his own hacking group—the Network Crack Program Hacker (NCPH). The group quickly gained notoriety for winning hacking contests and developing hacking tools. They created the GinWui rootkit, one of China's first homegrown remote-access backdoors and then, experts believe, used it and dozens of zero-day exploits they wrote in a series of 'unprecedented' hacks against US companies and government entities over the spring and summer of 2006. They did this on behalf of the PLA, according to Adam Kozy, who tracked Tan and other Chinese hackers for years as a former FBI analyst who now heads the SinaCyber consulting firm, focused on China. Tan revealed online at the time that he and his team were being paid about $250 a month for their hacking, though he didn't say who paid or what they hacked. The pay increased to $1,000 a month after their summer hacking spree, according to a 2007 report by former threat intelligence firm VeriSign iDefense. At some point, Tan switched teams and began contracting for the Ministry of State Security (MSS), China's civilian intelligence agency, as part of its notorious hacking group known as APT 41. And in 2020, when Tan was 36, the US Justice Department announced indictments against him and other alleged APT 41 members for hacking more than 100 targets, including US government systems, healthcare organizations, and telecoms. Tan's path to APT 41 isn't unique. He's just one of many former Honkers who began their careers as self-directed patriotic hackers before being absorbed by the state into its massive spying apparatus. Not a lot has been written about the Honkers and their critical role in China's APT operations, outside of congressional testimony Kozy gave in 2022. But a new report, published this month by Eugenio Benincasa, senior cyber defense researcher at the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zürich university in Switzerland, expands on Kozy's work to track the Honkers' early days and how this group of skilled youths became some of China's most prolific cyber spies. 'This is not just about [Honkers] creating a hacker culture that was implicitly aligned with national security goals,' Benincasa says, 'but also the personal relations they created [that] we still see reflected in the APTs today.' Early Days The Honker community largely began when China joined the internet in 1994, and a network connecting universities and research centers across the country for knowledge-sharing put Chinese students online before the rest of the country. Like US hackers, the Honkers were self-taught tech enthusiasts who flocked to electronic bulletin boards (dial-up forums) to share programming and computer hacking tips. They soon formed groups like Xfocus, China Eagle Union, and The Honker Union of China, and came to be known as Red Hackers or Honkers, a name derived from the Mandarin word 'hong,' for red, and 'heike,' for dark visitor—the Chinese term for hacker. The groups were self-governing with loosely formed hierarchies and even had codes of ethics shaped by influential members like Taiwanese hacker Lin Zhenglong (known by his handle 'coolfire'). Lin believed hacking skills should be cultivated only to strengthen cyber defenses— to learn the ways of hackers in order to thwart them—and wrote an influential hacking manual 'to raise awareness about the importance of computer security, not to teach people how to crack passwords.' There were no simulated environments for hackers to build their skills at the time, so Honkers often resorted to hacking real networks. Lin didn't oppose this—hacking wasn't illegal in China except against government, defense, or scientific research networks—but he published a set of ethical guidelines advising hackers to avoid government systems or causing permanent damage and to restore systems to their original condition after Honkers finished hacking them. But these guidelines soon fell away, following a series of incidents involving foreign affronts to China. In 1998, a wave of violence in Indonesia broke out against ethnic Chinese there, and outraged Honker groups responded with coordinated website defacements and denial of service attacks against Indonesian government targets. The next year, after Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui announced his 'Two-States Theory' challenging the Communist Party's "One China" doctrine, the Honkers defaced Taiwanese government sites with patriotic messages asserting the existence of a unified China. In 2000, after participants at a conference in Japan denied facts around the Nanjing Massacre, in which an estimated 300,000 Chinese were killed during Japan's 1930's occupation of the city, Honkers circulated a list of more than 300 Japanese government and corporate sites, along with email addresses of Japanese officials, and prompted members to target them. The so-called patriotic cyberwars gave the Honkers a common cause that forged an identity unique from western hacking groups, which the Honkers had emulated until then. Where western hackers were primarily motivated by curiosity, intellectual challenge, and bragging rights, the Honkers bonded over their common cause to help China 'rise up.' In the words of a China Eagle Union pledge, the Honkers vowed 'to put the interests of the Chinese nation above everything else.' The patriotic wars put China's Honkers on the map and inspired more to join them. Honker Union swelled to an estimated 80,000 members, Green Army to 3,000. Most were just enthusiasts and adventure seekers, but a subset stood out for leadership and hacking skills. A particularly influential group among these, whom Benincasa calls the Red 40, would go on to found or join many of China's top cybersecurity and tech firms and become integral to the state's cyberspy machine. There's no evidence that the government directed the patriotic hacking operations, says Benincasa, but their activity aligned with state interests, and they drew government attention. A retired PLA rear admiral and former professor at the PLA National Defense University praised their patriotism. The public also appeared to support it. A report claimed that 84 percent of internet users in China favored the patriotic hacking. But in April 2001, this began to change after a Chinese fighter jet clipped a US reconnaissance plane mid-air off the coast of Hainan and sparked an international incident. The collision killed the Chinese pilot and forced the US plane to land on Hainan, where the Chinese military seized the aircraft and held the crew for more than a week. The incident stoked nationalist sentiments among US and Chinese hackers alike, and both sides lobbed cyberattacks against the other country's systems. The Chinese government grew concerned over its lack of control of the Honkers and feared they could become a liability and escalate tensions. The Chinese Communist Party's official newspaper likened the hacking to "web terrorism,' and the head of the Internet Society of China issued a statement through China's official state media condemning it as well. The retired PLA rear admiral who previously praised the groups now warned they were a threat to international relations. The Honkers got the message, but with their patriotic mission shelved, the groups now became less cohesive. There were leadership clashes and disagreements over direction and priorities—some wanted to turn professional and launch cybersecurity companies to defend China's systems against attack, others wanted to go rogue and sell malicious tools. The former left to join tech firms like Baidu, Alibaba, and Huawei or cybersecurity firms like Venustech and Topsec. Some became entrepreneurs and launched their own security firms, like NSFocus and Knownsec, which became leaders in vulnerability research and threat intelligence. Some, however, shifted to cybercrime. And others, like Tan, became contract hackers for the PLA and MSS, or founded firms that served these operations. Honker Recruitment According to Benincasa, the PLA and MSS began hiring Honkers around 2003, but the recruitment became more structured and earnest following the 2006 hackings attributed to NCPH and Tan. The recruitment expanded during and after the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and was likely helped in 2009 with the passage of China's Criminal Law Amendment VII, which criminalized unauthorized intrusions into any network as well as the distribution of hacking tools. Hacker forums began to shutter, and some Honkers got arrested. Word spread that Tan was among them. According to Kozy, Tan faced seven and a half years in prison, though it's unclear if he served any time. Kozy believes he cut a deal and began work for the MSS. In 2011, it appears he launched an antivirus firm named Anvisoft, which may have served as a front for his MSS work. Former Honkers Zeng Xiaoyong (envymask) and Zhou Shuai (coldface) also became contractors for the PLA and MSS and worked on operations conducted by APT 41, APT 17, and APT 27, according to Benicassa. Some worked through shell companies, others worked through legitimate firms who acted as intermediaries to the intelligence services. Topsec and Venustech were two firms alleged to have assisted these efforts. Topsec employed a number of former Honkers, including the founder of the Honker Union of China, and Topsec's founder once acknowledged in an interview that the PLA directed his company. In 2015, Topsec was linked to state-sponsored cyber operations, including the Anthem Insurance breach in the US. Over the years, many tools used by China APT groups were built by Honkers, and the PLA and MSS mined them for vulnerability research and exploit development. In 1999, Huang Xin (glacier), a member of Green Army, released 'Glacier,' a remote-access trojan. The next year, he and Yang Yong (coolc) from XFocus released X-Scan, a tool to scan networks for vulnerabilities that is still used by hackers in China today. In 2003, two members of Honker Union released HTRAN, a tool to hide an attacker's location by rerouting their traffic through proxy computers, which has been used by China's APTs. Tan and fellow NCPH member Zhou Jibing (whg) are believed to have created the PlugX backdoor in 2008, which has been used by more than 10 Chinese APTs. According to Benincasa, Zhou developed it even further to produce ShadowPad, which has been used by APT 41 and others. Over the years, leaks and US indictments against former Honkers have exposed their alleged post-Honker spy careers, as well as China's use of for-profit firms for state hacking operations. The latter include i-Soon and Integrity Tech, both launched by former Honkers. Wu Haibo (shutdown), formerly of Green Army and 0x557, launched i-Soon in 2010. And last year, someone leaked internal i-Soon files and chat logs, exposing the company's espionage work on behalf of the MSS and MPS. In March this year, eight i-Soon employees and two MPS officers were indicted by the US for hacking operations that targeted US government agencies, Asian foreign ministries, dissidents, and media outlets. Integrity Tech, founded in 2010 by former Green Army member Cai Jingjing (cbird), was sanctioned by the US this year over ties to global infrastructure hacks. This year, the US also indicted former Green Army members Zhou and Wu for conducting state hacking operations and sanctioned Zhou over links to APT 27. In addition to engaging in state-sponsored hacking, he allegedly also ran a data-leak service selling some of the stolen data to customers, including intelligence agencies. This isn't unlike early-generation US hackers who also transitioned to become cybersecurity company founders, and also got recruited by the National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency or hired by contractors to perform hacking operations for US operations. But unlike the US, China's whole-of-society intelligence authorities have compelled some Chinese citizens and companies to collaborate with the state in conducting espionage, Kozy notes. 'I think that China from the beginning just thought, 'We can co-opt [the Honkers] for state interests.'' Kozy says. 'And … because a lot of these young guys had patriotic leanings to begin with, they were kind of pressed into service by saying, 'Hey you're going to be doing a lot of really good things for the country.' Also, many of them started to realize they could get rich doing it.'

SBS News In Easy English 18 July 2025
SBS News In Easy English 18 July 2025

SBS Australia

time2 days ago

  • Business
  • SBS Australia

SBS News In Easy English 18 July 2025

Welcome to SBS News in Easy English, I'm Biwa Kwan. Anthony Albanese says his six-day tour of China has been successful, resulting in outcomes that will boost the bilateral relationship. The prime minister is ending his trip in the regional city of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, before he flies out of the country to return to Australia. Mr Albanese says it has been a productive trip, including the meeting with China's President Xi Jinping. "One of the theme of our discussions was improving people-to-people and cultural links between people in Australia and China. And I can think of no better way then through the sporting engagement at what is the iconic sporting event in Australia - our Australian Open. Indeed the last Australian prime minister to visit Sichuan was Bob Hawke in 1986. And that time he launched an annual Australia-China tennis challenge. A gesture of goodwill between our nations." The late Yolngu Elder and land rights pioneer, Dr Galarrwuy Yunupingu, has been officially awarded the nation's highest civilian honour, two years after his death. The Companion of the Order of Australia was accepted by his eldest daughter, Binmila, from Governor-General Sam Mostyn, who travelled to north-east Arnhem Land to present the award in person. The Governor General says Dr Yunupingu would have viewed the award in his own way. "But I am also aware that in the 50th year of the Australian honours and awards system, this may be an award that Dr Yunupingu may not have really seen as necessary. Or seen as adding to the way he lived his life. In a way it is an important thing that we are doing in acknowledging his life through a system that must sit alongside something else that Dr Yunupingu said in his essay. He spoke of an allegiance to each other, to land and to ceremonies that define Yolngu." Australia's unemployment rate has risen slightly, from 4.1 to 4.2 per cent. It is the highest unemployment rate since November 2021. The number of unemployed people increased by 34,000; and the number of people with a full-time job fell by 38,000. Analysts say the figure will be a deciding factor on whether the Reserve Bank decies to make an interest rate cut. An Australian innovation is hoping to revolutionise landmine clearance. According to NATO's Strategic Warfare Development Command, there are still 110 million landmines around the world. The world's largest landmine clearance charity, the HALO Trust, says over 5,700 civilians were killed or injured by landmines and explosives in 2023. John Shanahan is the Managing Director of Mread, an Australian company working in collaboration with the C-S-I-R-O. He says the teams have developed the first handheld device using low frequency radio waves to identify explosives. "Every explosive, or drugs which we detect has a fingerprint. We are the only sensor that can detect the actual fingerprint. So not that there's an anomaly there, as we talked about earlier, it's just, this is that substance. It's just binary as that." In cycling, Tadej Pogacar has regained the overall lead of the Tour de France, after winning stage 12. The three-time Tour winner completed stage on the first major mountain of the race ahead of Jonas Vingegaard [[YOH-nuss vin-nee-GOH]] with a margin of two minutes 10 seconds. Pogacar dedicated the stage win to 19-year-old Italian cyclist Samuele Privitera who died after a crash in the opening stage of the Giro della Valle d'Aosta. "I think this stage can go for (be a tribute for) somehwhere - and to all his family because it was really sad. The first thing I read in the morning and yeah, it was just... I was thinking in the last kilometre about him and yeah, how tough this sport can be - and how much pain it can cause." Thanks for listening. This is SBS News in Easy English.

PM says China trip has been successful
PM says China trip has been successful

SBS Australia

time2 days ago

  • Politics
  • SBS Australia

PM says China trip has been successful

TRANSCRIPT The Prime Minister wraps up his trip in China Australia's highest civilian honour handed to the family of late Gumatj clan leader Galarrwuy Yunupingu Tadej Pogacar regains the overall lead of the Tour de France Anthony Albanese says his six-day tour of China has been successful, resulting in outcomes that will boost the bilateral relationship. The prime minister is ending his trip in the regional city of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, before he flies out of the country to return to Australia. Mr Albanese says it has been a productive trip, including the meeting with China's President Xi Jinping. "One of the theme of our discussions was improving people-to-people and cultural links between people in Australia and China. And I can think of no better way then through the sporting engagement at what is the iconic sporting event in Australia - our Australian Open. Indeed the last Australian prime minister to visit Sichuan was Bob Hawke in 1986. And that time he launched an annual Australia-China tennis challenge. A gesture of goodwill between our nations." Russia says it won't accept the 50-day deadline announced by US President Donald Trump to reach a ceasefire to end fighting in Ukraine - or face sanctions. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova condemned the move, calling it blackmail. The US also promised more missiles and other weaponry for Ukraine. Russia's all-out war against Ukraine in February, 2022, has led to Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War Two, with the United States estimating that 1.2 million people have been injured or killed. Doctors at the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City say two women have died - and several others are injured, following a strike that hit a Catholic parish in the Gaza Strip. The strike damaged the Holy Family Church, the only Catholic Church inside the Palestinian enclave. The Israeli Defence Forces says it is looking into the matter. The Vatican has not yet responded to a request for comment. The late Yolngu Elder and land rights pioneer, Dr Galarrwuy Yunupingu, has been officially awarded the nation's highest civilian honour, two years after his death. The Companion of the Order of Australia was accepted by his eldest daughter, Binmila, from Governor-General Sam Mostyn, who travelled to northeast Arnhem Land to present the award - in accordance with the wishes of the Yunupingu family. Ms Mostyn says Dr Yunupingu would have viewed the award in his own way. "But I am also aware that in the 50th year of the Australian honours and awards system, this may be an award that Dr Yunupingu may not have really seen as necessary. Or seen as adding to the way he lived his life. In a way it is an important thing that we are doing in acknowledging his life through a system that must sit alongside something else that Dr Yunupingu said in his essay. He spoke of an allegiance to each other, to land and to ceremonies that define Yolngu." The award was announced earlier this year, recognising Dr Yunupingu's eminent service to First Nation Peoples, in particular traditional land ownership, to leadership in economic development initiatives, to fostering reconciliation and respect, and his role as a custodian of culture and ceremony. Binmila Yunupingu says her father's legacy is something that will burn on forever. In cycling, Tadej Pogacar has regained the overall lead of the Tour de France, after winning stage 12. On the first major mountain of the race, the three-time Tour winner went clear early on the 13.5-kilometre ascent - going on to win the stage by two minutes 10 seconds from Jonas Vingegaard. Pogacar dedicated the stage win to 19-year-old Italian cyclist Samuele Privitera who died after a crash in the opening stage of the Giro della Valle d'Aosta in Italy on Wednesday. "I think this stage can go for (be a tribute for) somehwhere - and to all his family because it was really sad. The first thing I read in the morning and yeah, it was just... I was thinking in the last kilometre about him and yeah, how tough this sport can be - and how much pain it can cause." In a statement, Privitera's cycling team, Australian outfit Jayco AlUla, paid tribute to the 19-year-old, describing him as the life and personality of the team; and his loss is felt deeply.

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