Attacks on national security through the use of Internet and computers Research Paper

Attacks on national security through the use of Internet and computers - Research Paper Example America like countries are currently tightening security measures against information warfare. Information warfare (IW) is normally classified into two groups; IW without using physical force during peace time and IW with physical force during military wars. Now the important question is whether information warfare without physical force can be labelled as warfare or not. This paper tries to answer this question. Approximately two years ago, IW was used to disrupt the transfer of money from one arm of a Middle Eastern terrorist group to another. This terrorist financiers bank account was covertly broken into and the money was diverted. In a similar move at the beginning of the Kosovo conflict, methods were discussed and approved to put pressure on President Milosevic; these included tampering with or breaking into his bank accounts and disrupting his personal communications (Church, 2000). From the above details, it is evident that IW can be used to cause immense economic damage to a country even during peace time. As mentioned earlier, it is difficult for the victim country to identify the source of attack and take preventive measures against cyber-attacks or IW. Computer networks are connected globally and it is easy for advanced countries to attack enemy targets without causing any human casualties. Trained computer professionals can break all the firewalls and cause immense financial damages in the enemy countries. Even though there are plenty of international laws against military wars, these laws are inapplicable in the case of IW. In other words, the present cyber laws are incapable to handle anonymous attacks. Cyber warfare will involve disruption of crucial network services and data, damage to critical infrastructure, and the creation of uncertainty and doubt among opposing commanders and political leaders. Cyber-attack provides an ability to strike both tactical and strategic targets from a distance using inexpensive

The Psychology in African American Essay Example for Free

The Psychology in African American Essay ?Over the last 500 years, our country has established and battled one of the largest socio-tragedies known to man: racism. While this pestilent issue has affected many ethnic groups, the most publicly known is the racial discrimination concerning African Americans. By my reasoning, along with many sociologists and psychologists, racism is the root cause of African American race socialization. Race socialization is the theory of verbal and non-verbal messages being transmitted to specific ethnic groups for the positive or negative development of behaviors, philosophies, morals, and attitudes concerning the significance and importance of racial stratification, intergroup interactions, and personal and group identity. The timespan in which I will be surveying connects milestones of race socialization with many of the most significant moments in United States history. The primary sources I will be using as support for this paper will be several works by W. E. B. Du Bois1 and a book by Dr. Faye Belgrave entitled African American Psychology: From Africa to America2. The psychological effect that racism and race socialization has had on African Americans is more than apparent not only through texts written by various sociologists and psychologists, but also throughout history. I will focus on a specific fifty-year span when race socialization took effect, racism was socially acceptable and ultimately racism was combatted. It is my purpose in this paper to discuss, examine and determine the psychological effect that racism and race socialization has had on American citizens of African descent between the timespan of 1870 to 1970. To better recognize the psychology behind African American race socialization, the idea of racism has to be understood. Racism is the belief that all members of each race possess the same characteristics and abilities. Racism came about when the Caucasian race felt superior to other ethnic groups and began categorizing them by their combined racial and ethnic traits. The problem with the categorization is that race and ethnicity are not the same thing3. Racism uses ethnic traits and forces them onto a group of people as their â€Å"race†. Ethnicity is considered to be similar cultural factors like nationality, culture, ancestry and language. While race is comparable physical appearances like skin, eyes, hair and jawbone structure. Combining these two factors and using them against people who appear to be similar is exactly where racism stems4. Another strong belief is that racism plays on the weaknesses and self esteem of the targeted group. In Dr. Faye Belgrave’s book African American Psychology: From Africa to America, she discusses how racism and racial identity are directly influenced by the Western ideology of self-esteem. Dr. Belgrave concludes that racism, in regards to anyone of African descent, should not be defined by Western ideologies because they are not of Western descent. This is explained on page 11 of her book5. In understanding what self-esteem is from an African as well as a Western perspective, one must understand the difference between Western and African conceptions of the self. Using a Western definition, self-esteem can be defined as a feeling of liking and regard for one’s self. From an Africentric perspective, the personal self is indistinguishable from the self that is derived from membership in the African community (Nobles, 1991). Therefore, one’s affiliation to one’s group defines one’s view of self. The African proverb, â€Å"I am because we are and we are because I am,† characterizes this notion of the self. Thus, the self-esteem of people of African descent may be different from that of Whites, and it also may function differently for African Americans than for Whites. Dr. Belgrave continues her thoughts on self-esteem and the many other factors that contribute to racism in chapter 9 of her book. It is the belief of many that racism is a part of human nature. I, however, believe that to be untrue because it is well known that the terms â€Å"race† and â€Å"racism† are modern inventions originating from the 1500s. Racism has historically been used as a form of oppression to make a particular group feel inferior because of a difference in inherited characteristics. The Civil War6 abolished slavery and struck a great blow to racism. But racism itself wasn’t abolished. Just as racism was created to justify slavery in the colonies, racism as an ideology was modernized and since majority of blacks still remained in the South, this affected the entire race. It now no longer warranted the enslavement of blacks, but it justified second-class status for blacks as inferior individuals. Racism also remained one of the main ways that the upper class used to keep colored and white workers divided. After the Civil War, Southern legislatures commenced the business of determining the social status of freedmen. Some laws, known as the Black Codes7, granted to freedmen were legally recognized marriages, the right to own and sell property, and the ability to enter into business relationships. However, in most cases the black codes also prohibited African Americans from serving on juries, providing legal testimony and the right to an equal education. The codes also outlawed interracial marriage and created segregated public facilities. The codes prohibited younger African Americans from associating with any white peers. This meant that their so-called education was of a severely lesser quality. Historians believe that one of the main reasons why Southern legislatures shied away from granting educational opportunities for blacks wasn’t because of ambiguous racism but because historians saw the African factor†8 as the difference between success and failure. This suggested that the white’s racist view undermined any motivation for national unification through mass education. Well-known sociologist, W. E. B. Du Bois believed that the overall shortcomings of the black race fell entirely on the fact that blacks were not given the same opportunities as whites and it affected the psyches of each member of the targeted group. In an essay by Du Bois entitled â€Å"Race Intelligence†9 Du Bois discusses the psychological effect of racism on younger African Americans: Then came the psychology: the children of the public schools were studied and it was discovered that some colored children ranked lower than white children. This gave wide satisfaction even though it was pointed out that the average included most of both races and that considering the educational opportunities and social environment of the races the differences were measurements simply of the ignorance and poverty of the black childs surroundings. 10 Du Bois spent majority of his career observing the sociological factors surrounding African Americans and the hindrances in their paths. Du Bois’ works do not focus on making African Americans appear as victims but as something to learn and grow from. Du Bois believed racism had no place in this world. When the 1900s began and the Roosevelt Administration11 took over, race socialization was still being transmitted from older generations to younger. In 1903, Du Bois wrote a collection of essays entitled, The Souls of Black Folk12. In this book, Du Bois clearly states that the â€Å"problem of the twentieth century is the color line. † The color line was the segregation between blacks and whites and what many African Americans believed would be the biggest problem for their race. This however, was untrue. What African Americans at this time didn’t know was that their daily dose of racism and discrimination was only the surface of their problems. What wasn’t seen at the time was the aftermath of what this entire decade of racism would cause for the entire race. The psychological affect of racism and eventual race socialization every future generation would face would be equally if not worse then what had already been suffered. W. E. B. Du Bois believed that one of the race’s biggest struggles was constantly seeing themselves with such little respect and diminishing their self worth because of what the so-called ‘dominant’ race thought of them. This is also shown in Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk: â€Å"After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, —a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, —an American, a Negro two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, — this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. † 13 Du Bois life mission was to make a name not only for himself but also for his race and his country. This is reflected in his diary when he wrote, â€Å"I therefore take the work that the Unknown lay in my hands and work for the rise of the Negro people, taking for granted that their best development means the best development of the world†¦Ã¢â‚¬ 14 Understanding racism in this way implores the strategy that we use to combat racism [socially] and the belief that racism has caused race socialization and directly influenced the slow progression, both academic and social, of African American people. Over the last 50 years, psychologists and sociologists alike have tried to study the effects of racism on ethnic groups, especially African Americans, and have been uninspiringly successful. I believe that Dr. Faye Belgrave has the answer why. In her book, African American Psychology: From Africa to America, she explains why: â€Å"Some of the methodological issues that were historically problematic in studying African Americans remain today. The best methods for studying African American populations may differ from the methods for studying other ethnic groups. For example, the experimental method is the favored method in psychology and has been considered the gold standard for con- ducting research. However, it may not always be the best way to arrive at an understanding of the psychology of African Americans. Other methods such as interviewing and observing may be more appropriate, depending on what is being studied. African psychology considers self-knowledge and intuition to be as important as source of knowing as observable data. Self-knowledge is derived from asking people about themselves not from observing them under experimental conditions. †15 Perhaps the reason why we’ve had such a hard time pinpointing the real root of racism and thus a ‘cure’ is because it isn’t being studied or treated properly. The concept of racism is treated like any other social problem, not the disease that it is. Racism has developed from its initial form of discrimination into an entire ideology [race socialization]. Antiracist education is crucial, but not enough. Because it treats racism only as a question of â€Å"bad notions† it does not speak to the core surface conditions that allow the acceptance of racism among large sections of the country. Entirely defeating the hold of racism on large sections of ethnic groups involves three circumstances: a larger group retaliation that ties together members of the ethnic group along the color line, attacking the circumstances (lesser pay, treatment, education, etc. ) that allow the attraction of racism to a so-called ‘superior’ ethnic group and the mindful involvement of antiracists to fight racism in all its forms and to win encouragement for interracial class unity.

Fanny Fern :: Sarah Willis Parton

For my third reaction paper I decided to write about Fanny Fern. Sarah Willis Parton, her real name, was the woman who was perseverant and trusted her own mind and followed her heart to do what she thought was best. Due to her determination she was able to make big achievements, â€Å"†¦one of the first women in the United States to have her own newspaper column, and for years, famous as â€Å"Fanny Fern†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ (806). She has written many papers like Male Criticism, A Law More Nice Than Just and Fresh Leaves, etc†¦ While reading some of her writings I decided on analyzing a column which she published in 1858, A Law More Nice Than Just. This is a volume that speaks about Fanny Fern and her way of thinking on how men think of women and what are there reactions. The first â€Å"attack† is that women are not allowed to wear pants, this is only an action for men, â€Å"†¦Emma Wilson was arrested yesterday for wearing man’s apparel† (810). Why, should men be the only ones to wear pants, when there is supposed to be equality for both sexes. This is just that, a sexist idea, because women have the same right and that does not make them more or less feminine than those who wear pants, skirts or dresses all the time. Women are expected to be all day home waiting, for what? Who knows, just they know, because when they do go out they have to confront the â€Å"†¦rainy-day philanthropists who are interested in the public study of female anatomy† (810). This is absolutely not fair because when we come to see the ones who are more persistent and can say that they wear pants are the women because in the same example given before about the rainy days, women are the ones who have to suffer day in and day out to maintain a cordial look with there skirts all full of mud and all wet while men have it easier and are going about that they are the independent kind. Fanny shows us her strength of mind while wanting to break boundaries. She will not support the fact that men have it all figured out. But since she is so intelligent, she is a woman of course, she decided to go out dressed as a man, with her husbands clothes. She wore the whole set of

Shottky diode

The Schottky diode is an important device which is widely used in radio-frequency (RF) applications. It possesses many similarities to the point-contact diode. In fact many of the early devices were made in the same way as a point-contact diode, although today's devices are made with totally different manufacturing techniques. Unlike conventional semiconductor diodes, which consist of a PN Junction, the Schottky diode is made from a metal semiconductor Junction.This offers a number of dvantages in some circumstances as the diode has a very low forward-voltage drop, and secondly it has a very fast switching speed. Both of these properties make it ideal for many RF applications as well as giving it uses in many other areas, as we shall see. Characteristics. The Schottky diode is what is called a majority carrier device. This gives it tremendous advantages in terms of speed. By making the devices small, the normal RC (resistancecapacitance) type time constants can be reduced, making the Schottky diode an order of magnitude faster than the conventional PN diodes.This factor is he prime reason why they are so popular in RF applications. The Schottky diode also has a much higher current density than an ordinary PN junction. This means that forward-voltage drops are lower, making these diodes ideal for use in powerrectification applications. The main drawback of the diode is found in the level of its reverse current, which is relatively high. For many uses this may not be a problem, but it is a factor which is worth watching when using Schottky diodes in more exacting applications. Variety of Applications.The Schottky diode is used in a wide variety of applications. It can naturally be used as a general-purpose rectifier. However, in terms of RF applications, it is particularly useful because of its high switching speed and high-frequency capability. Schottky diodes are similarly very good as RF detectors as their low capacitance and forward- voltage drop enable them to detect signals which an ordinary PN Junction would not It has already been mentioned that the Schottky diode has a high-current density and low forward-voltage drop. As a result, Schottky diodes are widely used in power supplies.By using these diodes, less power is wasted, making the supply more nd smaller heatsinks may be able to be incorporated in the design. The Schottky diode is used in logic circuits. Although not as common these days, the 74LS (low-power Schottky) and 74S (Schottky) families of logic circuits use Schottky diodes as a core component. The Schottky is inserted between the collector and base of the driver transistor to act as a clamp (see Fig. 2). To. produce a low or logic ‘O' output the transistor is driven hard on, and in this situation the base-collector junction of the diode is forward biased.When the Schottky diode is present, this akes most of the current and allows the turn-off time of the transistor to be greatly reduced, thereby improving the sp eed of the circuit.

Evidences and Reflections of an Artist

Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1610) was more than the greatest sculptor of the Baroque period. He was also an architect, painter, playwright, composer and theater designer. A brilliant wit and caricaturist, he wrote comedies and operas when not carving marbles as easily as clay. More than any other artist, with his public foundations, religious art, and designs for St. Peter’s, he left his mark on the face of Rome (Strickland and Boswell, 1992). â€Å"The Ecstasy of St. Theresa† and â€Å"Apollo and Daphne† are evidences of Bernini’s outstanding skills.Bernini’s marble sculpture, â€Å"The Ecstasy of St. Theresa†, represented the saint swooning on a cloud with an expression of mingled ecstasy and exhaustion on her face. Since the Counter Reformation Church stressed the value of its members reliving Christ’s passion, Bernini tried to induce an intense religious experience in worshipers (Strickland and Boswell, 1992). On the other hand, few works in the history of sculpture are more admired for the sheer skill of their carving than Bernini’s â€Å"Apollo and Daphne†.Bernini began the â€Å"Apollo and â€Å"Daphne† in 1622 and had largely completed it by 1624, the last year of his employment with Cardinal Scipione Borghese. The â€Å"Apollo and Daphne† has come to stand as the perfect antithesis to the modernist principle of â€Å"truth to materials†, the ultimate illustration of the artist defying his medium’s very nature (Sofaer, 2007). For both works, Bernini used all the resources of operatic stagecraft, creating a total artistic environment (Strickland and Boswell, 1992). Being able to observe Bernini’s extraordinary skills in art is a truly noteworthy and significant experience.Just watching his works through the video made me feel the ecstasy, the pursuit and the love contained within those works. Somehow, it makes me want to sculpt a masterpiece of my own, reflec ting my own skill and my own knowledge. Michaelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio’s (1571-1610) genius resided in his ability to overlay one principle upon another, to cross aesthetic boundaries seamlessly while seldom calling attention to the means by which he did so. Moreover, even when he was painting the human figure, Caravaggio was a still-life painter at heart.Caravaggio’s â€Å"Basket of Fruit† has been dated by modern scholars to the years 1593 to 1600, with most placing it closer to the end than the beginning of the first phase of his career. If indeed datable to the moment of his emergence as a public painter in the Contarelli Chapel, the little picture was not one of the realistic depictions of â€Å"flowers and fruit†. Coming at a critical juncture in his professional career, one can imagine the â€Å"Basket of Fruit† serving as a polemical expression of his ideas on the nature of creativity itself.In this work, he blended the lowly method of Ligozzi’s mimetic and didactic illustrations with higher-minded emulations of ancient literary and visual sources, prompted perhaps by his awareness of the current fashion for Northern still-life painting among collectors like Del Monte himself (Varriano, 2006). In the first Roman years, Caravaggio was isolated. He was rushed to hospital for a malaria attack, as witnessed in the famous self-portrait â€Å"Sick Bacchus† in the Galleria Borghese (Pomella, 2004). The â€Å"Sick Bacchus† is a meditation on the theme of â€Å"love’s sting†, that is, on the woes of love gone awry.During the Baroque, the awareness of point of view led, for the first time in Western history, to something which can be considered today as self-reflection, a self-consciousness of the human individual (Bal, 1999). Studying â€Å"The Incredulity of Saint Thomas’, also known as â€Å"Doubting Thomas†, it may come as no surprise to learn that Caravaggio failed to w in the commission to paint a resurrection for the Jesuits. By the time he had completed this painting, Caravaggio’s notion of a â€Å"religious† image had already worried Counter-Reformation churchmen.His reputation for painting in a style which has neither sacred, nor profane, but a hybrid of the two, had attracted uneasy commentary among potential ecclesiastical patrons. In this respect, the â€Å"Incredulity of St. Thomas† might almost be read as gauntlet thrown in the face of counter-reformation orthodoxy. This works is an evidence for Caravaggio’s decision to explore the central mystery of the Christian faith, the incarnation and the resurrection, with what might, tendentiously, be termed an almost Protestant literal-mindedness (Porter, 1997).To be able to understand the personality of Caravaggio through his works, as observed from the video, is an unforgettable occurrence for me. It had shown me that sometimes, there are certain things which artists have to do that defies the society and still, defines them as a whole individual or as a skilled artist. It also made me understand that most of the time, the paintings or artworks do not simply show particular sceneries or another model, but reflects the skills, personality and visions of the creator itself. References Bal, M. (1999). Quoting Caravaggio: Contemporary Art, Preposterous History.Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Pomella, A. (2004). Caravaggio: Art Courses. ATS Italia Editrice. Porter, R. (1997). Rewriting the Self: Histories from the Renaissance to the Present. New York: Routledge. Sofaer, J. (2007). Material Identities. Australia: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Strickland, C. and J. Boswell. (1992). The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-modern. Missouri: Andrews McMeel Publishing. Varriano, J. (2006). Caravaggio: The Art of Realism. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press.

Death Marks the Spot essays

Death Marks the Spot essays The title of the article I chose was Death Marks the Spot. The title of the periodical was the Phoenix Magazine and the date for the periodical was October 2001. The article interested me because I wanted to know why Arizona has a reputation as one of the most deadly places in the country for motorist is well deserved, why Arizona has set a state record with 1,036 fatalities doing with car accidents. This article starts out with a story about Jennafer Cox. The story start out with Jennafer Cox having a fight with her sister Carrie. They were arguing and after arguing Carrie tells Jennafer that she hates her and wishes she was dead. Jennafer looks at her and says no she doesn't. They end up hugging and making up. Somewhere else a women name Leticia Alvarado is at a bar drinking and watching the Suns game. She decides to go home and on her way she goes through a red light and plows into Jennafer and her sister and her boyfriend. She ends up being airlifted to a hospital and sh e has a liver that has been ripped in two. This story tells us how Arizona is the worst state known for its accidents because of the careless drivers out there. In all, between 1995 and 1998, the Valley car crashes claimed about 2,099 people lives, averaging more than one a day. Most of the people that cause the fatal accidents are people that are unlicenced or illegally licensed drivers. That means that people that have licenses suspended or revoke or anything else are still in the streets driving around. That is very bad since most of them are causing accidents. Also, victims are likely to be killed in areas zoned 35 mph and below as they are in those posted 55 mph and above. Sometimes there are common distractions like billboards, glares, strokes, heart attacks, debris on the road, falling cargo, improper towing, and flat tires. The other common reason is that people are driving too fast. Driving to fast is contributing cause in nearly three of te...

History of the Former Country of Yugoslavia

History of the Former Country of Yugoslavia With the fall of the Austria-Hungary empire at the end of World War I, the victors threw together a new country which was composed of more than twenty ethnic groups Yugoslavia. Just over seventy years later that piecemeal nation disintegrated and war broke out between seven new states. This overview should help clear up some confusion about whats in place of the former Yugoslavia now. Marshal Tito was able to keep Yugoslavia unified from the formation of the country from 1945 until his death in 1980. At the end of World War II, Tito ousted the Soviet Union and was then excommunicated by Josef Stalin. Due to Soviet blockades and sanctions, Yugoslavia began developing trade and diplomatic relationships with western European governments, even though it was a communist country. After the death of Stalin, relations between the USSR and Yugoslavia improved. Following Titos death in 1980, factions in Yugoslavia became agitated and demanded more autonomy. It was the fall of the USSR in 1991 that finally broke up the jigsaw puzzle of a state. About 250,000 were killed by wars and ethnic cleansing in the new countries of the former Yugoslavia.​ Serbia Austria blamed Serbia for the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand in 1914 which led to the Austrian invasion of Serbia and World War I. Although a rogue state called the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia that was exiled from the United Nations in 1992, Serbia and Montenegro regained recognition on the world stage in 2001 after the arrest of Slobodan Milosevic. In 2003 the country was restructured into a loose federation of two republics called Serbia and Montenegro. Montenegro Following a referendum, in June 2006, Montenegro and Serbia split into two separate independent countries. The creation of Montenegro as an independent country resulted in Serbia losing their access to the Adriatic Sea. Kosovo The former Serbian province of Kosovo lies just south of Serbia. Past confrontations between ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and ethnic Serbs from Serbia drew world attention to the province, which is 80% Albanian. After many years of struggle, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in February 2008. Unlike Montenegro, not all the countries of the world have accepted the independence of Kosovo, most notably Serbia and Russia. Slovenia Slovenia, the most homogenous and prosperous region of the Former Yugoslavia, was the first to secede. They have their own language, are mostly Roman Catholic, have compulsory education, and a capital city (Ljubljana) which is a primate city. With a current population of approximately two million, Slovenia avoided violence due to their homogeneity. Slovenia joined both NATO and the EU in the spring of 2004. Macedonia Macedonias claim to fame is their rocky relationship with Greece due to the use of the name Macedonia. While Macedonia was admitted to the United Nations, it was admitted under the name of The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia because Greece is strongly against the use of the ancient Greek region for any external territory. Of the two million people, about two-thirds are Macedonian and about 27% is Albanian. The capital is Skopje and key products include wheat, corn, tobacco, steel, and iron. Croatia In January 1998, Croatia finally assumed control of their entire territory, some of which had been under the control of Serbs. This also marked the end of a two-year United Nations peacekeeping mission there. Croatias declaration of independence in 1991 caused Serbia to declare war. Croatia is a boomerang-shaped country of four and a half million which has an extensive coastline on the Adriatic Sea, and it almost keeps Bosnia from having any coast at all. The capital of this Roman Catholic state is Zagreb. In 1995, Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia signed a peace agreement. Bosnia and Herzegovina The virtually landlocked cauldron of conflict of four million inhabitants is composed of about one-half Muslims, one-third Serbs, and just under one-fifth Croats. While the Winter Olympics of 1984 were held in Bosnia-Herzegovinas capital city of Sarajevo, the city and the rest of the country were devastated by war. The mountainous country is trying to rebuild infrastructure since their 1995 peace agreement; they rely on imports for food and materials. Before the war, Bosnia was home to five of Yugoslavias largest corporations. The former Yugoslavia is a dynamic and interesting region of the world which is likely to continue to be the focus of geopolitical struggle and change as the countries work to gain recognition (and membership) in the European Union.