Blindness Is Defined - Free Essay Example

Blindness is defined as the lack of perception, awareness, and ignorance one might endure during a time of uncertainty. The novel Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, illustrates the narrators journey in discovering his own identity in society as an African American male. His invisibility is manifested by the many cultures in the community that are blind to the ability of seeing real nature and beauty within a human being. The narrator is also blinded by the notions that society has instilled into him on how one should present themselves. He encounters characters throughout his journey blinding him or removing the veil from his eyes that the people have bestowed upon him. In the end, he realizes that other peoples limitations of vision restrict his ability to act. As a whole, the narrator and society are conjointly blinded by Americas false perception of social class. One of the characters the narrator comes across that blinds him is Dr. Bledsoe. Bledsoe is the president of the college he attended and became his mentor in the beginning of the novel. The narrator was intrigued about Bledsoes notions and ideas as he had the same beliefs as his grandfather. They both believed that one should agree and follow what white people say because they are probably right and to not cause any problems. Bledsoe believes the less African Americans confront the issues, the more power will be given to their community. The only ones I even pretend to please are big white folks, and even those I control more than they control me. This is a power set-up, son, and Im at the controls. You think about that. When you buck against me, youre bucking against power, rich white folks power, the nations powerwhich means government power! ( Ellison 97). His ignorance guided him to believe that following what the white man says will lead to success because they are always right. Essentially, this is how Bledsoe became president of the school, due to agreeing with white men. He gives that advice to the narrator, but it didnt serve him any justice. This lead to Bledsoe becoming a key contributor to the narrators blindness of his identity. By instilling the mindset to agree with people in order to climb higher on the socio economic status creates the concept of blindness of the narrators own aspirations in life. Bledsoe blinded the narrators ability to create new inventions and ideas to help him stand out and really make a change in the community. He also blinded the narrators views on the African American culture and created animosity towards his own kind. This is one factor the narrator is blind to society and his own ideas. Another key patron that blinded the narrator is Brother Jack, who directed the brotherhood. He discovers the narrator after he gave a speech to a group of angry people and was impressed with his speaking ability. Jack offers him housing and food in return of joining the brotherhood. Little did the narrator know he was being used to display the fame of the brotherhood that would be soon used to flourish their ideology. Brother Jack believes that African Americans need to be told what to do and think by the white people. His literal blindness also serves as a symbol due to his flawed vision of the African American community. This is also ironic that the narrator follows a person who is literally and figuratively blind, which influences the narrator to also be blind, perpetuating negative perceptions of African Americans. Brother Jacks literal blindness symbolizes his ignorant conception of African Americans. He stripped the narrators identity by replacing his name, ideas, and his life back home. That is your new name, Brother Jack said. Start thinking of yourself by that name from this moment. Get it down so that even if you are called in the middle of the night you will respond. Very soon you shall be known by it all over the country. You are to answer to no other, understand?(Ellison 133). Without warning, he was given a task to be someone else, yet he never truly found himself while living his normal life. This created the narrator to become blind to the new notions of how brother Jack expected him to be. Lastly, the narrator contributed to his own blindness, by not staying true to his own beliefs and letting people dictate his own future. In the beginning of the novel, the narrator was blinded to the customs African Americans had and didnt take part in any traditions. He let society influence his behavior to not be proud of his culture. He was set up to be blind during his early stages of life from the beliefs and notions of his grandfather. Being blind at a young age made the narrator be comfortable with following other peoples ideology, making him an easy target for people with influence. And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyones way but my own. I have also been called one thing and then another while no one really wished to hear what I called myself(Ellison 253). The narrator made a choice to listen to society and ultimately blinded himself by following what people told him. His blindness lead to him obtaining a weak mentality and created an opening for people to take control of his mind. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself (Ellison 303). He went through an ongoing cycle of people telling him what he can and cannot do. By listening to others, the narrator continues to be oppressed by societys notions about African Americans. In conclusion, blindness is the lack of awareness to ones state of mind. Throughout the novel the narrator faces many challenges within himself and the community that dictate his role in society. Essentially, he lives his life for the people more than himself. His lack of knowledge as a kid resulted in a life of confusion of his own identity. He comes across ignorant characters that lead him into a life of uncertainty about who he truly is.. All together, the narrator and the community are both blinded by their own false awareness of societys system.

Security, Risk Management and Control in Electronic Commerce - 275 Words

Security, Risk Management and Control in Electronic Commerce (Case Study Sample) Content: Security, Risk Management, and Control in Electronic CommercePart A: Short Answer- this part consists of 4 questions. Each question is worth 5 marks. You must attempt all 4 questions for a total of 20 marks. 1. (5 points) Risk StrategiesAnalyze each of the following situations in terms of risk exposures. Identify and explain the risk management approaches that would be the most appropriate (cost effective) for each situation.SituationSelected approach and justification of the choiceA space shuttle, when entering earths atmosphere caught fire. The black box, which logs all states of the shuttle, flew off and presumably landed somewhere on earth.At a university, the new student course registration system ran into implementation delays by two weeks. It was rolled out on the first day of registration for the next semester. Until noon that day, the system was down. Those students with first priority could not register on time.Microsoft informed company X that bas ed on its calculation, it estimates company X should have more software licenses that Microsoft customer record shows.A subcontractor who worked in the company IS department had access to sensitive files. On his last day, he emailed the companys customer to himself. 2. (5 points) Chinese wall policySuppose you work for a company with a Chinese wall security policy with clients in the following conflict classes:à ¯Ã‚ ¾{Cadbury, Nestle}à ¯Ã‚ ¾{Ford, Chrysler, GM}à ¯Ã‚ ¾{Citicorp, Credit Lyonnais, Deutsche Bank}à ¯Ã‚ ¾{Microsoft}Assume that Ted, an analyst of the company, has previously worked on cases for Nestle and Citicorp, and he is waiting for a new assignment.Question 1 As the security officer of the company, list any of the companys clients for whom Ted will not be able to work as his next assignment. You can assume that Ted can work for a client for whom he has previously worked.Question 2Assume that two of your colleagues Ali and Sally are currently working on th e following cases:à ¯Ã‚ ¾Ali is working on Nestle, GM, and Citicorp.à ¯Ã‚ ¾Sally is working on Nestle, GM, and Credit LyonnaisYour job is to determine the read/write/execute rights of Ali and Sally on the different objects.3.(5 points) Security ModelsThe Graph below represents the security levels of the staff in large organization.The arrows represent a specific operation.By examining the graph below, can you determine which security model applies given that:a) The operation represented by the arrow is a write statement? Justify your answerb) The operation represented by the arrow is a read statement? Justify your answer
4. (5 points) Contingency PlanningYou are the Chief Information Security Officer of an E-commerce Company. You have received notification from your network security administrator of a worm attack. The message says: à ¯Ã‚ ¾The anti-malware software had detected a worm attack. The incident response team tried to stop the worm unsuccessfully.à ¯Ã‚ ¾The worm h as spread through a software vulnerability in database management system software you are running on twenty computers on the network. à ¯Ã‚ ¾When the attack is discovered, the worm has infected three database servers, including a mission critical server that is not redundant. Your network security administrator has launched the disaster recovery plan. Since he is a new hire, you want to make sure that:à ¯Ã‚ ¾He follows just the required steps of the planà ¯Ã‚ ¾he follows them in the proper orderYour task will be to identify the steps he should take and to rank them by the order in which he should take them. You will do so by:à ¯Ã‚ ¾Placing a number next to each step. à ¯Ã‚ ¾placing an X next to the actions you should not perform.Since you are mentoring this new manager, you will also justify the choice of the required steps as well as the way you ranked them.Action Should be performed (yes/no)Ranking if it should be performedShut down all infected systems.Notify manag ement.Remove all infected systems from the network.Visit the vendor's website to locate a security update.Reformat all infected systems.Replace all infected systems with spares. Part B: Problem. This part consists of 4 problems. Each problem is worth 12.5 marks. You must attempt all 4 problems for a total of 50 marks. 1. (13 points) Qualitative risk analysis Consider an e-commerce Web site that normally runs seven days a week, 24 hours a day, generating an average of $2,000 per hour in revenue from customer orders. à ¯Ã¢â€š ¬Experience has shown that the site becomes unavailable due to operating systems failure three times a week. à ¯Ã¢â€š ¬at each operating system failure, the site is unavailable for 2 hours. à ¯Ã¢â€š ¬in addition, the company estimates that upon a failure, it would spend $10,000 on advertising to counteract the negative publicity from such an incident. à ¯Ã¢â€š ¬and upgrade of the operating system will eliminate the threat, but it will c ost the company 1000,000 dollars a year. The company has also a farm of backup servers for its data mining activity. à ¯Ã¢â€š ¬This farm of servers is valued at 1,500,000 dollars. à ¯Ã¢â€š ¬It is estimated that a fire will result in damages worth 85 % to this asset. à ¯Ã¢â€š ¬ Inspectors from the Fire Department have estimated that a fire can occur once every two years in the present situation. à ¯Ã¢â€š ¬You received a proposition of a fire prevention system that would reduce likelihood of a fire to once every 5 years with damages of only 15% of the asset. The fire prevention system costs 1,750,000 dollarsThe same e-commerce server faces the threats of programming mistakes. In the past, experience has shown that programmers mistakes occur about ten times a month, and that each mistake leads to the web site unavailability for half an hour. You have leanrt about a training program for your programmers that would cut by 90% the occurrence of programming errors by your program mers.This program costs $ 4000,000As the Information Security Officer, you are to conduct a risk analysis to determine whether to accept or reject the solutions offered. Base your decision on a cost/benefit analysis. 2. (13 points) Digital SignatureComparing Digital signature (DS) and Message authentication codes (MAC).Assume that Oscar is able to observe all messages sent from Bob to Alice and vice versa.Oscar has no knowledge of any keys except the public ones in case DS is used.State whether and how (i) DS and (ii) MAc protect against each type of attack. The value of Auth(x) is computed with DS or a MAC algorithm respectively. You can assume that When Alice signs a message, she uses her private key.You can also assume that when a MAC algorithm is used, the MAC algorithm uses a secret (symmetric) key known to both parties included in the communication. You can assume that:Alice and Bob use a key Kab when they use the MAC algorithm.Alice and Oscar use a key Kao when they use the M AC algorithm.ScenariosResult of the scenario if a digital signature is used for the Authentication(X)Result of the scenario if a Message Authentication Code MAC is used for the Authentication(X)Message Integrity: Alice sends a message X= Transfer 1000 dhs to Mark in the clear, and also sends Auth(X) to BOB.Oscar intercepts the message, and replaces Mark with Oscar. Can Bob detect this?Replay: Alice sends a message X= Transfer 1000 dhs to Oscar in the clear, and also sends Auth(X) to BOB. Oscar observes the message and signature and sends the message 100 times to Bob. Will Bob detect this?Sender Authentication with cheating third party:Oscar claims that he sent some message X with a valid Auth(X) to Bob but Alice claims the same. Can Bob clear the question with either case?Authentication with Bob Cheating: Bob claims that he received a message X with a valid signature Auth(X) from Alice ( e.g., Transfer 1000 dh from Alice to Bob) but Alice claims she never sent it. Can Alice clear this question in either case? 3. (13 points) FirewallsSMTP ( Simple mail transfer protocol) is the standard protocol for transferring mail between hosts over TCP. A TCP connection is set up between a user agent and a server program. The server listens on TCP port 25 for incoming connection requests. The user end of the connection in on TCP port number above 1023. Suppose you wish to build packet filter rule set allowing inbound and outbound SMTP traffic. You generate the following rule set:Rule directionSrc addrDest addrProtocol Dest portActionAInExternalInternal TCP25PermitBOut Internal ExternalTCP 1023PermitCOutInternal ExternalTCP25PermitDInExternalInternal TCP1023PermitEEitherAnyAny AnyAnyDeny1. Describe the effect of each rule2. Your host has IP address 172.16.1.1. Someone tries to send e-mail from a remote host with IP address 192.168.3.4. If successful, this generates an SMTP dialogue between the remote user and the SMTP server on your host consisting of SMPT commands and mail. Additionally, assume that a user on your host tries to send e-mail to the SMTP server on the remote system. 3. Four packets are shown in the table below. For each packet indicate which packets are permitted, which are denied, and which rules were used.Packet Direction Src addrDest AddrProtocolDest portAction 1In192.168.3.4172.16.1.1TCP25?2Out 172.16.1.1192.168.3.4TCP1234?3Out 172.16.1.1192.168.3.4TCP25?4In192.168.3.4172.16.1.1TCP1357?4. Someone from the outside world( 10.1.2.3) attemp...