Oedipus Innocent Essay

In Sophocles’ tragedy, Oedipus relentlessly pursues the truth of his own ancestry and actions in the past, making this play a tragedy of action in which, in the end, the king goes into exile, believing that he has killed his own father and had incest with his own mother. While this latter conclusion is not debatable, it is questionable whether or not Oedipus killed his father, and he could be innocent. All the proof is that he killed his father is from the seer and prophet Tiresias. his fears and suspicions and discover the truth, which is his fate, he is doomed in doing so. â€Å"To his mother son and husband both, he sowed the loins his father sowed, he spilled his father’s blood! Go in and reflect on that, solve that, and if you feel I’ve lied from this day onward call the prophet blind† (Sophocles). All Oedipus knows is that he killed a man at a crossroads: there was no direct communication between them, and no recognition. One would think that Oedipus, however metaphorically blind he may be at this point, still has eyes enough to recognize his own father. His own obsessive seeking of the truth could also contribute to the fallacious assumption that Oedipus makes, without proof, that he has indeed killed his own father. In pursuing the answers to his own tragedy obsessively, Oedipus becomes a sympathetic figure who is blind to the possible truth, and accepts that he has killed his father without having overwhelming proof. There is still a reasonable doubt that the person at the crossroads could have been a complete stranger. But Oedipus’ will demands that he use his essential nature to fight against destiny, and this makes him somewhat blind to the facts. There is no proof beyond the shadow of a doubt that Oedipus has really killed his own father. It is simply what Oedipus believes. Sophocles (2005). Oedipus the King. Norton Anthology of Literature. New York: Norton.

Historical Development in the Field of Toxicology

Historical Development in the Field of Toxicology And Mechanisms and Factors Responsible for the Entrance of Toxicants in the Human body and their Harmful Effects Jorge D. Rebolledo Columbia Southern University Abstract The purpose of this paper is to make a short historical reference in the field of Toxicology and how this area of science has develop starting from centuries ago until our present. It is also the intention of this paper to explain how the toxics enter our body, how they are absorbed and the mechanisms responsible for that. Introduction As stated by E. Monosson, some define Toxicology as the study of toxic materials, including the clinical, industrial, economic, and legal problems associated with them. Although toxicology—as a formally recognized scientific discipline—is relatively new (with major developments in the mid-1900s), the science itself is thousands of years old. Consider the potential results of early trial and error experiences of hunter-gatherers for whom identifying a toxic plant or animal was a life or death situation. Some of the most poisonous substances known today are naturally produced chemicals including ricin from castor beans or tetrodotoxin from the puffer fish. Early humankinds’ careful observations of such plants or animals with toxic characteristics as frogs, containing curare, were put to use not only for avoidance of toxic substances but for weaponry as well. Many naturally-derived poisons were likely used for hunting, as medicinal (the Egyptians were aware of many such toxic substances as lead, opium and hemlock as early as 1500 BCE). Use extended eventually to political poisonings as practiced, for example, by the early Greeks and Romans. With time, poisons became widely used and with great sophistication. Notable poisoning victims include Socrates, Cleopatra, and Claudius. One of the more interesting stories resulting from a combination of both ancient history and current toxicological research, is the story of King Mithridates, king of Pontus (120-63 BC) who according to toxicology legend was so afraid that he might be a casualty of political poisoning, is said to have concocted a potion from a great number of herbs for his own consumption. It is believed he understood that by consuming small amounts of potential poisons, he might protect himself from any would-be poisoner. That is, he believed in the effectiveness of hormesis. Apparently, his plans worked so well that he gained a name for himself as one so mighty he could not be killed. Unfortunately, it is said that when circumstances were such that he desired to kill himself, he was unable to do so by ingesting poison and had to be run through by a sword instead. Whether or not the story is true, it has led current day scientists to speculate upon the ingredients of his potion. It is believed that some herbs that he may have used, for example, St. Johns Wort could truly have contributed to detoxification of some other poisons. Recent studies have demonstrated that St. Johns Wort (often used as an herbal remedy) can increase the metabolism or breakdown of certain drugs and chemicals. This early story of toxicology relates a very important concept—that all animals have some kind of intrinsic ability for detoxifying a number of naturally-occurring toxicants in small doses (so that, in some cases low doses of chemicals may pass through the body without causing harm. From this we derive the concept of a chemical threshold), and that these processes can be altered by exposure to other chemicals. The question remains as to how adept animals, including humans, are at detoxifying many of the newer industrial chemicals or mixtures of industrial or industrial and natural chemicals. Additionally, it is well known that in some cases, detoxification of chemicals can produce even more toxic compounds. Pre-Industrial Toxicology As declared by E. Monosson, as humans sought to better understand natural compounds that were both beneficial and harmful to them, there was very little if any clear understanding of the fundamental chemical nature of substances. That is, there was no connection between the ‘extract’ and ‘essence’ of a poisonous plant or animal and any one particular chemical that might cause toxicity. In fact, an awareness of chemistry in its modern form did not occur until around the mid to late 1600s. Paracelsus, a physician from the sixteenth century and one of the early â€Å"Fathers of Toxicology† believed that all matter was composed of three â€Å"primary bodies† (sulfur, salt, and mercury). Yet, Paracelsus also coined the now famous maxim of the newly emerging discipline of toxicology: â€Å"All substances are poisons, there is none which is not a poison. The right dose differentiates a poison from a remedy. † (Paracelsus, 1493-1541) This phrase and Paracelsus’ name are committed to memory by hundreds of new toxicology students each year and has become the ‘motto’ of toxicology. Interestingly, if one takes Paracelsus at face value, it appears that in this quote he was referring to substances which served as potential remedies but could be poisonous if taken in high enough concentrations. Most of us are aware of the fact that overdosing can turn remedies to poisons, even with such apparently innocuous drugs as aspirin and Tylenol. Another branch on the toxicology family tree that developed in the sixteenth century, along with the study of drugs and the use of chemicals in hunting and warfare, was occupational toxicology. As humans learned how to remove and exploit such materials as coal, and metals and other minerals, occupational exposures to these chemical substances (and chemicals produced incidentally) resulted. Scientists eventually recognized the linkages among illnesses and exposures to these compounds. Some of the first reports of occupational illness, or diseases caused by activities related to specific occupations, can be found in literature from the mid- to late-1500s. Early occupational observations include the ill effects from lead mining and madness caused by mercury exposure (for example, the saying â€Å"mad as a hatter† was attributed to the common use of mercury in the hat felting process). Later, in the 1700s, Bernardino Ramazzini is credited with bringing to light diseases of tradesmen, including silicosis in stone workers and lead poisoning. In the late 1700s, Sir Percival Potts made one of the more famous observations in toxicology, linking an occupational exposure (in this case soot in chimney sweeps) to cancer of the scrotum. At this point we have discussed the pre-Industrial Revolution developments in toxicology, that were primarily devoted to the study of such naturally-occurring toxicants as the polyaromatic compounds contained in soot and heavy metals, and such toxins as botulinum toxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. Toxicology and the Chemical and Industrial Revolution The chemical/Industrial Revolution of the mid-19th century released many naturally-occurring chemicals into the environment in unprecedented amounts. Also, it produced and released new substances unlike any that had existed in the natural world. With the production and use of these chemicals, and the need to protect humans from the toxic effects of industrial chemicals, toxicology eventually evolved to include its modern day branches: pharmacology, pesticide toxicology, general toxicology, and occupational toxicology. Towards the mid-late 20th century, environmental toxicology was developed to specifically address the effects on both humans and wildlife of chemicals released into the environment. A notable difference among the branches of toxicology is that pharmacology, pesticides and even occupational toxicology primarily have focused on the effects of relatively high concentrations of single chemicals. This compares to the relatively low concentrations of several different chemicals or chemical mixtures that are relevant to environmental toxicology. The chemicals considered by the earlier branches of toxicology were, and are, a known quantity. That is, the research was designed to address questions about specific, well-characterized chemicals, exposure conditions, and even concentration ranges rather than complex chemical mixtures. For example, pharmacologists might work with a particular active ingredient (e. g. , salicylic acid or aspirin), and be confident about the route of exposure (oral) and the concentration or dose. This is seldom the case in environmental toxicology, and hazardous waste assessment and cleanup in particular, where chemicals often are present in mixtures, routes of exposure may vary (for example, from oral to dermal to inhalation). Significantly, exposure concentrations prove difficult to determine. Mechanisms and Factors Responsible for the Entrance of Toxicants in the Human body and their Harmful Effects Absorption of toxicants Absorption is the process whereby toxicants gain entrance to the body. Ingested and inhaled materials, nonetheless, are considered outside the body until they cross the cellular barriers of the gastrointestinal tract or the respiratory system. To exert an effect on internal organs a toxicant must be absorbed, although such local toxicity as irritation, may occur. Absorption varies greatly with specific chemicals and with the route of exposure. For skin, oral or respiratory exposure, the exposure dose (or, â€Å"outside† dose) is usually only a fraction of the absorbed dose (that is, the internal dose). For substances injected or implanted directly into the body, exposure dose is the same as the absorbed or internal dose. Several factors affect the likelihood that a foreign chemical or, xenobiotic, will be absorbed. According to E. Monosson, the most important are: †¢ Route of exposure Concentration of the substance at the site of contact †¢ Chemical and physical properties of the substance The relative roles of concentration and properties of the substance vary with the route of exposure. In some cases, a high percentage of a substance may not be absorbed from one route whereas a low amount may be absorbed via another route. For example, very little DDT powder will penetrate the skin whereas a high percentage will be absorbed when it is swallowed. Due to such route-specific differences in absorption, xenobiotics are often ranked for hazard in accordance with the route of exposure. A substance may be categorized as relatively non-toxic by one route and highly toxic via another route. The primary routes of exposure by which xenobiotics can gain entry into the body are: †¢ Gastrointestinal tract: Key in environmental exposure to food and water contaminants and is the most important route for many pharmaceuticals. †¢ Respiratory tract: Key in environmental and occupational exposure to aerial toxicants and some drugs that use this route (i. e. : inhalers). †¢ Skin: Also an environmental and occupational exposure route. A lot of medicines are applied to the skin directly. Other routes of exposure—used primarily for specific medical purposes—are: †¢ Injections (IV, Subcutaneous, Intradermal, Intrathecal) basically used for medications. †¢ Implants (Hormone patches) †¢ Conjunctival instillations (Eye drops) †¢ Suppositories For a toxic to enter the body (as well as move within, and leave the body) it must pass across cell membranes (cell walls). Cell membranes are formidable barriers and major body defenses that prevent foreign invaders or substances from gaining entry into body tissues. Normally, cells in solid tissues (for example, skin or mucous membranes of the lung or intestine) are so tightly compacted that substances cannot pass between them. Entry, therefore, requires that the xenobiotic have some capability to penetrate cell membranes. Also, the substance must cross several membranes in order to go from one area of the body to another. In essence, for a substance to move through one cell requires that it first move across the cell membrane into the cell, pass across the cell, and then cross the cell membrane again in order to leave the cell. This is true whether the cells are in the skin, the lining of a blood vessel, or an internal organ (for example, the liver). In many cases, in order for a substance to reach its site of toxic action, it must pass through several membrane barriers. Cell membranes surround all body cells and are basically similar in structure. They consist of two layers of phospholipid molecules arranged like a â€Å"sandwich† and also known as â€Å"phospholipid bilayer†. Each phospholipid molecule consists of a phosphate head and a lipid tail. The phosphate head is polar so it is hydrophilic (attracted to water). In contrast, the lipid tail is lipophilic (attracted to lipid-soluble substances). The two phospholipid layers are oriented on opposing sides of the membrane so that they are approximate mirror images of each other. The polar heads face outward and the lipid tails inward. The cell membrane is tightly packed with these phospholipid molecules—interspersed with various proteins and cholesterol molecules. Some proteins span across the entire membrane providing for the formation of aqueous channels or pores. Some toxicants move across a membrane barrier with relative ease while others find it difficult or impossible. Those that can cross the membrane, do so by one of two general methods: either passive transfer or facilitated transport. Passive transfer consists of simple diffusion (or osmotic filtration) and is â€Å"passive† in that there is no requirement for cellular energy or assistance. Some toxicants cannot simply diffuse across the membrane. They require assistance that is facilitated by specialized transport mechanisms. The primary types of specialized transport mechanisms are: †¢ Facilitated diffusion †¢ Active transport †¢ Endocytosis (phagocytosis and pinocytosis). Passive transfer is the most common way that xenobiotics cross cell membranes. Two factors determine the rate of passive transfer: †¢ Differences in concentrations of the substance on opposite sides of the membrane (substance moves from a region of high concentration to one having a lower concentration. Diffusion will continue until the concentration is equal on both sides of the membrane); and †¢ Ability of the substance to move either through the small pores in the membrane or through the lipophilic interior of the membrane. Properties of the chemical substance that affect its ability for passive transfer are: †¢ Lipid solubility Molecular size †¢ Degree of ionization (that is, the electrical charge of an atom) Substances with high lipid solubility readily diffuse through the phospholipid membrane. Small water-soluble molecules can pass across a membrane through the aqueous pores, along with normal intracellular water flow. Large water-soluble molecules usually cannot make it through the small pores, although some may diffuse through the l ipid portion of the membrane, but at a slow rate. In general, highly ionized chemicals have low lipid solubility and pass with difficulty through the lipid membrane. Most aqueous pores are about 4 angstrom (A) in size and allow chemicals of molecular weight 100-200 to pass through. Exceptions are membranes of capillaries and kidney glomeruli that have relatively large pores (about 40A) that allow molecules up to a molecular weight of about 50,000 (molecules slightly smaller than albumen which has a molecular weight of 60,000) to pass through. Facilitated diffusion is similar to simple diffusion in that it does not require energy and follows a concentration gradient. The difference is that it is a carrier-mediated transport mechanism. The results are similar to passive transport but faster and capable of moving larger molecules that have difficulty diffusing through the membrane without a carrier. Examples are the transport of sugar and amino acids into red blood cells (RBCs), and into the central nervous system (CNS). Some substances are unable to move with diffusion, unable to dissolve in the lipid layer, and are too large to pass through the aqueous channels. For some of these substances, active transport processes exist in which movement through the membrane may be against the concentration gradient: they move from low to higher concentrations. Cellular energy from adenosine triphosphate (ADP) is required in order to accomplish this. The transported substance can move from one side of the membrane to the other side by this energy process. Active transport is important in the transport of xenobiotics into the liver, kidney, and central nervous system and for maintenance of electrolyte and nutrient balance. Many large molecules and particles cannot enter cells via passive or active mechanisms. However, some may enter, by a process known as endocytosis. In endocytosis, the cell surrounds the substance with a section of its cell wall. This engulfed substance and section of membrane then separates from the membrane and moves into the interior of the cell. The two main forms of endocytosis are phagocytosis and pinocytosis. In phagocytosis (cell eating), large particles suspended in the extracellular fluid are engulfed and either transported into cells or are destroyed within the cell. This is a very important process for lung phagocytes and certain liver and spleen cells. Pinocytosis (cell drinking) is a similar process but involves the engulfing of liquids or very small particles that are in suspension within the extracellular fluid. Gastrointestinal Tract The gastrointestinal tract (GI tract, the major portion of the alimentary canal) can be viewed as a tube going through the body. Its contents are considered exterior to the body until absorbed. Salivary glands, the liver, and the pancreas are considered accessory glands of the GI tract as they have ducts entering the GI tract and secrete enzymes and other substances. For foreign substances to enter the body, they must pass through the gastrointestinal mucosa, crossing several membranes before entering the blood stream. Substances must be absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract in order to exert a systemic toxic effect, although local gastrointestinal damage may occur. Absorption can occur at any place along the entire gastrointestinal tract. However, the degree of absorption is strongly site dependent. Three main factors affect absorption within the various sites of the gastrointestinal tract: †¢ Type of cells at the specific site †¢ Period of time that the substance remains at the site †¢ pH of stomach or intestinal contents at the site. Under normal conditions, xenobiotics are poorly absorbed within the mouth and esophagus, due mainly to the very short time that a substance resides within these portions of the gastrointestinal tract. There are some notable exceptions. For example, nicotine readily penetrates the mouth mucosa. Also, nitroglycerin is placed under the tongue (sublingual) for immediate absorption and treatment of heart conditions. The sublingual mucosa under the tongue and in some other areas of the mouth is thin and highly vascularized so that some substances will be rapidly absorbed. The stomach, having high acidity (pH 1-3), is a significant site for absorption of weak organic acids, which exist in a diffusible, nonionized and lipid-soluble form. In contrast, weak bases will be highly ionized and therefore are absorbed poorly. Chemically, the acidic stomach may break down some substances. For this reason those substances must be administered in gelatin capsules or coated tablets, that can pass through the acidic stomach into the intestine before they dissolve and release their contents. Another determinant that affects the amount of a substance that will be absorbed in the stomach is the presence of food. Food ingested at the same time as the xenobiotic may result in a considerable difference in absorption of the xenobiotic. For example, the LD50 for Dimethline (a respiratory stimulant) in rats is 30 mg/kg (or 30 parts per million) when ingested along with food, but only 12 mg/kg when it is administered to fasting rats. The greatest absorption of chemicals, as with nutrients, takes place in the intestine, particularly in the small intestine (see Figure 9). The intestine has a large surface area consisting of outward projections of the thin (one-cell thick) mucosa into the lumen of the intestine (the villi). This large surface area facilitates diffusion of substances across the cell membranes of the intestinal mucosa. Since the intestinal pH is near neutral (pH 5-8), both weak bases and weak acids are nonionized and are usually readily absorbed by passive diffusion. Lipid soluble, small molecules effectively enter the body from the intestine by passive diffusion. In addition to passive diffusion, facilitated and active transport mechanisms exist to move certain substances across the intestinal cells into the body, including such essential nutrients as glucose, amino acids and calcium. Also, strong acids, strong bases, large molecules, and metals (and some important toxins) are transported by these mechanisms. For example, lead, thallium, and paraquat (herbicide) are toxicants that are transported across the intestinal wall by active transport systems. The high degree of absorption of ingested xenobiotics is also due to the slow movement of substances through the intestinal tract. This slow passage increases the length of time that a compound is available for absorption at the intestinal membrane barrier. Intestinal microflora and gastrointestinal enzymes can affect the toxicity of ingested substances. Some ingested substances may be only poorly absorbed but they may be biotransformed within the gastrointestinal tract. In some cases, their biotransformed products may be absorbed and be more toxic than the ingested substance. An important example is the formation of carcinogenic nitrosamines from non-carcinogenic amines by intestinal flora. Very little absorption takes place in the colon and rectum. As a general rule, if a xenobiotic has not been absorbed after passing through the stomach or small intestine, very little further absorption will occur. However, there are some exceptions, as some medicines may be administered as rectal suppositories with significant absorption. An example, is Anusol (hydrocortisone preparation) used for treatment of local inflammation which is partially absorbed (about 25%). Respiratory Tract Many environmental and occupational agents as well as some pharmaceuticals are inhaled and enter the respiratory tract. Absorption can occur at any place within the upper respiratory tract. However, the amount of a particular xenobiotic that can be absorbed at a specific location is highly dependent upon its physical form and solubility. There are three basic regions to the respiratory tract: †¢ Nasopharyngeal region †¢ Tracheobronchial region †¢ Pulmonary region By far the most important site for absorption is the pulmonary region consisting of the very small airways (bronchioles) and the alveolar sacs of the lung. The alveolar region has a very large surface area (about 50 times that of the skin). In addition, the alveoli consist of only a single layer of cells with very thin membranes that separate the inhaled air from the blood stream. Oxygen, carbon dioxide and other gases pass readily through this membrane. In contrast to absorption via the gastrointestinal tract or through the skin, gases and particles, which are water-soluble (and thus blood soluble), will be absorbed more efficiently from the lung alveoli. Water-soluble gases and liquid aerosols can pass through the alveolar cell membrane by simple passive diffusion. In addition to solubility, the ability to be absorbed is highly dependent on the physical form of the agent (that is, whether the agent is a gas/vapor or a particle). The physical form determines penetration into the deep lung. A gas or vapor can be inhaled deep into the lung and if it has high solubility in the blood, it is almost completely absorbed in one respiration. Absorption through the alveolar membrane is by passive diffusion, following the concentration gradient. As the agent dissolves in the circulating blood, it is taken away so that the amount that is absorbed and enters the body may be quite large. The only way to increase the amount absorbed is to increase the rate and depth of breathing. This is known as ventilation-limitation. For blood-soluble gases, equilibrium between the concentration of the agent in the inhaled air and that in the blood is difficult to achieve. Inhaled gases or vapors, which have poor solubility in the blood, have quite limited capacity for absorption. The reason for this is that the blood can become quickly saturated. Once saturated, blood will not be able to accept the gas and it will remain in the inhaled air and then exhaled. The only way to increase absorption would be to increase the rate of blood supply to the lung. This is known as flow-limitation. Equilibrium between blood and the air is reached more quickly for relatively insoluble gases than for soluble gases. The absorption of airborne particles is usually quite different from that of gases or vapors. The absorption of solid particles, regardless of solubility, is dependent upon particle size. Large particles (>5  µM) are generally deposited in the nasopharyngeal region ((head airways region) with little absorption. Particles 2-5  µM can penetrate into the tracheobronchial region. Very small particles (

Operations Management at HOLLY FARM Essay

1. Introduction This consultancy report is prepared for Holly Farm in order to improve its future business. In the second part of this report; ‘Evaluation of Current Operations and Gillian’s Business Strategy’ and ‘Conclusion’, Holly Farm’s operations will be critically evaluated in the aspect of current and future potential capacity constraints and any other operational problems. Also, I will discuss the feasibility of Gillian Giles’ strategy for the business there. In the last part; ‘Recommendations and Action Plan’, I will show a recommended alternative strategy for the business and several solutions for alleviating its constraints. 2. Evaluation of Current Operations and Gillian’s Business Strategy 2.1 Gillian’s Aims and Objectives 2.1.1 Sales Forecast According to Gillian’s forecasts, while there will be an increase in farm shop sales by 50%, there will be a decline in retail shops sales by 13.3% in 2004 (Table 1). However, these forecasts are unlikely to come true. Firstly, its retail shops sales has increased by 75% on average of each year, and its farm shop sales has increased by 28% on average each year for the latest five years. It may be unreasonable that she dramatically changes these recent growth trends on her forecast without any factors that could impact on both channels. Secondly, since the ice cream market in the UK is mature and stable (Table 2), sudden changes of previous trend hardly happen excepting entering strong new players into the region, spoiling the farm’s reputation hugely and investing tremendously on the marketing for its farm shop. Moreover, in terms of Holly Farm’s managing on its farm visitors, this sudden change of the number of visitors could lead to collapses of its operations. These reasons discussed above clearly show that Gillian’s demand forecast is not reliable. Hence, they have to forecast in the other way. 2.1.2 Line Extension Gillian wishes to increase the number of ice cream flavours from four to ten. However, this line extension can cause the following problems. First of all, many products of relatively lower demand items would be abolished due to their expiration dates. In 1999, the Ice Cream Alliance published the date of top ten ice cream flavour in the UK in 1998 (Table 3). I can assume that, when Holly Farm produced all of these ten items, the share of each item in their products would be the same as the market shares of each flavour ice cream in the whole market. The items that total demands are less than 1,516 litres per annum, hence below the fourth position, should not be produced because it is obvious that the items would be abolished due to their expiration dates (Table 4, Calculation 1). Moreover, in the case of retail sales, the minimum annual demand for each item is 3,035 litres (Calculation 1). Secondly, also major of the raw materials would be thrown away before they are used. Since the periods that are needed raw materials to be completed to use are longer than maximum storage times allowed, even strawberry flavour for strawberry; 2nd item and chocolate flavour for chocolate; 3rd item could be abolished before being completed to use. Much more could raisins for rum and raisin; 5th, lemon sorbet for lemon sorbet; 8th, banana flavour for banana; 9th and tropical fruits for tropical fruits; 10th be (Table 5). Finally, the line extension would result in higher cost through frequent changing items and smaller amount of production than maximum production in most items. For example, when the different item from before one is produced, the production line should be carefully cleaned up beforehand in order to avoid producing different colour or flavouring ice creams from their original specifications. In fact, it takes one hour to clean the ice cream making machine between flavours in Holly Farm. This careful clean-up tends to cause higher cost and lower productivity. Furthermore, smaller amount of production will lead to higher fixed cost per production unit and, as a result, will result in higher total cost. 2.2 Capacity Constraints 2.2.1 Production Line Although it is clear that Holly Farm has a crucial capacity constraint on its production line, Gillian has hesitated to tackle this problem, as a result, has abandoned the growth strategy in spite of the recent sustainable growth trend of its annual revenue. In order to proceed the growth strategy, she should try to solve the problem. For instance, she should negotiate with its employees for the expansion of working days in a week from 4 days to 5, 6 or 7 days in the busy period. While Holly Farm groped about the probability of producing the different volumes of packages of ice cream for responding special orders for the local catering trade, I would recommend that they stop attempting to do this. Wasting a lot of ice cream, taking 2 or 3 hours to set the dispenser up and being demanded low justify my statement enough. If they continued this trial, more serious capacity constraints would be caused. 2.2.2 Milking Parlour According to this case, the number of visitors who want to see the milking parlour on a busy day in2003 was 206. However, the capacity of the gallery for watching milking parlour is 200 visitors per day (Calculation 2). It could be said that they are about going over the capacity in 2003. Moreover, Gillian wishes to increase the number of farm visitors in 2004 by 50%. The problem would grow in 2004. The problem in milking parlour is not ignorable. 33% of total revenue of Holly Farm, including paying visitor sales; 11% and entrance fee; 22%, is provided from farm visitors, and 27% of total revenue of the farm is related to its milking parlour (Table 6). This incident clearly shows that if the milking parlour made visitors dissatisfied, the revenue of the farm would decline seriously. Therefore, without any solution for the capacity constraint related to milking parlour, the farm would neither be successful nor survive in the near future. Apart from the capacity constraints, the milking parlour has queuing problems. This case mentioned that about 100 people visited the gallery from 4 pm to 5 pm on a busy day. Then I have already mentioned above that 206 people visited the gallery on a busy day (Calculation 2). Thus about half of the visitors arrived there within only one hour. As a result, a queue is made before starting the milking parlour and is not solved the queue for a while. The queuing problem easily leads to customer dissatisfactions and could result in serious decline in its total revenue as I warned above. 2.2.3 Distribution According to this case, Gillian delivers ice cream to retail customers by the delivery van once a week, and the delivery van has a capacity of 500 litres of ice cream and does not have a freezer. While the average maximum temperature in the warmest month in the UK from 1971 to 2000 was less than 20 degree centigrade (Met Office, 2003), the temperature on the van could be much than 30 degree centigrade. Moreover, attempting to deliver all ice cream for that week at once tends to lead to longer duration of delivery. As a result, melting ice cream would be accelerated. It means that these facts cause over half of corporate customer complains in 2003, which regard melting ice cream. This problem may be one major reason why Gillian forecasted that retail sales in 2004 decrease by 13.3 %. However, it is more reasonable to tackle and solve the problem in order to meet market demand than to forecast wrong in order to avoid the problem. 2.3 Other Problems 2.3.1 Raw Material Stock Control This case mentioned that Holly Farm has currently ordered raw materials on an ad hoc basis when an operative feels that the materials are required. While  it maybe true that the quantities of the raw materials the farm uses are so small that the farm hardly has any other better ways to control them properly than one an ad hoc basis, their way to deal with stocks is obviously unsuitable because companies are to have raw material stocks in order mainly to have a buffer for productions, response to unexpected larger or smaller demands and take advantage of price discounts on large order. In fact, they have had several experiences unwanted stocks and short stocks of materials and flavour. The former led to unnecessary cash outs, the later caused disruption, rescheduling of productions and re-timing of maintenance periods (Waters, 2002). 2.3.2 Inventory control of final products Holly Farm did not control its stock level of final product in 2003. As a consequence, a short stock occurred at the end of September (Figure 1). Short stock of final products is more serious than one of raw materials. While it directly causes retailers’ loss from their sales, its indirect effects are more widespread, including lost goodwill, loss of reputation and loss of potential future sales (Waters, 2002). Moreover, from January to February, there was a minus cash flow caused by overstock, hence, by overproduction (Figure 1). If the farm had not retained enough cash to supplement this negative cash flow, they would have had to raise money. However, potential cash suppliers such as banks, building societies and individual investors would not be willing to lend or give money to the farm because of the farm’s mismanagement of cash. 3. Conclusion As I discussed above, Holly farm has many problems in its operations. These problems seem to be appearing through its current remarkable growth. Holly Farm is at a turning point. Should they grow with huge investment? Should they cover up their problems with sacrificing their bright future? In the next part of this report, I will give several suggestions to their problems. 4. Recommendations and Action Plan 4.1 Business Aims and Objectives 4.1.1 Sales Forecast Since Gillian understands Holly Farm has a number of capacity constraints, she seemed to decide not to take the growth strategy but to take the profit focusing strategy, which is feasible by expanding the share of its farm shop sales in its total revenue only on the assumption that it is possible to increase in the number of its farm visitors and to accept all of the visitors. Nevertheless, neither a significant rise in the number of the farm visitors is probable, nor ignoring growth opportunities for its retail sales is reasonable. Therefore, I would like to propose to adopt the growth strategy to Holly Farm with several solutions to capacity constraints. By linear regression (Waters, 2002), the annual sales of retail shops, the farm shop and total are calculated at 93.0, 32.5 and 125.5 thousands pound, respectively (Table 1, Figure 2). In this case, both correlation coefficients of retail shop sales and farm shop sales are above 0.9500. Thus these forecasts can be said to be reliable in terms of the linear regression. However, when Holly Farm adopts this forecast, they have to mention the following things. First, the forecast by linear regression is based only on historical data. Thus it is assumed that the future trend is referred to the past one. Then, because the trend is recognised as linear one without any particular reason, if the trend were based on the different pattern such as logarithmic, exponential and moving average, the forecast could become failure. Furthermore, the forecast does not include any expertise. Therefore, it could be a vulnerable argument in terms of environmental changes. In any case, due to the risk of the forecast’s failure and the huge impact of the sales forecast on the following plan, I strongly recommend that Holly Farm and its consultants again discuss on the sales forecast of 2004 before proceeding the plan. 4.1.2 Line Extension As a result of the discussion in the section 2.1.2, I recommend Holly Farm not to expand its production line from four items in 2003 to ten items in 2004. All of the problems I mentioned, which are related to the expiration dates of final products and raw materials, can cause unexpected cost up. Besides the discussion above, the argument over whether or not they should decrease the number of items from four is also controversial because the demand of the other items than top one is still so low that keeping these items is hardly justified. However, I propose Holly Farm to keep the number of items four based on the following discussions. First, while it is no problem for Holly Farm to have only one item if they did business only on their farm shop, in order to expand their sales on retail channels, keeping several items is inevitable for the marketing reasons. Second, even when they sale ice cream on their farm shop, only one item may not be attractive for their customers. Finally, in terms of accountability of companies, it is difficult to explain why they abolished the items to their customers unless they prove keeping the items that they stopped selling is harmful for the business. By keeping the number of items at four, Holly Farm can keep the stock level of final products of each item more than 1,516 litre per annum (Table 7). Although the problems over raw materials’ stock level still remain, the solution for these items will be discussed in section4.3.1. 4.2 Capacity Constraints 4.2.1 Production Line The process line of ice cream in Holly Farm consists of batch processes, an industrial manufacturing method in which several separate serial and, or parallel operations are carried out to produce a product, in contrast to continuous process (Williams et al, 2001). Hence, the capacity of the line is limited by the one of the bottle neck process. In this case, the bottle neck process is the ageing process, a continuous freezing process in the ice  cream machine, and one batch capacity of the process is 350 litres. Moreover, the process takes 8 hours. In order to increase in the capacity, they have to make the machine bigger or to shorten the time. Nevertheless, since it is hard for Holly Farm to make any big investment, they do not have any other way than one to give up to improving capacity of the process line in a short-term. As the alternatives to increase in the annual production, there are contract-out and extension of operation days from 4 days per week to 5, 6 or 7 days per week. Because of Holly Farm’s difficulties in disclosure of its own original recipes to the counterpart due to its conservative corporate culture, the risk of rise in total cost and capacity constraints of whole ice cream manufacturers in the busy time, it would be hard for Holly Farm to contract out its ice cream production. Therefore, I propose extensions of operation days as solution for capacity constraints of the production line. 4.2.2 Milking Parlour I propose the following three solutions for the capacity constraint and queuing problems in the milking parlour. Firstly, abolishment of explanatory tape through headphones would be effective. It is obvious that the tape makes a bottle neck of a series of processes in the gallery. By replacing the tape through headphones to one not through headphone but merely broadcasted in the gallery and waiting room (Figure 3), service time per visitor would be shortened, and the capacity of the gallery could be improved. Secondly, arrangement of visiting time to the gallery would alleviate its queuing problem. For example, the farm divided the duration of the milking parlour into five; 4.30 pm – 5.00pm, 5.00pm – 5.30 pm, 5.30pm – 6.00 pm, 6.00 pm – 6.30 pm, 6.30 pm – 7.00 pm. When visitors enter to the farm, it allocates them into each time block. While there are vacancies in the time block visitors want, it is good idea that visitors choose which block they are in. Finally, queuing entertainments are effective to allay customer dissatisfactions. For instance, while visitors are in a queue, the scene of milking parlour will be broadcasted on a TV screen of the waiting room. This solution can be expected to make service time shorter at the same time to make customer dissatisfactions reduced. 4.2.3 Distribution In order to carry out growth strategy I proposed in section 4.1.1, solving problems in distribution is essential because bigger burden on distribution is inevitable for the strategy. Hence, I recommend that Holly Farm uses a delivery van equipped with a freezer of about 1,000 litres and replaces old one by it. I assume that the farm rent a VW LT35 Chiller / Freezer Van from a rental company (Figure 4). The monthly rent of the van should be considered  £1,911 as a variable cost. 4.3 Other Problems 4.3.1 Raw Material Stock Control I propose that minimum order quantities of strawberry and chocolate flavour decrease from current 1,000 ml to 400 ml, because the farm could not complete using them within their maximum storage time allowed in 2004(Table 8). While the reorder costs for these items will be charged three times as much as usual ones, the cost of the raw material that will be abolished, hence, abolishment cost can be eliminated. Even though the cost down will be almost offset by reorder charges, this action would be essential in aspect of green issues. Since Holly Farm has used relatively large amount of milk powder, box and cardboard, I recommend these raw material orders at the economic order quantities (Waters, 2002). When they assume that the farm attempted to order these raw materials at minimum order quantities in 2004, the cost down is expected to be more than 2,000 pound per annum (Table 9). In terms of the time to place orders, I propose the reorders of raw materials based on the reorder level (Waters, 2002). When calculating the reorder levels of each items, I assumed that demands can be equally divided into each day. The reorder levels of raw materials are shown in Table 10. This control method is not considered any uncertainties about consumption of raw materials, in other words, production schedule of ice cream. However, since the farm has not taken any flexible scheduling method for its production; Just-in-Time, MRP, MRPII (Waters, 2002) and so on, it is thought that there is no problem. 4.3.2 Inventory control of final products In the farm, production of ice cream has been carrying out based on a fixed schedule. Thus it is crucial to hedge the risk regarding uncertainties of future demands. Therefore, I propose the final product stock control based on the safety stock level considered standard deviation as future uncertainties (Waters, 2002). Since the uncertainties in each month are different, the levels should be varied (Table 11). I assume that the main factor that affects to ice cream demand is weather including temperature. Thus the safety stock levels of each month are calculated by standard deviations of five months including before and after each two months. This method is not as safe as periodic review approach is. However, the approach can be reasonable because the risk of unexpected change of demand was controlled below 5%. 4.4 Aggregate Planning Based on sales forecast of each month (Table 12), I made an aggregate plan for Holly Farm in 2004 (Table 13). In order to meet all forecast demand without any big investment in its production line and to eliminate unnecessary stocks, I recommend them to take the policy of chase demand production (Waters, 2002) (Figure 5). While this is not only the best policy but also only one policy for the farm at the present time due to its capacity constraints, they have to operate carefully because it can be very  difficult to organise. By taking this policy, they can keep the stock level relatively low (Figure 6). 4.5 Cash Flow Analysis Basing on an assumption that Holly Farm has to pay 50% more money for overtime works of part-time workers than usual ones, I analysed cash flow of the farm ( Figure 5 Demand and Production in 2004 Figure 6 Stock Level Control Table 14). 14% of the total cash out,  £9,958/anum out of  £91,158/anum, will be spent for extra payment for overtime in 2004. Hence, the farm should start considering expanding the capacity its production line when the sales forecast comes true. Compared with the actual cash flow in 2003 and the cash flow forecast based on Gillian’s plan in 2004, the cash flow in 2004 will be relatively allocated among each month equally. Especially, even between January and May, there will be few negative cash flows ( Figure 7). The farm’s credit during the term can be improved. In terms of cash flow during the year, although the cash flow on my proposal is less than one on Gillian’s plan, the cash position will be better than one in 2003. 4.6 Break Even Analysis The profitability on my plan is not improved from 2003 result due to an increase in the percentage of the variable cost in the annual revenue. The main reason for the decreased profitability is the serious increase in extra payment for overtimes. While the break even point on my plan drops from 2003 result, the reason is a remarkable increase in total revenue in 2004. The margin of safety to unexpected decrease in total sales would be improved. The break even point on my plan is higher than one based on Gillian’s  optimistic plan. The reason is that Gillian assumed that they can increase farm shop sales with a  £1 margin per litre of ice cream and  £2 entrance fees (Table 15, Figure 8). However, as I mentioned in section 4.1.1, her forecast is unreliable. Therefore, the farm should withstand against the unprofitability in 2004 and should keep its growth strategy. Euromonitor plc. (2003) Euromonitor market research: Ice cream in the United Kingdom. London. Met Office (2003) UK Climate and Weather Statistics: 1971 – 2000 Averages [Online]. Available from: http://www.met-office.gov.uk/climate/uk/averages/19712000/areal/uk.html [Accessed 27th December 2003]. Office for National Statistic (2003) New Earnings Survey 2003 [Online]. Available from: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=5749 [Accessed 29th December 2003]. SMV Commercials of Yeovil (2003) SMV Commercials website: Vehicle rental [Online]. Available from: http://www.smvcommercials.co.uk/code/vehiclerental.asp?vehicle=13 [Accessed 28th December 2003]. Waters, D. (2002) Operations Management: Producing Goods and Services. 2nd edition. London, Prentice Hall. Williams, T. and Rathwell, G. (2001) Glossary: Enterprise Integration and Communications Systems [Online]. Last updated on 29th May 2001. Available from: http://www.pera.net/Tools/Glossary/Enterprise_Integration/Glossary_B.html [Accessed 27th December 2003].

Marketing 2 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Marketing 2 - Assignment Example g undertaken also they designed teaser campaign for the firm’s rebranding process also a graphic was released which showed the repealing of old and evolution of a new identity on ’01.01.01’ (date of launch)(Rebranding and Repositioning a global brand. 29 legal firms all around the world were coming up with marketing strategies and advertisements which repeatedly captured the rebranding of Andersen Consultancy and the idea that firm was evolving into a bigger and better place. Through this extensive research and massive marketing the firm transferred its brand equity from Andersen to Accenture which itself was derived from two words ‘assent’ and ‘future’, the idea of providing more and broader services than ever before. (Accenture) (Accenture, 2002) A. The shift in the Brand name as mentioned previously was a result of a legal decision which if not handled properly might have resulted in the collapse of a giant of that time. This rebranding was not a result of an innovation or anything. Criteria to evaluate the new brand name revolved around the question, that what innovation was the firm offering after this huge makeover. Business reengineering, Business Integration, Specialist in Technology, More and broader services, Masters in the field and Leaders of Future were the six agenda’s set by the firm at the time of rebranding. In the light of these criteria Accenture is the perfect fit for the company since its name in itself speaks of future and is innovative in nature too. The conversion was no less then reengineering and transforming the firm into a whole new platform, for people to look up to with a guarantee of receiving the best at their footsteps. (Accenture, 2002) A. Accenture used this opportunity of renaming itself to reposition the brand in a whole new dimension. While this process of repositioning was undertaken the company and its legal and marketing advisors kept this fact in mind that the services of consulting being performed by the

Multinational Corporation Expansion Research Paper

Multinational Corporation Expansion - Research Paper Example After examining the international market most favorable for expansion, Abercrombie and Fitch should consider entering the Brazilian market as this chosen market maintains national economic policy and market conditions that will provide A&F with considerable opportunities for revenue growth. The first dimension of international finance favorable for Abercrombie & Fitch in Brazil is the movement of financial institutions across international borders, including securities firms, banks and various investment companies. Brazil currently maintains an annual GDP growth rate of five percent annually, influenced by growth in financial institutions both domestic and related to foreign direct investment. Brazil maintains membership with a variety of economic institutions including Mercosur, G20, the World Trade Organization and the Cairns Group, giving the market more exposure in Europe as a viable market for financial investment and institutional development. High volumes of financial lenders and a strong stock market provide economic sustainability that provides for commercial business development and support from governmental leadership. The only legitimate risk in this dimension is that the majority of investment institutions stem from foreign markets and are not being developed by domestic financial institutions that would not be reliant on significant exchange rate differences that impact pricing for exported products. Secondly, Brazil has positive movement of capital across its borders triggered by rising interest in foreign direct investment into Brazil. The International Monetary Fund identified billions of dollars of investment moving into Brazil, including derivatives and new corporate capital development projects. The growth in capital movements into Brazil provide for a more enhanced distribution and supply infrastructure that will benefit Abercrombie and Fitch in relation to marketing expenses and retail center distribution. The risk in this dimension of int ernational finance is that these improvements are private constructions not controlled by governmental regulators whereby a corporate pull-out of investment could limit the scope of infrastructure growth during a period where Brazil is working through a long-lasting economic recovery affecting domestic investment potential and opportunities. The third dimension of international finance relevant to Abercrombie is the regulatory system currently in place that guides economic policy. In the 1990s, Brazil was plagued with considerable inflation (approximately 15 percent annually) that caused a supplementary increase in utility costs, fuel and oil costs, and up to 25 percent interest on corporate and personal credit cards (Selva, 2010). The government has been more adept in recent years at changing index prices and employee wages as well as a variety of consumer price freezes to stimulate spending (Selva, 2010). Continuing governmental influence in economic policy and monetary stimulatio n tactics have reduced risks of ongoing inflation on the consumer price index that will provide A&F with a more stable consumer market where real wages are in-line with expectations for a consumer price index equalized with real GDP. The risk to this dimension of international finance is that not all efforts to curb inflation in certain supply sectors has been achieved, thus adding potential burden to supply budgets in a price-inflated value and supply chain. Brazil is currently the eighth largest economy

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In an attachment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

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What the Arab States Can Do To Help Bring About Perpetual Peace Term Paper

What the Arab States Can Do To Help Bring About Perpetual Peace between Israel and the Palestinians - Term Paper Example Sadly, continued state of war is what brings Palestinians together and so they consider war to be the safer choice as opposed to perpetual peace. The Palestinian leadership has remained strong to demands they are sure will never be acceptable to Israel because they believe that negotiating peace with Israeli will probably end the Palestinian entity and it will disintegrate what holds the Palestinians together hence leading to loss of political control and cohesion. Therefore, according to Palestinian leadership, creating peace with Israel will only bring suffering to the Palestinians and so they feel safe with a perpetual state of war. 11 The rivalry between the Israeli and Palestinian has attracted the establishment of many agreements, but none has succeeded in bringing peace between the two states. Arguably, Israel and the Palestinians have mutually conflicting national interests, which are very difficult to be reconciled, and in both cases, these interests have a wide consensus. The Palestinian side focuses on an independent and autonomous state from which, it can establish a strategy aimed at eradicating Israel altogether, regain the East Jerusalem and eliminate all the settlements. On the contrary, Israeli’s side mainly stands against allowing Palestinian refugees to go back to their nation and division of Jerusalem. For this reason, Israel has been attacking and terrorizing Palestinians and killing innocent children. The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians seem to last for long especially after the failure of several peace interventions and this has attracted further research on how to terminate conflict and reconcile the two regions and specifically, what other Arab States can contribute to resolve the issue. A qualitative research methodology is conducted in assessing what Arab States should do to bring peace between Israel and Palestine. In this case, the proposal will utilize a review of

Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Assignment Example A Formal Vs. Informal Rulemaking (Administrative Law): This is a branch of law that oversees the bodies of government that are responsible for the administration. Government agencies that work under administrative capacity work as a branch of public law and deal with decision making arms of the government. Administrative law is different from legislative or judicial authority because it includes the power to create rules and regulations based on the statutes that legislative authorities put into effect. These bodies also have the power to grant licenses and permits, begin investigations and provide remedies to complaints, oversee the conduct of the business of government and issue orders to parties to comply with certain rules. Ad Substantial Rule Vs. Corrective Advertising Rule (Federal State Commission Advertising Rule) This is an independent agency of the government of the United States government. It is established by the federal state commission act. Its principal goal is the pr omotion of costomer protection and the prevention of anti- competitive business practice, for example, monopoly. The Environmental Impact Statement And The Threshold Requirements Thereof. (Environmental Law) Environmental laws are laws that act together with the goal of protecting the environment. The main objective is to ensure that the ecosystem is protected against both public and private actions that failed to take account of costs or harms imposed on the ecosystem Commercial And Noncommercial Speech (Constitutional Law) This deals with constitutions as they are set out the broad structure of government. Government entities and provisions providing for human rights and civil rights, which are part of some constitutions, are set out in the suitable sections. Business matters are likewise dealt with in the commercial law sector Answer The Following General Questions Constitutional Law: The Federal Government Main Constitutional Basis For Regulating Business Activities Is So Called Commerce Clause. In What Way Does The Commerce Clause Operate To Place A Restriction On States Authority To Regulate Business Activities? The commerce clause is an enumerated power listed in the constitution of the United States article 1 section 8 clause 3; it states that the USA congress has the power to regulate trade with overseas countries, and amid the several states, and with the Indian tribes. These three areas of comers are separate powers granted to the congress. The commerce clause is never referred to under terms but under the foreign commerce clause, the interstate commerce clause and the Indian commerce clause. Disagreements exist within the courts as to the range of powers granted to Congress by the Commerce Clause. The clause is usually paired with the necessary and proper clause; the combination is used to take a broad, expansive perspective of these powers. The effect varies according to the Supreme Court’s interpretation. The use of the clause to authorize federal control of economic powers has been limited. Consumer Credit Protection The Credit Card Industry Grew Significantly In The 1970s. Identify Four Key Problems That Resulted From This Growth In Terms Of Adversely Affecting Consumers’ Interests And What Remedial Federal Acts Did Congress Enact To Correct These Problems: The term "credit" means the

Critically discuss the centrality of anthropology to colonial Essay

Critically discuss the centrality of anthropology to colonial domination of africa through the lens of a positivists and imperialist approach to domination, rather than a critical and dialectical - Essay Example Imperialism and colonialism have been used interchangeably in defining the relationship between Africa and Britain. Brtisch Empire occupied many territories in Africa (Erickson & Murphy, 2008). European Colonial rule in Africa spans from the late 1800s up till the Second World War. Since the advent of the Europeans in Africa, anthropology has largely been seen from the perspective of the outsiders and the view that the colonial power was projecting across. Therefore, anthropology in Africa could not flourish to its complete entirety. In fact, anthropology in Africa greatly suffered as a result of the domination of the imperial powers. When anthropology of different cultures was started being studied in the late 1800s, Africa’s contribution to the economic system was not considered and therefore it remained largely untouched by anthropologists for a long period of time. There were no anthropological researches conducted in Africa up till the Second World War. When anthropologis ts started conducting cultural studies in Africa, there methods were largely criticized at not being reliable and comprehensive enough. Thus, anthropology in Africa could not receive its due share of research. The development of anthropology in Africa during the Colonial rule was also undermined due to the image projected by the colonizers abroad. European contact was taken as a representation of Africa (Wehrs, 2008). Child pornography and the publicity of the extremely dire economic circumstances the African community was afflicted with, like poverty, lack of infrastructure etc. had an adverse effect on anthropological studies. Another reason that influenced the development of anthropology in Africa is due to the projection by the Europeans about the illiteracy and savagery of the Africans. Post-colonial rehabilitation of anthropology hence becomes difficult. This is partly because Africa still remains undeveloped and can not debunk the stigmatized

Morality as Anti-Nature Essay Example for Free

Morality as Anti-Nature Essay Friedrich Nietzsche stands as one of the philosophers who tackled about the complexities of human existence and its condition. It is noteworthy to state that most of his works made several standpoints to what he refers to as the Ubermensch. The conception of such is designed to inspire the individual to substantiate his existence and rouse his self-overcoming and affirmative character. This can be said to arise from the idea of creating a self through the process of undergoing a destructive condition that enables the self to acquire greater power in relation to others. The development of such a self is dependent upon the recognition of the anti-naturalistic character of morality which he discusses in The Twilight of the Idols in the section entitled â€Å"Morality as Anti-Nature†. Within the aforementioned text, Nietzsche argues that morality hinders the individual from experiencing life as it limits an individual’s freewill thereby in the process leading to the creation of an individual who is incapable of life itself. He states, morality is a â€Å"revolt against life† (2006, p. 467). It is a revolt against life as it is based on the negation of an individual’s basic instinct to act freely in accordance to his passions. According to Nietzsche, this is evident in the case of Christian morality which places emphasis on the control of the passions. Within Christian morality, an individual who is incapable of controlling his passions is considered to be immoral as he is incapable of practicing restraint upon himself. Examples of this are evident if one considers that within Christian morality, to be saintly requires restraining one’s desires and hence one can only follow the path of Christ if one denies all of his desires, the denial of which involves the denial of all worldly things. He states, within the context of this morality â€Å"disciplining†¦has put the emphasis throughout the ages on eradication†¦but attacking the passions at the root means attacking life at the root: the practice of the church is inimical to life (Nietzsche, 2006, p. 66). The practice of the church, its imposition of morality contradicts the essence of life which is the actualization of an individual’s self since it delimits an individual to one particular kind of existence. For example, Christian morality has the Ten Commandments. If an individual follows these commandments, the individual’s spiritual life is ensured in the afterworld. Nietzsche argues that by following these commandments, the individual is at once delimited to one particular form of existence. This does not necessarily mean that Nietzsche applauds acts of murder; he is merely stating that by following moral rules and moral norms the individual is at once preventing himself from the experiencing a particular form of life and hence the actuality of life itself. It is important to note that by presenting a criticism of Christian moral values and moral values in general, Nietzsche does not necessarily prescribe an individual to follow his moral code. In fact one might state that Nietzsche does not possess a moral code. He states, Whenever we speak of values, we speak under the inspiration†¦of life: life forces us to establish values; life itself evaluates through us when we posit values†¦It follows from this that even that anti-nature of a morality which conceives God as the antithesis and condemnation of life is merely a value judgment on the part of life. (Nietzsche, 2006, p. 467) Within this context, Nietzsche recognizes that the anti-nature of morality is a value in itself. It differs however from a moral code since it does not delimit an individual by prescribing actions which he ought and ought not to follow. The importance of the anti-nature of morality lies in its emphasis on the affirmation of the individual. Within the text, Nietzsche claims, â€Å"morality in so far as it condemns†¦is a specific error†¦We seek our honour in being affirmative† (2006, p. 468). It is within this context that one may understand why for Nietzsche; the Ubermensch is an individual whose choices are dependent upon the ends justifying the means since to state that one performs a particular action since the means justifies the end is equivalent to performing a particular action since the act itself adheres to what a particular moral rule considers to be ‘good’. This is evident if one considers that in order for an individual S to consider Q a ‘good’ act wherein Q is good due to P and Q necessarily follows from P, it is necessary for P to be good within the context of a moral norm M. For example, a person may consider giving alms to the poor good since the act of giving alms itself is considered ‘good’ within the context of a particular moral norm. As opposed to the example mentioned above, the Ubermensch acts in accordance to what may be achieved by an act [the end of the act itself] since what the Ubermensch places emphasis on is the joy that may be achieved in the act itself. Alex MacIntyre states, â€Å"joy in the actual and active of every kind constitutes the fundamental end from which Nietzsche develops his critique of morality† (1999, p. 6). Although Nietzsche’s criticism of morality and its constraints upon an individual are valid, it is still impossible to conceive of a world wherein no morality is applied. Within the context of social reality, moral norms function to ensure order within society. Although laws may function by themselves to ensure the order of society, laws themselves are dependent upon a particular moral norm which the society adheres to. References McIntyre, A. (1997). The Sovereignty of Joy: Nietzsche’s Vision of Grand Politics. Toronto: U of Toronto P. Nietzsche, F. (2006). Morality as Anti-Nature. The Nietzsche Reader. Eds. K. Ansell-Pearson D. Large. London: Wiley-Blackwell.

The main ideas presented in Rouenby May Wedderburn Cannan Essay Example for Free

The main ideas presented in Rouenby May Wedderburn Cannan Essay Explore the main ideas presented in Rouen. How effective is it in exploring ideas about the First World War? Consider the structure, imagery and language. There are various key ideas that have been presented in Rouen by May Wedderburn Cannan. She has made a great use of different literary devices to describe her realities of war on the frontline whilst she worked as a VAD nursing injured soldiers. Regarding its wider use in exploring ideas about the First World War; it is a primary source and is about her experiences and the feelings that she had undertaken. Therefore we have first-hand evidence to use to compare and contrast against other poetry of the time. Wedderburn Cannan makes great use of nature and environment to describe and illustrate what she had experienced. She starts firstly by describing her transition to getting to Rouen and then speaks of all the young men with their heart breaking mirth; here she describes them as if they are all having fun and enjoying their comradeship. Thereafter she juxtaposes this idea with the train full of wounded who are being transported away due to the travesty presented thenceforth in Rouen. Men who came from darkness and went back to dark again the continuous work that they had only ended once they had passed. This shows that the sheer realities of death were omnipresent in her service as a VAD. She also makes reference to the King, bugles and our island although not to remember and be proud of them although to forget the eveningswhilst the world slips slow to darkness. Finally, she ends on the note that her heart goes out to Rouen and the trains that go from there. The language that Cannan uses within the poem is very emotive and she makes connotations with different things to help us feel what she is going through. For example the voices of the Indians from this quote we can see a deeper understanding into her ideas about World War One. She also constantly repeats and for effect and to act as a list that the idea of there being neverending problems with the sufferings of the men. This is repeated for every stanza except the last and it could also be seen as a way of her being overwhelmed by the situation emotionally and she just goes on letting it all out. The structure remains extremely mechanical and static throughout with thirteen quatrains; this is primarily extremely unusual for a poem and goes with the idea that she has become repetitive. I think that this fits in with the idea that she feels emotionally overwhelmed and thus due to this, she keeps on with this release in chunks. The poem hasnt been blurted out although it has been well thought and written showing that she must be from a well-educated background such as VADs had been. In Rouen, the persona seems to feels a sense of questioning and disillusionment for the purposes of the war. And the agony and splendour when they stood to save the King?. This shows the feelings that they had towards the War and the leaders who were making this siege in Rouen with such bloodshed. To conclude, I believe that Rouen is a good and effective source to use in order to explore the events of the First World War for women VADs such as Wedderburn Cannan on the warfront such as in the city of Rouen. The language and structure link well with her having a rather mechanical style of writing and that idea that she has become emotionally drained and overwhelmed; and that as an educated lady she has no other way to recapitulate these feelings.

Techniques of Spoofing Attacks

Techniques of Spoofing Attacks Spoofing is sending fake address of a transmission to gain entry which is illegal into a secure system. It is creates fake responses or signals in order to keep the session alive and prevent timeouts. It captures, alters, re-transmits a communication stream that can mislead the recipient. Hackers use it to refer especially to the TCP/IP packets of addresses in order to disguise a trusted machine. The term spoofing has spread all over the world. The term spoofing refers to stealing the passwords and personal information of a particular person from the internet. The word spoof came into existence by the British comedian Arthur Roberts in 1852.In the 19th century, Arthur Roberts invented the game spoof and thus the name. This game had the use of tricks and non-sense. The first recorded reference to this game in 1884 refers to its revival. Very soon the word spoof took on the general sense of nonsense and trickery. The word spoof was first recorded in 1889.[4] TYPES: Types of Spoofing covered are as follows: 1. E-Mail Spoofing 2. Caller ID Spoofing 3. SMS Spoofing 4. Website Spoofing 5. DLL Spoofing 6. IP Spoofing 1.1.1 Definitions: 1) E-Mail Spoofing: Basically email spoofing is of the type in which the sender address and other parts of the email are altered so that it appears as if it is sent from a different source 2) Caller id Spoofing: Caller id is the way of making fake calls to other people wherein the number of the sender appears as if he/she is calling from another number. 3) SMS Spoofing: SMS Spoofing allows us to change the name or number of the text messages appear to come from. 4) Website Spoofing: Website Spoofing is a method of misleading the people or perhaps the readers that the website has been made by some other organization or by some other known person. 5) DLL Spoofing: DLL code runs in the context of its host program, it inherits the full capabilities of the programs user with spoofing. 6) IP Spoofing: IP spoofing is the way in which the sender gets unauthorized access to a computer or a network by making it appear that a certain message has come from a trusted machine by spoofing the IP address of that machine. SECTION 2 EMAIL SPOOFING 2.1 INTRODUCTION: This is considered to be one of the most used techniques of spammers and hackers. They spoof their return e-mail addresses. That makes it look as if the mail has come from some other person. This is a form of identity theft, as the person who sends the email acts to be someone else in order to distract the recipient to do something. 2.2 OBJECTIVE: The objective of spoofed mail is to hide the real identity of the sender. This can be done because the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) does not require authentication. A sender can use a fictitious return address or a valid address that belongs to someone else. The mails that are spoofed can be very annoying, irritating and at times dangerous. Having your own address spoofed can be even worse. If the sender or probably the hacker uses our address as the return address, then our inbox may fill with receivers complaints as well as they might report us in the spammers as well. This type of spoofing can be very dangerous. 2.3 MOTIVES: These might be the possible motives of an attacker: 1. This is spam and the person who sends doesnt want to be subjected to anti-spam laws 2. The e-mail constitutes threatening or harassing or some other violation of laws. 3. The e-mail contains a virus or Trojan and the sender believes you are more likely to open it if it appears to be from someone you know 4. The e-mail requests information that you might be willing to give to the person the sender is pretending to be, as part of a social engineering. 2.4 PHISHING: Phishing is associated with Email spoofing. Phishing is the practice of attempting to obtain users credit card or online banking information, often incorporates e-mail spoofing. For example, a phisher may send e-mail that looks as if it comes from the banks or credit cards administrative department, asking the user to log onto a Web page and enter passwords, account numbers, and other personal information. Thereby obtaining the users confidential information.[2] 2.5 WORKING: This is the most easily detected form, in e-mail spoofing it simply sets the display name or from field of outgoing messages to show a name or address other than the actual one from which the message is sent. Most POP e-mail clients allow you to change the text displayed in this field to whatever you want. For example, when you set up a mail account in Outlook Express, you are asked to enter a display name, which can be anything you want, as shown in Figure 2.1. Fig 2.1:ÂÂ  Setting the display name in your e-mail client The name that we set will be displayed in the recipients mail program as the person from whom the mail was sent. We can type anything you like in the field on the following page that asks for your e-mail address. These fields are separate from the field where you enter your account name assigned to you by your ISP. Figure 2.2 shows what the recipient sees in the From field of an e-mail client such as Outlook. Fig.2.2ÂÂ  The recipient sees whatever information you entered When this simplistic method is used, you can tell where the mail originated (for example that it didÂÂ  notÂÂ  come from thewhitehouse.com) by checking the actual mail headers. Many e-mail clients dont show these by default. In Outlook, open the message and then clickÂÂ  View | OptionsÂÂ  to see the headers, as shown in Figure 2.3. Fig 2.3:ÂÂ  Viewing the e-mail headers In this example, you can see that the message actually originated from a computer named XDREAM and was sent from the mail.augustmail.com SMTP server. 2.6 PREVENTIVE MEASURES: Although legislation may help to deter some spoofing, most agree that it is a technological problem that requires a technological solution. One way to control spoofing is to use a mechanism that will authenticate or verify the origins of each e-mail message. The Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is an emerging standard by which the owners of domains identify their outgoing mail servers in DNS, and then SMTP servers can check the addresses in the mail headers against that information to determine whether a message contains a spoofed address. The downside is that mail system administrators have to take specific action to publish SPF records for their domains. Users need to implement Simple Authentication and Security Layer (SASL) SMTP for sending mail. Once this is accomplished, administrators can set their domains so that unauthenticated mail sent from them will fail, and the domains name cant be forged. SECTION 3 CALLER ID SPOOFING 3.1. INTRODUCTION: This type of spoofing is all about changing the Caller ID to show any desired unidentifiable number on the persons caller id who receives the call [1]. Caller id spoofing is a way of calling someone without them knowing who actually the person is, by hiding the phone number from their caller id. It is also known as the practice of causing the telephone network to display a number on the recipientsÂÂ  Caller id displayÂÂ  which is not that of the actual originating station. Just asÂÂ  e-mail spoofingÂÂ  can make it appear that a message came from any e-mail address the sender chooses, Caller ID spoofing can make a call appear to have come from any phone number the caller wishes. Because of the high trust people tend to have in the Caller ID system; spoofing can call the systems value into question hence creating problems for various parties associated with it. NAMES OF COMPANIES THAT PROVIDE THE CALLER ID SPOOFING FEATURE: SpoofCard Phone Gangster StealthCard TeleSpoof 3.2 WAY TO MAKE TEXT DISPLAY ON CALLER ID DISPLAY: With the help of the Spoof Card, Stealth Card, TeleSpoof and many more we can make the text show up on the caller id display instead of number. We have to choose some text from the huge list of funny caller id text phrases and that text will be displayed as our phone number. Some texts are shown below in the image. Fig 3.1 Text that can be shown in the caller-id display 3.3 USES: Caller-id spoofing can be used in the following places: Doctor needing to disguise home number so that he doesnt get unwanted calls on his home number Worried spouse wanting to find the truth Calling back an unknown number to find out the unknown identity without revealing original number Hiding your location 3.4 METHOD: Caller ID can be spoofed in many different ways and with different well advanced technologies. The most popular ways of spoofing Caller ID are through the use ofÂÂ  VoIPÂÂ  orÂÂ  PRIÂÂ  lines. Other method is that of coping theÂÂ  Bell 202ÂÂ  FSKÂÂ  signal. This method, calledÂÂ  orange boxing, uses software that generates the audio signal which is then coupled to the telephone line during the call. The object is to deceive the called party into thinking that there is an incomingÂÂ  call waitingÂÂ  call from the spoofed number, when in fact there is no new incoming call. This technique often also involves an accomplice who may provide a secondary voice to complete the illusion of a call-waiting call. Because the orange box cannot truly spoof incoming caller ID prior to answer and relies to a certain extent on the guile of the caller, it is considered as much aÂÂ  social engineeringÂÂ  technique as a technical hack. 3.5 MOTIVES: Sometimes, caller-id spoofing may be justified. There are necessary reasons for modifying the caller ID sent with a call. These can be the possible places where caller-ids are spoofed: Calls that come from a large organization or company, particularly those companies that have many branches, sending the main number is a good option. Consider this example. A hospital might have the primary number 777-2000, and around 250 lines functioning inside the main building, and another 200 at the clinic that is located around 50 miles away. I t may happen that most of the numbers will be in the form of 777-200XX, but it might also happen that many of them have an unrelated and unidentifiable numbers. Therefore if we have all calls come from 777-2000, it lets the call recipients identify that the incoming call is a hospital call. Most of the calling-card companies display Caller IDs of the calling-card user to the call recipients. Many Business owners and dealers use Caller ID spoofing to display their business number on the Caller ID display when they are calling from a place outside the office premises (for example, on a mobile phone). Skype users have an option of assigning a Caller ID number for preventing their outgoing calls from being screened by the called party (Skype Caller ID in the USA is 000123456). Google application Google VoiceÂÂ  displays its users Google Voice number when the users make calls from the service using their landline numbers or mobile phones. Gizmo5ÂÂ  sends the users Gizmo5 SIP number as outbound Caller ID on all calls. Because Gizmo5 IDs are in the format 747NXXXXXX, it is possible to confuse calls made from Gizmo5 with calls made fromÂÂ  area code 747. Fig 3.2. Software for Caller id Spoofing SECTION 4 SMS SPOOFING 4.1 INTRODUCTION: SMS Spoofing allows us to change the name or number of the text messages a recipient would appear to receive. It replaces the number from which the text message is received with alphanumeric text. This type of spoofing has both legitimate and illegitimate applications. The legitimate manner would be setting your name or company name or the product name for or from which the text message is sent. So thereby the text message received will display the name or the company name or the product name and the purpose in the case for e.g. a product (publicising it) would thus be served. The illegitimate way would be when a person or a company would use the name of some other person or name or a product with the intentions of causing losses to the concerned. 4.2 MOTIVES: SMS Spoofing takes place when the user from sending end changes the address information so as to conceal the original address from reaching the user at the receiver end. It is done mostly to impersonate a user who has roamed onto a foreign network, needs to be submitting messages to the home network. Generally these messages are addressed to destinations that are beyond the range of home network with the home SMSC (short messaging service centre) being hijacked hence causing messages to be sent to other network 4.3. IMPACTS: Following are the impacts of this activity: 1) Due to the hijacking of the home SMSC, The home network can bring in termination charges caused by the delivery of these messages to interconnect partners. This is termed as quantifiable revenue leakage. 2) These messages can be of concern to the partners involved. 3) It is possible that it comes under the notice of the customer that he is spammed and the message sent maybe of personal, financial or political importance to the concerned person. Therefore, there is a risk that the interconnect partners might threaten to stop the home network from functioning until and unless a suitable remedy is found and properly implemented. Hence, the consequence of this would be that the Home subscribers will be unable to send messages into these networks. 4) While fraudsters generally use spoofed-identities to send messages, there is a risk that these identities may match those of real home subscribers. This implies, that genuine subscribers may be billed for roaming messages they did not send and if this situation does arise, the integrity of the home operators billing will be under scrutiny, with potentially huge impact on the brand itself. This is a major churn risk. 4.4 USES: A person sends a SMS message from an online computer network for lower more competitive pricing, and for the ease of data entry from a full size console. They must spoof their own number in order to properly identify themselves. A sender does not have a mobile phone, and they need to send an SMS from a number that they have provided the receiver in advance as a means to activate an account. 4.5 THREATS: An SMS Spoofing attack is often first detected by an increase in the number of SMS errors encountered during a bill-run. These errors are caused by the spoofed subscriber identities. Operators can respond by blocking different source addresses in their Gateway-MSCs, but fraudsters can change addresses easily to by-pass these measures. If fraudsters move to using source addresses at a major interconnect partner, it may become unfeasible to block these addresses, due to the potential impact on normal interconnect services. SMS Spoofing is a serious threat to mobile operators on several fronts: 1. Mischarging subscribers. 2. Being charged interconnects fees by the hubs. 3. Blocking legitimate traffic in an effort to stop the spoofing. 4. Assigning highly trained and scarce resources to tackle the problem 4.6 EXAMPLES: Messages sent from Google are sent with the Sender ID Google. Skype sends messages from its users with the mobile number they registered with. Note that when a user attempts to reply to the SMS, the local system may or may not allow the replying message to be sent through to the spoofed origin. A user who does not have a mobile phone attempts to sign up for a Foxy tag account, which requires an SMS from a phone number that the user registers with. A dynamically assigned number from an anonymous SMS service will not work because the user is not given the dynamic number in advance to register with. Fig 4.1 this picture above shows the process of sms spoofing. SECTION 5 WEB SPOOFING 5.1 INTRODUCTION: Website spoofing is a type of spoofing which creates a website or web pages that are basically run with the intention to mislead users into believing that the particular website is created by a different group or a different person. Another form of website spoofing is creating false or fake websites that generally have the same appearance and layout as the original website and tricking people into sharing their personal or confidential information with the false Website. The fake websites can have a similar URL as well. Another technique associated with false URL is the use of Cloaked URL.This technique uses methods of domain redirection or URL forwarding which convincingly hides the address of the actual website. Website spoofing is often associated with Phishing. It can also be carried out with the intention of criticizing or making fun of the original website or the website developer or fraud as well.[3] 5.2 CONCEPT: So we can say that web spoofing basically enables an attacker/spoofer to create a shadow copy of the entire World Wide Web. Accesses to this fake Web are monitored through the attackers system, which helps the attacker to keep a watch on all of the victims web-activities. These activities include passwords and personal information (bank account numbers). It can also happen that in the victims name, the attacker sends certain information to the web servers or send any kind of information to the victim in the name of any Web server. Basically, the spoofer controls everything The victim does on the Web. 5.3 CONSEQUENCES: As the spoofer or the attacker has complete control(observing capability as well as modifying capability) over any data that is transmitting from the victim to the web servers and also all the data transactions from the servers to the victim , the attacker can misuse this in many ways. Some of the misusing ways are surveillance and tampering. 5.3.1 Surveillance: The attacker can conveniently spy on the traffic, registering which pages and sites the victim visits or surfs as well as the content of those pages. For example, when the victim fills out a particular form on a particular site, the entered details are transmitted to a server. The attacker can record all these details, along with the response sent back by the server. And as we know, most of the on-line commerce is done using forms; this information can also give the attacker -the account passwords and other valuable data of the victim. This is highly dangerous. Surveillance can be carried out by the spoofer even if the victim has a so called secure connection to the web-server. So basically, even if the victims browser shows the secure-connection icon (usually an image of a lock or a key) . It can be possible that the attacker is still successful in his Surveillance. 5.3.2 Tampering: Surveillance is basically just observing and registering confidential data of the victim. The spoofer can also MODIFY any of the data that may be travelling in either direction between the victim and the servers. This is called Tampering. If there are any forms submitted by the victim to the web servers, the attacker can bring about changes in the data entered. For example, if a person is purchasing a certain product on-line, the spoofer can change the product details, product number, shipping address etc. The attacker can also change the data returned by a Web server, for example by inserting misleadingoffensive material to trick the victim or to cause problems between the victim and the server. Misleadingoffensive material to trick the victim or to cause problems between the victim and the server. 5.3.3 Using the Web: It is not really difficult to spoof the entire World Wide Web, even though it might seem to be difficult. The attacker does not really have to store all the contents of the Web. The Web in its entirety is available on-line; so the spoofers server just has to fetch the required page or pages from the real Web whenever it needs to provide a copy of that page on the false Web. 5.4 Working of the attack: For this attack to work, the main duty of the attacker is to sit between the victim and the rest of the Web. This arrangement of sitting between the victim and the web is called a man in the middle attack. 5.5 Method: One of the most frequently used methods for web spoofing is URL Rewriting. 5.5.1 Url Rewriting Once the attacker fetches the real document, the attacker rewrites all of the URLs in the document into the same special form by same spoofing technique. Then the attackers server provides the rewritten page to the victims browser. This is how URL rewriting is used for spoofing. 5.6 Protection: Web spoofing is one of the most dangerous and undetectable security attacks that can be carried out in the web-world today. But of course, there are certain preventive measures that can be taken: 5.6.1 Short-term protection: These are the steps to follow for short term protection: a) Disable JavaScript in your browser so the spoofer wont be able to hide the evidence of the attack; b) Your browsers location line should always be visible; c) Observe URLs displayed on your browsers location line, and make sure that the URLs always point to the server you think youre connected to. 5.6.2 Long-term protection: There is no fully satisfactory long-term solution to this problem. But few things that can be done: a) Changing browsers can help, so they always display the location line. But the users have to know how to recognise the correct URLs. b) Using improved Secured-connection indicators. Fig 5.1.The picture above gives an idea of how web spoofing is done SECTION 6 DLL SPOOFING Dynamic Link Libraries or DLL are software object modules, or libraries, linked into a program while it is running DLLs are a feature that allows programs to share common codes so as to help developers to make programs easily and efficiently.DLLs are extensively used in newer versions of Windows. Fig 6.1.This picture above is hardware id DLL 6.1 INTRODUCTION: DLL code runs in the context of its host program, it inherits the full capabilities of the programs user with spoofing. The DLL spoof causes a legitimate program to load a DLL with a Trojan horse instead of legitimate DLL. DLL spoofing can occur even if the legitimate DLL is beyond the attackers reach. Since when a program loads DLLs it searches through a sequence of directories looking for the required DLL. Spoofing occurs when the attacker succeeds in inserting the infected DLL-file in one of those directory in such a way that program finds it before it finds the legitimate DLL of the same name. Hence even if the file is write-protected or the attacker doesnt have access to the directory which contains the legitimate DLL then also he can attack the program. Whenever a user runs a program there occurs a linking algorithm which is used to find the file that holds the DLL. Usually it is the one with DLL suffix. Linking algorithm searches through three different categories: 1. Programs directory: It is the directory which holds programs file. 2. System directory: Contains a series of entries. As we have discussed earlier to spoof the user only needs to insert an infected or malicious DLL file into the working directory. If the infected DLL file has the same name as the legitimate DLL then the algorithm will link the fake DLL file to the otherwise trusted program. The infected DLL can then create a new process. It runs in the full capabilities of the user who runs the, it perform the task and request the original DLL file as asked by the user so as not to arouse suspicion. With the help of fake DLL the attacker can now do whatever task he want which is under the capabilities of the fake DLL. Among the three above mentioned directories, the program directory and the system directory are most vulnerable as the location is predefined. But in the case of working directory this task is hard to perform as the directory is set by the program only and hence its directory is unknown to the user. Fig 6.2 dependency walker 6.2. WORKING OF ATTACK: This is where the social engineering skills come into play. The attacker tries to convince the user to open a simple file. This simple file can be a image too and can be located at any remote place like http://. Now the victim (in this case our user) tries to open that file (in this case the image) through a preinstalled software on his machine like a image viewer. Now this image viewer is vulnerable by the binary planting attack. Now the image viewer may require a DLL file to load dynamically. As the full path name gas not been specified before hand, image viewer will give instructions to Microsoft Windows to search for the required DLL file in a particular order. Directories in order: Working directory The system directory The 16-bit system directory Windows directory Current directory Directories which are listed in PATH environment variables Usually Current directory is the directory in which the image viewer file is stored. Now the attacker has control over one of the directories which windows search for, and hence he will be able to place a malicious copy of the dll in that directory. In such a case the application will load and run the malicious DLL without verification. And now the attacker has gained full control of the affected machine, and now he will be able to perform all the unwanted actions on the machine such as hack into the existing account, create a new account, access important files on specific directories and more. In such a case web securities like firewall has become an essential instrument to block and prevent the downloading of such malicious files from a remote network location. 6.3 TARGETS: The easiest and the most obvious targets for DLL spoofing are the machines running on windows. As here the registry has not been properly updated with a safe-search order for loading DLLs. The safe-search order is not an issue for the PCs running on XP as there are few infectious program and registries which point to fake DLLs or the DLLs which do not even exist. Such program or entries are the real cause of spoofing in the case of XP. Trojans, web caches and email are some of the ways in which codes are placed in the file system. Since obviously having a misconfigured programs or the search path does not mean that the machine will start running malicious code. As we know this breach is more harmful then the DLL spoof as ordinary user can easily place malicious file in the current folder like in Shared Documents. So when another user with privileged rights opens the document in the same directory, then this directory will become the Current Directory for the machine it will search for the DLLs before the system directory and hence allowing the ordinary user to operate the machine with privileged rights. Now one may ask that simply placing the DLL in the shared directory or a web cache will not allow it to be loaded, for the DLLs to be loaded they must be kept in either of system directory, the application directory or a path provided by the application that tries to load the DLL. So the answer is that being able to write to system and application file space already implies administrator privileges so there would be no need for DLL spoofing. Hence it arises the need of online security against the spoofing and accessing to administrator privileges. Now one may ask that simply placing the DLL in the shared directory or a web cache will not allow it to be loaded, for the DLLs to be loaded they must be kept in either of system directory, the application directory or a path provided by the application that tries to load the DLL. So the answer is that being able to write to system and application file space already implies administrator privileges so there would be no need for DLL spoofing. Hence arises the need of online security against the spoofing and accessing to administrator privileges. 6.4 PROTECTION: Microsoft Windows install auxiliary services like FTP server, telnet and web server which are not critical. If those services which are not needed by the administrator are removed then the threat is reduced at once. Microsoft, which we already know seems to have greatest problem with spoofing, tries to solve this problem using their Microsoft Authenticode Certificates. Well Microsoft needs to update DLLs continuously as outdated DLL could be dangerous in this world of hackers.Now the question arises that how we know that this DLLs are updated. Microsoft solved this problem with Microsoft 2000, by digitally signing the drivers by Windows Hardware Quality Lab(WHQL) tests. The drivers that passed were given a Microsoft digital signature. As mentioned earlier, in the present time this signing is done with Microsoft Authenticode Certificates. An authorized signer is used for these purpose which is known as thwarted. In present time many designers came up with a variety of tamper resistance. They concluded that even though a particular approach may seem effective, only Microsoft would have the resources, scope and platform control to make it practical . Here are two concepts which contain handling of drivers: Protected Path: Specifically known as PVP (Protected Video Path) and PUMA (Protected User Mode Audio). These are the mechanism used to support DRM (Digital Rights Management) rules about safe content presentations. Protected Environment: It is a kernel mechanism to ensure that kernel-mode drivers are safe for protected contents. These drivers should be signed by Microsoft and must implement specific security functions. All the kernel-mode drivers should be signed to ensure there safe origin and also that they are not tampered with. New mechanisms like OCP (Output Content Protection) are used in the versions after Windows Vista. Though at higher level OCPs Protected Path and Protected Environment make sense but it includes great complexity, management process and supporting infrastructure. Also implementation of OCP means device drivers get numerous new security responsibilities. Going back to DLL, a new complexity is revocation. Authorization is not useful unless it can be revoked when a compromise is discovered. For this Microsoft runs a revocation infrastructure that distributes a Microsoft Global Revocation List to identify no longer authorized driver software. Software revocation is problematic because of potential effect on users who may suddenly be unable to play content through no fault of their own. So revocation is likely to occur well, only after updates are distributed. So we have seen that after all the measures used by Microsoft, there is a long window of content vulnerability SECTION 7 IP SPOOFING 7.1 INTRODUCTION: IP spoofing refers to the creation of Internet Protocol (IP) packets with a forged source IP address, called spoofing, with the p