Electronic Notice Board Software

Electronic Notice Board Software ENB project was created to modernise the classic means of communication through the pin and paperboard based communication to the more efficient and dynamic communication of general information to the students of the Bolton University. Student and faculty will get the timely information while they are walking around School office or in Labs. ENB will remind the student about the critical dates for the exams, social events, and warnings etc. It will positively affect the student behaviour towards the academic excellence and time management. ENB will decrease the rate of late assignments submission and absents among the students. ENB will decrease the workload of university management for printing and pasting the traditional paper based notice boards. ENB system will not require any additional hardware and it will be developed in the Microsoft Visual Basic .net Express Edition and Microsoft SQL server Database hence low cost of development and implementation. ENB will bring forth a positive change in the university environment. ENB project was created using the VB.NET and SQL database express editions, which are free of cost. Database is designed to ensure the efficiency of the software in the network environment. A survey was conducted on the sample of students to evaluate the potential of ENB to improve the overall communication in the campus. To ensure the successful implementation of the project the software was tested and evaluated in the campus environment. The final solution met all the basic requirements and also delivered some extra features. Further features and improvement can be added in the future. The report has the details of the ENB project from start to end, including the requirement analysis, background research, design, implementation, testing and evaluation stages. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Problem Definition During my time in university I have missed many recreational occasions and a couple of times I have missed important dates of final assignment submissions as I was miss informed about the dates. All these errors of misinformation made me realize the necessity of an electronics notice board. In the University of Bolton there are many problems, distinguish is between rumour and true information. At times dates are changed and change of plan is very poorly communicated to the students and faculty, which creates confusion. In case of an ENB students will have access to important announcements while walking around and have the benefit of being reminded several times a day. Currently university administration is using a Paper based notice board. A printed black and white poster is pasted on the notice board to announce university events. The method indeed consumes the administrative and clerical time of the university. Sometimes the change of dates is not timely announced, which provokes frustration among the students of the concerned disciplines. The ENB project was realised and envisaged based on the concept of improving the communication channels within the University campus among students and the faculty members. For example to announce the start of new semester a simple piece of paper is loosely pasted at the front door notice board of school office. Sometimes the fonts are not appropriate and the black ink prints are not very attractive and appealing to grab the real attention of the concerned students. So the students miss the critical information and often submit the final project or prepare for the final exams very close to the deadline. In my opinion irrespective of the students aptitude the fault might be at the universitys end. The ENB will effectively convey the key academic information to the students hence there will be great reduction in the late submission of the final projects and assignments. The ENB will play a powerful role at will increase the academic productive of the students. A notice board can be defined as Abulletin board(pinboard,pin boardornotice boardin British English) is a place where people can leave publicmessages [1] A Notice Board is a traditional tool for the dissemination of information in academic campuses. A traditional Notice board is made of a wooden frame with a soft central square of cork for pinning the papers of information for the students. Widespread adaptation of information technology has changed the traditional means of information dispersion. Electronic notice board is an innovative replacement for the traditional wood and cork notice boards. Due to the dynamic nature of the electronic notice board it has practical application in the corporate environment. Following are some of the case studies about the practical application of electronic notice board in both academic and corporate scenarios. Aim The project ENB aims to develop and implement application software that will disseminate the academic information in the network environment among the students and faculty members. The project ENB will open the new powerful channel of communication between university management and students. The solution will consist of a page server and client PCs as the notice boards. In the design phase I will focus on to simplifying the end user experience of using the ENB. End users will probably include members of admin staff. For the administrator it will be hassle free to upload the different formats of multimedia. There will be some quick templates to quickly upload the announcements. The ENB system first time configuration will be automatic therefore very easy. There must be server software on one end therefore the client side will automatically detect the server. In case of multiple page servers the ENB system will give options to connect. The ENB system will be Database driven hence it will take the minimal amount of network bandwidth. The ENB system will be network based therefore additional network optimization technology will be deployed to make it as fast as possible The system will be operated by Administrator and other staff to assist them in scheduling tasks for messages in the near future. Also an aim of the project is to develop the framework so that it is easy to extend in the future. Objectives The ENB system will be developed using the visual basic programming language and MS SQL SERVER database. I will focus on the following outcomes for the finished product. In order to satisfy the aim the following objectives need to be achieved: Deploying a software engineering methodology relevant to the ENB project Design a data model for ENB Design and develop an integrated system to query the data model Test and Evaluate the ENB against the requirements Minimum Requirements A prototype of an integrated framework for Electronic Notice Board system which can be informative and flexible. A prototype to input and store task commands. A prototype to input and store scheduled task commands. A prototype to input and transfer scheduled task to task command data. Enhancements A login system to provide security for the server application. View of Report of pending tasks for any date. View of Report of completed tasks for any date. Administrator prototype to add new users on database server. Administrator prototype to run client in Admin mode. Data bound schema to control scheduled tasks. Controlling the clients status active or inactive Input FIFO: First in First out. As task is set to client, it is executed straight away. Time Controlled pattern: Events are controlled by given time. Time can span to any number of minutes, hours or even days. Date Controlled pattern: Events are controlled by given Date. Time and date controlled pattern: combination of Time Controlled pattern and Date controlled pattern. Client Registration Data Primary Input Client Id, Client Name, Client Unique Id, Time of Registration, Date of Registration. Secondary Input Client State. Base Data (Client Data) Base table is basically a blueprint for all clients. (Primary Input) Record Id, Task Id, Task Command, Task Arguments (Additional input) Task in Time, Task in Date, Task State Scheduled Data It is same as Base Database. (Primary Input) Record Id, Task Id, Task Command, Task Arguments (Additional input) Task in Time, Task in Date, Task State Output For each task that is in current execution schema is grouped by registered users and are performed by clients on given time span. Scheduled tasks are placed in scheduler and on given time they are transferred to corresponding client(s) for execution. Requirements Analysis The purpose for this project is not to develop a system that can act as a notice board but to integrate and utilize data driven technology to accomplish complex tasks with ease without any additional hardware to display message. Integrated scheduling technology provides flexibility and automation. Orange valley systems are the market leader for marketing the ENB application for the business organizations Appendix WRITE IT IN END. A thorough analysis was conducted on the orange valley product. Basic idea for the ENB features was captured from the screen shots available from their website. In depth interviews were conducted with the students, friends, and the IT administrator staff. On collecting the requirement analysis data from the above research the following functional and non functional requirements were devised. Functional Requirements Add and edit tasks. Add and edit scheduled tasks. Add and remove tasks. Schedule tasks Display reports of tasks. Non Functional Requirements System must be easy to use and navigate. System should have a consistent interface. CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGIES Methodologies Communication is the lifeline of any social system. Success of any organization is directly related to the effectiveness for their communication systems. Academics are no exception for this. An effective campus communication system must be understood, credible, and practically utilized. Attributes about the campus communication In the year 1973 Mr. Anderson Jerry M presented his research papers at the Annual meeting of the Nebraska speech communication association. Title of the research papers were Improving the internal communication: A campus Quandary. Research papers were based on the formal interviews with the 90 interviewees. Each interview took 15 to 90 minutes. Interviewees were randomly selected persons of the campuses. Interviewees included the campus administrators, faculty, students, staff, alumni and trustees representing 30 post secondary institutions of different sizes. Past research data was also used to analyze the results of the research. The 1971-72 opinion research was based on an interview format designed to be open-ended to encourage respondents to call upon personal experience and ventilate feelings. The interviews unveiled the issues and anxieties regarding the campus communication. Two questions formed the basis for interviews, except in a few instances where a more structured questioning approach was necessitated to elicit more extended responses. Those two questions: From your perspective and experiences, how effective is communication on this campus? What, if anything, would you do to improve it? [2] Three general attitudes clearly emerged. The need for improved campus communication is among the most significant and pressing problems. When asked why, most answered that the functional operation of the campus was dependent upon communication effectiveness and it could be much improved, and internal effectiveness as perceived by those outside the campus would determine the level of future support. Recommendations for improvement were multiple, usually incomplete in development, and concluded with the statement that no clear solutions existed. Concern was expressed about the lack of sensitivity and attention to communication problems by those with the expertise to improve the situation and by others in positions to effect change. Opinion research drew the following conclusions. Research uncovered a strong need to improve the campus communication. Old faculty members were nostalgic about the good old days when they knew everybody in campus and always knew the important events Campus members realize the ultimate responsibility of communication lies on administration Administrator is frustrated about changing the campus communication. They dont understand the approach to the change. They themselves are confused on aligning their communication between deans and faculty. Faculty members and chairman were not happy with the unreasonable deadlines, dissemination of information in clusters, reactions to proposed policies. Communication denial and communication under load were the main concern of middle level management. Campus staff was concerned about the lack of confidence upon their colleagues due to surveillance and audit of their work. Information used to distort when passing down or up in the hierarchy of the organization. Traditional approaches were not working 20% of the sample showed their lack of interest for improving the campus communication. These were mostly the students and faculty members. Interviewees were most distrustful about the administrative communication behaviour especially lack of disclosure Solutions for improving the Campus Communication Communication had been improved using the technological advances. Providing informational announcement is on closed circuit television between classes had proven to be effective. The use of telephone answering services in offices during after hours, and as a message dissemination system for people to call and hear important recorded messages. Catalogues and bulletins and other information sources need be written with the sensitivity to readability. Departments or divisions, large institutions, should be encouraged to develop newsletters. Bulletin boards could be kept up to date and used more extensively I have chance to review the communication methods deployed by the UK universities. These are some general and specialise methods. News Kantor, Brian and Phil Lapsley Network News Transfer Protocol: A Proposed Standard for the Stream-Based Transmission of News. 1986. [3] Universities employ NNTP (network news transfer protocol) service named News as the official bulletin board. NNTP provides discussion forums for modules, programming languages and other both academic and non-academic topics. NNTP has also the application of a notice board where official announcements are posted. Students can access the news by any newsreader. Thunderbird email client and Tin are popular newsreader. Students are required to read the newsgroups on a regular basis as it is the main method of official communication between the school and students. It has been noticed in the recent years a falling trend of reading news among the university students. Email Universities provide everyone with an email account. Using email to communicate has several advantages. Email Communications are often more effective than printed direct mail. [4] Firstly email is a flexible system that by now has large amounts of web integration. Therefore people have flexibility in how to access their email account Secondly email is an accepted method of communication with people usually inspecting their email on a habitual basis and therefore messages be likely to get read. As a broader point, email is simply further widely used all-round. SIS The term SIS School Information System is used in some of the UK universities. SIS provides information on students, staff, modules, timetables, coursework and more. From the perspective of an undergraduate student, SIS provides access to the school timetables, modules information, and coursework results and is also used to facilitate the submission of electronic coursework. Module websites In most of the UK universities every module has its own WebPages. Modular group of pages can be accessed on adding codes in the official URL. These web pages typically include the outline of the module, lecture slides from each lecture, sample coursework, additional reading and information on the examination and assessment process for the module. [5] Wiki The simplest online database that could possibly work.[6] Universities have link to the WIKI. WIKI has rigorous information of how to and guides to using the facilities. The wiki provides plenty of helpful information and is frequently the first port of call for numerous students when students have a problem or desire information on the University facilities. University of Bolton has the WIKI. It also has new information that people are continuously adding. However until now nearly all of the edits have been through by staff or by a small selection of students. It has up till now to be fully embraced by undergraduate students with a small number of using it on a regular basis and barely any undergraduates contributing to it. VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) Mostly Uk Universities Library has a virtual learning environment which the universities developed in-house and launched in around 1996. Access to the environment is available through a web browser for both students and guests [7].The thought is to create a virtual campus online separated up into various buildings which house the different resources on offer. The quantity of information available varies from school to school and from module to module. For example the business school has a chat room, module information, lecture slides and past exam papers for a large number of their modules. The School of Computing however does not. This is most probably because all this information is available on the schools intranet. The VLE also provides quick access to searching Google, Oxford reference dictionary, Thesaurus.com, Institute and the library catalogue. Facebook Facebook is a social networking website analogous to MySpace. It was at first targeted at university students. The site was launched in 2004. It was primarily developed for student community of Harvard and extended to offer networks for other universities and ultimately opened membership to all and sundry in 2006. The idea is based around a series of networks, one for each university. In order to join the network one needs to use a valid email address for that institution (for instance, in order to join the University of Bolton network you require to use a @Bolton.ac.uk email address. You then have access to that networks features such as being able to view peoples profiles, joining groups and creating and replying to event invitations. Facebook is amazingly popular with students, claiming a penetration rate of 85% among US college students. Facebook also achieves very high levels of user retention. Over 50% of its user base visits the site every day [8] and on average each user view s 50 pages of the site per day. The main problem with Facebook from the perspective of the school is that is it not managed by the Institution and the Institution has no control over it. The school has no effective way to utilise Facebook to communicate with students as it does not have control over the School of Computing group on Facebook and only a minority of the staff are registered on the site. A more elemental problem is that Facebook is a social networking website intended for students and was not intended to be used for academic activities or to be utilised by academic institutions. Conclusion In the universities of UK current methods of campus communication do not seem to be engaging the students. Declining use of the News and other web based IT platform shows that students information needs are not met. Facebook is very popular but Universities have no control on it. Therefore it would appear to the Universities requirement to deal with these problems either by upgrading their existing systems or adopting a new system in order to engage students more and meet the new level of expectations of the students. CHAPTER 3 BACKGROUND RESEARCH Background Reading Software Engineering Methodologies A methodology is a structured approach to design and develop the software, hence reducing the chances of software project failure. Methodology provides a recommendation of a series of steps to be followed [9]. There are number of software development methodologies. The selection of the methodology depends on the scoop and complexity of the project. Some of the famous methodologies are Waterfall Model which is also described classical model [10]. The Spiral Model was introduced to replace the Waterfall Model [4]. The Spiral model is being criticised for its rigidity. The Rapid Application Development (RAD) methodology became popular in the early 1990s due to the perceived deficiencies of the traditional waterfall approach [11]. RAD is ideal for the projects where requirements may change during or after the development.RAD has advantage on other methodologies to save the time required for development. Prototyping is another methodology in which developer builds an application from the requirements. There are two types of prototyping methodologies evolutionary prototyping and throwaway prototyping. It is important to decide in advance the selection for the type of prototyping methodology [12]. After a thorough analysis it seems that no single methodology is suitable for the ENB project. Chosen methodology will be explained in the following section. Chosen Methodology It has been decided after reviewing the common methodologies, it seems appropriate to select the Evolutionary prototyping methodology for the ENB project. RAD will be used to develop the required features of the ENB software. Using an only the approach of RAD will lead to the errors and the prototyping will allow correcting the errors. Prototyping has the four main stages. Identification of the requirements. Development of a prototype system. Review the prototype. Revisions and enhancements of the Prototype. Prototyping typing will allow the development of the certain module of the project. Even if the whole project is not developed, there will be basic system to be developed further in the future. For example server side application will be developed with all requirements of scheduling, the tasks and defining the users rights. The client application will be developed afterwards. Client application will have support for the features of the server. On the user evaluation the further features will be added on the server side. RAD will be used on each phase of the development therefore the client server applications will be developed rapidly. RAD will be used within each phase of development, so the Time Controlled pattern / Date Controlled pattern Input task will be developed rapidly. Similarly the other aspects will be developed like this and will together form the overall framework, which will develop as an evolutionary prototype. Each aspect of the system will be developed using a RAD approach and then modified, this will include the database development, the input component and the output component. The evolutionary prototype will allow for any bugs to be corrected during the development instead of detecting and correcting them during the testing phase. Tools and Applications Database Systems The system involves the use of a lot of information, some which will be needed several times and the most appropriate form of storage of this data is in a database. This will allow data to be saved from input to the system and retrieved to be used by the system. As an important aspect of this project is use of Time Control System. In this section several databases are reviewed for their suitability to this project. Microsoft Access Microsoft Access is Bundles of RDBS with the Microsoft Office. MS Access is widely spread on the windows based PCs. It is dependent on the windows environment therefore it cant be deployed on the Linux or UNIX environment. MS access has a GUI, Which facilitates creating the database tables and their relations, queries, forms and reports. MS Access is one of the best selling databases and it has a lot of support available from Microsoft and this is likely to remain so in the future [13]. MS access has disadvantages. It has data limit of 2GB. It is not ideal to use on the network. MS access has lax security measures to prevent the unauthorized access. These disadvantages would be an issue for this project as the system is likely to be accessed by a multiple users at a time and multimedia files will be run on it, it is very likely to exceed 2GB in size. There is a possible security risk of an MS Access database due to it being stored as a single file if un-trusted sources gain access to the folder it is contained in [14]. Most important drawback of MS Access is that lack of network support. ENB is totally depending on Network environment for communication which is by no means supported by MS Access. MS SQL Server MS SQL Server has been developed by Microsoft and it is their more expensive but more robust alternative to MS Access. MS SQL Server is more commonly used by businesses for small to medium sized databases. MS SQL Server is a high performance database with a bundle of functionality and it also has built in security features for LAN/WAN and web environment. There are free express versions of MS SQL Server that can be downloaded for free, however free versions offer less in functionality [15]. MS SQL Server utilizes Transact-SQL as its primary query language. MS SQL Server allows procedures to be stored within the database comparable to MS Access queries. This reduces load on the network bandwidth because only the variables are sent to the data along with the related procedures to be executed not the entire queries. This method is useful for the regular database queries. The method also protects the database from the injection attacks [16]. Sql server has the following disadvantages. It can only work on Windows environment Professional and Enterprise editions has costly license fee As far the ENB project the Enterprise edition is not required. MySQL MySQL is free open source relational database management system. MySQL is the most popular open source database due to its high performance [17]. MySQL has compatibility with any operating system including Linux, UNIX, Mac and Windows. It can also handle large amounts of data and provides security through user authorization and access privileges [18]. MySQL was designed to use on the internet, due to the high performance and very advance features MySQL is a favourite database for the desktop applications. A disadvantage of MySQL is that it is not ideal to set foreign key references [19]. PostgreSQL PostgreSQL is also an open source RDBMS, it is a platform independent database management system analogous to MySQL, however it has more advance features such as triggers. On implementing all features PostgreSQL performance is slower as compare to MySQL. PostgreSQL is the database of many high profile applications such as Skype and Hi5.com. PostgreSQL database design is more complex than MySQL. Performance of PostgreSQL is relatively slow [19]. Chosen Database Management System On reviewing the above database systems the following analysis are being concluded. Ms Access has been discarded from the selection list. It has no support for the network environment. Due to the network oriented nature of the ENB project the network performance is the core issue. Network performance cant be compromised. It will jeopardize the overall functionality of the project during the network load times. PostgreSQL has similar feature as MySQL. Both are discarded on the grounds of limited GUI support for development and maintenance. Both are not closely integrated with MS VB.Net. MS SQL server 2008 Express editions has been decided to be used as database platform for the ENB project. SQL Server 2008 Express is a correct choice for project to include Multimedia database services. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 is a relational model database server produced by Microsoft. Its primary query languages are T-SQL and ANSI SQL. Due to the limited scoop of the ENB application I will use MS SQL Express Edition. Microsoft SQL Server Express is available at no cost. SQL Server Express edition relational database management system, comprises a database is limited for embedded and smaller-scale applications. Database engine is limited to receive work from a small number of users. It has several technical limitations; therefore it cant be deployed in the enterprise environment. Maximum database size of 4 GB per database. The 4 GB limit applies per database (log files excluded); but in some scenarios users can access more data through the use of multiple interconnected databases. It has the several advantages. The advantages are listed in the following lines. Its free of cost SQL server express edition has all the features required for my ENB project. SQL server express edition has Management studio. Limited support for multiple clients on LAN. SQL management studio will simplify the management and maintenance of the ENB database. Most of the IT technician and administrators are well versed with the MS SQL server. GUI tools will allow administrator to easily troubleshoot the common database issues. Main reason for selecting the SQL server is the TCP/IP pipes. TCP/IP pipes technology is very efficient on network as compare to the traditional TCP/IP packets. Programming Environments An appropriate programming environment is required for the system development. The programming tool must be capable to develop the graphical user interface to display the understandable output to the end user. In the ENB project the end user will the system administrator. It has been selected that MS SQL Server will be used to store the Database so the Programming tool must be able to interact with the MS SQL database. The chosen language should include support for object-oriented implementations. Booch (1998) stated Each object can be viewed as an independent little machine with a distinct role or responsibility [20]. Objected oriented language would allow efficient data parsing. The development in the high level programming tool is simpler than coding in the low level programming environment. Indeed high level programming tool reduces the cost of development as well the time spent on coding. Some of the programming environments are analyzed in the detail. Java Java is an object oriented programming language, developed by Sun Microsystems [21]. Java is a well accepted high-level language. ICN students study java during the firs

Dangers of Social Networking Sites Essay -- Social Networking

Is the current craze of these ubiquitous social networking sites becoming too much to handle? Some say yes, others might disagree. Social networking was created to connect friends and family together. Now, many predators use sites such as Facebook or Myspace to find their prey. This is the source of what parents are stressing about to their children. While many who use social media are enjoying meeting new people, they are also becoming distant from contact with real people and they are involved in a very surprising and dangerous environment. Around 2005, Myspace and Facebook were popping up on many computer screens; they allowed people to create a profile and share everything about themselves to the whole world. When social sites first were developed, they only linked people by their name and address. Since sites such as Xanga, Tagged, and Facebook were gaining so much popularity, more users were logging on, and online predators are becoming a problem. These sites are so easy, that it is not that hard for predators to â€Å"pose† as another person and trick young adults. It is extremely difficult to differentiate the real person that you are looking for from a fake. Young adults claim that social networks can help them connect with their friends and family, and also â€Å"meet like-minded people† ( Metz, par. 1). In some cases, business people such as Ron West, claim that he uses Facebook â€Å"to become acquainted with new customers†( par. 8). Yes, these types of websites are great tools to stay in touch with old classmatesand faraway family members. It is a great source of communication, but there is always a con to every pro. Even though users are connecting with others, users of social networks never know exact... ...r stepsister Jordan. She boarded a plane to the Middle East not knowing what to expect. Of course her parents had figured out, and sent the police to come after Katherine. Katherine had put herself into a dangerous situation because she was getting engaged to a person that she had met on Myspace! She had never even met Abdullah before. A lesson that she should have learned when she was young, was to never speak to strangers. Social networking is becoming increasingly popular which creates more users. These sites contribute to people having faux emotions and more danger also arises. Do users of these sites want to put themselves in dangerous situations like Megan or Katherine? Or do they want to build up a strong relationship with someone and be crushed because it was never real. So be careful when social media is unexpected and dangerous.

The Necessity Of Computer Security

When the first electronic computers emerged from university and military laboratories in the late 1940s and early 1950s, visionaries proclaimed them the harbingers of a second industrial revolution that would transform business, government and industry. But few laymen, even if they were aware of the machines, could see the connection. Experts too, were sceptical. Not only were computers huge, expensive, one-of-a-kind devices designed for performing abstruse scientific and military calculations, such as cracking codes and calculations missile trajectories, they were also extremely difficult to handle. Now, it is clear that computers are not only here to stay, but they have a profound effect on society as well. As John McCarthy, Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, speculated in 1966: â€Å"The computer gives signs of becoming the contemporary counterpart of the steam engine that brought on the industrial revolution – one that is still gathering momentum and whose true nature had yet to be seen. † Today’s applications of computers are vast. They are used to run ordinary household appliances such as televisions and microwaves, to being tools in the workplaces through word processing, spreadsheets, and graphics software, to unning monumental tasks such as being the heart and soul of the nations tax processing department, and managing the project timetables of the Space Shuttle. It is obvious that the computer is now and always will be inexorably linked to our lives, and we have no choice but to accept this technology and learn how to harness its total potential. With any progressing technology, an unauthorized application can almost be found for it. A computer could and has been used for theft and fraud – for example, as a database and manager of illegal activities such as drug trafficking and pornography. However, we must not just consider the harmful applications of the computer, but also take into account the good that they have caused. When society embraced the computer technology, we have to treat this as an extension of what we already have at hand. This means that some problems that we had before the computer era may also arise now, in the form where computers are an accessory to a crime. One of the problems that society has faced ever since the dawn of civilization is privacy. The issue of privacy on the Internet has risen many arguments for and against having it. The issue of privacy has gotten to the oint where the government of the United States has placed a bill promoting a single chip to encrypt all private material on the Internet. Why is privacy so important? Hiding confidential material from intruders does not necessarily mean that what we keep secret it illegal. Since ancient times, people have trusted couriers to carry their messages. We seal out messages in a envelope when sending mail through the postal service. Using computer and encrypting programs to transfer electronic messages securely is not different from sending a letter the old-fashioned way. This paper will examine he modern methods of encrypting messages and analyse why Phil Zimmerman created an extremely powerful civilian encipherment program, called the PGP, for â€Å"Pretty Good Privacy. In particular, by focusing on cryptography, which was originally intended for military use, this paper will examine just how easy it is to conclude why giving civilians a military-grade encrypting program such as the PGP may be dangerous to national security. Therefore, with any type of new technology, this paper will argue that the application of cryptography for civilian purposes is not just a right, but is also a necessity. Increasingly in today’s era of computer technology, not only banks but also businesses and government agencies are turning to encryption. Computer security experts consider it best and most practical way to protect computer data from unauthorized disclosure when transmitted and even when stored on a disk, tape, of the magnetic strip of a credit card. Two encryption systems have led the way in the modern era. One is the single-key system, in which data is both encrypted and decrypted with the same key, a sequence of eight numbers, each between 0 and 127. The other is a 2-key ystem; in this approach to cryptography, a pair of mathematically complementary keys, each containing as many as 200 digits, are used for encryptions and decryption. In contrast with ciphers of earlier generations, where security depended in part on concealing the algorithm, confidentiality of a computer encrypted message hinges solely on the secrecy of the keys. Each system is thought to encrypt a message so inscrutably that the step-by-step mathematical algorithms can be made public without compromising security. The single key system, named the Data Encryption Standard – DES for short — as designed in 1977 as the official method for protecting unclassified computer data in agencies of the American Federal government. Its evolution began in 1973 when the US National Bureau of Standards, responding to public concern about the confidentiality of computerized information outside military and diplomatic channels, invited the submission of data-encryption techniques as the first step towards an encryption scheme intended for public use. The method selected by the bureau as the DES was developed by IBM researchers. During encryption, the DES algorithm divides a message into blocks f eight characters, then enciphers them one after another. Under control of the key, the letters and numbers of each block are scrambled no fewer than 16 times, resulting in eight characters of ciphertext. As good as the DES is, obsolescence will almost certainly overtake it. The life span of encryption systems tends to be short; the older and more widely used a cipher is, the higher the potential payoff if it is cracked, and the greater the likelihood that someone has succeeded. An entirely different approach to encryption, called the 2-key or public- key system, simplifies the problem of key distribution and management. The approach to cryptography eliminates the need for subscribers to share keys that must be kept confidential. In a public-key system, each subscriber has a pair of keys. One of them is the so-called public key, which is freely available to anyone who wishes to communicate with its owner. The other is a secret key, known only to its owner. Though either key can be used to encipher or to decipher data encrypted with its mate, in most instances, the public key is employed for encoding, and the private key for decoding. Thus, anyone can send a secret message to anyone else by using the addressee’s public key to encrypt ts contents. But only the recipient of the message can make sense of it, since only that person has the private key. A public key cryptosystem is called the PGP, for Pretty Good Privacy. Designed by Phil Zimmerman, this program is freely distributed for the purpose of giving the public the knowledge that whatever communications they pass, they can be sure that it is practically unbreakable. PGP generates a public and private key for the user using the RSA technique. The data is then encrypted and decrypted with the IDEA algorithm – which is similar to the DES, but the work factor to decode the encrypted message by brute orce is much higher than what the DES could provide. The reason why the RSA is used only when generating the keys is that the RSA takes a very long time to encrypt an entire document, where using the RSA on the keys takes a mere fraction of the time. At this time, Zimmerman is bing charged by the US government for his effort in developing the PGP. The government considers encryption as a weapon, and they have established regulations controlling or prohibiting the export of munitions. Since the PGP is a powerful encryption program, it is considered and can be used as a powerful weapon and may be a threat to national security. On the Internet, it is clear that many people all over the world are against the US government’s effort on limiting the PGP’s encryption capabilities, and their reason is that the ban infringes on the people’s right to privacy. The PGP must not be treated only as a weapon, for it contains analogies that are not used in wartime. One of them is authentication. The two-key cryptosystem is designed with authentication in mind: Using someone’s public key to encrypt enables only the owner of the private key to decrypt the same message. In the real world, we use our own signature to prove out identity in signing heques or contracts. There exists retina scanners that check the blood vessels in out eyes, as well as fingerprint analysis devices. These use our physical characteristics to prove our identity. A digital signature generated by a public key cryptosystem is much harder to counterfeit because of the mathematics of factoring – which is an advantage over conventional methods of tests for out identity. Another analogy the PGP has with the real world is the need for security. Banks and corporations employ a trusted courier – in the form of an armoured truck or a guard – to transfer sensitive documents or valuables. However, this is expensive for civilian purposes, and the PGP provides the same or better security when securing civilian information. While many argue that limiting the PGP’s abilities are against the people’s right to privacy, the PGP must also be seen as a necessity as we enter the Information Age. There is currently little or no practical and inexpensive way to secure digital information for civilians, and the PGP is an answer to this problem. Computer privacy must not be treated differently than any other method to make private any documents. Rather, we must consider the computer as a tool and se it as an extension of society’s evolution. Clearly the techniques we employ for computer privacy such as encryption, secure transfers and authentication closely mirrors past efforts at privacy and non-criminal efforts. The government is putting more pressure against the distribution of PGP outside of the United States. One of their main reasons was that since it is freely distributed and thus can be modified in such a way that even the vast computational resources of the US government cannot break the PGP’s secured message. The government could now reason that the PGP can provide criminal rganizations a means of secure communications and storage of their activities, and thus make the law enforcement’s job much harder in tracking criminals down and proving them guilty. Also, we must never forget one of out basic human rights – one that many laid their lives for, is freedom. We have the freedom to do anything we wish that is within the law. The government is now attempting to pass a bill promoting a single algorithm to encrypt and decrypt all data that belongs to its citizens. A multitude of people around the world are opposed to this concept, arguing that it is against their freedom and their privacy.

Coming Of Age By Anne Moody - 1536 Words

The famous leader Martin Luther King once said, â€Å"Being a Negro in America means trying to smile when you want to cry. It means trying to hold on to physical life amid psychological death. It means the pain of watching your children grow up with clouds of inferiority in their mental skies. It means having their legs off, and then being condemned for being a cripple.† This quote pretty much summed up the way in which African Americans felt during the 1960’s. They had basically no meaning to life. They were irrelevant. Whites wanted no part in them. This was especially the case in the state of Mississippi. Anne Moody, writer of the autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi explains the importance of the civil rights movement in the state of Mississippi and the influence it had on her life and her viewpoint. Growing up as a poor African American in Mississippi was not always an easy, especially in the 1960’s. It was a time where everyone was segregated. Blacks and whites were treated completely different. They weren’t allowed to eat at the same restaurants, go into the same bathroom, or even drink from the same water fountain. Anne Moody did just that. As just a young girl being raised by extremely poor black family in the South, she personally experienced the difference between the lives of blacks and whites. She was growing up in the middle of the civil rights movement, where African American struggled everyday. At a very young age Moody became challenged by many instancesShow MoreRelatedAnne Moody s Coming Of Age1189 Words   |  5 PagesAnne Moody is the author of Coming of Age in Mississippi which was originally published in 1968. Anne Moody is a famous African American Mississippi author who was born in Wilkinson County, Mississippi on September 15, 1940. She was the eldest of nine children born to Fred and Elnire Moody. While growing up in Mississippi, Moody attended a segregated school where she was an outstanding scholar. Moody cleaned houses in order to keep food on the table and clothes on her family members’ backs. In 1961Read MoreAnne Moody s Coming Of Age881 Words   |  4 Pagesâ€Å"Moody, Anne. Coming of Age in Mississippi. New York: Dial, 1968. Print.† Anne Moody was a determined, educated, and an inspiring civil rights activist who was born in Gloster, Mississippi. Born on September 15th, 1940-passed away February 5th, 2015 Anne Moody dedicated her life to making the United States a better place for not only African American’s, but pleaded for equality amongst all races as well. Awarded best book of the year in 1969 by the National Library Association, Anne Moody writesRead MoreAnne Moody s Coming Of Age Essay1826 Words   |  8 PagesHIST278 Essay One - Joseph Malthus, 42863655 Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi is a story of a black girl growing up in the American Deep South during the development of the Civil Rights Movement. Moody notices the racism that envelops her life and attempts to understand why it exists, despite the absence of reasonable grounding. Suffocating under the restrictions and fear caused by systematic racism, she ultimately decides to become an activist, and takes an active role in demanding equalityRead MoreAnne Moody Coming Of Age In Mississippi1626 Words   |  7 PagesAnne Moody’s autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, depicts the various stages of her life from childhood, to high school, then to college, and ends with her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. In the novel, Anne tells the reader her story through events, conversations, and emotional struggles. The reader can interpret various elements of cultural knowledge that Anne Moody learned from her family and community as a child. Her under standing of the culture and race relations of the timeRead MoreAnne Moody s Coming Of Age Essay1088 Words   |  5 PagesAnne Moody, a black activist in the twentieth century, wrote an autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, which illustrated how life was like growing up poor and black in the rural south. She wrote in details of her life living in the racist society and what it meant to be black in the South twentieth century. Readers were able to understand her personal thoughts as well as her memories of the fight growing up in the south and her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. Moody grew up with aRead MoreAnne Moody s Coming Of Age897 Words   |  4 PagesIn the story, Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi, Anne known as Essie Mae found out the meaning of racism at a young age and also see or heard what whites do to black people if they did not like what they was doing. She did not know that whites and blacks had their own place to sit and eat or why whites wen t to one school and blacks went to another. She just assumes that whites went to the school that was close to their neighborhood, but Essie Mae experience her first meaning of segregationRead MoreComing Of Age Throughout Mississippi By Anne Moody1388 Words   |  6 PagesIn the autobiography â€Å"Coming of age in Mississippi† by Anne Moody known as Essie Mae in the book she writes in great detail the struggles her and other people of her color had to go through in order to gain their rights. From such a young age she saw the differences in the way people of color were treated in comparison to whites, things that no one should go through much less a kid. From the beginning you see that Essie Mae is such a brilliant kid and all the trials she goes through and the knowledgeRead MoreComing Of Age Throughout Mississippi By Anne Moody964 Words   |  4 PagesThe book â€Å"Coming of Age in Mississippi† By Anne Moody is an autobiography and talks about the lifestyle of g rowing up as a Negro in the rural south during horrid times for blacks. Moody was born on September 15, 1940 and died just last year on February 5, 2015. Moody starts her story from the beginning of child hood living with her mother and siblings. She was a brilliant student and also had the motivation for doing her best, but the barriers that blocked her simply seemed impossible to pass, sheRead MoreComing Of Age Throughout Mississippi By Anne Moody Essay1368 Words   |  6 PagesComing of Age in Mississippi In the novel, Coming of Age in Mississippi, by Anne Moody, she talks about her childhood and the hardships she faced due to discrimination and racism. She provides different instances and examples of the different obstacles she faced. With all these various examples, I believe it helped shape her into the figure she later became in the novel and the person she turned into. It helped shape her beliefs and thoughts on society that she never realized as a child, but asRead MoreComing Of Age Throughout Mississippi, By Anne Moody1554 Words   |  7 Pagesthrough the heart of the nation and only got worse the more south you go. In Anne Moody’s autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, Moody’s life is told through her eyes. It goes through her childhood until her participation in the Civil Rights movement. One of the major parts in the book is her slowly realizing the racial divide in America and the disadvantages that her skin color had come with. All the racism Moody ex perienced as a child until she was an adolescent led to her decision to become