Hackers And Ethical Hackers

Hackers And Ethical Hackers Cyber security is one of the most critical aspects of security that any organization in the modern world must be concerned with. Why? Mostly because of Black-hat Hackers. The following review is a general discussion about hackers and its best countermeasure, Ethical Hacking. The reason I chose this topic is because it is of great interest to me, as I someday want to be an Ethical hacker as well. Review The word hacker in the past was defined as a person who loves playing a around with software or electronic systems. They wanted to discover new things on how computers operate. Today the term hacker has a different meaning altogether. It states that a hacker is someone who maliciously breaks into systems for personal gain. Technically, these criminals are crackers (criminal hackers). Crackers break into (crack) systems with malicious intent. They are out for personal gain: fame, profit, and even revenge. They modify, delete, and steal critical information, often making other people miserable. (Kevin Beaver, Stuart McClure 2004, p10) Most of the literature I read give the definition of the word hacker as previously stated or to mean mostly the same thing. The history of hacking dates back to the 1960s when a group of people in MIT hack the control systems of model trains to make them run faster, more effectively or differently than they were designed to. (Peter T. Leeson, Christopher J. Coyne, 2006). Because of such activity by these individuals computer owners and supervisors took away their access to computers. As a result the hacking community came up with their own code known as the hacker ethic: 1. Access to computers -and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative! 2. All information should be free. 3. Mistrust Authority Promote Decentralization. 4. Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race or position. 5. You can create art and beauty in a computer. 6. Computers can change your life for the better. (Paul A Taylor, 2005) The above code is still followed today and not only by hackers but by others as well. Not all hackers today have the same level of expertise. Depending on the psychology and skills of a hacker they can be put into four groups.(M.G. Siriam) Old School Hackers is one group and they believe that the internet should be an open system. Script kiddies is another and they are computer novices that use tools created by professional hackers to hack systems. Most of the hackers today fit into this group. The next group is professional criminals or crackers. They break into systems for the purpose of stealing and selling information they gathered.. The final group is coders and virus writers. They are elite individuals with a very high skill in programming and operating systems that write code and use other people in charge of releasing their code to the wild. Organizations and institutions today are under a lot of stress to protect their information from external as well as internal security threats to their computer systems. As such most of them have come up with the solution of hiring Ethical Hackers. To catch a thief, you must think like a thief. Thats the basis for ethical hacking. Knowing your enemy is absolutely critical (Kevin Beaver, Stuart McClure, 2004, p13). In other wards Ethical hackers (white-hat hackers) are experienced security and network experts that perform an attack on a target system with permission from the owners, to find loop holes and vulnerabilities that other hackers could exploit. This process is also known has Red Teaming, Penetration Testing or Intrusion Testing. (www.networkdictionary.com) The end goal of ethical hackers is to learn system vulnerabilities so that they can be repaired for community self-interest and as a side-product also the common good of the people.(Bryan Smith, William Yurcik, David Doss, 2002) Every Ethical hacker should follow three important rules as follows: Firstly Working Ethically. All actions performed by the ethical hacker should support the organizations goals that he works for. Trustworthiness is the ultimate tenet. The misuse of information is absolutely forbidden. Secondly Respecting Privacy as all information that an ethical hacker gathers has to be treated with the utmost respect. Finally Not Crashing Your Systems. This is mostly due to no prior planning or having not read the documentation or even misusing the usage and power of the security tools at their disposal. (Kevin Beaver, Stuart McClure, 2004, p16-17) The main attacks or methods that an ethical hackers or even hackers perform are of as follows: Non Technical Attacks: No matter how secured an organization is in terms of software and hardware, it will always be vulnerable to security threats because securitys weakest link are people or its employees. Social engineering is a type of non technical attack where hackers exploit the trusting nature of human beings to gain information for malicious purposes. Other attacks can be of physical nature such as stealing hardware equipment or dumpster diving. Operating-System Attack: Hacking an operating system (OS) is a preferred method of the bad guys. OS attacks make up a large portion of hacker attacks simply because every computer has an operating system and OSes are susceptible to many well-known exploits.(Kevin Beaver, Stuart McClure, 2004, p15) Distributed denial of service attacks(DDoS): This is the most popular attack used by many hackers to bring down systems. Its a type of attack that overloads the network or server with a large amount of traffic so that it crashes and renders any access to the service. Internet Protocol (IP) spoofing: It is a way of disguising the hackers real identity. This method allows a hacker to gain unauthorized access to computers by sending a message to a computer with an IP address showing that the message is from a trusted host. To accomplish this, a hacker must use different tools to find an IP address of a trusted host, and then alter the packet headers so it appears that the packets are coming from the host. (Tanase 2003). The process of ethical hacking contains many different steps. The first thing that is done is to formulate a plan. At this stage getting approval and authorization from the organization to perform the penetration test is extremely important. (Kevin Beaver, Stuart McClure, 2004, p15). Next the ethical hacker uses scanning tools to perform port scans to check for open ports on the system. Once a cracker scans all computers on a network and creates a network map showing what computers are running what operating systems and what services are available, almost any kind of attack is possible (Bryan Smith, William Yurcik, David Doss, 2002) This method is used by hackers as well but for mainly for malicious purposes. After scanning has been done the ethical hacker selects the tools that are going to be used to perform certain tests on the target system. These tools can be used for password cracking, planting backdoors, SQL injection, sniffing etc. The tests need to be carefully performed bec ause if they are done incorrectly they could damage the system and could go unnoticed. (Bryan Smith, William Yurcik, David Doss, 2002) Finally the plan needs to be executed and the results of all the tests then need to be evaluated (Kevin Beaver, Stuart McClure, 2004, p22) Based on the results the ethical hacker tells the organization about their security vulnerabilities as well as how they can be patched to make it more secure. A grey hat hacker is a type of hacker that has the skills and intent of a ethical hacker in most situations but uses his knowledge for less than noble purposes on occasion. Grey hat hackers typically subscribe to another form of the hacker ethic, which says it is acceptable to break into systems as long as the hacker does not commit theft or breach confidentiality. Some would argue, however that the act of breaking into a system is in itself unethical.(Red Hat, Inc, 2002) Grey hats are also a form of good hackers that usually hack into organizations systems without their permission, but then at a later stage send them information on the loop holes in their system. They also sometimes threaten to release the holes they find unless action has been taken to fix it. (Peter T. Leeson, Christopher J. Coyne, 2006) Conclusion Testing the security of a system by breaking into it is not a new idea but is something that is practised in all aspects of industry. For example if an automobile company is crash-testing cars, or an individual is testing his or her skill at martial arts by sparring with a partner, evaluation by testing under attack from a real adversary is widely accepted as prudent.(C.C. Palmer, 2001) Since the security on the Internet is quite poor at present, ethical hacking is one of the only ways to ways to proactively plug rampant security holes. Until such time a proper social framework is founded, to differentiate the good guys (white hats) from the bad guys (black hats), a law must not be brought into effect, as this may risk taking away our last hope of stabilizing defense and not realize it until it is too late. In the end, it is up to the society to consider the social and ethical standards to apply to the ever-changing technology, so valuable information does not fall into the wrong han ds for the wrong purposes.

China’s One Child Policy †Success or Failure Essay

In 1979 led by Deng Xioping The People’s Republic of China, located in South East Asia, implanted what is called China’s one child policy or (as referred to by the Chinese government) the family planning policy. This policy restricts married, urban couples to bearing only one child and 35. 9% of China’s population is subject to these restrictions, mainly those in urban areas as couples living in rural areas are allowed to have two children, especially if the first child is female or disable, as well as this ethnic minorities are exempt from the policy. However today 90% of all urban children and over 60% of rural children are growing up without any siblings. During Mao Zedong’s rule, the policy in China was â€Å"the more people, the stronger we are† which led to extreme over population (a population verging on 1 billion during 1979/1980) and famines. However when Deng Xiaoping took power in 1978, his policies concentrated on strengthening the Chinese economy and he saw China’s overpopulation as a obstruction in the way of economic development. As well as this the policy hoped to alleviate social and environmental problems (such as stretched resources in certain regions) within the country, however the primary objective of the policy was to decelerate the rate of population growth. The initial goal of the policy was to limit China’s population to 1. 2 billion people by the year 2000. Enforcing the Policy Many of the prevailing criticisms of the One-Child Policy is that it is an abuse of Human rights, and many oppose the core principle of the policy, claiming a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On a provincial and regional level, government agents police the situation, enforcing the regulations. Theoretically speaking, the policy is voluntary, but the government impose punishments and heavy fines on those who do not follow the rules. Parents with extra children can be fined from $370 to $12,800 depending on the region and if this fine goes unpaid, even stricter rules have been enforced in some cases, such as the removal of land, loss of jobs, destruction of homes and not allowing a child to attend school. In one extreme case, a woman in the 1980s pregnant with a second child, was fired from, had a forced abortion, and was then sent to a psychiatric hospital, and was still in a labour camp in the early 2000s. Although this seems extreme, it should be assumed that since this incident, which occurred in the early stages of the policy, most of this behaviour has died out now. However similar, though less brutal cases have been noted. As although the policy is supposed to involve eugenic testing which is policed and enforced through a system of economic disincentives and fines, there have been numerous reports of forced abortion, forced sterilization and infanticide, even in the last decade, for example it was reported that in 2001 an annual quota of 20,000 forced sterilizations and forced abortions were set for Huaiji in the Gundang Province for those who did not adhere to the policy of one child only. However, China banned the use of physical force to for abortions or sterilizations in 2002, but it seems even official law cannot stop the brutalities, as there have been continuing reports of violence against women pregnant with a second or third child. However it’s not just the women who are in danger, if families hide from officials, their relatives were thrown into jail until the white flag was shown; even women with permission for a second child have been subject to violence. In some places the enforcement has been so harsh that the FPA (Family Planning Association) had to give out brochures that detailed the â€Å"seven don’ts† of the policy, which included things such as not beating up people who have unplanned births and don’t burn down their houses. Despite these horrific stories, the enforcement of the policy does vary greatly from place to place, so these stories cannot be generalised to the whole of China. Some provinces contain families with four or five children and can get away with it because the policy is either ignored or the fines can be easily paid. Propaganda: These are just a couple of the examples of hundreds of uses of propaganda used in China to help enforce the one child policy. The first one uses the word â€Å"him† which suggests that as well as advocating the one-child policy, some of the propaganda advocates a son instead of a daughter. Although these are examples of the tamer slogans and statues, there have been ones which bring across a much harsher message; Slogans painted on walls by the roadside have been both terrifying and unsubtle, such as ‘Kill all your family members if you don’t follow the rule! and ‘We would rather scrape your womb than allow you to have a second child’. However the FPC is now saying that a shift is needed in the tone of this propaganda, more towards the one’s shown above. Instead of intimidation, persuasion and encouragement are the new tactics to be adopted, so as to avoid offending the public and causing violence. Impacts of the Policy: This policy was set out to reduce the social, economic and environmental problems that plagued China in the 1970s/80s however has the policy actually performed as well as predicted? When the policy was first introduced, a 1. 2 billion target population was set for the year 2000, however in this year the population was at 1. 27 billion and even this was regarded as an underestimation. The Chinese authorities claim that the policy has prevented over 400 million births since it was introduced over 30 years ago; this is also shown through the declining fertility rate, which has fallen from 2. 9% to around 1. % (recent figures show). However despite this drop, it is difficult to ignore the parallels China has with many other countries around the world that have also experienced significant drops in fertility rates, which leads to speculation around whether the policy is the reason for the decline, or that the government policy that encouraged later marriages and longer intervals between birth and further children had more of an impact. This argument is indeed plausible, as the fertility rate in China dropped from 5% to just below 2% even before the one child policy was introduced and as the graph above shows, the steepest decline was before 1979. Skewed age demographic: Although there is speculation about the cause of fertility rates, a large impact of the one child policy has been a rapid increase in the ageing population of China, it is expected that the population will become disproportionally older well into this century. Today 10% of the urban population is already aged 65 and over, and this is thought to rise to over 15% in a decade, 20% by 2025 and 35% in 2050 if the fertility rates remain consistent. But how prepared is China to cope with such a rapidly ageing population? Before the decline of fertility, the elderly relied nearly exclusively on their children for support, however now the elderly in China will face a lack of young carers. At the time the one-child policy was introduced, the economy at the time still provided support in the way of communes in the countryside and organizations in urban areas. However now that China’s economy has changed and developed this societal support has all but disappeared. This lack of support, coupled with the one-child policy means that extra social and financial pressure on a single child to support their grandparents and their parents. This is known as the 4:2:1 phenomenon, where the 4 represents the grandparents, the two represents the parents, and the one represents the child; this shows that increasing numbers of couples will end up with the sole responsibility of care for their child and their parents. Despite this, the government does offer $6 to poor rural elderly with one child, although it can hardly be considered much help or a substitute for the support of more children. As well as this, over 60s have been reassured of extra provisions they may be able to receive, however many questions have been raised as to exactly how these new allowances will be funded. The imbalanced sex ratio: In 1982, the sex ratio was at 108. 5 boys to every 100 girls, which is already above the normal range, but in 2011 it had reached to 117. boys to every 100 girls and these ratios are not just confined to rural China. The policy has contributed to the sex ratio imbalance in several ways. Some couples who have not yet had a son resort to sex-selective abortions after ultrasound in order to have a child of the preferred gender. Despite the fact this is thought to account for a large proportion of the decline in female births, actual figures are difficult to calculate, as this kind of abortion is ille gal, although it’s known to be very widely carried out. At the same time as this, some females are uncounted, missing or have ‘disappeared’ as they are hidden from the government officials, or not officially registered at birth and this allows for couples to have a second child in an attempt to have a boy instead. Another explanation for the skewed ratio is the potential of infanticide, abandonment or deliberate neglect of baby girls. Although female mortality rates had been declining since 1930, by 2000 this had reserved and excess female mortality has risen since the implementation of the one-child policy. This can be seen to be one of the failures of the olicy and the potentially disastrous social consequences of this ‘female shortage’ have been acknowledged. This shortage is thought to have increased male mental health problems as well as socially disruptive behaviour of the same gender. As well as this, a shortage of women mean the scarcity of brides, and this means that male marriage has once again become an indicator of social privilege, by 2000 27% of rural males were still unmarried at age 40. This scarcity of brides also leads to kidnapping and trafficking of women for marriage, as well as an increase in the numbers of commercial sex workers. However despite this skewed ratio, there is evidence to show that this traditional preference for boys is shifting, as 37% of young urban women claim to have gender preference for their child, and in fact more women voiced a preference for a female than for a male. As well as this, new propaganda has been brought in the encourage families that having a girl is not a bad thing. Economic Impacts: One benefit that has seemed to arisen from the policy is that it has helped to fuel the economic change seen in China over the past decades, as there is not as much competition between citizens, which has allowed more wealth to be spread around. It has also been noted that at the same time of the population growth slowing down, China’s GDP has risen from 550USD to 7000USD, and during this time the growth of the GDP was greater than that of the US, Europe, Japan and India. As well as this is has been noted that the lower fertility rates have enhanced female labour participation, despite this fact, this may be down to the policy that was implanted before the one child policy that encouraged later marriage among other suggestions. It is also uncertain whether this correlation between the two factors necessarily means that the slowed population growth has led to an increase of the countries GDP. The policy is also thought to have a negative impact on the overall economic future of China due to the rapidly aging population, which means more financial dependency is put on adult children to provide for their parents and grandparents (see 4:2:1 phenomenon above). Despite this fact, many studies have concluded that the population transitions that have taken place since the policy was implemented are responsible for 1/6 to 2/5 of China’s economic growth. As well as this, individual savings rates have increased as well since the policy was implemented, and this is thought to be because households have more money and resources that aren’t being spent on multiple children. As well as the strain on household resources being decreased, so has the strain on natural resources since 1980, as it has been estimated (as mentioned before) that there would have been 400 million extra people, which would have been a huge additional strain on resources. According to the State Family Planning Commission, coverage of tap water has increased, and so has the coverage of natural gases. Political Impacts: The Chinese government has had to pay a dear cost politically for the introduction of the one child policy. The reports of forced sterilization and induced abortion have invited hostility as well as resistance from the population and the government have received large amounts of criticisms from the international community, the US in particular have expressed their disapproval with Chinese leaders for their sterilization policies. These physical abuses began to disappear by the end of the 1990s and China shifted its program towards encouraging contraception and providing couples with a wider selection of thee contraceptive methods. This shift in operation may have helped to ease the tension somewhat between the birth control officials and civilians. However by the 1990s, the birthing reporting system has all but collapsed and it is now difficult to trust demographic data that is collected and released from government agencies, as it was also reported that as many as 30% of births were not counted in some areas during the 1990s. These problems with birth registrations have spread to other areas of demographic data-gathering operations such as the population census. The two main agencies responsible for collecting fertility information simply gave up their attempt to provide reliable and detailed information on fertility, and a rough estimate was used as an estimate instead. As well as this the government has required increasing amounts of financial resources to continue the birth control policy. During the 1990s alone, the budget allocation towards birth control programs increased 3. times, and has increased during the beginning of the 21st century. As well as this, to initiate the policy an ‘army’ of birth control officials are needed, and this army has been rapidly increasing, with many on the government payroll. In addition to this, where fertility does not reach a low enough level, local officials are require to spend large amounts of time on the issue, as meeting these birth control goals are major benchmarks used in evaluating the performance and it affects the local officials’ political careers. Success or Failure? – intrusive: Overall, the campaign has been more of a failure than of success. In terms of what it set out to do, the policy was in fact a success as in the years succeeding its introduction the fertility rates did indeed drop and it was thought that over 300 million births were prevented due to the policy (see above). Although undeniably effective in these terms, it seems obvious that the policy has not caught on in other countries also facing overpopulation such as India, who have seen the one-child policy as too intrusive on their populations lives, which is justifiable considering the shocking stories mentioned above of using force to stop women having a second child in a country that advocates a seemingly ‘voluntary’ scheme of fewer offspring. Densely populated countries such as India have used alternative schemes such as women advocacy groups, the increased availability of contraception, female empowerment and greater emphasis on sex education from an early age. As the fertility rate in areas which have adopted these frames of population control have dropped even faster than in China, as well as there being no evidence to say that forced abortion and sterilization is widespread, it begs the question that if China had adopted other methods and used more effective government leadership, would the population growth have decreased faster than using methods which invade couples lives and lead many into a state of fear when they become pregnant? However one problem with placing all the success in the hands of the one-child policy is that it may not just be that which has caused the drop in the fertility rates and in fact there are other significant factors, which were thought to of affected it. One factor that may have affected the fertility rates of women instead of the one-child policy in in China is the fact that with a new economy, many young Chinese had new economic opportunities and rising incomes, which would have directed their attention away from marriage and childbearing, this is backed up by the fact that the ge of first marriage rose in the 1990s, and this was evidence that the changing demographic was not down to the one-child policy. As well as this, the general costs of childbearing also increased, and this may have quashed reproductive desires. However perhaps the most significant factor in this is that as mentioned above the fertility rate dropped more significantly in the years proceeding the policy due to the government’s â€Å"longer, later, fewer† policy which advocated later marriage, longer birth intervals and few births, it must be noted as well that in the policies early years the fertility level hardly affected the fertility rate. If the previous policy had more impact on decreasing population growth then this policy can be seen to be a failure, as it had very little impact but very many negative consequences such as the tough policing of births which sometimes resulted in violent consequences. Despite this, if we can blame the subsequent impacts of declining population growth on the â€Å"longer, later, fewer† policy, then we can say that the policy was not directly responsible for the skewing of the gender ratio and the rapidly increasing population, however this does not make the policy a success, as it is likely that the policy did have some effect on the gender ratio and aging population problems. Despite these factors, it is hard to know for sure whether the one-child policy directly effected population growth decline, as there are many other situational factors, which had the possibility to affect it, in this respect we can deem the one-child policy a failure to a small extent, because it is likely that it did have some affect on the population growth decline.

Nonsense in Alice in Wonderland Essay

Alice in Wonderland is a tale that ends with death, and violence lurks within all of its nonsense. Throughout the book, Alice grows and matures, just like we do; however, all journeys must come to a close and death is always at the end of the road. Carroll neither forestalls, nor denies the realities of death and loss in his book. If anything, he manifests the prevalence of its threat in everything. Instead Carroll soothes his readers for the pain and loss with nonsense-answers in excess of sense. He asks his readers to trust in another logic beyond the rational and believe in precisely what we cannot know. In wonderland, death is a present and probable outcome everywhere, and Alice is promptly introduced to the possibility of it when she enters wonderland. After becoming enlarged after eating a piece of cake, Alice became scared of her sudden, large state. In the midst of her despair, she sees the White Rabbit and calls for his help. He was startled by Alice, and dropped his fan before scurrying away in fright. Alice became hot and irritated and began fanning herself; however, she realized that her fanning was causing her to shrink. She immediately, â€Å"dropped it hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether. ‘That WAS a narrow escape!’ said Alice, a good deal frightened at the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence.† This â€Å"narrow escape(Carroll)† accentuates Alice’s childlike naivety upon entering Wonderland. She has never had to worry about dying, but now she is faced with it head on. Shortly after this near death experience, Alice is confronted with an identity crisis prompted by an interrogation from a caterpillar. â€Å"Who ARE you?† asks the Caterpillar, to which Alice replied, â€Å"I—I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then (Carroll).† Alice has only been in wonderland a short period of time and already she has transformed in more ways than one. Her experiences have made her question her previously stable identity because in Wonderland-nothing is as it seems. As Alice ventures on into Wonderland and Looking Glass Land, death becomes even more of a reality. The Queen of Hearts is one of the many obstacles Alice runs into in Wonderland, and, by far, the most threatening. The Queen exclaims, â€Å"OFF WITH THEIR HEADS,† in response to most situations. During the trial, the queen says the subject must have a, â€Å"sentence first—verdict afterwards,† to which Alice replies, â€Å"Stuff and nonsense! The idea of having the sentence first!†After refusing the queen’s order to be quiet, Alice is sentenced to a beheading (Carroll). The theme of death is also prevalent when Alice converses with the Mock Turtle who is very aware that he will soon be made into Mock Turtle Soup. The Mock Turtle and the Gryphon spend most of their time with Alice telling her about their school days. The subjects they studied are strange undersea parodies of real school subjects, just as the dance they perform for her, the Lobster Quadrille. This makes them real and relatable characters, one of which inevitably faces death. Alice realizes this and is careful when referring to lobster as â€Å"dinner,† which she nearly does several times (Carroll)`. In Looking Glass Land, Alice runs into Tweedledum and Tweedledee who tell her the story of the Walrus and the Carpenter that lure the little oysters away from their bed by enticing them with a nice walk on the beach. The young, naà ¯ve oysters, willing for an adventure. During their walk on the beach, the Walrus says, â€Å"If you’re ready Oysters dear,/we can begin to feed.† â€Å"†But not on us!† the Oysters cried,/Turning a little blue,/After such kindness, that would be/A dismal thing to do!† The walrus ended up eating all the oysters (Carroll 2). Although the oysters died in the end, they went on their adventure thinking that it was all innocent fun and games. Throughout these stories, Carroll invites us to believe in the nonsense. Although we may grow old, and we may die, we must not forget that child hood is the most important time because we have no preconceived notions of the world. Anything is possible if we believe it, and things have whatever meaning we give them. Time, in Wonderland, is of the mind. However, in the real world, time is generally perceived as a unit—hours, minutes, and years—and age is time from a certain year. We accept that the time mirrored on a clock and our ages are one in the same. However, a clock may cycle endlessly, whereas we have only one lifetime. Therefore, our age is simply our own fabrication. It is the product of an irreversible psychological sense of duration. Mad Hatter says of Time, â€Å"Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost anything you liked with the clock (Carroll).† In Wonderland, the aboveground conception of time as a reliable, unchanging system does not hold. Time is represented as a person, and is therefore susceptible to all the foibles and inconsistencies that plague actual humans. Defeating time thus changes from Alice’s normal conception of observing the regular intervals that time sets to meet to the Hatter’s idea of a grudge against a personified time. Since time is now like a person, there is the inevitable danger that he will rebel and refuse to be dependable. It is yet another haphazard, changeable artifact that has no claim to absolute validity in Wonderland. That is exactly what has happened in this Wonderland tea party: the Hatter says time â€Å"won’t do a thing I ask! It’s always six o’clock now (Carroll)†; that is, it is always teatime. Therefore, time is frozen, and one of the most essential models of common human understanding are laughed out of reality. Through making time insignificant to the goings on of daily life, Carroll intended to highlight the subjectivity of age and time. So what if eighty years old means death is on the doorstep? What is time and age but a means of measuring, and who needs that? Even though growing old is inevitable, Carroll insists with the nonsense of the tea party that time does not have to go on. It can always be teatime. It can always be childhood where things do not have to have answers to make sense. Despite the fact that Alice is growing and maturing, and despite the fact that death is an inevitable step in the process of life, Carroll wants to leave us with one thing: Believe in nonsense. His method was to imagine a dream-state in which the ordinary ways of logic were replaced by fantastic ones. Within the dream-logic, everything is consistent, but queer. That is the point-life in wonderland is nonsensical, but it is consistently nonsensical; therefore, the nonsense makes sense, so who is to say that the real world sense makes sense? Most importantly, we must remember the significance of childhood-no matter how old we get, for as long as one believes in nonsense, they will be happy no matter what ails them. Bibliography Carroll, Lewis. Alice in Wonderland. Project Gutenbeg, 2008. Web. . (Carroll) Carroll, Lewis. Alice Through the Looking Glass. Project Gutenbeg, 1991. Web. . (Carroll 2)

Does Poverty Serve as a root cause of Terrorism - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 5 Words: 1435 Downloads: 3 Date added: 2018/12/27 Category Society Essay Type Argumentative essay Level High school Tags: Poverty Essay Terrorism Essay Did you like this example? Poverty can be described as the state of inadequacy or scarcity of certain amount of material procession and financial resources, (Cocciaet al., 58-165). It is a multisided concept that also includes lack of the socioeconomic, political and emotional elements. There are several types of poverty in the society today, and they tend to affect the way of living for those people afflicted. People affected by poverty in the society today range from temporary situations that are seasonal to abject poverty associated with homeless people and street families. According to the World Bank (Global Monitoring Report), approximately over seven hundred million people lived in poverty, (Sawalhaet al., 183-202). About half of this population lived in sub-Saharan Africa.Itis estimated that half of the world children live in poverty. Some of the liberal approaches from global financial institutions have been blamed for the worsening of both poverty and inequality especially in developing economies. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Does Poverty Serve as a root cause of Terrorism?" essay for you Create order In many instances, people living in poverty work hard to improve their financial situations and living conditions. Most people resort to indulge in income generating activities to improve their situations, however some resort to get-rich-quick schemes to escape the pangs of poverty. In most cases, the get-rich-quick schemes are not as lucrative as they seem and participants end up being conned by scammers, (Cocciaet al., 58-165). The purpose of this essay, therefore, is to analyze the role of poverty as a cause of terrorism in the world, its effects and some of the remedies that can be put in place to curb the rise of terrorism as a result of poverty. Some of the major causes of poverty in the world today include poor infrastructure, corruption, and embezzlement of public funds by individuals in power, poor leadership structures especially in sub-Saharan Africa, unemployment, illnesses and lack of skills and training. These factors force people to live in conditions that they would have otherwise avoided had the circumstances changed in support their positive ambitions. As a result, brilliant young people faced with lack of opportunity and income sources resort to join terror groups not because they support the cause but so that their lives can improve. Terrorism, on the other hand, can be described as the unlawful perpetration of violence and bullying carried out by sections of people mostly armed militia against innocent civilians, (Sawalhaet al., 183-202). The main aims of terror groups are to orchestrate violent attacks, abduction of civilians and looting/ destruction of property to fulfill political, religious and or ideological goals, (Cocciaet al., 58-165). Poverty has over the years been linked as one of the causes of terrorism in the world today. In most cases, the allure to join terror groups is juiced up by the promise of monetary gains and better living conditions for those who participate. Terrorism has some of the most adverse effects on society in the world today; it is also one of the greatest contributors to the global poverty levels in the world today. Loss of lives is one of the major effects of terrorism. Considering data from terror attacks in the United States alone, hundreds of families are left without their loved ones as a result of terror attacks. Some of this lives lost happen to be the breadwinners of the families, and this reduces the remaining dependents to abject poverty. In light of all this, the following are some of the major contributions of poverty as a cause of terrorism in the world today. Supply of labor is one of the major boosters towards terrorism contributed by poverty, (Sawalhaet al., 183-202). Due to the lack of economic activities to indulge in, the otherwise idle youth rendered so by poverty act as the major labor inputs recruited by the terror cells and organizations. The youth from poor backgrounds are easy targets for recruitment. The growth of terrorism is anchored on the idea of deprivation of the majority to create a sense of better life in participating in terrorism. The promise of remuneration. People living in poverty are always in the constant search and need for finances to better their living standards. As a result, well-funded terror organizations take advantage of the poverty situations to offer monetary rewards to participants from poor backgrounds. In most cases, these people are not able to rescind these offers since they have no better alternatives to do. Consequently, the financial situations of the members and their families are changed for the better while the terror groups also gain more members to join them, (Cocciaet al., 58-165). Poverty in some regions is caused not by mere natural factors but is driven by artificial political ambitions of the ruling class in that society. As a result of poverty engineered by political interests, people are forced into involuntary poverty situations. The side effect of this type of poverty is the growth of resentment among the oppressed and consequent formation of terrorist organizations to fight the political bigwigs and avenger the poor situations that they have been forcedinto. Several terrorist groups all around the world have been formed as a result of political induced poverty to sections of the population. Another major contribution of poverty towards the growth of terrorism is seen through the practice of harboring terrorists in poor residential areas. Refugee camps are some of the most notorious sites where terrorists can hide, recruit and plan terror attacks on a country. For example, the Dadaab refugee camp where Al-Shabaab terrorists were housed in the refugee tents and were able to plan and orchestrate an attack on a shopping mall in Kenya. People living in poverty are in most cases forced to hide and protect terrorists becausepoor residential eras are most often neglected by security forces, (Sawalhaet al., 183-202). Overpopulation and poor informal settlements also make it easier for terrorists to hide in plain sight. The promise of remuneration by the terrorist and neglect by government forces combined with resentment by poor residents provides a great avenue for terrorism activities to thrive. Another major contribution of poverty towards terrorism can be seen through unemployment,(Cocciaet al., 58-165) the major cause of poverty in the world today is the lack of income-generating opportunities for the able population. As a result, most unemployed people especially the youth treat the opportunity to join terror groups as an employment opportunity and a potential source of income to improve their living conditions. A study carried out in the Palestinian population shows that there is a symbiotic relationship between poverty and terrorism in the sense that terror led to poverty situations but at the same time provided an avenue to alleviate the situation through offering financial support to the families of members that joined them. As much as poverty serves as one of the causes of terrorism in the world today, several remedies to help curb the growth of terrorism as a result of poverty are available, (Sawalhaet al., 183-202). The first step towards remedying the situation is the investment in education sector. Most families in the poor sections of the world are not able to access funds to pay for tuition fees. However, through government intervention and subsidizing of educational cost, children from poor backgrounds will be able to access education. As a result, more attention will be given to education as an avenue towards getting out of poverty as opposed to terrorism. Access to education will also be able to enlighten people to learn the effects of terrorism on the society at large. Equal distribution of resources is another remedy that can be applied to reduce poverty levels, promote a sense of belonging and reduce the contribution of poverty towards the growth of terrorism. Public resources when fairly distributed result in the creation of opportunities for the people living in poverty. A chance to access basic amenities will change the perspective of the poor towards leadership and will motivate them towards the building the nation. In conclusion, therefore, poverty is one of the major contributors toward the growth and spread of terrorism in the world today. However, several remedies can be put in place to reduce the contribution of poverty towards terrorism. The people living in poverty are also human and can have their ideologies changed to a more positive approach, (Cocciaet al., 58-165). Therefore, the governments of the world should put in more efforts towards motivating the poor through education subsidies, employment opportunities and provision of aid to hard-hit areas. Work cited Coccia, Mario. General Causes of Terrorism: High Population Growth in Problematic Society. (2017). Sawalha, Ihab Hanna, and Ihab Hanna Sawalha. A context-centered, root cause analysis of contemporary terrorism.? Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal? 26.2 (2017): 183-202.