Security for Insider Attacks in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Security for Insider Attacks in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks Abstract Mobile ad hoc networks are collection of wireless mobile nodes forming a temporary network without the aid of any established infrastructure. Security issues are more paramount in such networks even more so than in wired networks. Despite the existence of well-known security mechanisms, additional vulnerabilities and features pertinent to this new networking paradigm might render the traditional solutions inapplicable. In particular these networks are extremely under threat to insider attacks especially packet dropping attacks. It is very difficult to detect such attacks because they comes in the category of attacks in mobile ad hoc networks in which the attacker nodes becomes the part of the network. In this research work we have proposed a two folded approach, to detect and then to isolate such nodes which become the part of the network to cause packet dropping attacks. First approach will detect the misbehavior of nodes and will identify the malicious activity in network, and then upon identification of nodes misbehavior in network other approach will isolate the malicious node from network. OMNET++ simulator is used to simulate and verify the proposed solution. Experimental results shows that E-SAODV (Enhanced Secure Ad hoc On Demand Distance Vector protocol) performs much better than conventional SAODV (Secure Ad hoc On Demand Distance Vector Protocol) Chapter 1 Introduction Overview Mobile Ad-hoc networks are a new paradigm of wireless communication for mobile hosts. As there is no fixed infrastructure such as base stations for mobile switching. Nodes within each others range communicate directly via wireless links while those which are far apart rely on other nodes to transmit messages. Node mobility causes frequent changes in topology. The wireless nature of communication and lack of any security infrastructure raises several security problems. The following flowchart depicts the working of any general ad-hoc network. Features of Mobile Ad hoc Networks Based on the characteristics, Mobile Ad hoc Networks has following main features. Because of the limited energy supply for the wireless nodes and the mobility of the nodes, the wireless links between mobile nodes in the Ad hoc Network are not consistent for the communication participants. Due to the continuous motion of nodes, the topology of the mobile ad hoc network changes constantly, the nodes can continuously move into and out of the radio range of the other nodes in the ad hoc network, and the routing information will be changing all the time because of the movement of the nodes. Lack of incorporation of security features in statically configured wireless routing protocol not meant for Ad hoc environments. Because the topology of the Ad hoc Networks is changing constantly, it is necessary for each pair of adjacent nodes to incorporate in the routing issue so as to prevent some kind of potential attacks that try to make use of vulnerabilities in the statically configured routing protocol. Mobile Ad hoc Network Routing Protocols Routing in Mobile Ad hoc Networks faces additional challenges when compared to routing in traditional wired networks with fixed infrastructure. There are several well-known protocols that have been specifically developed to cope with the limitations imposed by Ad hoc networking environments. The problem of routing in such environments is aggravated by limiting factors such as rapidly changing topologies, high power consumption, low bandwidth and high error rates [1]. Most of the existing routing protocols follow two different design approaches to confront the inherent characteristics of Ad hoc networks namely Proactive Routing Protocols, Reactive Routing Protocols. Proactive Routing Protocols Proactive ad hoc routing protocols maintain at all times routing information regarding the connectivity of every node to all other nodes that participate in the network. These protocols are also known as Table-driven Ad hoc Routing Protocols. These protocols allow every node to have a clear and consistent view of the network topology by propagating periodic updates [1]. Therefore, all nodes are able to make immediate decisions regarding the forwarding of a specific packet. Two main protocols that fall into the category of proactive routing protocols are Destination-Sequenced Distance-Vector (DSDV) protocol [2] and the Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) protocol [3]. Reactive Routing Protocols An alternative approach to the one followed by Proactive Routing Protocols also known as source-initiated on-demand routing, is Reactive Routing Protocols. According to this approach a route is created only when the source node requires one to a specific destination. A route is acquired by the initiation of a route discovery function by the source node. The data packets transmitted while a route discovery is in process are buffered and are sent when the path is established. An established route is maintained as long as it is required through a route maintenance procedure. The Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing protocol [4], Temporally Ordered Routing Algorithm (TORA) [5] and the Dynamic Source Routing protocol [6] are examples of this category of protocols. Security issues in Mobile Ad hoc Routing Protocols Any routing protocol must encapsulate an essential set of security mechanisms. These are mechanisms that help prevent, detect, and respond to security attacks. We can classify these major security goals into five main categories, which need to be addressed in order to maintain a reliable and secure ad-hoc network environment. Confidentiality Confidentiality is the protection of any information from being exposed to unintended entities. In ad-hoc networks this is more difficult to achieve because intermediates nodes receive the packets for other recipients, so they can easily eavesdrop the information being routed. Availability Availability means that a node should maintain its ability to provide all the designed services regardless of the security state of it . This security criterion is challenged mainly during the denial-of-service attacks, in which all the nodes in the network can be the attack target and thus some selfish nodes make some of the network services unavailable, such as the routing protocol or the key management service. Authentication Authentication assures that an entity of concern or the origin of a communication is what it claims to be or from. Without which an attacker would impersonate a node, thus gaining unauthorized access to resource and sensitive information and interfering with operation of other nodes. Integrity Integrity guarantees the identity of the messages when they are transmitted. Integrity can be compromised through malicious and accidental altering. A message can be dropped, replayed or revised by an adversary with malicious goal, which is regarded as malicious altering while if the message is lost or its content is changed due to some failures, which may be transmission errors or hardware errors such as hard disk failure, then it is categorized as accidental altering. Non-Repudiation Non-repudiation ensures that sending and receiving parties can never deny their sending or receiving the message. In order to achieve the overall goal of Mobile Ad hoc Network security, above five mechanisms must be implemented in any ad-hoc networks so as to ensure the security of the transmissions along that network. Secure Ad hoc Routing As discussed earlier over the past decade, many Ad hoc routing protocols have been proposed in literature. Among them the most widely used are AODV (Ad hoc On Demand Distance Vector) [4] and DSR (Dynamic Source Routing) [2] which comes in the category of re-active routing protocols of Ad hoc Networks. All of these protocols have been studied extensively. But as there were no security considerations in the original design of these protocols, these protocols remain under threat from the attackers. The main assumption of these protocols was that all participating nodes do so in good faith and without maliciously disrupting the operation of the protocol. However the existence of malicious entities can not be disregarded in the systems especially the environment used for Ad hoc Networks. To overcome the security vulnerabilities in existing routing protocols, many security enhancements in these protocols have been proposed but unfortunately these secure Ad hoc Routing Protocols were either designed for a particular protocol or to address a specific problem operation of the protocol. For example SAODV (Secure Ad hoc On Demand Distance Vector Protocol) [7] was proposed to secure AODV (Ad hoc On Demand Distance Vector) protocol, Ariadne [10] was proposed to protect DSR (Dynamic Source Routing) protocol, ARAN [7] was proposed to protect the Ad hoc Routing in general while SEAD [8] was proposed to protect the DSDV (Destination Sequence Distance Vector Routing) protocol. The purpose of SAR [9] (Security Aware Routing) was also to protect the Routing in Ad hoc Networks. Problem definition Thus ongoing studies on MANETs pose many challenging research areas including MANETs security. Since MANETs are made up entirely of wireless mobile nodes, they are inherently more susceptible to security threats compared to fixed networks [11]. Access to wireless links is virtually impossible to control thus adverse security events such as eavesdropping, spoofing and denial of service attacks are more easily accomplished. These security risks must be reduced to an acceptable level while maintaining an acceptable Quality of Service and network performance. However, in order to work properly, the routing protocols in MANETs need trusted working environments, which are not always available. There may be situations in which the environment may be adversarial. For example some nodes may be selfish, malicious, or compromised by attackers. Most of the work done regarding network security in MANETs focuses on preventing attackers from entering the network through secure key distribution and secure neighbor discovery [10],[12]. But these schemes become ineffective when the malicious nodes have entered the network, or some nodes in the network have been compromised. Therefore, threats from compromised nodes inside the network are far more dangerous than the attacks from outside the network. Since these attacks are initiated from inside the network by the participating malicious nodes which behave well before they are compromised, it is very hard to detect these attacks. Keeping in view the security threats faced by MANETs we focus on Packet Dropping Attack which is a serious threat to Mobile Ad hoc Networks. Although many research efforts have been put on secure routing protocols but the attacks like packet dropping is not adequately addressed. We study the packet dropping attack in which a malicious node intentionally drops the packets they received. Unlike all previous researches which attempt to tolerate Packet Dropping Attacks, our work makes the first effort to detect the malicious activity and then identify the malicious or compromised nodes in the network. Research Objective The fundamental objective of this research is to discuss the security attacks faced by Mobile Ad hoc Networks specially insider attacks and to review the security in existing routing protocols especially secure routing protocols in MANETs. We particularly focus on packet dropping attack which is a serious threat to Mobile Ad hoc Networks. A novel security enhancement scheme to address packet dropping attack has been proposed. Thesis Organization Chapter 2 provides a brief introduction of security threats faced by Mobile Ad hoc Networks and secure routing to address these attacks. Chapter 3 discusses about the related work and flaws identified in the related work. Chapter 4 presents the possible solutions to address the packet dropping attack in Mobile Ad hoc Networks. Chapter 5 includes the implementation of proposed mechanisms and Results of the proposed mechanism and the thesis is concluded in Chapter 6. Chapter 2 Security Threats and Secure Ad hoc Routing Protocols Introduction This chapter includes the threats and types of attacks faced by Mobile Ad hoc Networks. Secure Ad hoc routing protocols like SAODV [7] (Secure Ad hoc On Demand Distance Vector), SAR [16] (Security Aware Routing), and ARAN [9] (Authenticated Routing for Ad hoc Networks) etc and how these protocols are still vulnerable to attacks, are discussed in this chapter. Types of attacks in MANETs There are numerous kinds of attacks in the mobile ad hoc networks, almost all of which can be classified into two types, External Attacks and Insider Attacks. External Attacks External Attacks are those attacks, in which the attacker aims to cause congestion, propagate fake routing information or disturb nodes from providing services. External attacks are similar to the normal attacks in the traditional wired networks such that the adversary is in the proximity but not a trusted node in the network, therefore, this type of attack can be prevented and detected by the security methods such as authentication or firewall, which are relatively conventional security solutions. Internal or Insider Attacks Due to the invasive nature and open network media in the mobile ad hoc network, internal also known as insider attacks are more dangerous than the external attacks because the compromised or malicious nodes are originally the legitimate users of the Ad hoc network, they can easily pass the authentication and get protection from the security mechanisms. As a result, the adversaries can make use of them to gain normal access to the services that should only be available to the authorized users in the network, and they can use the legal identity provided by the compromised nodes to conceal their malicious behaviors. Therefore, more attention should be paid to the internal attacks initiated by the malicious insider nodes when we consider the security issues in the mobile ad hoc networks. Internal or insider nodes when become part of the network can misuse the network in the following ways Packet Dropping A malicious node can attack at its level or at lower levels. Particularly in the context of Packet Dropping Attack, within a trust level, a malicious node or any other node which aims at saving its resources or intentionally launching a attack can successfully drop packets without being noticed and can get services from other nodes for forwarding its own packets. Node Isolation An internal malicious node can prevent nodes from communicating with any other node. Route Disruption A malicious node can break down an existing route or prevent a new route from being established. Route Invasion An inside attacker adds itself between two endpoints of a communication channel. Attacks based on modification A very simplest way for a malicious node to disturb the operations of an ad-hoc network is to perform an attack based on modification. The only task the malicious or compromised node needs to perform is to announce better routes than the ones presently existing. This kind of attack is based on the modification of the metric value for a route or by altering control message fields. There are various ways to perform this type of attacks; some of them are discussed below Altering the Hop Count This attack is more specific to the AODV [4] protocol wherein the optimum path is chosen by the hop count metric. A malicious node can disturb the network by announcing the smallest hop count value to reach the compromised node. In general, an attacker would use a value zero to ensure to the smallest hop count. Changing the Route Sequence Number When a node decides the optimum path to take through a network, the node always relies on a metric of values, such as hop count delays etc. The smaller that value, the more optimum the path. Hence, a simple way to attack a network is to change this value with a smaller number than the last better value. Altering Routing Information This type of attack leads network toward Denial of Service (DoS) attack. For example in a situation where a node M wants to communicate with node S. At node M the routing path in the header would be M-N-O-P-Q-R-S. If N is a compromised node, it can alter this routing detail to M-N-O-P. But since there exists no direct route from O to P, P will drop the packet. Thus, A will never be able to access any service from P. This situation leads the network towards a DoS attack. Impersonation Attacks Impersonation is also known as spoofing. In this type of attack the malicious node hides its IP address or MAC address and uses the addresses of other nodes present in the network. Since current ad-hoc routing protocols like AODV [4] and DSR [6] do not authenticate source IP address. By exploiting this situation a malicious node can launch variety of attacks using spoofing. For example in a situation where an attacker creates loops in the network to isolate a node from the remainder of the network, the attacker needs to spoof the IP address of the node he wants to isolate from the network and then announce new route to the others nodes. By doing this, he can easily modify the network topology as he wants. Fabrication Attacks Fabrication attacks can be classified into three main categories. Detection is very difficult in all of these three cases. Routing table poisoning Routing protocols maintain tables which hold information regarding routes of the network. In routing table poisoning attacks the malicious nodes generate and send fabricated signaling traffic, or modify legitimate messages from other nodes, in order to create false entries in the tables of the participating nodes. For example, an attacker can send routing updates that do not correspond to actual changes in the topology of the ad hoc network. Routing table poisoning attacks can result in selection of non-optimal routes, creation of routing loops and bottlenecks. Route Cache Poisoning This type of attack falls in the category of passive attacks that can occur especially in DSR [6] due to the promiscuous mode of updating routing tables. This type of situation arises when information stored in routing tables is deleted, altered or injected with false information. A node overhearing any packet may add the routing information contained in that packets header to its own route cache, even if that node is not on the path from source to destination. The vulnerability of this system is that an attacker could easily exploit this method of learning routes and poison route caches by broadcast a message with a spoofed IP address to other nodes. When they receive this message, the nodes would add this new route to their cache and would now communicate using the route to reach the malicious node. Rote Error Messages fabrication This attack is very common in AODV [4] and DSR [6], because when nodes move these two protocols use path maintenance to recover the optimum path. The weakness of this architecture is that whenever a node moves, the closest node sends an error message to the other nodes so as to inform them that a route is no longer accessible. If an attacker can cause a DoS attack by spoofing any node and sending error messages to the all other nodes. As a result malicious node can separate any node quite easily. Eavesdropping Eavesdropping is another kind of attack that usually happens in the mobile ad hoc networks. The goal of eavesdropping is to obtain some confidential information that should be kept secret during the communication. This information may include the location, public key, private key or even passwords of the nodes. Because such data are very important to the security state of the nodes, they should be kept away from the unauthorized access. Secure Ad hoc Routing Protocols Many solutions have been proposed for secure routing in ad hoc networks, in order to offer protection against the attacks discussed earlier. These proposed solutions are either completely new stand-alone protocols, or in some cases incorporations of security mechanisms into existing ones (like DSR [6] and AODV [4]). In order to analyze the proposed solutions and how they are still vulnerable to attacks we classified them into two main categories based on asymmetric cryptography and symmetric cryptography. Asymmetric Cryptographic Solution Protocols that use asymmetric cryptography to secure routing in mobile ad hoc networks require the existence of a universally trusted third party. This trusted third party can be either online or offline. The trusted third party issues certificates that bind a nodes public key with a nodes persistent identifier. Authenticated Routing for Ad hoc Networks ARAN [9] falls in this category of secure Ad hoc routing protocols; many of the other protocols presented in other categories that use asymmetric cryptography operate in a similar manner and have similar requirements. Authenticated Routing for Ad hoc Networks ARAN The Authenticated Routing for Ad hoc Networks (ARAN) proposed in [9] is a standalone solution for secure routing in ad hoc networking environments. ARAN use digital certificates and can successfully operate in the managed open scenario where no infrastructure is pre-deployed. The basic mechanism used in ARAN is certification that is achieved through the existence of a trusted certification authority (CA). All nodes are supposed to know their public key from the certification authority and also the public key of server. Prior to entering into the network, each node has to apply for a certificate that is signed by the certificate server. ARAN accomplishes the discovery of routes by a broadcast message from source node which is replied in a unicast manner. This route discovery of the ARAN protocol begins with a node broadcasting to its neighbors a route discovery packet (RDP). The RDP includes the certificate of the initiating node, a nonce, a timestamp and the address of the destinatio n node. Furthermore, the initiating node signs the RDP. Each node validates the signature with the certificate, updates its routing table with the neighbor from which it received the RDP, signs it, and forwards it to its neighbors after removing the certificate and the signature of the previous node (but not the initiators signature and certificate). The signature prevents malicious nodes from injecting arbitrary route discovery packets that alter routes or form loops [13]. The destination node eventually receives the RDP and replies with a reply packet (REP). The REP contains the address of the source node, the destinations certificate, a nonce, and the associated timestamp. The destination node signs the REP before transmitting it. The REP is forwarded back to the initiating node by a process similar to the one described for the route discovery, except that the REP is unicasted along the reverse path. The source node is able to verify that the destination node sent the REP by chec king the nonce and the signature. Figure 2 illustrates the process of route discovery in ARAN. All messages are authenticated at each hop from source to destination as well as on the reverse path. Due to heavy computation involved with the certificates, ARAN is vulnerable to many attacks e.g. DOS attacks. In situation when there are no malicious nodes in the network the load involved in the routing process force the legitimate nodes to drop the packets in order to save their resources. Symmetric Cryptography Solutions Symmetric cryptographic solutions rely solely on symmetric cryptography to secure the function of routing in wireless ad hoc networks. The mechanisms utilized is hash functions and hash chains. A one-way hash function is a function that takes an input of arbitrary length and returns an output of fixed length [14]. As hash functions are especially lightweight when compared to other symmetric and asymmetric cryptographic operations, they have been extensively used in the context of securing ad hoc routing. Secure Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector Protocol (SAODV) The Secure Ad hoc On Demand Distance Vector (SAODV) [7] addresses the problem of securing a MANET network. SAODV is an extension of AODV[4] routing protocol that can be used to protect the route discovery mechanism by providing security features like authentication, integrity and non-repudiation. It uses digital signatures to authenticate the non-mutable fields of the message, and hash chains to secure the hop count information (the only mutable field in message) in both RREQ and RREP messages. The SAODV scheme is based on the assumption that each node possesses certified public keys of all network nodes . In order to facilitate the transmission of the information required for the security mechanisms, SAODV defines extensions to the standard AODV message format. These SAODV extensions consist of the following fields. The hash function field identifies the one-way hash function that is used. The field max hop count is a counter that specifies the maximum number of nodes a packet is al lowed to go through. The top hash field is the result of the application of the hash function max hop count times to a randomly generated number, and finally the field hash is this random number. When a node transmits a route request or a route reply AODV packet it sets the max hop count field equal to the time to live (TTL) field from the IP header, generates a random number and sets the hash field equal to it, and applies the hash function specified by the corresponding field max hop count times to the random number, storing the calculated result to the top hash field. Moreover, the node digitally signs all fields of the message, except the hop count field from the AODV header and the hash field from the SAODV extension header. An intermediate node that receives a route request or a route reply must verify the integrity of the message and the hop count AODV [4] field. The integrity requirement is accomplished by verifying the digital signature. The hop count field is verified by comparing the result of the application of the hash function max hop count minus hop count times to the hash field with the value of the top hash field. Before the packet is re-broadcasted by the in termediate node the value of the hash field is replaced by the result of the calculation of the one-way hash of the field itself in order to account for the new hop. In SAODV route error messages (RERR) that are generated by nodes that inform their neighbors that they are not going to be able to route messages to specific destinations are secured using digital signatures. A node that generates or forwards a route error message cryptographically signs the whole message, except the destination sequence numbers. Although SAODV provides reasonable security to MANETs routing, but it is still vulnerable to distance fraud attack [15] in which the forwarding node fails to increment the route metric because in SAODV there is no enforcement to do so. Further there is no method to detect the malicious nodes and DOS attacks because in SAODV it is assumed that DOS attacks are restricted to physical layer, but this assumption failed when colluding malicious nodes drop packets during the route discovery process. Security Aware Routing (SAR) SAR [16] (Security Aware Routing) is an extension to existing on demand routing protocols and used where nodes are grouped on the basis of trust level. In SAR each node has different security level which assigns them different trust levels. Two nodes can only communicate with each other if they have equal or greater trust values. If a node has lower security level it simply discards the packet. In case there is no node in the network with the desired level then communication cannot take place or we can say that, that particular packet cant be forwarded unless its security level is lowered. By exploiting this condition a malicious node can attack at its level or at lower levels. Particularly in the context of Packet Dropping Attack, within a trust level, a malicious node or any other node which aims at saving its resources or intentionally launching a attack can successfully drop packets without being noticed and can get services from other nodes for forwarding its own packets. SAR al so fails in the situations of secure routing in general because it only focuses on the situations in which certain groups are assumed to be trustworthy. Conclusion From the above discussion, we observe that all Secure Ad hoc routing protocols are still vulnerable to many attacks. Although proposed techniques provide security against external attacks, insider attacks are still an open issue in MANETs. Chapter 3 Literature Review Introduction Many solutions have been proposed to prevent selfishness in MANETs. The main goal of all the schemes proposed in the literature is to make decisions regarding trustworthy entities and to encourage behavior that leads to increasing trust. In this section we discuss some of the solutions presented in the literature in order to detect the malicious nodes in the network in context of packet dropping attack. Watchdog and Pathrater In [17] Marti el al, proposed a mechanism called as watchdog and pathrater on DSR[6] to detect the misbehavior of nodes in MANETs. Nodes in this scheme operate in a promiscuous mode. The watchdog monitors one hop neighbor by overhearing the medium to check whether the next neighbor forwards the packet or not. It also maintains a buffer of recently sent packets. If a data packet remains in the buffer too long, the watchdog declares the next hop neighbor to be misbehaving. Every node that participates in the ad hoc network employs the watchdog functionality in order to verify that its neighbors correctly forward packets. When a node transmits a packet to the next node in the path, it tries to promiscuously listen if the next node will also transmit it. Furthermore, if there is no link encryption utilized in the network, the listening node can also verify that the next node did not modify the packet before transmitting it . The watchdog of a node maintains copies of recently forwarded p ackets and compares them with the packet transmissions overheard by the neighboring nodes. Positive comparisons result in the deletion of the buffered packet and the freeing of the related memory. If a node that was supposed to forward a packet fails to do so within a certain timeout period, the watchdog of an overhearing node increments a failure rating for the specific node. This effectively means that every node in the ad hoc network maintains a rating assessing the reliability of every other node that it can overhear packet transmissions from. A node is identified as misbehaving when the failure rating exceeds a certain threshold bandwidth. The source node of the route that contains the offending node is notified by a message send by the identifying watchdog. As the authors of the scheme note, the main problem with this approach is its vulnerability to blackmail attacks. The pathrater selects the path with the highest metric when there are multiple paths for the same destination node. The algorithm followed by the pathrater mechanism initially assigns a rating of 1.0 to itself and 0.5 to each node that it knows through the route discovery function. The nodes that participate on the active paths have their ratings increased by 0.01 at periodic intervals of 200 milliseconds to a maximum rating of 0.8. A rating is decremented by 0.05 when a link breakage is Security for Insider Attacks in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks Security for Insider Attacks in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks Abstract Mobile ad hoc networks are collection of wireless mobile nodes forming a temporary network without the aid of any established infrastructure. Security issues are more paramount in such networks even more so than in wired networks. Despite the existence of well-known security mechanisms, additional vulnerabilities and features pertinent to this new networking paradigm might render the traditional solutions inapplicable. In particular these networks are extremely under threat to insider attacks especially packet dropping attacks. It is very difficult to detect such attacks because they comes in the category of attacks in mobile ad hoc networks in which the attacker nodes becomes the part of the network. In this research work we have proposed a two folded approach, to detect and then to isolate such nodes which become the part of the network to cause packet dropping attacks. First approach will detect the misbehavior of nodes and will identify the malicious activity in network, and then upon identification of nodes misbehavior in network other approach will isolate the malicious node from network. OMNET++ simulator is used to simulate and verify the proposed solution. Experimental results shows that E-SAODV (Enhanced Secure Ad hoc On Demand Distance Vector protocol) performs much better than conventional SAODV (Secure Ad hoc On Demand Distance Vector Protocol) Chapter 1 Introduction Overview Mobile Ad-hoc networks are a new paradigm of wireless communication for mobile hosts. As there is no fixed infrastructure such as base stations for mobile switching. Nodes within each others range communicate directly via wireless links while those which are far apart rely on other nodes to transmit messages. Node mobility causes frequent changes in topology. The wireless nature of communication and lack of any security infrastructure raises several security problems. The following flowchart depicts the working of any general ad-hoc network. Features of Mobile Ad hoc Networks Based on the characteristics, Mobile Ad hoc Networks has following main features. Because of the limited energy supply for the wireless nodes and the mobility of the nodes, the wireless links between mobile nodes in the Ad hoc Network are not consistent for the communication participants. Due to the continuous motion of nodes, the topology of the mobile ad hoc network changes constantly, the nodes can continuously move into and out of the radio range of the other nodes in the ad hoc network, and the routing information will be changing all the time because of the movement of the nodes. Lack of incorporation of security features in statically configured wireless routing protocol not meant for Ad hoc environments. Because the topology of the Ad hoc Networks is changing constantly, it is necessary for each pair of adjacent nodes to incorporate in the routing issue so as to prevent some kind of potential attacks that try to make use of vulnerabilities in the statically configured routing protocol. Mobile Ad hoc Network Routing Protocols Routing in Mobile Ad hoc Networks faces additional challenges when compared to routing in traditional wired networks with fixed infrastructure. There are several well-known protocols that have been specifically developed to cope with the limitations imposed by Ad hoc networking environments. The problem of routing in such environments is aggravated by limiting factors such as rapidly changing topologies, high power consumption, low bandwidth and high error rates [1]. Most of the existing routing protocols follow two different design approaches to confront the inherent characteristics of Ad hoc networks namely Proactive Routing Protocols, Reactive Routing Protocols. Proactive Routing Protocols Proactive ad hoc routing protocols maintain at all times routing information regarding the connectivity of every node to all other nodes that participate in the network. These protocols are also known as Table-driven Ad hoc Routing Protocols. These protocols allow every node to have a clear and consistent view of the network topology by propagating periodic updates [1]. Therefore, all nodes are able to make immediate decisions regarding the forwarding of a specific packet. Two main protocols that fall into the category of proactive routing protocols are Destination-Sequenced Distance-Vector (DSDV) protocol [2] and the Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) protocol [3]. Reactive Routing Protocols An alternative approach to the one followed by Proactive Routing Protocols also known as source-initiated on-demand routing, is Reactive Routing Protocols. According to this approach a route is created only when the source node requires one to a specific destination. A route is acquired by the initiation of a route discovery function by the source node. The data packets transmitted while a route discovery is in process are buffered and are sent when the path is established. An established route is maintained as long as it is required through a route maintenance procedure. The Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing protocol [4], Temporally Ordered Routing Algorithm (TORA) [5] and the Dynamic Source Routing protocol [6] are examples of this category of protocols. Security issues in Mobile Ad hoc Routing Protocols Any routing protocol must encapsulate an essential set of security mechanisms. These are mechanisms that help prevent, detect, and respond to security attacks. We can classify these major security goals into five main categories, which need to be addressed in order to maintain a reliable and secure ad-hoc network environment. Confidentiality Confidentiality is the protection of any information from being exposed to unintended entities. In ad-hoc networks this is more difficult to achieve because intermediates nodes receive the packets for other recipients, so they can easily eavesdrop the information being routed. Availability Availability means that a node should maintain its ability to provide all the designed services regardless of the security state of it . This security criterion is challenged mainly during the denial-of-service attacks, in which all the nodes in the network can be the attack target and thus some selfish nodes make some of the network services unavailable, such as the routing protocol or the key management service. Authentication Authentication assures that an entity of concern or the origin of a communication is what it claims to be or from. Without which an attacker would impersonate a node, thus gaining unauthorized access to resource and sensitive information and interfering with operation of other nodes. Integrity Integrity guarantees the identity of the messages when they are transmitted. Integrity can be compromised through malicious and accidental altering. A message can be dropped, replayed or revised by an adversary with malicious goal, which is regarded as malicious altering while if the message is lost or its content is changed due to some failures, which may be transmission errors or hardware errors such as hard disk failure, then it is categorized as accidental altering. Non-Repudiation Non-repudiation ensures that sending and receiving parties can never deny their sending or receiving the message. In order to achieve the overall goal of Mobile Ad hoc Network security, above five mechanisms must be implemented in any ad-hoc networks so as to ensure the security of the transmissions along that network. Secure Ad hoc Routing As discussed earlier over the past decade, many Ad hoc routing protocols have been proposed in literature. Among them the most widely used are AODV (Ad hoc On Demand Distance Vector) [4] and DSR (Dynamic Source Routing) [2] which comes in the category of re-active routing protocols of Ad hoc Networks. All of these protocols have been studied extensively. But as there were no security considerations in the original design of these protocols, these protocols remain under threat from the attackers. The main assumption of these protocols was that all participating nodes do so in good faith and without maliciously disrupting the operation of the protocol. However the existence of malicious entities can not be disregarded in the systems especially the environment used for Ad hoc Networks. To overcome the security vulnerabilities in existing routing protocols, many security enhancements in these protocols have been proposed but unfortunately these secure Ad hoc Routing Protocols were either designed for a particular protocol or to address a specific problem operation of the protocol. For example SAODV (Secure Ad hoc On Demand Distance Vector Protocol) [7] was proposed to secure AODV (Ad hoc On Demand Distance Vector) protocol, Ariadne [10] was proposed to protect DSR (Dynamic Source Routing) protocol, ARAN [7] was proposed to protect the Ad hoc Routing in general while SEAD [8] was proposed to protect the DSDV (Destination Sequence Distance Vector Routing) protocol. The purpose of SAR [9] (Security Aware Routing) was also to protect the Routing in Ad hoc Networks. Problem definition Thus ongoing studies on MANETs pose many challenging research areas including MANETs security. Since MANETs are made up entirely of wireless mobile nodes, they are inherently more susceptible to security threats compared to fixed networks [11]. Access to wireless links is virtually impossible to control thus adverse security events such as eavesdropping, spoofing and denial of service attacks are more easily accomplished. These security risks must be reduced to an acceptable level while maintaining an acceptable Quality of Service and network performance. However, in order to work properly, the routing protocols in MANETs need trusted working environments, which are not always available. There may be situations in which the environment may be adversarial. For example some nodes may be selfish, malicious, or compromised by attackers. Most of the work done regarding network security in MANETs focuses on preventing attackers from entering the network through secure key distribution and secure neighbor discovery [10],[12]. But these schemes become ineffective when the malicious nodes have entered the network, or some nodes in the network have been compromised. Therefore, threats from compromised nodes inside the network are far more dangerous than the attacks from outside the network. Since these attacks are initiated from inside the network by the participating malicious nodes which behave well before they are compromised, it is very hard to detect these attacks. Keeping in view the security threats faced by MANETs we focus on Packet Dropping Attack which is a serious threat to Mobile Ad hoc Networks. Although many research efforts have been put on secure routing protocols but the attacks like packet dropping is not adequately addressed. We study the packet dropping attack in which a malicious node intentionally drops the packets they received. Unlike all previous researches which attempt to tolerate Packet Dropping Attacks, our work makes the first effort to detect the malicious activity and then identify the malicious or compromised nodes in the network. Research Objective The fundamental objective of this research is to discuss the security attacks faced by Mobile Ad hoc Networks specially insider attacks and to review the security in existing routing protocols especially secure routing protocols in MANETs. We particularly focus on packet dropping attack which is a serious threat to Mobile Ad hoc Networks. A novel security enhancement scheme to address packet dropping attack has been proposed. Thesis Organization Chapter 2 provides a brief introduction of security threats faced by Mobile Ad hoc Networks and secure routing to address these attacks. Chapter 3 discusses about the related work and flaws identified in the related work. Chapter 4 presents the possible solutions to address the packet dropping attack in Mobile Ad hoc Networks. Chapter 5 includes the implementation of proposed mechanisms and Results of the proposed mechanism and the thesis is concluded in Chapter 6. Chapter 2 Security Threats and Secure Ad hoc Routing Protocols Introduction This chapter includes the threats and types of attacks faced by Mobile Ad hoc Networks. Secure Ad hoc routing protocols like SAODV [7] (Secure Ad hoc On Demand Distance Vector), SAR [16] (Security Aware Routing), and ARAN [9] (Authenticated Routing for Ad hoc Networks) etc and how these protocols are still vulnerable to attacks, are discussed in this chapter. Types of attacks in MANETs There are numerous kinds of attacks in the mobile ad hoc networks, almost all of which can be classified into two types, External Attacks and Insider Attacks. External Attacks External Attacks are those attacks, in which the attacker aims to cause congestion, propagate fake routing information or disturb nodes from providing services. External attacks are similar to the normal attacks in the traditional wired networks such that the adversary is in the proximity but not a trusted node in the network, therefore, this type of attack can be prevented and detected by the security methods such as authentication or firewall, which are relatively conventional security solutions. Internal or Insider Attacks Due to the invasive nature and open network media in the mobile ad hoc network, internal also known as insider attacks are more dangerous than the external attacks because the compromised or malicious nodes are originally the legitimate users of the Ad hoc network, they can easily pass the authentication and get protection from the security mechanisms. As a result, the adversaries can make use of them to gain normal access to the services that should only be available to the authorized users in the network, and they can use the legal identity provided by the compromised nodes to conceal their malicious behaviors. Therefore, more attention should be paid to the internal attacks initiated by the malicious insider nodes when we consider the security issues in the mobile ad hoc networks. Internal or insider nodes when become part of the network can misuse the network in the following ways Packet Dropping A malicious node can attack at its level or at lower levels. Particularly in the context of Packet Dropping Attack, within a trust level, a malicious node or any other node which aims at saving its resources or intentionally launching a attack can successfully drop packets without being noticed and can get services from other nodes for forwarding its own packets. Node Isolation An internal malicious node can prevent nodes from communicating with any other node. Route Disruption A malicious node can break down an existing route or prevent a new route from being established. Route Invasion An inside attacker adds itself between two endpoints of a communication channel. Attacks based on modification A very simplest way for a malicious node to disturb the operations of an ad-hoc network is to perform an attack based on modification. The only task the malicious or compromised node needs to perform is to announce better routes than the ones presently existing. This kind of attack is based on the modification of the metric value for a route or by altering control message fields. There are various ways to perform this type of attacks; some of them are discussed below Altering the Hop Count This attack is more specific to the AODV [4] protocol wherein the optimum path is chosen by the hop count metric. A malicious node can disturb the network by announcing the smallest hop count value to reach the compromised node. In general, an attacker would use a value zero to ensure to the smallest hop count. Changing the Route Sequence Number When a node decides the optimum path to take through a network, the node always relies on a metric of values, such as hop count delays etc. The smaller that value, the more optimum the path. Hence, a simple way to attack a network is to change this value with a smaller number than the last better value. Altering Routing Information This type of attack leads network toward Denial of Service (DoS) attack. For example in a situation where a node M wants to communicate with node S. At node M the routing path in the header would be M-N-O-P-Q-R-S. If N is a compromised node, it can alter this routing detail to M-N-O-P. But since there exists no direct route from O to P, P will drop the packet. Thus, A will never be able to access any service from P. This situation leads the network towards a DoS attack. Impersonation Attacks Impersonation is also known as spoofing. In this type of attack the malicious node hides its IP address or MAC address and uses the addresses of other nodes present in the network. Since current ad-hoc routing protocols like AODV [4] and DSR [6] do not authenticate source IP address. By exploiting this situation a malicious node can launch variety of attacks using spoofing. For example in a situation where an attacker creates loops in the network to isolate a node from the remainder of the network, the attacker needs to spoof the IP address of the node he wants to isolate from the network and then announce new route to the others nodes. By doing this, he can easily modify the network topology as he wants. Fabrication Attacks Fabrication attacks can be classified into three main categories. Detection is very difficult in all of these three cases. Routing table poisoning Routing protocols maintain tables which hold information regarding routes of the network. In routing table poisoning attacks the malicious nodes generate and send fabricated signaling traffic, or modify legitimate messages from other nodes, in order to create false entries in the tables of the participating nodes. For example, an attacker can send routing updates that do not correspond to actual changes in the topology of the ad hoc network. Routing table poisoning attacks can result in selection of non-optimal routes, creation of routing loops and bottlenecks. Route Cache Poisoning This type of attack falls in the category of passive attacks that can occur especially in DSR [6] due to the promiscuous mode of updating routing tables. This type of situation arises when information stored in routing tables is deleted, altered or injected with false information. A node overhearing any packet may add the routing information contained in that packets header to its own route cache, even if that node is not on the path from source to destination. The vulnerability of this system is that an attacker could easily exploit this method of learning routes and poison route caches by broadcast a message with a spoofed IP address to other nodes. When they receive this message, the nodes would add this new route to their cache and would now communicate using the route to reach the malicious node. Rote Error Messages fabrication This attack is very common in AODV [4] and DSR [6], because when nodes move these two protocols use path maintenance to recover the optimum path. The weakness of this architecture is that whenever a node moves, the closest node sends an error message to the other nodes so as to inform them that a route is no longer accessible. If an attacker can cause a DoS attack by spoofing any node and sending error messages to the all other nodes. As a result malicious node can separate any node quite easily. Eavesdropping Eavesdropping is another kind of attack that usually happens in the mobile ad hoc networks. The goal of eavesdropping is to obtain some confidential information that should be kept secret during the communication. This information may include the location, public key, private key or even passwords of the nodes. Because such data are very important to the security state of the nodes, they should be kept away from the unauthorized access. Secure Ad hoc Routing Protocols Many solutions have been proposed for secure routing in ad hoc networks, in order to offer protection against the attacks discussed earlier. These proposed solutions are either completely new stand-alone protocols, or in some cases incorporations of security mechanisms into existing ones (like DSR [6] and AODV [4]). In order to analyze the proposed solutions and how they are still vulnerable to attacks we classified them into two main categories based on asymmetric cryptography and symmetric cryptography. Asymmetric Cryptographic Solution Protocols that use asymmetric cryptography to secure routing in mobile ad hoc networks require the existence of a universally trusted third party. This trusted third party can be either online or offline. The trusted third party issues certificates that bind a nodes public key with a nodes persistent identifier. Authenticated Routing for Ad hoc Networks ARAN [9] falls in this category of secure Ad hoc routing protocols; many of the other protocols presented in other categories that use asymmetric cryptography operate in a similar manner and have similar requirements. Authenticated Routing for Ad hoc Networks ARAN The Authenticated Routing for Ad hoc Networks (ARAN) proposed in [9] is a standalone solution for secure routing in ad hoc networking environments. ARAN use digital certificates and can successfully operate in the managed open scenario where no infrastructure is pre-deployed. The basic mechanism used in ARAN is certification that is achieved through the existence of a trusted certification authority (CA). All nodes are supposed to know their public key from the certification authority and also the public key of server. Prior to entering into the network, each node has to apply for a certificate that is signed by the certificate server. ARAN accomplishes the discovery of routes by a broadcast message from source node which is replied in a unicast manner. This route discovery of the ARAN protocol begins with a node broadcasting to its neighbors a route discovery packet (RDP). The RDP includes the certificate of the initiating node, a nonce, a timestamp and the address of the destinatio n node. Furthermore, the initiating node signs the RDP. Each node validates the signature with the certificate, updates its routing table with the neighbor from which it received the RDP, signs it, and forwards it to its neighbors after removing the certificate and the signature of the previous node (but not the initiators signature and certificate). The signature prevents malicious nodes from injecting arbitrary route discovery packets that alter routes or form loops [13]. The destination node eventually receives the RDP and replies with a reply packet (REP). The REP contains the address of the source node, the destinations certificate, a nonce, and the associated timestamp. The destination node signs the REP before transmitting it. The REP is forwarded back to the initiating node by a process similar to the one described for the route discovery, except that the REP is unicasted along the reverse path. The source node is able to verify that the destination node sent the REP by chec king the nonce and the signature. Figure 2 illustrates the process of route discovery in ARAN. All messages are authenticated at each hop from source to destination as well as on the reverse path. Due to heavy computation involved with the certificates, ARAN is vulnerable to many attacks e.g. DOS attacks. In situation when there are no malicious nodes in the network the load involved in the routing process force the legitimate nodes to drop the packets in order to save their resources. Symmetric Cryptography Solutions Symmetric cryptographic solutions rely solely on symmetric cryptography to secure the function of routing in wireless ad hoc networks. The mechanisms utilized is hash functions and hash chains. A one-way hash function is a function that takes an input of arbitrary length and returns an output of fixed length [14]. As hash functions are especially lightweight when compared to other symmetric and asymmetric cryptographic operations, they have been extensively used in the context of securing ad hoc routing. Secure Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector Protocol (SAODV) The Secure Ad hoc On Demand Distance Vector (SAODV) [7] addresses the problem of securing a MANET network. SAODV is an extension of AODV[4] routing protocol that can be used to protect the route discovery mechanism by providing security features like authentication, integrity and non-repudiation. It uses digital signatures to authenticate the non-mutable fields of the message, and hash chains to secure the hop count information (the only mutable field in message) in both RREQ and RREP messages. The SAODV scheme is based on the assumption that each node possesses certified public keys of all network nodes . In order to facilitate the transmission of the information required for the security mechanisms, SAODV defines extensions to the standard AODV message format. These SAODV extensions consist of the following fields. The hash function field identifies the one-way hash function that is used. The field max hop count is a counter that specifies the maximum number of nodes a packet is al lowed to go through. The top hash field is the result of the application of the hash function max hop count times to a randomly generated number, and finally the field hash is this random number. When a node transmits a route request or a route reply AODV packet it sets the max hop count field equal to the time to live (TTL) field from the IP header, generates a random number and sets the hash field equal to it, and applies the hash function specified by the corresponding field max hop count times to the random number, storing the calculated result to the top hash field. Moreover, the node digitally signs all fields of the message, except the hop count field from the AODV header and the hash field from the SAODV extension header. An intermediate node that receives a route request or a route reply must verify the integrity of the message and the hop count AODV [4] field. The integrity requirement is accomplished by verifying the digital signature. The hop count field is verified by comparing the result of the application of the hash function max hop count minus hop count times to the hash field with the value of the top hash field. Before the packet is re-broadcasted by the in termediate node the value of the hash field is replaced by the result of the calculation of the one-way hash of the field itself in order to account for the new hop. In SAODV route error messages (RERR) that are generated by nodes that inform their neighbors that they are not going to be able to route messages to specific destinations are secured using digital signatures. A node that generates or forwards a route error message cryptographically signs the whole message, except the destination sequence numbers. Although SAODV provides reasonable security to MANETs routing, but it is still vulnerable to distance fraud attack [15] in which the forwarding node fails to increment the route metric because in SAODV there is no enforcement to do so. Further there is no method to detect the malicious nodes and DOS attacks because in SAODV it is assumed that DOS attacks are restricted to physical layer, but this assumption failed when colluding malicious nodes drop packets during the route discovery process. Security Aware Routing (SAR) SAR [16] (Security Aware Routing) is an extension to existing on demand routing protocols and used where nodes are grouped on the basis of trust level. In SAR each node has different security level which assigns them different trust levels. Two nodes can only communicate with each other if they have equal or greater trust values. If a node has lower security level it simply discards the packet. In case there is no node in the network with the desired level then communication cannot take place or we can say that, that particular packet cant be forwarded unless its security level is lowered. By exploiting this condition a malicious node can attack at its level or at lower levels. Particularly in the context of Packet Dropping Attack, within a trust level, a malicious node or any other node which aims at saving its resources or intentionally launching a attack can successfully drop packets without being noticed and can get services from other nodes for forwarding its own packets. SAR al so fails in the situations of secure routing in general because it only focuses on the situations in which certain groups are assumed to be trustworthy. Conclusion From the above discussion, we observe that all Secure Ad hoc routing protocols are still vulnerable to many attacks. Although proposed techniques provide security against external attacks, insider attacks are still an open issue in MANETs. Chapter 3 Literature Review Introduction Many solutions have been proposed to prevent selfishness in MANETs. The main goal of all the schemes proposed in the literature is to make decisions regarding trustworthy entities and to encourage behavior that leads to increasing trust. In this section we discuss some of the solutions presented in the literature in order to detect the malicious nodes in the network in context of packet dropping attack. Watchdog and Pathrater In [17] Marti el al, proposed a mechanism called as watchdog and pathrater on DSR[6] to detect the misbehavior of nodes in MANETs. Nodes in this scheme operate in a promiscuous mode. The watchdog monitors one hop neighbor by overhearing the medium to check whether the next neighbor forwards the packet or not. It also maintains a buffer of recently sent packets. If a data packet remains in the buffer too long, the watchdog declares the next hop neighbor to be misbehaving. Every node that participates in the ad hoc network employs the watchdog functionality in order to verify that its neighbors correctly forward packets. When a node transmits a packet to the next node in the path, it tries to promiscuously listen if the next node will also transmit it. Furthermore, if there is no link encryption utilized in the network, the listening node can also verify that the next node did not modify the packet before transmitting it . The watchdog of a node maintains copies of recently forwarded p ackets and compares them with the packet transmissions overheard by the neighboring nodes. Positive comparisons result in the deletion of the buffered packet and the freeing of the related memory. If a node that was supposed to forward a packet fails to do so within a certain timeout period, the watchdog of an overhearing node increments a failure rating for the specific node. This effectively means that every node in the ad hoc network maintains a rating assessing the reliability of every other node that it can overhear packet transmissions from. A node is identified as misbehaving when the failure rating exceeds a certain threshold bandwidth. The source node of the route that contains the offending node is notified by a message send by the identifying watchdog. As the authors of the scheme note, the main problem with this approach is its vulnerability to blackmail attacks. The pathrater selects the path with the highest metric when there are multiple paths for the same destination node. The algorithm followed by the pathrater mechanism initially assigns a rating of 1.0 to itself and 0.5 to each node that it knows through the route discovery function. The nodes that participate on the active paths have their ratings increased by 0.01 at periodic intervals of 200 milliseconds to a maximum rating of 0.8. A rating is decremented by 0.05 when a link breakage is

Shakespeares Othello - Pitied Desdemona Essay -- Othello essays

Othello and Pitied Desdemona  Ã‚        Ã‚  Ã‚   William Shakespeare’s tragic drama Othello sees the destruction of two very beautiful people because of a sinister intervention by a third. The most beautiful of all is the lovely and irreproachable Desdemona. Let us in this essay consider her character.    In her book, Everybody’s Shakespeare: Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies, Maynard Mack comments on the heroine’s final song:    Desdemona, preparing for bed on the night that will be her last, remembers her mother’s maid â€Å"called Barbary†:    She was in love, and he she loved proved mad And did forsake her. She had a song of â€Å"Willow;† An old thing ‘twas; but it expressed her fortune, And she died singing it. That song to-night Will not go from my mind. (4.3.25)    Here time present, in which Desdemona speaks and sings, and time future, in which we know she (like Barbary) is to die from an absolute fidelity to her intuition of what love is and means, recede even as we watch into a lost time past, when Desdemona had a mother and all love’s agonies and complexities could be comprehended in a song. (132)    In Act 1 Scene1, Iago persuades the rejected suitor of Desdemona, Roderigo, to accompany him to the home of Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, in the middle of the night. Once there the two awaken him with loud shouts about his daughter’s elopement with Othello. In response to Iago’s vulgar descriptions of Desdemona’s involvement with the general, Brabantio arises from bed and, with Roderigo’s help, gathers a search party to go and find Desdemona and bring her home. Once that Brabantio has located Othello, the father presses charges publicly in order to have Desdemona returned:   ... ...om Shakespeare: The Pattern in His Carpet. N.p.: n.p., 1970.    Mack, Maynard. Everybody’s Shakespeare: Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 1993.    Pitt, Angela. â€Å"Women in Shakespeare’s Tragedies.† Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from Shakespeare’s Women. N.p.: n.p., 1981.    Shakespeare, William. Othello. In The Electric Shakespeare. Princeton University. 1996. http://www.eiu.edu/~multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No line nos.    Wright, Louis B. and Virginia A. LaMar. â€Å"The Engaging Qualities of Othello.† Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from Introduction to The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare. N. p.: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1957.   

Illiteracy Among African Americans Essay

Abstract The high rate of illiteracy is a major problem in the United States. Although there have been programs and initiatives started to eradicate this problem, illiteracy still plagues millions of Americans. Out of all ethnic groups, African Americans have a higher illiteracy rate. Within this project, the causes of illiteracy are revealed and viable solutions to this on-going problem will be discussed. Illiteracy Among African-Americans African-American adults do not have the ability or proper skills to read, write, or speak English correctly. African-Americans have the lowest level of literacy rates in the United States. The history of literacy among African- Americans depicts the levels of literacy today. Until the Civil War, it was illegal to teach Blacks to read and write. â€Å"Compulsory ignorance† as coined by writer Brent Staples relates to the reality that â€Å"Black† literacy was obstructed as a matter of law for more than a century. Until after the Civil War, it was a crime to teach â€Å"Blacks† how to read and openly literate â€Å"Blacks† were seen as destructive and even dangerous. † The stereotype of African-American adults are considered to be part-time workers, unemployed, and non-educated illiterate people. These African-American adults are individuals who make our society incapable of succeeding because of living their life on drugs or being violent. Some African-Americans choose to follow the road of poverty in the wrong direction by being caught in armed robbery, abuse, and prison. According to the 2000 US Census of Population, 15% of African-American in the poverty level are below the 8th grade reading level. An illiteracy study which focused on African- American communities to research the job opportunities, proper education, and drug usage in the urban area stressed that lifestyles have a dramatic influence on academic levels. The urban community stresses the issues of abuse, pregnancy, drugs, and violence, but few want to help the illiterate. African Americans need to have power and motivation to educate themselves and children at home. African Americans need to focus on homework, study habits, reading comprehension skills, and written English skills. African Americans need to invest in themselves and children having the power and education to read. While the slave experiences of African Americans make experiences markedly different from other citizens, we must move forward and utilize the system. It is time to demand more from our public education systems and more from us as parents and communities. Illiteracy among African Americans was people considered middle and low class families. These are African Americans with money to invest properly, productive in education, and have low paying jobs. In the South illiteracy among African American people rate at ages ten and over from the percentage level of 76. 2%-10. 7. Illiteracy among African American makes rate at ages 20 to 64 from the percentage level of 50. 0% to 9. 6%. During the 1870 to 1979 illiteracy has been a problems throughout African American culture. The government was concern whether African Americans were capable of keeping up with modern functions in the society. The literacy rate for blacks rose from 38. 2 percent in1880 to 71. 9 percent in 1910, whereas the literacy rate for whites rose only 1.9 percentage points from its 1880 level of 93. 2 percent. Literacy among African Americans has improved statistically showing things have changed in the 20th century. Individuals were capable of receiving jobs in the Civil War period compared to the African Americans then. The characteristics of African Americans ages 55-64 were tested on three documents of illiteracy were prose, documents, and quantities skills. Each African Americans within this age range scored below average. African American with a high school diploma or GED only scored poorly on the quantities literacy test. African Americans with illiteracy have lower paying jobs like service or labor, craft, and service occupation. These African Americans with low income rates are also receiving help from the government. African American illiteracy is common because researchers feel; this ability is from cognitive and physical effects of age. Researchers feel African American are not expand to assessments of printed material written. African Americans proficiencies results showed thirty-eight percent of them scored high on there examine. The United States has specialized a program in the schools, recreation centers, and after school programs from literacy. African Americans with illiteracy receive basic skills courses to enhance their reading, writing, and English skills. The African American programs illiteracy that supports the group by designing fundamental speaking and educational classes. These classes will better prepare and motivate African American to get their GED and workforce training. African Americans have the most students of 76% or more enrolled in these classes for illiteracy. African Americans also have outreach programs for illiteracy throughout the region. African American regions are processing new strategies for people below average functioning under level number one literacy. There are state officials, business leaders, and human resources who promote assessment class to determine the adequate needs for African Americans needing more help with illiteracy. The African Americans who developmental skills are not processing the schools and recreation centers conduct remedial educational opportunities for those reading skills are below average. The government has conducted two National Assessment of Adult Literacy and The National Center for Educational Statistics. The federal government has provided funds to assist states in establishing and expanding basic education programs for individuals age 16 and over who have not completed high school. The type of services and providers funded under federal legislation has changed a number of times since it began nearly 40 years ago. Originally established under the Adult Education Act of 1966, the adult education program is currently governed by the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA), which is Title II of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998, as amended (P. L. 105-220). WIA makes the adult education program part of a new â€Å"one-stop† career center system that includes many federally funded employment and training programs. The government was trying to examine whether illiteracy is arbitrary or misleading to society. The government also was trying to develop a system where African -Americans’ English language skills through literacy would change tremendously. The regions are always stereotyping on whether the lower class of succeeding in the socioeconomic groups. African Americans are not able of reading books, newspapers and interact with their environment. African Americans are put down because their illiteracy habits are poor in average. Some African Americans illiteracy knowledge of phonics and vocabulary is on a elementary level. African American illiteracy is high in change because other ethnicities have a stronger and diverse chance of having a better job. African Americans are not pushed to get ahead because they are motivated to look to the future. African Americans are not successful because they do not have self-confidence or the proper attitudes to care about being illiterate. African Americans value the least concern for being illiterate. African Americans cultural identity is a problem for people with no social skills. African Americans have had to suffer by competing with other culture with illiteracy. African American culture of having a different sense of belief in religion affects people ways of being are very skeptical about advancing with education. Some researchers feel African Americans are failures to society. There are African Americans who prefer to be illiterate because of the mismatch languages advise throughout the country. African Americans and Hispanics are compared to each other because they are behind on the level of grade four. A quarter million of Africans Americans were treated for illiteracy. African Americans educational programs were taught to read (book, newspaper, and application) and write (proper grammatical papers). African Americans illiteracy rates went down five percent every year. Researchers receive notes of reading ability fail tremendously in directives, forms, education, and informed consent skills (Hunter & Harman). Their theories on African Americans were concern with adequate informational literacy. Hunter and Harman wanted to examine the autonomy of the informed consent of literacy. These researchers believe the rapid increase of literacy is caused by critical implication. Also, the researchers discovered literacy could be modified the health reasons. The National Adult Literacy programmed examines the process of comprehending newspaper articles, employment forms, and quantities skills. The NAL realizes the lowest of African American literacy skills will limit competing skills. The African Americans having two levels below average had disabilities and mental problems. Some had physical and disable needs to have full activity to think properly. Also, the NAL realized the older compared to middle age adults. Illiteracy and health explore different links between direct measures of learning. Researchers studies the process of education had influence the ability of illiteracy (Cumming, Smith, & Shrestha1994-2004). Illiteracy has access information and navigates in literate environments to process cognitive and linguistics process. Some illiterate African Americans access crucial information for health care without taking medication. Researchers feel different readability strategies measure out their health reasons. In conclusion the idea to try to change illiteracy for African Americans is very important. It is possible to recognize, focus, and understanding of learning. These studies are process to decrease the rate of African American knowledge of illiteracy. African Americans need to start early receiving the proper need or help. African Americans need to understand that having a deficiency is nothing to be ashamed of. African Americans to support their group by learning to read, comprehend, write, and speak correct English.

Essay on Russian Organized CrimeEssay Writing Service

Essay on Russian Organized CrimeEssay Writing Service Essay on Russian Organized Crime Essay on Russian Organized CrimeRussian organized crime has been analyzed by experts, including international law enforcement agencies and intelligence specialists, in order to better understand its roots, nature and causes of this phenomenon. According to Patricia Rawlinson (2014), â€Å"Cold War ideologists see its proliferation as a vindication of their struggle against the evil empire of communism manifested by endemic corruption, a failed centralize economy and totalitarianism†(p. 28). Some experts consider that Russian organized crime is the product of political and economic reforms carried out by Gorbachev in the late 1990s (Rawlinson, 2014).   In general, Russian organized crime can be assessed by means of another ideological approach, namely the establishment of the Mafia (McCormick, 2012). Today many Russian criminal organizations operate on the global stage, influencing criminal situation in many countries of the world. Thesis statement: Russian organized crime, a complex post-socialist phenomenon, the nature of which is associated with political and economic changes in the country, creates certain challenges to democracy.Organized crime: an overview of the phenomenonThe term â€Å"organized crime† can be defined as â€Å"the society that seeks to operate outside the control of the people and their governments†(Rawlinson, 2014, p. 32). According to researchers, organized crime as a phenomenon has the following characteristics: well-developed hierarchical structure, the availability of financial resources for performing tasks, labor division, the system of strict discipline and punishment. Actually, organized crime exists in any country because it is driven by economic concerns. Jay S. Albanese (2010) states that â€Å"organized crime activity† operates based on certain economic factors faced by individuals or organizations (p. 115).The Nature of Russian Organized CrimeThe most important development in organized crime in Russia is the emergence of the Russian mafia in the 1990s. According to statistical data, the number of gangs in Russia has been increased from 785 in the early 1990s to more than 8000 in late 1990s (Dunn, 2014, p. 63). As a result, the nature of Russian organized crime is based on interaction of organized crime activities and the prevailing culture. The history of organized crime in Russia highlights the significance of changing nature of this interaction because of considerable changes in political life of the country (Rawlinson, 2014).As a matter of fact, Russian organized crime is considered to be a post-communism phenomenon, which is similar to the phenomena in other states of the former USSR. It was influenced by the transformation of economic and political systems from socialist structure to capitalist structure (Plekhanov, 2004; McCormick, 2012). Many experts consider that Russian organized crime is the product of the established communist system, which limited democracy and promoted bureaucracy. In fact, â€Å"the communist system generated organized crime by seeking to supplant market mechanisms with bureaucratic command and instituting criminal penalties for most private entrepreneurial activities† (Plekhanov, 2004, p. 66).The Major Causes of Organized Crime in RussiaThe major causes of organized crime in Russia include the spread of corruption and the â€Å"worldwide proliferation of organized crime† (Plekhanov, 2004, p. 66). Although Putin managed to reduce the influence of rich businessmen on politics, Russia is ranked 154 out of 178 countries in the list on the Corruption Perceptions Index (McCormick, 2012). Besides, the rapid expansion of the market system had a strong impact on the growth of organized crime. Researchers believe that Russian organized crime is caused by a wide range of factors that are generated by political transformation in the country and failures in the functioning of the justice system. According to John McCo rmick (2012), â€Å"Russia still has a large black market, reducing the ability of the government to raise taxes and playing into the hands or organized crime, which is involved in everything from extortion to fraud, cargo theft, prostitution, and drug and arms trafficking† (p. 240). In other words, the justice system is ineffective to address the issue of the increased rate of organized crime in Russia. As a result, organized crime is growing. According to statistical data, â€Å"Russia now has one of the highest homicide rates in the world†(McCormick, 2012, p. 240).Some Facts from the History of Russian Organized CrimeThe emergence of Russian organized crime and its growth in the past decades influenced society. In the Soviet Union, organized crime was based on the established system of relationships between various sectors of society, in which the Communist party had the greatest power. The collapse of the Soviet Union led to the evolution of organized crime (Abadin sky, 2012; McCormick, 2012).   Considerable changes in economic, political and cultural systems had a strong impact on the expansion of organized crime in Russia. The transition to the market economy led to the emergence of criminal organizations. According to Howard Abadinsky (2012), â€Å"vulnerable businessmen began relying on the suddenly increasing private protection services, a large number of which operated without the proper registration or licenses†(p. 209).Actually, due to the penetration of organized crime into the legal system, more and more unlawful acts were identified in Russia. Today organized crime affects the functioning of legal system. Although corruption is prosecuted, many officials continue to take a bribe. According to researchers, today organized crime has â€Å"penetrated all the structures of power, including the media† (Rawlinson, 2014, p. 32). Russian organized crime in the USA is characterized by the existence of the traditional Russian approaches to criminal activity. The case of Ivankov (Yaponchik), a well-known leader of a criminal organization in the United States, attracts attention due to the methods used in organization of criminal activities (Finckenauer Waring, 1998). He was born in the Soviet Union. He became the champion in wrestling, lived in Moscow. Later, he was involved in criminal activity, selling the stolen goods on the black market. In 1980, he established his criminal organization. The members of his groups used false documents to commit financial crimes (Finckenauer Waring, 1998). They searched the houses of rich people and stole money. In 1982, Yaponchik was arrested. After release in 1992, he came to the USA, where he continued his criminal activity. According to FBI reports, Yaponchik managed to â€Å"turn an assortment of unruly and loosely articulated Russian gangs on American soil into a modern, nationwide crime cooperation† (Finckenauer Waring, 1998, p. 113). He was sentenced t o 9 years of imprisonment.The major categories of Russian Organized CrimeAnalyzing Russian organized crime, it is necessary to identify its major categories. Joseph L. Albini and colleagues classify the four major categories of organized crime in Russia:political-social;mercenary;in-group;syndicated (Albini, 1995, p. 213).The first three classifications of organized crime emerged during the Soviet era, namely during the Breznev years with high level of corruption (1964–82), increased during Perestroika era, and reached the highest levels after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 (McCormick, 2012). The forth category was established because of the â€Å"transformation of the Russian society from a centralized command economy to one driven by the forces of market capitalism that created the socio-pathological conditions for the malignant spread of mercenary and especially syndicated organized crime† (Albini, 1995, p. 213). In other words, the forth category includes new syndicates of criminals that involve criminal gangs with the former members of the Soviet Union’s bureaucracy.The Prosecution of Organized Crime in Russia  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Organized crime in Russia is prosecuted, but there are still many gaps in the legal system to address this issue in a proper way. According to researchers, in 1990s, there was â€Å"no definition of organized crime in Russian law† (Finckenauer Waring, 1998, p. 116). Today the Department for struggle against organized crime is involved in active work to deal with the existing problems caused by organized crime. The members of the Department examine the functioning of business organizations to prosecute people involved in organized crime. There are many examples of illegal economic and financial activities of powerful officials. The widespread corruption forms the basis of organized crime in Russia today (Taylor, 2011, p. 169).  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Actually, today Russian organized crime is linked to the power of ministries in many ways. For example, many military officers are involved in criminal activity because they have the required skills and experience. New mafia groups include sportsmen and former military and law enforcement officers who effectively deal with criminals and continue to â€Å"maintain contacts with their colleagues in the security and law enforcement structures† (Taylor, 2011, p. 169). Putin highlights the necessity to combat organized crime and the shadow economy it creates. However, his legislative policies are ineffective. Some experts consider that there is a balance between organized crime and the state. In other words, the state favors this balance because this crime is manageable based on Russian standards (Taylor, 2011).Conclusion  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Thus, it is necessary to conclude that Russian organized crime is a complex phenomenon caused by a wide range of so cial and political factors, including the collapse of the Soviet Union, the increased rate of corruption and the growth of the market economy. In fact, Russian organized crime differs from American organized crime. It is influenced by bureaucracy and lacks democracy. Many mafia organizations operate on the global stage, including Russian criminal organizations.   Generally speaking, Russian organized crime is prosecuted, but the prosecution of this type of crime in Russia represents a failure of many policies aimed at preventing criminal acts. It is necessary to use joint actions to prevent organized crime, especially today, when crime has become international. In Russia, the justice system is not effective enough to address the issue of the increased rate of organized crime.

Mahatma Gandhi Research Paper Example

Mahatma Gandhi Research Paper Example Mahatma Gandhi Paper Mahatma Gandhi Paper Essay on Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi commonly known as Mahatma Gandhi or Bapu (Father of Nation), was the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India. Employing non-violent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for non-violence, civil rights, and freedom across the The son of a senior government official, Gandhi was born and raised in a Bania[4] community In coastal Gujarat, and trained In law In London. Gandhi became famous by fighting for the clvll rights of Muslim and Hindu Indians In South Africa, using new techniques of non-violent clvll disobedience that he developed. Returning to India In 191 5, he set about organlslng peasants to protest excessive land-taxes. A lifelong opponent of â€Å"communalism† (I. e. basing polltlcs on rellglon) he reached out widely to all rellglous groups. He became a leader of Muslims protesting the declining status of the Caliphate. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women’s rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ndinguntouchability, increasing economic self-reliance, and above all for achieving Swaraj †the independence of India from British domination. Gandhi led Indians in protesting the national salt tax with the 400 km (250 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1 930, and later in demanding the British to immediately Quit India in 1942, during World War II. He was imprisoned for that and for numerous other political offences over the years. Gandhi sought to practice non-violence and truth in all situations, and advocated that others do the same. He saw the villages as the core of the true India and promoted self-sufficiency; he did not support the industrialisation programs of his discipleJawaharlal Nehru. He lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn he had hand spun on a charkha. His chief political enemy in Britain was Winston who ridiculed him as a â€Å"half-naked fakir†. 6] He was a dedicated vegetarian, and undertook long fasts as means of both self-purification and political mobilisation. In his last year, unhappy at the partition of India, Gandhi worked to stop the carnage between Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs that raged in the border area between India and Pakistan. He was assassinated on 30 January 1948 by Nathuram Godse who thought Gandhi was too sympathetic to India’s Muslims. 30 January Is observed as Martyrs’ Day in India. The honorific Mahatma (â€Å"Great Soul†) was applied to him by 1914. [7] In India he was also called Bapu (â€Å"Father†). He Is known In India as the Father of the his birthday, 2 October, Is commemorated there s Gandhi Jayantl, a national holiday, and world-wide as the International Day of Non- Violence. Gandhi’s philosophy was not theoretical but one of pragmatism, that Is, practlslng his principles In the moment. Asked to give a message to the people, he would respond, â€Å"My life is my message BY vjshalRaJ1 freedom across the world. The son of a senior government official, Gandhi was born and raised in a Bania[4] community in coastal Gujarat, and trained in law in London. Gandhi became famous by fghting for the civil rights of Muslim and Hindu Indians in South Africa, using new techniques of non-violent civil disobedience that he developed. Returning to India in 1915, he set about organising peasants to protest excessive land-taxes. A lifelong opponent of â€Å"communalism† (i. e. basing politics on religion) he reached out widely to all religious groups. He became a leader of achieving SwaraJ †the independence of India from British domination. Gandhi led March in 1930, and later in demanding the British to immediately Quit India in 1942, Churchill,[5] who ridiculed him as a â€Å"half-naked fakir†. ] He was a dedicated Godse who thought Gandhi was too sympathetic to India’s Muslims. 30 January is to him by 1914. [7] In India he was also called Bapu (â€Å"Father†). He is known in India as the Father of the Nation;[8] his birthday, 2 October, is commemorated there as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and world-wide as the International Day of Non- Violence.

Lean management Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Lean management - Assignment Example The method, which was employed during this work, was designed for the lean management introduction process for improvement initiative across the organization along with the effective organizational strategies. The report also utilized varied methods of collecting data including the sample surveys, use of questionnaires, interviews and the focused group discussions. The report offered an analysis on the way these methods were utilized for gathering adequate information about the topic under study. The report results were given and this included the outcomes of the research that was done through using varied data collection methods. The researcher packed up the report results with varied sources in order to enable the reader to understand the need for lean management in an organization. The conclusion also was given and this included a brief summary of what was discussed in the report. Lastly, the recommendations were given, which revealed some significant measures that should be taken in order to achieve successful organizational performance when employing lean management approach. A Business Report Introduction Lean management and organizational learning have become the fundamental driving forces for successful business in the contemporary society; thus contributing to a competitive advantage in an organization. The main objective of employing lean management is to maximize customer value while minimizing resources.... It also appears that lean management has only remained the popular strategy in many organizations; hence, it is applied at all strategies of production and management levels across the organizations. Thus, the report evaluates and offer recommendations on the feasibility and implications of applying lean management as a vital approach for improvement initiative across the organizational level. Report Purpose/Objectives The report aims to explore and examine the significant of the implementation of lean management from the perspective of organizational learning. The report attempts to find out the significant role of lean management approach for specific process improvement initiative across the organization. The report employs effective methods of analyzing the literature materials in order to determine the way lean approach percolates into a wider operation circles to enable businesses to achieve a competitive advantage. The report evaluates and offers effective recommendations on t he feasibility and implications of applying lean management as a vital approach for improvement initiative across the organizational level. Methods The method, which was employed during this work, was designed for the lean management introduction process improvement initiative across the organization, along with the effective organizational strategies. The information used in this report was collected by consulting an independent review from scholarly, journals and academic management reports. The information was also collected through contacting the individual companies for additional information about lean approach for specific process improvement initiative across the organization. Further research methods including use of questionnaires, interviews, focused group discussions and

Cmrj 502 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Cmrj 502 - Essay Example They work in partnership with the police forming part of the prosecution that ensures correct charges through elimination of non-viable cases (Cook, et al., 2005). With the help of use of â€Å"threshold test†, the decision on whether a bail or custody is to be executed is determined before charge. The decision on how to carry out the prosecution process is divided into two stages where â€Å"two stage tests† are undertaken. The two tests are carried out in turns by the crown prosecutors. The first stage which is the evidential stage involves the submission of sufficient evidence that must provide a realistic prospect of some conviction. If the case does not go through this stage, the case does not proceed. The public interest is the second stage where the interest of the public is considered. This is because according to lord Shawcross (1951), prosecution has never been automatic since public interest must be satisfied if conviction is to result in a sentence. As part of their role, CPS advises the police on cases for possible prosecution while being guided by the code for prosecutors on how to give timely responses while sticking to their charging standards which aims at restoring the CPS/police arrangements and joined up working (Vines,