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Water Gate Scandal and the Iran Contra Affair

Water Gate Scandal and the Iran Contra Affair

Over the past 50 years, there have been three major political scandals in the United States, one of the greatest being the Watergate scandal on June 17, 1972. This happened during the regime of President Richard Nixon. The term Watergate refers to a complex web of political scandals in 1972 and 1974. The scandal began after the re-election of President Nixon, when two burglars were arrested (Sirica, 1979).

The burglars were tapping wires into the Watergate hotel when they were arrested. It was noted that a lot of money was found in one of the Watergate burglar’s account. In 1972, President Nixon won the re-election with a landslide, something that has never happened in the history of the American politics. Investigations were done it was revealed that Nixon had knowledge of burglary and that he was also involved in the cover up of the whole story (Sirica, 1979).

The 1980s Iran-Contra Affairs in the Regan administration of foreign policies that were towards two seemingly unrelated countries, Iran and Nicaragua. The United State believed that the changes that had taken place in 1970s did threaten their national interests. The United States had had policies for a long time that were fair until the Iran-Contra Affairs. During this time, radical changes took happened in the political arena of Iran, and the U.S backed government was overthrown. It was because of the unfriendliness of the new Iranian government to the U.S, which even held some American hostage that the hostility began. These are some factors that led to the scandal (Ranstorp, 1997).

In conclusion, scandals have two common things; there is lying to the public and trying to cover up that the scandals never happened with the political heads knowledge.

WORK CITED

Sirica, J. (1979). To Set the Record Straight: The Break-in, the Tapes, the Conspirators, the Pardon. New York: Norton.

Ranstorp, M.,(1997) Hizb'allah in Lebanon: The Politics of the Western Hostage Crisis, New York, St. Martins Press

Security Policies

Security Policies

Introduction

Security policies refer to, to be secure for a system, business or an organization. In the case of a company or a business, it looks at the constraints on behavior of the staff members as well as constraints put on enemies such as walls, doors, locks and keys. For most systems, the security policies handle control on functions and flow among them. It controls all the rights to entry by exterior systems and adversaries as well as access to data and company programs by non authorized people (Andrew, 2013).

Privacy policy is a legal document or statement that unveils some or all of the means through which a company collects, manages and disclose a client or customer’s information or data. The client’s data can be any description that identifies a customer. This information ranges from name, date and place of birth, physical address, marital status, financial records, medical history, ID issue and expiry date, credit card information, contact information among others. The main purpose of privacy policy is to inform customers of what information is collected, and whether it publicized or kept confidential or given to other organizations (Slater, 2008).

Background of the organization

The financial institution that I choose is Barclays Bank.  Barclays Bank is a British international financial and banking services company, which has its headquarters in London, UK. Barclays Bank finds its roots to the goldsmith banking company founded in 1690 in the city of London. James Barclay joined the business in the year 1736. In 1896 the several united under the umbrella of Barclays. In the subsequent years, Barclays became a nation wide bank and slowly moved to other parts of the world.  It is a worldwide bank that deals in investment, wholesale, and retail banking as well wealth management, credit cards and mortgage lending. It is present in over 50 countries and territories and has about 50 million clients in the world. Barclays in itself runs two businesses, which are an investment and corporate Banking, and the other is wealth and investment management; and Business and Retail Banking (Andrew, 2013).

Core information system security concepts

According to Barclay’s information security concepts, the bank commits to keeping part of clients or customers information private and confidential. This information includes those that Barclays bank gets from third parties.

The information that clients provide when they registering with the bank are a secret they are not to the public. They even provide ways through which a person can protect their information that is in the case of online services.

The detail that surrounds the privacy policy includes not having to keep the information and only use it for the intended purpose only. A client has to be notified in case the bank has to use the information somewhere else. The main purpose of privacy policy is to inform customers of what information is collected, and whether it publicized or kept confidential or given to other organizations.

In the cases of outsourcing of any process, the bank ensures that right security measures are in place that meets their privacy principles. The bank also ensures that transfer of client’s information from one country to another is safely conducted. The main reason that Barclays bank has for their privacy policy is to inform customers of what information is collected, and whether it publicized or kept confidential or given to other organizations.

Corporate policy 

Corporate policy refers to a document that has step by step guideline. It is made after analysis of both internal and external environment that can have an effect on an organizations goals, plans and operations. It also establishes the making and implementation of strategies of the organization’s other offices.

Just as any other organization or financial institution, Barclays bank has its corporate policy. Their policy is aimed at creating and maintaining investor’s value and making sure that there are ethics, legal and transparency. That is what governs most of the businesses that are done in Barclays bank. The bank has several policies that manage how the bank and their customers do business. For example, acts such as corruption, the acts warrant independent investigation and the results of the investigation are made public. This helps reduce the level of corporate corruption in the banks environment (Slater, 2008).

The corporate and the security policies that are used in Barclays bank are very rigid in terms of ensuring customers’ safe environment. This will provide high levels of security and rules that govern how business is conducted within the banks premises. For example,  the bank does not give out information such as name, date and place of birth, physical address, marital status, financial records, medical history, ID issue and expiry date and credit card details of the customers to anyone unless authorized by the client. It also has a corporate policy that tackles acts such as corruption the bank handles such acts by warranting independent investigation and the results of the investigation are made public. This helps reduce the level of corporate corruption in Barclays bank.

Though, the bank's security and corporate police are so tight on making the environment free, they are some discrepancies that face these policies. When handling the information transfer from the bank to the third party, there are no background security checks done on reasons that make the other firm acquire information from them and not directly from the client. There is a possibility of the other firm getting more information from the bank than the client might give.

The only way through the discrepancies could be managed is by alignment of corporate and security policies. This can be done through, doing a pilot, study on what takes place in the bank, which  information is mostly needed by other firms. After all that is done appropriate measures can be put to ensure data security and good corporate behavior is achieved, (Harris, 2012).

The measures that the software firm should take are as follows; develop a database that only authorized company employees can have access to it on any time. Create defense mechanisms that prevent malware infections, which cause problems such as leakage of information, unauthorized access, proprietary information, disclosure of personal data, deletion of data, damage to the programs, and denial of authorized access to the database among other problems that comes system software (Willims, 2010).

A port scanner refers to a software application for probing a host or server for free ports. Administrators for their networks normally use the software for verifying network security policies; it is also a vial tool for the attackers they use it in the identification of the running services with the motive of compromising a host. A port scan is an attack that sends requests of clients to various servers’ port addresses on a host. They do this with the aim of getting a port that is active and they exploit an identified weakness of the service, most uses of a port are just probes to determine the services that are available on a remote machine but not always attack (Maimon, 1996).

TCP scanning

When the SYN is not the best option, simple port scanners operate by the operating system's structure functions. This mode is known as connect scan it is named after the Unix connect structure call. The operating system will finish a handshake in a TCP three ways if a port is open, to avoid any kind of service attack, the scanner closes the connection immediately. An error code is otherwise returned. The advantage of this mode of scan is that there are no special privileges required by the user. However, the functions of the network prevent the low-level control when the operating system is used this is to say, the scan is rare (Maimon, 1996).

Window scanning

Window scanning is rarely used because it is regarded as outdated in nature; the window scanning is not trusted in its determining whether a port is closed or open. The same packed as an ACK scan is generated by window scanning, but it inspects whether modifications to the window. If the port is open, a false design will try to create a window size for the packet when the packet has reached its destination, the packets window field will be flagged with 1’s before returning to the sender. Open ports will be labeled as closed. This scanning technique is used with systems do not support this technology.

SYN scanning

This is another TCP form of scanning. Instead of using the operating system's network applications, raw IP packets are generated by the port scanner and then it watches the responses. The scanner also called the "half-open scanning", simply because it does not open full TCP link. An SYN package is generated by the port scanner. The intended port will respond if it is open, with an SYN-ACK package. The scanner host reacts with a RST packet closing the link prior to the finishing of the handshake. There are several advantages coupled with the use of raw network connection; it allows a detailed report of the responses and gives the full control to the scanner. These scanners are most effective in handling data and processing (Maimon, 1996).

The scanners can be used positively to make work easier for many organizations that have large quantity of work. This reduces the work load that an organization has. The scanners can be used as a way of identification of most of the documents that are used in companies. This will help the organization find out which if fake or genuine. The scanners also help organization make things such as employees’ identity cards, through scanning their photos and fixing them on their relevant tags. An error code is otherwise returned. The advantage of these modes of scan is that there are no special privileges required by the user.  The tags are used as security passes among other things. The scanners can also be used to deter unauthorized access, proprietary information, disclosure of personal data, deletion of data, damage to the programs, and denial of authorized access to the database among many more.

Although the scanners are of great help to organizations they can be used for malicious purposes. For example they can be used to forge important document. The scanner has a capability of editing documents and has a duplicate of the original that looks the same as the original. One can scan and edit a lot using these machines and obtain for instance money through a fake document made by the help of the scanner. The forgery can be made on documents that will tarnish the name of a particular company or organization. This is mostly done by rival company or group of people.

The scanners could be used for malicious purposes in a banking hall for instance one could use the scanner to make an Identity similar to another person then do something bad. The company will then go for the person whose identity was used as the main suspect in the case (Erikson, 1999). This will in turn make the work environment to be very hostile for everyone. When a person forges, they do this with the aim of getting a port that is active and they exploit an identified weakness of the service, most uses of a port are just probes to determine the services that are available on a remote machine but not always attack (Abraham, 2004).

                In conclusion, it is important for financial institutions to have all their policies scrutinized before they put them into action. Policies help safeguard the institution a lot, as it is the base of almost all the operations that take place. Software that is used should also be cross checked to determine their security levels to ensure nothing goes wrong.

WORK CITED

Abraham N., (2004). "Verdict in the case Avi Mizrahi vs. Israeli Police Department of Prosecution” Oxford University press

Erikson J., (1999). HACKING the art of exploitation (2nd ed.). San Francisco: NoStarch Press. ISBN 1-59327-144-1

Andrew H., (2013). Corporate Governs in Barclays Bank: A case of Banks in London, Unpublished Article

Willims D., (2010). Data and System Security Measures: Security Guidelines for System Administrators, Atlanta Press

First Baptist Women’s Prayer Group

First Baptist Women’s Prayer Group

 

Abstract

The existence of religious institutions such as churches, temples and synagogues, has led to the development in the society in several ways. For instance, people join prayer groups in places of worship with intentions of improving their lifestyle as is the case at Baptist women’s prayer groups. Joining prayer groups has affected the lifestyles of individuals positively. This makes this study highlight the dynamics that characterize prayer groups.  Consequently, it is necessary to examine the role of prayer groups in fostering spiritual growth. The observations in the research are made over a period of eight weeks. My interaction with church members’ personal level enabled me to gather enough and conclusive information.

In my position as a Christian and having been a member of the church for the past one year, I have had experiences that have changed my perception regarding Christianity despite being a Non-Baptist member. The teachings of the Baptist church have given me a glimpse contrary to my pre-conceived perception about the life of Christians. According to, Cross & Livingstone (1997) Baptist’s believe in the supremacy of the Bible, the autonomy of the church, individual growth, use of the Holy Communion and the separation of the role of the church from the State. My impartiality enabled me to understand the teachings of the Baptist church. Presently, the church is one of the biggest liberal protestant organizations known globally.

In my research, I was able to gather more information since there are no restrictions to with taking notes during the women’s prayers groups. The church only restricts using a person’s name when interviewing of the members of prayer groups.  The members of the church provided me with information concerning the mode of prayers at the church though they did not disclose their identities.

At the church, the prayer group met weekly every Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. The study participants’ ages were between twenty-eight to seventy-five years old. Ten to twenty women showed up during the study, and it involved an all-female prayer group. Furthermore, a peaceful environment and fellowship was safe. From my studies, I discovered that prayer groups were not a new concept in Christianity. Records indicate that the history of the woman’s participation in prayer group dates back to November 1959, the year in which women began uniting weekly for devotional gatherings. At the time, women took part Bible study to empower themselves. During their meetings, they used to gather at a small church in their area before moving to their present location. According to Ymker (2010), prayer groups are not a new thing in the area since they have existed for years.

In addition, meetings start with prayers from the leader of the group. Thereafter, the women share their personal experiences before requesting a prayer for their problems. The women also make a request for each of their struggles. At the beginning of the study, the leader chooses the topic of study for the congregation, thereafter she engages with the congregation in suggesting the contents of the study. On rare occasions, members of the study group suggest the subject for the day. The meeting begins with a prayer by a church leader who leads the gatherings throughout the study.  In choosing the topic of study, Jane Doe picks a subject she feels is appropriate to the audience. Sometimes she gives a video series for members to watch while studying the book. In understanding my contents of the study, impartiality is important. This is because impartiality is essential in understanding my teaching. For instance, an impartial observer is more likely to benefit from the group teachings.

During the study, the leader begins with focusing on the interests of the people before choosing a topic. Thereafter, she prepares the studies in books valued at around ten dollars. The books have to be inspirational, and in some cases, videos accompany the books. In the absence of a video, the prayer group begins the meeting with a prayer before proceeding to study the guide presented to them by the prayer leader. While using the guide, the members fill out the questionnaire with appropriate answers. The guide contains information essential for enhancing the growth of the members of the prayer group. Additionally, the guide has readings of scriptures together with questions for testing the understanding of the readers. The subjects of the readings are not restricted to any teachings. The subjects range from teachings on Christ’s life, spiritual growth and personal growth.  For the past eight weeks, the congregation has been discussing matters on spiritual growth by comparing physical food with the spiritual food.  After this comparison, the group concluded that spirituality is essential for the happiness and health of Christians.

At the church, Jane Doe, the leader of the prayer group appeared overwhelmed with work. Consequently, she was unhappy with the participation of some of the women in the prayer group. Despite complaining about the conditions of her job, she had devoted herself to serving as the leader of the prayer group.

Furthermore, she exuded commitment to the prayer group. She encouraged members to support others who were new to the group.  Her idea of help was to encourage members to engage fully in the prayer group. I discovered that a good number of people who were studying the guides did not complete their homework. I believe they felt guilty. Surprisingly, I was not the only one who felt relieved by the decision of the prayer leader, to excuse the members for failing to read their guides.  During the session, the youth pastor’s wife, the leader Jane Doe, the school bus driver, the oldest member of the women’s prayer group in her eighty’s and the coach’s wife shared their views with other members of the congregation. At the time, the youth pastor’s wife was doing most of the praying, yet she was fairly new to the church.  She had devoted her life to praying with the group for the past 5 to 6 years. Indeed, the prayer group was a great source of inspiration to her. Hence, she felt that she had gained freedom from attending the prayer group despite being a mother of three, and overburdened with domestic duties.

Among the participants, the school bus driver was very shy and hesitant. She appeared stressed, but she showed seriousness in her commitment to God. She had the feeling that she was the least active among the participants in the prayer group. However, the group members comforted her through her challenges that she was experiencing. From her response, it was evident that she benefited from the group.

The other member who exuded confidence in her participation, in the group was an elder in her eighties. She was a dedicated Christian who was nonjudgmental woman in her actions. She had served as a teacher in her younger years and is a mother of two. Despite being older, she devoted herself to serving the group. She was a role model to many in the congregation. Just like other members, the coach’s wife who had been diagnosed with breast cancer was an active member of the group. She had been encouraged by the support she received from one of members of the group. However, most members of the group did not listen to her plight. Instead, they feared associating with people diagnosed from cancer.

It is encouraging that Baptist women’s prayer groups begin prayers with pre-prayer discussions on the prayer items. This includes burdens, praises and  prayer request.  Secondly, the leader guides the group in prayers using a  format in which sentence prayers are recited for a  problem. Thirdly, the group intercedes silently on issues requested upon by the members of the congregation. The group assumes that God knows the request. During the process, people remain silent in the prayer. Thereafter, they address their strong personal needs, which include a prayer request by a non-member who is facing trouble in their life. In the fifth stage, the members pray aloud. From my observations, praying loud involved preaching, teaching, giving advice, passes along information, and praises or blessings (Longman, 2011). The common words used by the members of the group in prayers includes words such as amen, pray requests, praises, struggle’s, strongholds, praise the lord, sin, pray about it and worship, Baptist, sins, anti-Christ, Satan, great tribulation, atonement, baptism, denomination, Christ, and born again.

Moreso, the women offer support to each other.  They use comforting words such as ‘I understand’ and ‘it will be okay’ in their prayers. Interestingly, many people shy away from leading the group in prayers.  As witnessed, the only woman who was willing to lead other members in a prayer session was a driver who had challenges praying aloud at the women’s prayer group meetings. However, the group leader takes out who showed her mutual support by assisting her. As a result, she developed confidence of addressing the group aloud despite having difficulties in communicating. At the meeting, Jane Doe asked the members to read the Bible beginning from the book of John. Members were required to volunteer in reading the passages in the Bible. Then, the members discussed among themselves the contents of the passage. Surprisingly, there was a member who appeared reluctant in giving her views concerning the readings. This forced the leader to provide explanations about the passages from the readings. The leader extended the discussion on topics she felt were important for the group.

In conclusion, it was fascinating watching people’s experiences and spiritual growth as we discussed the Bible and prayed in the period of eight weeks. Every woman has her own opinions, and nobody was too judgmental. Indeed, this was the best place for women to express themselves and grow as Christians since women supported each other in this prayer groups.  I noticed the women shared a lot from the prayer meetings, and it was a way of uniting women spiritually with God.  The lesson learned from the meetings offered a great experience to the prayer group. It was fascinating to observe the leadership styles, the communication skills, rituals, and personalities of people during these prayer meetings. For instance, people join prayer groups in places of worship with intentions of improving their lifestyle as is the case at Baptist women’s prayer groups. Joining prayer groups has affected the lifestyles of individuals positively. I gained insightful cultural information from observing this group.

References

Cross, F. L., & Livingstone, E. A. (1997). Baptists. In The Oxford dictionary of the Christian Church (pp. 154-155). New York: Oxford University Press.

Ymker, B., Pastor. (2010). First Baptist Church of Lockport. First Baptist Church of Lockport. Retrieved April/May, 2013, from http://www.firstbaptistchurchoflockport.com/tp40/Default.asp?ID=110216

Longman, R. (2011). Small Prayer Groups. Prayer Groups. Retrieved February/March, 2013, from http://www.spirithome.com/prayer-group.html

A port scanner

A port scanner is a software application designed to probe a server or host for open ports. This is often used by administrators to verify security policies of their networks and by attackers to identify running services on a host with the view to compromise it. A port scan or portscan can be defined as an attack that sends client requests to a range of server port addresses on a host, with the goal of finding an active port and exploiting a known vulnerability of that service, although the majority of uses of a port scan are not attacks and are simple probes to determine services available on a remote machine.

TCP scanning

The simplest port scanners use the operating system's network functions and is generally the next option to go to when SYN is not a feasible option (described next). Nmap calls this mode connect scan, named after the Unix connect() system call. If a port is open, the operating system completes the TCP three-way handshake, and the port scanner immediately closes the connection to avoid performing a kind of Denial-of-service attack. Otherwise an error code is returned. This scan mode has the advantage that the user does not require special privileges. However, using the OS network functions prevents low-level control, so this scan type is less common. This method is "noisy", particularly if it is a "portsweep": the services can log the sender IP address and Intrusion detection systems can raise an alarm.

SYN scanning

SYN scan is another form of TCP scanning. Rather than use the operating system's network functions, the port scanner generates raw IP packets itself, and monitors for responses. This scan type is also known as "half-open scanning", because it never actually opens a full TCP connection. The port scanner generates a SYN packet. If the target port is open, it will respond with a SYN-ACK packet. The scanner host responds with a RST packet, closing the connection before the handshake is completed.

The use of raw networking has several advantages, giving the scanner full control of the packets sent and the timeout for responses, and allowing detailed reporting of the responses. There is debate over which scan is less intrusive on the target host. SYN scan has the advantage that the individual services never actually receive a connection. However, the RST during the handshake can cause problems for some network stacks, in particular simple devices like printers. There are no conclusive arguments either way.

UDP scanning

UDP scanning is also possible, although there are technical challenges. UDP is a connectionless protocol so there is no equivalent to a TCP SYN packet. However, if a UDP packet is sent to a port that is not open, the system will respond with an ICMP port unreachable message. Most UDP port scanners use this scanning method, and use the absence of a response to infer that a port is open. However, if a port is blocked by a firewall, this method will falsely report that the port is open. If the port unreachable message is blocked, all ports will appear open. This method is also affected by 

ICMP rate limiting.

An alternative approach is to send application-specific UDP packets, hoping to generate an application layer response. For example, sending a DNS query to port 53 will result in a response, if a DNS server is present. This method is much more reliable at identifying open ports. However, it is limited to scanning ports for which an application specific probe packet is available. Some tools (e.g., nmap) generally have probes for less than 20 UDP services, while some commercial tools (e.g., nessus) have as many as 70. In some cases, a service may be listening on the port, but configured not to respond to the particular probe packet.

To cope with the different limitations of each approach, some scanners offer a hybrid method. For example, using nmap with the -sUV option will start by using the ICMP port unreachable method, marking all ports as either "closed" or "open|filtered". The open|filtered ports are then probed for application responses and marked as "open" if one is received.

Window scanning

Rarely used because of its outdated nature, window scanning is fairly untrustworthy in determining whether a port is opened or closed. It generates the same packet as an ACK scan, but checks whether the window field of the packet has been modified. When the packet reaches its destination, a design flaw attempts to create a window size for the packet if the port is open, flagging the window field of the packet with 1's before it returns to the sender. Using this scanning technique with systems that no longer support this implementation returns 0's for the window field, labeling open ports as closed.