The Types And Techniques Of Steganography Computer Science Essay

The Types And Techniques Of Steganography Computer Science Essay This document focus on an unfamiliar field of study in IT sector i.e. Steganography. This document covers various concepts in Steganography, A brief history of Steganography and introducing few types of techniques available today in Steganography. It also covers other topics like security in Steganography, mobile messaging, MMS Steganography related information. This document closes with a summery and proper solution . The initial footages of Steganography were by the Greek historian Herodotus in hischronicles known as Histories and date back to around 440 BC. Herodotus recorded two stories of Steganographic techniques during this time in Greece. The first stated that King Darius of Susa shaved the head of one of his prisoners and wrote a secret message on his scalp. When the prisoners hair grew back, he was sent to the Kings son in law Aristogoras in Miletus undetected. The second story also came from Herodotus, which claims that a soldier named Demeratus needed to send a message to Sparta that Xerxes intended to invade Greece. Back then, the writing medium was text written on wax-covered tablets. Demeratus removed the wax from the tablet, wrote the secret message on the underlying wood, recovered the tablet with wax to make it appear as a blank tablet and finally sent the document without being detected. Romans used invisible inks, which were based on natural substances such as fruit juices and m ilk. This was accomplished by heating the hidden text, thus revealing its contents. Invisible inks have become much more advanced and are still in limited use today. During the 15th and 16th centuries, many writers including Johannes Trithemius (author of Steganographia) and Gaspari Schotti (author or Steganographica) wrote on Steganagraphic techniques such as coding techniques for text, invisible inks, and incorporating hidden messages in music. Between 1883 and 1907, further development can be attributed to the publications of Auguste Kerckhoff (author of Cryptographic Militaire) and Charles Briquet (author of Les Filigranes). These books were mostly about Cryptography, but both can be attributed to the foundation of some Steganographic systems and more significantly to watermarking techniques. During the times of WWI (World War 1) and WWII (World War 11), significant advances in Steganography took place. Concepts such as null ciphers (taking the 3rd letter from each word in a harmless message to create a hidden message, etc), image substitution and microdot (taking data such as pictures and reducing it to the size of a large period on a piece of paper) were introduced and embraced as great steganographic techniques. In the recent digital world of today, namely 1992 to present, Steganography is being used all over the world on computer systems. Many tools and technologies have been created that take advantage of old steganographic techniques such as null ciphers, coding in images, audio, video and microdot. With the research this topic is now getting a lot of great applications for Steganography in the near future. HOW STEGANOGRAPHY WORKS Steganography replaces unneeded or unused bits in regular computer files (Graphics, sound, text) with bits of different and invisible information. Hidden information can be any other regular computer file or encrypted data. Steganography differs from cryptography in a way that it masks the existence of the message where cryptography works to mask the content of the message. Steganography sometimes used in conjunction with encryption. An encrypted file may still hide information using steganography, so even if the encrypted file is deciphered,the hidden information is not seen. . TYPES OF STEGANOGRAPHY There are different ways to hide the message in another, well known are Least Significant bytes and Injection. When a file or an image is created there are few bytes in the file or image which are not necessary or least important. These type of bytes can be replaced with a message without damaging or replacing the original message, by which the secrete message is hidden in the file or image. Another way is a message can be directly injected into a file or image. But in this way the size of the file would be increasing accordingly depending on the secrete message STEGANOGRAPHY IN IMAGE Digital images are the most widely used cover objects for steganography. Due to the availability of various file formats for various applications the algorithm used for these formats differs accordingly. An image is collection of bytes (know as pixels for images) containing different light intensities in different areas of the image. When dealing with digital images for use with Steganography, 8-bit and 24-bit per pixel image files are typical. Both have advantages and disadvantages 8-bit images are a great format to use because of their relatively small size. The drawback is that only 256 possible colors can be used which can be a potential problem during encoding. Usually a gray scale color palette is used when dealing with 8-bit images such as (.GIF) because its gradual change in color would be harder to detect after the image has been encoded with the secret message. 24-bit images offer much more flexibility when used for Steganography. The large numbers of colors (over 16 million) that can be used go well beyond the human visual system (HVS), which makes it very hard to detect once a secret message, has been encoded. Large amount of data can be encoded in to 24-bit images as it is compared to 8-bit images. The drawback of 24-bit digital images is their size which is very high and this makes them suspicious our internet due to their heavy size when compared to 8-bit images. Depending on the type of message and type of the image different algorithms are used. Few types in Steganography in Images: Least significant bit insertion Masking and filtering Redundant Pattern Encoding Encrypt and Scatter Algorithms and transformations Least significant bit insertion Least Significant Bit (LSB) insertion is most widely known algorithm for image steganography ,it involves the modification of LSB layer of image. In this technique,the message is stored in the LSB of the pixels which could be considered as random noise.Thus, altering them does not have any obvious effect to the image. Masking and filtering Masking and filtering techniques work better with 24 bit and grey scale images. They hide info in a way similar to watermarks on actual paper and are sometimes used as digital watermarks. Masking the images changes the images. To ensure that changes cannot be detected make the changes in multiple small proportions. Compared to LSB masking is more robust and masked images passes cropping, compression and some image processing. Masking techniques embed information in significant areas so that the hidden message is more integral to the cover image than just hiding it in the noise level. This makes it more suitable than LSB with, for instance, lossy JPEG images. Redundant Pattern Encoding Redundant pattern encoding is to some extent similar to spread spectrum technique. In this technique, the message is scattered through out the image based on algorithm. This technique makes the image ineffective for cropping and rotation. Multiple smaller images with redundancy increase the chance of recovering even when the stegano-image is manipulated. Encrypt and Scatter Encrypt and Scatter techniques hides the message as white noise and White Noise Storm is an example which uses employs spread spectrum and frequency hopping. Previous window size and data channel are used to generate a random number.And with in this random number ,on all the eight channels message is scattered through out the message.Each channel rotates,swaps and interlaces with every other channel. Single channel represents one bit and as a result there are many unaffected bits in each channel. In this technique it is very complex to draw out the actual message from stegano-image. This technique is more secure compared to LSB as it needs both algorithm and key to decode the bit message from stegano-image. Some users prefer this methos for its security as it needs both algorithm and key despite the stegano image. This method like LSB lets image degradation in terms of image processing, and compression. Algorithms and transformations LSB modification technique for images does hold good if any kind of compression is done on the resultant stego-image e.g. JPEG, GIF. JPEG images use the discrete cosine transform to achieve compression. DCT is a lossy compression transform because the cosine values cannot be calculated exactly, and repeated calculations using limited precision numbers introduce rounding errors into the final result. Variances between original data values and restored data values depend on the method used to calculate DCT STEGANOGRAPHY IN AUDIO Implanting secrete message into an audio is the most challenging technique in Steganography. This is because the human auditory system (HAS) has such a vibrant range that it can listen over. To put this in perspective, the (HAS) recognize over a range of power greater than one million to one and a range of frequencies greater than one thousand to one making it extremely hard to add or remove data from the original data structure. The only weakness in the (HAS) comes at trying to differentiate sounds (loud sounds drown out quiet sounds) and this is what must be exploited to encode secret messages in audio without being detected. Below are the lists of methods which are commonly used for audio Steganography. LSB coding Parity coding Phase coding Spread spectrum Echo hiding LSB coding Using the least-significant bit is possible for audio, as modifications usually would not create recognizable changes to the sounds. Another method takes advantage of human limitations. It is possible to encode messages using frequencies that are indistinct to the human ear. Using frequencies above 20.000Hz, messages can be hidden inside sound files and can not be detected by human checks. Parity coding Instead of breaking a signal down into individual samples, the parity coding method breaks a signal down into separate regions of samples and encodes each bit from the secret message in a sample regions parity bit. If the parity bit of a selected region does not match the secret bit to be encoded, the process flips the LSB of one of the samples in the region. Thus, the sender has more of a choice in encoding the secret bit, and the signal can be changed in a more unobtrusive fashion. Phase coding Phase coding attends to the disadvantages of the noise inducing methods of audio Steganography. Phase coding uses the fact that the phase components of sound are not as audible to the human ear as noise is. Rather than introducing perturbations, this technique encodes the message bits as phase shifts in the phase spectrum of a digital signal, attaining an indistinct encoding in terms of signal-to-perceived noise ratio. Spread spectrum In the context of audio Steganography, the basic spread spectrum (SS) method attempts to spread secret information across the audio signals frequency spectrum as much as possible. This is comparable to a system using an implementation of the LSB coding that randomly spreads the message bits over the entire audio file. However, unlike LSB coding, the SS method spreads the secret message over the sound files frequency spectrum, using a code that is independent of the actual signal. As a result, the final signal occupies a bandwidth in excess of what is actually required for broadcast. Echo hiding In echo hiding, information is implanted in a sound file by introducing an echo into the separate signal. Like the spread spectrum method, it too provides advantages in that it allows for a high data transmission rate and provides superior strength when compared to the noise inducing methods. If only one echo was produced from the original signal, only one bit of information could be encoded. Therefore, the original signal is broken down into blocks before the encoding process begins. Once the encoding process is completed, the blocks are concatenated back together to create the final signal. STEGANOGRAPHY IN VIDEO In video steganography, a video file would be embedded with supplementary data to hide secret messages. In the process, an intermediate signal which is a function of hidden message data and data of content signal would be generated. Content data (video file) is then combined with this intermediate signal to result encoding. The supplementary data can include copy control data which can be brains by consumer electronic device and used to disable copying. The intermediate signal may also contain a pseudo arbitrary key data so as to hide encoding and decode needs corresponding key to extract hidden information from encoded content. In some implementations regulation data is embedded in the content signal with auxiliary data. This regulation data consists of known properties enabling its identification in the embedded content signal. This encoding is robust against scaling, resampling and other forms of content degradation, so that the supplementary data can be detected from the content which might have been degraded. There are different approaches for video steganography apart from the above mentioned. Most widely known are listed and discussed below. Least Significant Bit Insertion This is the most simple and popular approach for all types of steganography. In this method the digital video file is considered as separate frames and changes the displayed image of each video frame. LSB of 1 byte in the image is used to store the secret information. Effecting changes are too small to be recognized by human eye. This method enhances the capacity of the hidden message but compromises the security requirements such as data integrity. Real time video steganography This kind of steganography involves hiding information on the output image on the device. This method considers each frame shown at any moment irrespective of whether it is image; text .The image is then divided into blocks. If pixel colors of the blocks are similar then changes color characteristics of number of these pixels to some extent. By labeling each frame with a sequence number it would even be easy to identify missing parts of information. To extract the information, the displayed image should be recorded first and relevant program is used then. STEGANOGRAPHY IN DOCUMENT Steganography in documents just focuses on altering some of its characteristics. They can either be characteristics of text or even text formatting. Below are few ways listed and discussed to implement the same. Since everyone can read, encoding text in neutral sentences is doubtfully effective. But taking the first letter of each word of the previous sentence, one can see that it is possible and not very difficult. Hiding information in plain text can be done in many different ways. One way is by simple adding white space and tabs to the ends of the lines of the document .The last technique was successfully used in practice and even after a text has been printed and copied on paper for ten times, the secret message could still be retrieved. Another possible way of storing a secret inside a text is using a publicly available cover source, a book or a newspaper, and using a code which consists for example of a combination of a page number, a line number and a character number. This way, no information stored inside the cover source leads to the hidden message. Discovering it depends exclusively on gaining knowledge of the secret key. Setting background color and font color is one of the mainly used staganographic approach. This method is focused for Microsoft word documents. Choose predefined colors and set font and background colors of invisible characters such as space, tab or the carriage return characters. R,G,B values are 8 bits means we have allowed range of 0 to 255.Most of the viewers would not feel interested about color values of these invisible characters hence 3 bytes of information is easily hidden in each occurrence of space,tab or carriage return.This approach needs no extra information to hide required bits. SECURITY IN STEGANOGRAPHY PURE KEY STEGANOGRAPHY Pure Steganography is a Steganography system that doesnt require prior exchange of some secret information before sending message; therefore, no information is required to start the communication process: the security of the system thus depends entirely on its secrecy .The pure Steganography can be defined as the quadruple (C, M, D, and E) where: C: the set of possible covers. M: the set of secret massage with |C| à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¥ |M|. E: CÃÆ'-Mà ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢C the embedding function. D: Cà ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢M of the extraction function with the property that D (E(c,m))=m for all m à Ã¢â‚¬Å¾ M and c à Ã¢â‚¬Å¾ C. Cover (C) Message (M) Embedding (E) Extracting (D) Strgo-Object Message(M) In most applications, pure Steganography is preferred, since no stego-key must be shared between the communication partners, although a pure Steganography protocols dont provide any security if an attacker knows the embedding method PRIVATE KEY STEGANOGRAPHY A Private Key Steganography system is similar to a symmetric cipher, where the sender chooses a cover and embeds the secret message into the cover using a secret key. If the Private Key used in the embedding process is known to the receiver, he can reverse the process and extract the secret message. Anyone who doesnt know the Private Key should not be able to obtain evidence of the encoded information. The Private Key Steganography can be defined as the quintuple (C, M, K, DK, and EK) where: C: the set of possible covers. M: the set of secret message. K: the set of secret keys. Ek: CÃÆ'-MÃÆ'-Kà ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢C With the property that DK (EK(c,m,k),k)=m for all m à Ã¢â‚¬Å¾ M, c à Ã¢â‚¬Å¾ C and k à Ã¢â‚¬Å¾ K KEY KEY Strgo-Object Cover (C) Embedding (E) Message (M) Extracting (D) Message (M) PUBLIC KEY STEGANOGRAPHY Public key Steganography does not depend on the swapping of a private key. It necessitates two keys, one of them private (secret) and the other public: the public key is stored in a public database, whereas the public key is used in the embedding process. The Private Key is used to reconstruct the secret message One way to build a public key Steganography system is to use a public key crypto system. The sender and the receiver can exchange public keys of some public key cryptography algorithm before imprisonment. Public key Steganography utilizes the fact that the decoding function in a Steganography system can be applied to any cover, whether or not it already contains a secret message. The public key Steganography relies on the fact that encrypted information is random enough to hide in plain sight. The sender encrypts the information with the receivers public key to obtain a random-looking massage and embeds it in a channel known to the receiver, thereby replacing some of the natu ral arbitrariness with which every communication process is accompanied. Assume that both the cryptographic algorithms and the embedding functions are publicly known. The receiver who cannot decide a priori if secret information is transmitted in a specific cover suspect the arrival of message and simply try to extract and decrypt it using his private key. If the cover actually contained information, the decryption information is the senders message OTHER TYPES MOBILE MESSAGING STEGANOGRAPHY Mobile Messaging Service enables mobile users to send and receive messages containing image, audio and video. These messages are exchanged ultimately through a component known as Mobile Switching Center. MMS messages have several benefits like communicating even when the server is busy, exchanging messages while making calls, sending offline messages. They also provide services like eCommerce. As there is possibility of disclosure of confidential and personal information between various systems, information security has got immense importance. MMS Steganography provides confidentiality and integrity with subtle unremovability.Users can profit from concealed channels in order to send and receive hidden messages and keys. Multimedia objects may contain hidden information embedded to them using steganography techniques. The steganography technique used must satisfy following: Reliability of secreted information after it has been embedded inside the content should be correct. Content object should remain intact or almost unchanged to the human eyes. There can be mainly two types of steganography techniques possible for MMS objects. Fragile steganography comprises of implanting information into a file which is destroyed if the file is modified. Video Technique: Works over video files. Combinations of sound and image techniques are used to implement this as whole. The scope of adding lots of data is much greater. Sound Technique: Works over audio files like Mp3 files. Encode data as binary to sound like noise and can be identified by receiver with correct key. Data being added is in narrow bandwidth compared to the medium. Robust techniques aim to embed information into a file which cannot easily be destroyed. Image Hiding: Works over images. Lease Significant Bit Least significant bits of each pixel in one image are used to hide the most significant bits of another. Simple and easy way of information hiding. Direct Cosine Transform Transformed DCT coefficients would be altered. Image would be made robust by scattering the hiding information evenly. Wavelet Transform Dividing whole image into small wavelets and then hide the information. Coefficients of wavelets are altered with tolerable noise. Text Technique: Works over documents.Just by changing some of the characteristics of the content information can be embedded. Alterations would not be visible to user. As MMS Steganography becomes more widely used now there must be a clear definition of robustness. This definition helps to prevent detection and removal of embedded data. Below are the few properties a good technique should hold: Quality of media should not perceptibly degrade after embedding secret data. Secret data should be imperceptible with out secret knowledge, typically the key. If several data are there, they should not hamper with each other. Secret data should survive which dont degrade the perceived quality of work. MMS STEGANOGRAPHY RELATED WORK As MMS carries multi formatted data such as Text, Audio, Video and images, it has got more chances of sending secret messages and can implement various methodologies in order to keep the message safe and secret. Currently this study is all about Text and Video based Steganography. An MMS capable mobile with inbuilt cameras and customized applications has high importance in terms of steganography creation and extraction Capacity Efficiency Processing time Resource time consumption Advantage Text technique Less More Less Less Easy and simple to implement Video technique More More More More Holds lot of information compared to text technique Table -1- comparison between Text and Video steganography Techniques PROPER SOLUTION MMS Messages can hold any of video, audio, image and text encapsulated with in Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) . The recommended steganography deals with three major parts of MMS which can provide us with maximum capacity possible and not compromising main aim which is total security. The most important issues in steganography are secrecy, payload, robustness and speed. Below steps describes proposed steganography working model: First part of the process hides stegno key in SMIL using white space algorithm. Then Least Significant Bit algorithm is used to hide the secret message in video. Rest of the information would be hidden inside text of the MMS using abbreviation algorithm. Ratio of information hiding in video part to text part is 6:1 hence I bit stored in text corresponds to 6 bits stored in 3gp video. High security can be granted with reasonable processing speed and without affecting the performance of mobile. 2.10 CHAPTER SUMMERY This document is all about available Steganography techniques and methodologies. It has listed down the various methodologies and their uses. Along with these, it has also included about the MMS Steganography importance and ways to do that.

The Beef with TV Essay -- essays research papers

Television: Our Nations Drug of Choice   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Television is our era’s escape from what we now consider a chaotic struggle of life. I think we as a people feel life can be solved in an hour long Monday night special and that exact attitude is our society’s problem today. Frankly we are a group of cowards who do not take the bull by the horns; rather we retreat to routine episode line up that we can supposedly relate to. Ladies and gentlemen we need to break free like Plato’s slave in the myth of the cave, by realizing that life is not â€Å"Ragged, loose and something hard to cope with† (Dove) but rather a beautiful journey far off into the beyond.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Over ninety-eight percent of homes in America have television, while only ninety percent have telephones. Most often the programs the viewer receives are quite harmful to them physically, mentally, developmentally, and even financially.†(Paul) The theory that ‘The Tube’ is a bad thing should be no longer be pondered, it is a very bad thing. People who sit in front of the T.V. religiously often feel that they can quit at whatever time they want to, and pick up where they left off in their daily activities. Most often, nevertheless, people grow to be very flaccid about their lives; the individual sees their once everyday behavior less attractive and more complex. The scariest part of this bad habit we as a nation develop from watching television is its uncanny resemblance to heroine u...

Technology Is Killing Creativity

Technology is not killing creativity. If it was, then Les Paul’s invention of the electric guitar, Bob Moog’s invention of the synthesizer, Kusek et al. ’s invention of MIDI, Pro Tools’ inventor as well as every effects pedal or electronic music enhancing piece of gear would have to be part of this destructive force. Thoughts like this are fun to debate but totally unproductive. The real issue to be discussed for which a solution must be found is how can those who produce great music be found, heard above all the clutter and find an audience large enough to sustain a career financially. How music will be discovered in the future will determine whether next generation major artists will ever be developed again or whether the fragmentation of the music space only allows for creation of a large middle class of artists struggling to survive. Today’s battle for discovery of great music is no different than it was over the past 60 years for innovative genres like Rock and Roll, R&B and Hip Hop. The innovator’s dilemma applied to those artists and entrepreneurs fomenting these musical revolutions. It all comes down to how the tools available at the time, both music and business, were employed by the innovators to create a force great enough to break through the same type of early technology adoption problems we have today. The world was much simpler in those days and today those trying to break through are faced with a much more challenging and complicated set of circumstances BUT the exact same problem. From the 50’s through the 80’s, the record business could develop great artists out of the trunks of their cars. One driven and focused person could make it all happen. Channels of distribution were easily controlled by those who knew how to utilize them. The press, radio and TV allowed massive marketing and promotion machines to be built that could break an artist over night. In the early days there was no one way to get it done. It took 25 years for a successful cookie cutter business model to be developed but there were always interlopers that could come in at any time and change the game. Unfortunately, the world in which great music must be found and nurtured is so fragmented and overwhelming to almost everyone that’s in it. We haven’t figured it out yet. One thing is very clear to me: moving forward no band or artist will be able to do it alone. Collaboration, better teamwork, and a better meld of technology with creativity, marketing and promotion are essential if success is to be found in the future. Outside the box thinking, new tools need to be tested for success and the new music business needs to evolve a system that makes the fragmentation more manageable and controllable to easier focus our attention on the great music that is really out there and the artists who play it.

Malcom X Essay

Malcom X was a man who held many strong beliefs and posed numerous persuasive arguments. Many of these arguments are presented by Malcom X in his autobiography. The told events of his life provide the evidence for the arguments he makes. One of his contentions is that women are inferior to men. Malcom’s perception of women and his basis for this argument develop through out his life. His experiences with women provide efficient evidence for the argument he makes, but there are some counter-examples which contradict his argument. Malcom grew up watching his father beat his mother. As a young boy he lived in a society where women were considered less significant than men. When Malcom moved to Boston, he gained knowledge about women by the examples of his friends who used women as status symbols. His experiences with his own status symbol, Sophia, further lead him to believe that women were inferior to men. These conditions shaped Malcom’s views on women. It was through Malcom’s experiences with his family, his friends in Boston, and the women he knew that lead him to believe women were â€Å"nothing but another commodity (155).† Malcom did have models of proud and self-reliant women through out his life. However, these women did not seem to affect his overall opinion. Malcom’s father was often physically abusive to his mother. Malcom was subjected to witnessing his father’s actions. Malcom observes that a possible reason for his father’s violent outbursts was the fact that his mother â€Å"had a pretty good education (6).† His father would not tolerate being corrected by a woman which presented Malcom his first example of women’s inferiority to men. These violent outbreaks and his mother’s passive reactions taught Malcom that women could be treated in any harmful and shameful way without consequence. Moving to Boston exposed Malcom to a different culture. Boston’s urban setting clashed with the rural areas where Malcom was raised. The friends he made in Boston were hustlers who operated in a fast paced and manipulative world. They believed that being seen with a white woman was the ultimate establishment of reputation. Not only did Malcom witness the white women being used for status by his friends, he understood that â€Å"†¦those white women had no more respect for those Negroes†¦ (140).† He knew that the white women were using them for pleasure and escape from the security of their marriages. These experiences taught Malcom that women were to be regarded as nothing more than trophies. The lack of respect given to the women and the lack of which they gave provided evidence that women did not deserve to be appreciated. Malcom had his own white woman to parade around town to the clubs and bars, Sophia. Sophia succumbed to anything that Malcom demanded. She surrendered all of her money to him and would appear at his beck and call. Malcom would abuse her just â€Å"to keep her in line (156).† It became Malcom’s belief that â€Å"some women love to be exploited (156).† Malcom exploited the submissive Sophia because she allowed him to do so. Malcom was surrounded by meek and subservient women which lead him to believe women like to be treated in such a harsh manner. Malcom was acquainted with a few very highly regarded women. â€Å"The first really proud black woman† Malcom had known was his sister, Ella (39). Ella was a woman of great achievements. Malcom â€Å"had never been so impressed with anybody (39-40).† Another impressive woman who impacted Malcom’s life was the wife of his boss. She was educated and had business abilities which Malcom respected. Malcom regarded these women much differently than the others he knew like Sophia, however, his inferiority-of-women attitude was not changed by these decent women. The mistreatment and abuse of women that Malcom witnessed and acted out guided his beliefs about women and where they stood in society. Malcom’s perceptions of women and his argument about gender relations are clearly connected with his raising. His evidence of these views and arguments give good reason for him to accept them as true. His gender relations argument does not take into consideration the few, but highly upright, women that did take part in his life, though. The fact that he did experience relationships with women whom he did not consider inferior conflicts his argument.

The Columbine Massacre essays

The Columbine Massacre essays The Columbine high school massacre took place in April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School in Jefferson County near Littleton, Colorado, United States, when two teenage students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, executed a planned attacked, killing 12 other students and a teacher before killing themselves (Wikipedia, 2004). It is believed to be the worst school After the shootings, the media painted a picture of the murderers as outcast "nerds" who were unpopular and teased by much of the school's population (Wikipedia, 2004). However, later reports revealed that both Harris and Klebold had both a close circle of friends and a wider informal social group. It was also revealed that anti-gay epithets were directed at them, although their actual sexual orientation was unknown; both had girlfriends at some point, though. Harris and Klebold were members of a clique called the "Trenchcoat Mafia" in which they wore heavy black trench coats. By the time of the shootings, most of the major members of the group had already either graduated or dropped out of Columbine. Since the murders, there have been a variety of theories attempting to explain why Harris and Klebold committed the crime (Cullen, 2004). A popular theory is that the boys, who were known as the "Trench Coat Mafia outcasts" took revenge against the bullies who had made school miserable for them. A second conclusion is that the massacre was inexplicable: It is impossible to understand what drove them to such horrific violence. However, recently, the FBI and its team of psychiatrists and psychologists came to an entirely different conclusion (Cullen, 2004). These experts say that they understand what motivated Harris and Klebold to execute such a crime, and their explanation is different and more troubling than the two conclusions that were previously most widely believed. Three months after the crime took place, the FBI held a meeting ...

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 2

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS - Essay Example For instance, logistics involves activities such as customer service, storage, inventory control, packaging, and recycling. Distribution, as stipulated by Kapoor and Kansal (2003) entails physical transportation of commodities from one place to another or from the producers to the consumers. Pull and push strategies are the major marketing action plans used by many organizations. Pull denotes advertising and promoting to ultimate consumers in a bid to create demand whereas push entails tantalizing by means of endorsements (Kapoor and Kansal, 2003). Both of these strategies involve public promotions as well as designing or creating new products to meet the needs of the consumer( Kapoor and Kansal, 2003). However, push marketing strategy involves promoting already available products while in pull strategy, promotions are done and consumers have to wait for the product to be produced (Kapoor and Kansal, 2003). Ashleigh, I agree with your discussion that a distribution channel is the chain that a product goes through from production to consumers. Your example of how geographical location affects distribution channels is also spot-on. I agree that if a product is being produced in Mexico, then the distributors would best be placed at the border in order to improve accessibility of the goods from the producer to the consumer. In other words, geographical location affects communication in terms of how products reach the ultimate

Strategic Management Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Strategic Management - Assignment Example In this definition, the scope and direction of the strategy and the configuration of resources are within the purview of the organization. External competitive forces determine the 'environment' in which the organization works. Michael Porter (2004) describes five such forces that have an effect on the competitiveness of an organization. These five forces comprise the 'outside-in' business strategy tool as diagrammatically depicted below: 1.1. About Alitalia: Alitalia is the smallest of Europe's full service airlines (after the merger of KLM with Air France and Swissair with Lufthansa) in terms of revenues generated, flights operated and passengers flown and other financial parameters. (See Table-1 below. Table-2 provides comparative statistics for low budget airlines) Alitalia (Alitalia - Linee Aeree Italiane S.p.A) has been operating as a full service airline that flies passengers and cargo for sixty years. Alitalia is Italy's national airline with the government holding 49% equity (other shareholders including employees hold 49% and Air France holds 2%). The airline has a fleet of 177 aircraft and flies to 102 destinations in Italy, Europe, the middle and far East Asia, Africa and the Atlantic. Alitalia has modernized its fleet keeping in view the distances and load factors involved in various sectors. In fact the company boasts of operating one of the youngest and most efficient fleets in the world. During the year 2005, 24 million passengers flew Alitalia, which represented a growth rate of 7.8% year on year over 2004. In April 2004, the company acquired the bankrupt regional airline Gandalf Airlines to gain additional slots at several European airports, mainly Milan (Linate) and Paris (Charles De Gaulle). In September 2004 the company sought to lay off almost 5000 employees to avoid bankruptcy and possible liquidation. A vicious fight ensued with employees unions striking work which finally ended with government intervention and provision of a bridging loan. There was a proposal to merge the company with Air France-KLM but it petered out. During this period, to save costs, the company was, splicd into two holding companies. They are Alitalia Fly which controls Alitalia Express, Volare SpA, Volare Airlines and Air Europe. The company holds 51% equity in the new formation Alitalia Servizi which controls the following: Alitalia Airport which operates ground handling services in Rome Fiumicino, Palermo, Cagiliary and passenger handling services in Catania and Naples; Alitalia Mainatenance Systems 40% of which is owned by Lufthans