In the world of computer and network security, there are...

In the world of computer and network security, there are myriad ways to launch an attack, which, from the perspective of a network, can usually be defined as traffic that has vicious intent. There are infinite computer attacks that no firewall can prevent, such as those executed locally on the machine by a malicious user. From the networks perspective, there are numerous types of attack. Attacks can be grouped into two types: brute force and precision. Juniper Firewall has the capability to protect against both types of attack. Denial of Service (DoS) attacks are one of the most well-known network security threats under brute force attacks, which is largely due to the high-profile way in which they can†¦show more content†¦We can use flows or sessions as a way to determine whether traffic attempting to traverse the firewall is legitimate. We control the state-checking components resident in Juniper Firewall by configuring flow settings. These settings allow you to configure state checking for various conditions on the device. You can use flow settings to protect against TCP hijacking, and to generally ensure that the fire-wall is performing full state processing when desired. We take a case study of attack on a network and perform study of the detection of the malicious packets on a Netscreen Firewall. A new solution for securing enterprise networks will be developed here. 1. INTRODUCTION A number of malicious attacks which causes disruption to the processes has been increased due to an increase in the tremendous expansion in the field of computer networks. The main aim of network administrators is to provide continuous services to which they are intended to. Currently, the main aim of researchers is to provide secure network whereas, little intervention has been given to the quantification of network security which includes assessing of the vulnerability and malicious attacks to these systems. One of the huge networks which has more possibility to malware is an Enterprise Network which is a large and diverse network that connects both major and minor sites within an enterprise.Thesecurity and trustworthiness of Enterprise Networks have been a major concern inShow MoreRelatedIlluminated Manuscripts: The Kindles of the Past Essay1783 Words   |  8 PagesIlluminated Manuscripts Long before the time of kindle and nook, books were a unique object that were handcrafted for the purpose of easy transportation of important information across the empire. Most popularly, these manuscripts were used in churches, monasteries and other significant holy places during the spread of Christianity. This began in the second century with the development of monasteries and covenants. 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80s Music History - 990 Words

MTV MTV galloped through the 80s as a factor of musical taste, style and fashion. During the early 80s, the network helped introduce an entire stable of new music stars. For almost the entirety of the decade of the 80s, MTV was a force to be reckoned with, serving as the music video headquarters for the pop music world. As such, monster 80s artists like the Police, Michael Jackson and Bon Jovi gained great exposure to audiences through their constant appearances in the MTV rotation of videos. As the network gained popularity, it began to diversify programming, introducing a stable of music-themed shows. As the decade drew to a close, MTV began a gradual move away from music programming in favor of content geared toward reality TV†¦show more content†¦His message was one of unity, peace, and a better future for all, a message which many youth from the 1980s responded to. Berlin Wall Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! n June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan spoke the people of West Berlin at the base of the Brandenburg Gate, near the Berlin wall. Due to the amplification system being used, the Presidents words could also be heard on the Eastern (Communist-controlled) side of the wall. The address Reagan delivered that day is considered by many to have affirmed the beginning of the end of the Cold War and the fall of communism. On Nov. 9-11, 1989, the people of a free Berlin tore down that wall. The tearing of the wall represting the reuniting of Germany. Cell Phones In the early 1980s it became more popular to have a car phone. The costs were high. A car phone could cost between $200 and $1000 dollars plus installation. The phone plans in the 1980s were not like they are today. You could get a 30 minute plan for $49 per month. Roaming was extra and long distance was through your long distance carrier. You would receive two bills per month.In the early 1980s the first real bag phones started getting popular. It would cost about $250 for a cheap one and $800 for a really good one. The battery life was limited to about 1 hour and the bags were about the size of a midsized pocket book. The plans were the same as the car phones.TheShow MoreRelatedThe War Showing No Signs Of Ending, The Watergate Scandal And The Vietnam War1360 Words   |  6 PagesDavis Hinshaw Mrs Weide American History II 4 December 2016 The 1980s With the cold war showing no signs of ending, the watergate scandal and the vietnam war it was no surprise that the 1980s were a complete explosion of counterculture and mistrust in the government. The election of former actor Ronald Reagan kickstarted the 1980s with his optimistic ideas he appealed to many americans. He was running against former president Jimmy Carter, Reagan won the election with 51% of electoral vote. 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Bag of Bones CHAPTER TWO Free Essays

I never suffered from writer’s block during the ten years of my marriage, and did not suffer it immediately after Johanna’s death. I was in fact so unfamiliar with the condition that it had pretty well set in before I knew anything out of the ordinary was going on. I think this was because in my heart I believed that such conditions only affected ‘literary† types of the sort who are discussed, deconstructed, and sometimes dismissed in the New York Review of Books. We will write a custom essay sample on Bag of Bones CHAPTER TWO or any similar topic only for you Order Now My writing career and my marriage covered almost exactly the same span. I finished the first draft of my first novel, Being Two, not long after Jo and I became officially engaged (I popped an opal ring on the third finger of her left hand, a hundred and ten bucks at Day’s Jewellers, and quite a bit more than I could afford at the time . . . but Johanna seemed utterly thrilled with it), and I finished my last novel, All the Way from the Top, about a month after she was declared dead. This was the one about the psychotic killer with the love of high places. It was published in the fall of 1995. I have published other novels since then a paradox I can explain but I don’t think there’ll be a Michael Noonan novel on any list in the foreseeable future. I know what writer’s block is now, all right. I know more about it than I ever wanted to. When I hesitantly showed Jo the first draft of Being Two, she read it in one evening, curled up in her favorite chair, wearing nothing but panties and a tee-shirt with the Maine black bear on the front, drinking glass after glass of iced tea. I went out to the garage (we were renting a house in Bangor with another couple on as shaky financial ground as we were. . and no, Jo and I weren’t quite married at that point, although as far as I know, that opal ring never left her finger) and puttered aimlessly, feeling like a guy in a New Yorker cartoon one of those about funny fellows in the delivery waiting room. As I remember, I fucked up a so-simple-a-child-can-do-it birdhouse kit and almost cut off the index finger of my left hand. Every twenty minutes or so I’d go back inside and peek at Jo. If she noticed, she gave no sign. I took that as hopeful. I was sitting on the back stoop, looking up at the stars and smoking, when she came out, sat down beside me, and put her hand on the back of my neck. ‘Well?’ I said. ‘It’s good,’ she said. ‘Now why don’t you come inside and do me?’ And before I could answer, the panties she had been wearing dropped in my lap in a little whisper of nylon. Afterward, lying in bed and eating oranges (a vice we later outgrew), I asked her: ‘Good as in publishable?’ ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t know anything about the glamorous world of publishing, but I’ve been reading for pleasure all my life Curious George was my first love, if you want to know ‘ ‘I don’t.’ She leaned over and popped an orange segment into my mouth, her breast warm and provocative against my arm. ‘ and I read this with great pleasure. My prediction is that your career as a reporter for the Derry News is never going to survive its rookie stage. I think I’m going to be a novelist’s wife.’ Her words thrilled me actually brought goosebumps out on my arms. No, she didn’t know anything about the glamorous world of publishing, but if she believed, I believed . . . and belief turned out to be the right course. I got an agent through my old creative-writing teacher (who read my novel and damned it with faint praise, seeing its commercial qualities as a kind of heresy, I think), and the agent sold Being Two to Random House, the first publisher to see it. Jo was right about my career as a reporter, as well. I spent four months covering flower shows, drag races, and bean suppers at about a hundred a week before my first check from Random House came in $27,000, after the agent’s commission had been deducted. I wasn’t in the newsroom long enough to get even that first minor bump in salary, but they had a going-away party for me just the same. At Jack’s Pub, this was, now that I think of it. There was a banner hung over the tables in the back room which said GOOD LUCK MIKE WRITE ON! Later, when we got home, Johanna said that if envy was acid, there would have been nothing left of me but my belt-buckle and three teeth. Later, in bed with the lights out the last orange eaten and the last cigarette shared I said, ‘No one’s ever going to confuse it with Look Homeward, Angel, are they?’ My book, I meant. She knew it, just as she knew I had been fairly depressed by my old creative-writing teacher’s response to Two. ‘You aren’t going to pull a lot of frustrated-artist crap on me, are you?’ she asked, getting up on one elbow. ‘If you are, I wish you’d tell me now, so I can pick up one of those do-it-yourself divorce kits first thing in the morning.’ I was amused, but also a little hurt. ‘Did you see that first press release from Random House?’ I knew she had. ‘They’re just about calling me V. C. Andrews with a prick, for God’s sake.’ ‘Well,’ she said, lightly grabbing the object in question, ‘you do have a prick. As far as what they’re calling you . . . Mike, when I was in third grade, Patty Banning used to call me a booger-hooker. But I wasn’t.’ ‘Perception is everything.’ ‘Bullshit.’ She was still holding my dick and now gave it a formidable squeeze that hurt a little and felt absolutely wonderful at the same time. That crazy old trouser mouse never really cared what it got in those days, as long as there was a lot of it. ‘Happiness is everything. Are you happy when you write, Mike?’ ‘Sure.’ It was what she knew, anyway. ‘And does your conscience bother you when you write?’ ‘When I write, there’s nothing I’d rather do except this,’ I said, and rolled on top of her. ‘Oh dear,’ she said in that prissy little voice that always cracked me up. ‘There’s a penis between us.’ And as we made love, I realized a wonderful thing or two: that she had meant it when she said she really liked my book (hell, I’d known she liked it just from the way she sat in the wing chair reading it, with a lock of hair falling over her brow and her bare legs tucked beneath her), and that I didn’t need to be ashamed of what I had written . . . not in her eyes, at least. And one other wonderful thing: her perception, joined with my own to make the true binocular vision nothing but marriage allows, was the only perception that mattered. Thank God she was a Maugham fan. I was V. C. Andrews with a prick for ten years . . . fourteen, if you add in the post-Johanna years. The first five were with Random; then my agent got a huge offer from Putnam and I jumped. You’ve seen my name on a lot of bestseller lists . . . if, that is, your Sunday paper carries a list that goes up to fifteen instead of just listing the top ten. I was never a Clancy, Ludlum, or Grisham, but I moved a fair number of hardcovers (V. C. Andrews never did, Harold Oblowski, my agent, told me once; the lady was pretty much a paperback phenomenon) and once got as high as number five on the Times list . . . that was with my second book, The Red-Shirt Man. Ironically, one of the books that kept me from going higher was Steel Machine, by Thad Beaumont (writing as George Stark). The Beaumonts had a summer place in Castle Rock back in those days, not even fifty miles south of our place on Dark Score Lake. Thad’s dead now. Suicide. I don’t know if it had anything to do with writer’s block or not. I stood just outside the magic circle of the mega-bestsellers, but I never minded that. We owned two homes by the time I was thirty-one: the lovely old Edwardian in Derry and, in western Maine, a lakeside log home almost big enough to be called a lodge that was Sara Laughs, so called by the locals for nearly a century. And we owned both places free and clear at a time of life when many couples consider themselves lucky just to have fought their way to mortgage approval on a starter home. We were healthy, faithful, and with our fun-bones still fully attached. I wasn’t Thomas Wolfe (not even Tom Wolfe or Tobias Wolff), but I was being paid to do what I loved, and there’s no gig on earth better than that; it’s like a license to steal. I was what midlist fiction used to be in the forties: critically ignored, genre-oriented (in my case the genre was Lovely Young Woman on Her Own Meets Fascinating Stranger), but well compensated and with the kind of shabby acceptance accorded to state-sanctioned whorehouses in Nevada, the feeling seeming to be that some outlet for the baser instincts should be provided and someone had to do That Sort of Thing. I did That Sort of Thing enthusiastically (and sometimes with Jo’s enthusiastic connivance, if I came to a particularly problematic plot crossroads), and at some point around the time of George Bush’s election, our accountant told us we were millionaires. We weren’t rich enough to own a jet (Grisham) or a pro football team (Clancy), but by the standards of Derry, Maine, we were quite rolling in it. We made love thousands of times, saw thousands of movies, read thousands of books (Jo storing hers under her side of the bed at the end of the day, more often than not). And perhaps the greatest blessing was that we never knew how short the time was. More than once I wondered if breaking the ritual is what led to the writer’s block. In the daytime, I could dismiss this as supernatural twaddle but at night that was harder to do. At night your thoughts have an unpleasant way of slipping their collars and running free. And if you’ve spent most of your adult life making fictions, I’m sure those collars are even looser and the dogs less eager to wear them. Was it Shaw or Oscar Wilde who said a writer was a man who had taught his mind to misbehave? And is it really so far-fetched to think that breaking the ritual might have played a part in my sudden and unexpected (unexpected by me, at least) silence? When you make your daily bread in the land of make-believe, the line between what is and what seems to be is much finer. Painters sometimes refuse to paint without wearing a certain hat, and baseball players who are hitting well won’t change their socks. The ritual started with the second book, which was the only one I remember being nervous about I suppose I’d absorbed a fair amount of that sophomore-jinx stuff; the idea that one hit might only be a fluke. I remember an American Lit lecturer’s once saying that of modern American writers, only Harper Lee had found a foolproof way of avoiding the second-book blues. When I reached the end of The Red-Shirt Man, I stopped just short of finishing. The Edwardian on Benton Street in Derry was still two years in the future at that point, but we had purchased Sara Laughs, the place on Dark Score (not anywhere near as furnished as it later became, and Jo’s studio not yet built, but nice), and that’s where we were. I pushed back from my typewriter I was still clinging to my old IBM Selectric in those days and went into the kitchen. It was mid-September, most of the summer people were gone, and the crying of the loons on the lake sounded inexpressibly lovely. The sun was going down, and the lake itself had become a still and heatless plate of fire. This is one of the most vivid memories I have, so clear I sometimes feel I could step right into it and live it all again. What things, if any, would I do differently? I sometimes wonder about that. Early that evening I had put a bottle of Taittinger and two flutes in the fridge. Now I took them out, put them on a tin tray that was usually employed to transport pitchers of iced tea or Kool-Aid from the kitchen to the deck, and carried it before me into the living room. Johanna was deep in her ratty old easy chair, reading a book (not Maugham that night but William Denbrough, one of her contemporary favorites). ‘Ooo,’ she said, looking up and marking her place. ‘Champagne, what’s the occasion?’ As if, you understand, she didn’t know. ‘I’m done,’ I said. ‘Mon livre est tout fini.’ ‘Well,’ she said, smiling and taking one of the flutes as I bent down to her with the tray, ‘then that’s all right, isn’t it?’ I realize now that the essence of the ritual the part that was alive and powerful, like the one true magic word in a mouthful of gibberish was that phrase. We almost always had champagne, and she almost always came into the office with me afterward for the other thing, but not always. Once, five years or so before she died, she was in Ireland, vacationing with a girlfriend, when I finished a book. I drank the champagne by myself that time, and entered the last line by myself as well (by then I was using a Macintosh which did a billion different things and which I used for only one) and never lost a minute’s sleep over it. But I called her at the inn where she and her friend Bryn were staying; I told her I had finished, and listened as she said the words I’d called to hear words that slipped into an Irish telephone line, travelled to a microwave transmitter, rose like a prayer to some satellite, and then came back down to my ear: ‘Well, then that’s all right, isn’t it?’ This custom began, as I say, after the second book. When we’d each had a glass of champagne and a refill, I took her into the office, where a single sheet of paper still stuck out of my forest-green Selectric. On the lake, one last loon cried down dark, that call that always sounds to me like something rusty turning slowly in the wind. ‘I thought you said you were done,’ she said. ‘Everything but the last line,’ I said. ‘The book, such as it is, is dedicated to you, and I want you to put down the last bit.’ She didn’t laugh or protest or get gushy, just looked at me to see if I really meant it. I nodded that I did, and she sat in my chair. She had been swimming earlier, and her hair was pulled back and threaded through a white elastic thing. It was wet, and two shades darker red than usual. I touched it. It was like touching damp silk. ‘Paragraph indent?’ she asked, as seriously as a girl from the steno pool about to take dictation from the big boss. ‘No,’ I said, ‘this continues.’ And then I spoke the line I’d been holding in my head ever since I got up to pour the champagne.'†He slipped the chain over her head, and then the two of them walked down the steps to where the car was parked.†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ She typed it, then looked around and up at me expectantly. ‘That’s it,’ I said. ‘You can write The End, I guess.’ Jo hit the RETURN button twice, centered the carriage, and typed The End under the last line of prose, the IBM’s Courier type ball (my favorite) spinning out the letters in their obedient dance. ‘What’s the chain he slips over her head?’ she asked me. ‘You’ll have to read the book to find out.’ With her sitting in my desk chair and me standing beside her, she was in perfect position to put her face where she did. When she spoke, her lips moved against the most sensitive part of me. There were a pair of cotton shorts between us and that was all. ‘Ve haff vays off making you talk,’ she said. ‘I’ll just bet you do,’ I said. I at least made a stab at the ritual on the day I finished All the Way from the Top. It felt hollow, form from which the magical substance had departed, but I’d expected that. I didn’t do it out of superstition but out of respect and love. A kind of memorial, if you will. Or, if you will, Johanna’s real funeral service, finally taking place a month after she was in the ground. It was the last third of September, and still hot the hottest late summer I can remember. All during that final sad push on the book, I kept thinking how much I missed her . . . but that never slowed me down. And here’s something else: hot as it was in Derry, so hot I usually worked in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts, I never once thought of going to our place at the lake. It was as if my memory of Sara Laughs had been entirely wiped from my mind. Perhaps that was because by the time I finished Top, that truth was finally sinking in. She wasn’t just in Ireland this time. My office at the lake is tiny, but has a view. The office in Derry is long, book-lined, and windowless. On this particular evening, the overhead fans there are three of them were on and paddling at the soupy air. I came in dressed in shorts, a tee-shirt, and rubber thong sandals, carrying a tin Coke tray with the bottle of champagne and the two chilled glasses on it. At the far end of that railroad-car room, under an eave so steep I’d had to almost crouch so as not to bang my head when I got up (over the years I’d also had to withstand Jo’s protests that I’d picked the absolute worst place in the room for a workstation), the screen of my Macintosh glowed with words. I thought I was probably inviting another storm of grief -maybe the worst storm but I went ahead anyway . . . and our emotions always surprise us, don’t they? There was no weeping and wailing that night; I guess all that was out of my system. Instead there was a deep and wretched sense of loss the empty chair where she used to like to sit and read, the empty table where she would always set her glass too close to the edge. I poured a glass of champagne, let the foam settle, then picked it up. ‘I’m done, Jo,’ I said as I sat there beneath the paddling fans. ‘So that’s all right, isn’t it?’ There was no response. In light of all that came later, I think that’s worth repeating there was no response. I didn’t sense, as I later did, that I was not alone in a room which appeared empty. I drank the champagne, put the glass back on the Coke tray, then filled the other one. I took it over to the Mac and sat down where Johanna would have been sitting, if not for everyone’s favorite loving God. No weeping and wailing, but my eyes prickled with tears. The words on the screen were these: today wasn’t so bad, she supposed. She crossed the grass to her car, and laughed when she saw the white square of paper under the windshield. Cam Delancey, who refused to be discouraged, or to take no for an answer, had invited her to another of his Thursday-night wine-tasting parties. She took the paper, started to tear it up, then changed her mind and stuck it in the hip pocket of her jeans, instead. ‘No paragraph indent,’ I said, ‘this continues.’ Then I keyboarded the line I’d been holding in my head ever since I got up to get the champagne. There was a whole world out there; Cam Delancey’s wine-tasting was as good a place to start as any. I stopped, looking at the little flashing cursor. The tears were still prickling at the corners of my eyes, but I repeat that there were no cold drafts around my ankles, no spectral fingers at the nape of my neck. I hit RETURN twice. I clicked on CENTER. I typed The End below the last line of prose, and then I toasted the screen with what should have been Jo’s glass of champagne. ‘Here’s to you, babe,’ I said. ‘I wish you were here. I miss you like hell.’ My voice wavered a little on that last word, but didn’t break. I drank the Taittinger, saved my final line of copy, transferred the whole works to floppy disks, then backed them up. And except for notes, grocery lists, and checks, that was the last writing I did for four years. How to cite Bag of Bones CHAPTER TWO, Essay examples

Agency For Network And Information Securityâ€Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Agency For Network And Information Security? Answer: Introduction The agency that gives the security that is related to the cyber space in Europes organizations is known as European Union Agency for Network and Information Security. European Union Agency for Network and Information Security is better known as ENISA. The security related to cyber space is known as Network and Information Security (NIS). The NIS security is provided by the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA). The security of Network and Information Security is carried out that is related to develop and promote the culture of security (Silva, Rocha Guimaraes, 2016). To make Network and Information Security a level up, the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security was set up in the year 2004 in European Union. A developed process of Network and Information Security for the market to function properly European Union Agency for Network and Information Security was implied. The agency of ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) was introduced to give advice and the related solutions to the problem. It works with the private sector as well as the members of that state in which ENISA is located (Bastl, Mare Tvrd, 2015). The planning that are made to develop the National Cyber Security is exercised by European Union Agency for Network and Information Security and also are concerned with the pan Europeans cyber security (Bartsch Frey, 2017). Cooperation and capacity that are related to CSIRT are also exercised by ENISA and also schedules in increasing the technologies which are owned by private organizations, private technologies that are coming in organizations, adoption of cloud and also to the email ids that are related to cyber threat landscape (CTL). The laws that are tied up with NIS (Network and Information Security) are promoted by European Union Agency for Network and Information Security and it also looks to develop and implement the policy of the European Union. The case study deals with the security of the threat landscape of European Union Agency for Network and Information Security which was recorded in the year 2016. There are almost fifteen types of threats are faced by the cyber sector of the Europe and all the top threats are discussed in details in the ENISA case study. All these data related to cyber attacks that were accessed was recorded in 2016 (Kleineidam et al., 2017). Concentration was given more on attacker and the vectors that attack the cyber space and their related solutions to decrease the attacks on cyber space have been discussed in the European Threat Landscape. The case study deals with all those cyber threats are the ways to solve them are elaborately given in the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security case study. The kill chain methods of all the threats are stated with diagram. There are almost five group of threat including the unintentional damage, hijacking, eavesdropping and interception, ne farious activity, legal threats and the organizational threats (Hnisch Rogge, 2017). Threats agents are discussed and their relative good practices to mitigate threats are also showcased in the given case study. The following diagram shows the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security landscape infrastructure is given below. The categorizations that are done for cyber threats for Europe are grouped mainly in five sectors. Threat group 1 includes: unintentional damage or the loss of IT assets and information or data. Threat group 2 includes: hijacking, eavesdropping and interception. Threat group 3 includes: nefarious abuse and their activities. Threat group 3 contains the legal threats and lastly threat group 4 contains threats that comes from the organization itself or may be known as the intentional threats. Unintentional damage or the loss of IT assets and Information or data: This group of threat includes erroneous or unintentional intervention, devices that are lost and sharing and leakage of data caused due to human error. The threats that are not done intentionally by the organizations or humans are known as the accidental threats. This accidental threat occurs due to clerical errors, slips that are skill based and the misconfiguration, management of poor patch, using user names that are default and the passwords that are easy to guess. The mistakes that are also based on knowledge which includes crashes and update of software, procedural flaws and integration problems are also included accidental threats (Lanfer, 2017). The Computer Associate and the other sources that provides security also announced that threats come from APIs that are insecure, social networks, photo sharing in mobile, video sharing, snapchat and may be due to data breach and also facebook. For instance, if the Big data duplicates the data records to ten times and then divides the copies to again ten nodes of storage for some of the reasons or other, the nodes may come to an end where it changes the robustness of security at different levels. And also the probability of data leak and data disclosure is also increased. This is considered as a major drawback of design of Big Data. Hijacking, Eavesdropping and Interception: The software distribution of big data is done by Hadoop, MongoDB63, Cassandra or Couchbase (Stupka, Hork Husk, 2017). All the software maintains a protocol that gives integrity and data confidentiality that are done between application communications enabled by changing the default passwords. Nefarious abuse and their activities: The information that is managed and stored in big data that are needed to access financial account and personal data such as payment, billing details and credit card details. This sector is mainly targeted by the cyber criminals. The profiling of data that are stored by big data also describes preferences, travel, habits and behavior and creates much bigger opportunity to identify the thieves (Kubicek Diederich, 2015). The generic threats that are mostly affects the components of ICT of infrastructure are exploit kits that allows malware infections and viruses, worms that allows distribution of the copies of infectious malware over the network, Trojan are small infectious malware that increases the unauthorized access of computer system, trapdoors and backdoors are the entry points that are undocumented in computer system and also service spoofing that attacks the computer system in falsifying the data and gets such advantages. Legal Threats: The data storage that comes under directive of data protection in Europe are needed to compile with the compliancy law of data security throughout the lifecycle of the data, the personal data that are kept personal for employees and the customers and the guarantee that is given for the security of the cyber threat by implementing cloud provider. Organizational Threats: The analysis of datasets that are large can undergo new signs of innovation and productivity and also unlocks the values that ate significant (Christou, 2017). The policy makers and the companies must handle the threats that are related to cyber space. Most significant Threat- The most significant group that is identified as most dangerous group of threat is the nefarious abuse and their activities (Eininger, Skopik Fiedler, 2015). The information that is managed and stored in big data that are needed to access financial account and personal data such as payment, billing details and credit card details. This sector is mainly targeted by the cyber criminals. The profiling of data that are stored by big data also describes preferences, travel, habits and behavior and creates much bigger opportunity to identify the thieves. The generic threats that are mostly affects the components of ICT of infrastructure are exploit kits that allows malware infections and viruses, worms that allows distribution of the copies of infectious malware over the network, Trojan are small infectious malware that increases the unauthorized access of computer system, trapdoors and backdoors are the entry points that are undocumented in computer system and al so service spoofing that attacks the computer system in falsifying the data and gets such advantages (Schneider, 2017). The threats coming under nefarious threats are infected code, denial of services, activities or software, unused audit tools, using duplicate certificates, unauthorized activities, authorization abuse, failure processes in business and identity fraud. Threat agents are those people who come in group or something in group that has some good capabilities and intension to cope up with the threat and also records the activities that has already occurred (Jentzsch, 2016). The threats coming from which particular groups of agent are very difficult to detect for the owners of asset of big data. The categories of threat agents of ENISA Threat Landscape (ETL) are: Corporations: Some of the enterprises and organizations use very offensive and bad tricks in their procedures. Such type of enterprises and organizations are considered as the hostile agent of threat (Bendiek, 2015). The main motives of these types of hostile agents are building advantage in competitive markets over competitors. Related with their sector and size, significant capabilities are usually possessed that ranges from intelligence of human engineering to technology especially in the sectors in which they are expert. Cyber criminals: The main objective of cyber criminals are they gain financially and their skill levels are also too high to cope up with. The nature of cyber criminals is they are hostile. The attack of cyber criminals can be of any type including national and international level. Cyber terrorists: Cyber terrorists expanded their own activities and are also engaged themselves in cyber space attacks. The main objective of cyber criminals are they gain financially and their skill levels are also too high to cope up with. The nature of cyber criminals is they are hostile (Schaumller-Bichl Kolberger, 2016). The attack of cyber criminals can be of any type including national and international level. The attacks that are done by cyber terrorists are mainly in the sector of public health, telecommunications and production. The failures of such systems cause much loss to the government and the society which helps in completion of their motive. Script kiddies: Script kiddies are the copy cats and copy the process of hacking. They mainly attack for the cause of fun (Weber, A., Weber, 2015). No such serious motive is present behind their motive of attack. Script kiddies have low motivation and their capability is very low. They are unskilled and take help of script and programs to attack the server or some system. For the purpose of hacking they mainly take help of some tools to make their attacks more serious. Online social hackers (hacktivists): The begun of hactivists mainly came in the year 2016. Their main motive is to protest some cause and also to make promotion of their cause. The hacktivists mainly attacks on problems of public health, corporations, environmental policy, military institutions and intelligence agencies. Employees: The employees group of threat agents lies in the organizations itself. The analysis of datasets that are large can undergo new signs of innovation and productivity and also unlocks the values that ate significant (Reuter, 2015). The policy makers and the companies must handle the threats that are related to cyber space. The employee threat agent consists of contractors, staffs, security guards and operational staffs of an organization they work in. Mitigate the effect of threat agents: To mitigate the effect of threat agents, threat defenders are appointed. This accidental threat that happens due to clerical errors, slips that are skill based and the misconfiguration, management of poor patch, using user names that are default and the passwords that are easy to guess can be mitigated by the defenders of threat agents (Exchange, 2016). The mistakes that are also based on knowledge which includes crashes and update of software, procedural flaws and integration problems included accidental threats can also be mitigated by the threat defenders. The Computer Associate and the other sources that provides security also finds out way to make the APIs secure and also secure the social networks, photo sharing in mobile, video sharing, and snapchat processes. To processes by which the European Threat Landscape can be improved are as follows: The resource certification (RPKI) should be utilized to give the origin of AS a validation (Catteddu Hogben, 2015). The readers should be made aware of what they are clicking to and what not to click. This decrease the possibility of hacking. Proper policy should be implemented to promote the rules of making the peering secure. Such policies are known as Appropriate Use Policy (AUP). Egress filtering should be done at the base of the router where all the signals comes into so that the traffic can be controlled at the base itself. It the control is done at the base, it can be stopped from expanding those to the systems of the users or the clients. The ETL should inform the organizations to take authorized users who know about all the mitigation processes of the threats. There is also some work of the registrants. They must keep their account details personal and they must not share with anyone. The DNS clients can be secured by deployment of DNSSEC which origins the authentication of DNS of data, data integrity and existence denial that are authenticated. Good practices for the process of routing should cover all the aspects that are related with technical staring from monitoring to filtering. The process of ETL should promote to stop the use of domain names that are taken randomly that are mainly not owned by the internal infrastructure. The top level of domains should not be considered for domain name spaces that are private. The ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) should continue to improve the security processes that are related to the threat landscape of Europe. Operators of DNS infrastructures are responsible to develop security rules that administrators can apply to Internet infrastructure assets. However, humans are not immune to mistakes. Moreover, the effect of certain technical security rule may differ depending on the specificities of a given Internet infrastructure (Witt Freudenberg, 2016). There is a drawback in the system configuration the help in security policy. The ENISA also lacks behind the administration that are identical in only one type of group of threat that is DNS and routing. This leads to different outcomes. The gap also comes in operators of an organization. There is also a drawback in the DNS spoofing of the threat landscape. The APIs should be made more secure than that is present in the present protocol. Conclusion The security related to cyber space is known as Network and Information Security (NIS). The NIS security is provided by the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA). The security of Network and Information Security is carried out that is related to develop and promote the culture of security. To make Network and Information Security a level up, the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security was set up in the year 2004 in European Union. A developed process of Network and Information Security for the market to function properly European Union Agency for Network and Information Security was implied. A diagram is shown in this write up that shows the infrastructure of the ENISA Landscape Threat. The case given describes all those cyber threats and the ways to solve them are elaborately given in the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security case study. The kill chain methods of all the threats are stated with diagram. There are almost five group of threat including the unintentional damage, hijacking, eavesdropping and interception, nefarious activity, legal threats and the organizational threats. Threats agents are discussed and their relative good practices to mitigate threats are also detailed in the paper. References Bartsch, M., Frey, S. (2017).State-of-the-art approaches.Incyber strategies for enterprises and authorities(pp. 55-71).Springer Specialties Wiesbaden. Bastl, M., Mare, M., Tvrd, K. (2015).Cybersecurity policy at national, European and international level: a framework analysis.Incyber security(pp. 45-67).Springer Specialties Wiesbaden. Bendiek, A. (2015, December).Digital Agenda and Cybersecurity.In theYearbook of European Integration 2015(pp. 176-181).Nomos publishing company mbH Co. KG. Catteddu, D., Hogben, G. (2015). Cloud computing.Benefits, Risks and Recommendations for Information Security/European Network and Information Security Agency, ENISA (November 2015). Christou, G. (2017).The EU's Approach to Cybersecurity. Eininger, K., Skopik, F., Fiedler, R. (2015).No cyber security without data protection.Data protection and data security,39(11), 723-729. Exchange, p. (2016).Violation of personal rights through the publication of photos on the Internet.Nomos publishing company mbH Co. KG. Hnisch, T., Rogge, S. (2017).IT security in the industry 4.0.InIndustrie 4.0(pp. 91-98).Springer Specialties Wiesbaden. Jentzsch, N. (2016).Competition policy in digital markets: Should data protection play a role?(No. 94).DIW Roundup: Policy in focus. Kleineidam, G., Schmid, LJ, Krasser, M., Koch, B. (2017).Critical infrastructure security requirements for information and communication technology from the perspective of a utility company.e i Electrical Engineering and Information Technology,134(1), 3-13. Kubicek, H., Diederich, G. (2015).Online banking in comparison.InSecurity in Online Banking(pp. 7-19).Springer Specialties Wiesbaden. Lanfer, J. (2017).Cyber-security and the (impotence) power of the state.Insecurity production between state, market and civil society(pp. 47-72).Springer Specialties Wiesbaden. Reuter, C. (2015).Operational Continuity Management in Small and Medium Business Smart Services for Industry 4.0.Mensch und Computer 2015-Workshopband. Schaumller-Bichl, I., Kolberger, A. (2016).Information Security Risk Analysis in complex systems-new challenges and solutions.InGI anniversary(pp. 609-617). Schneider, F. (2017).Reporting requirements in IT security law.Nomos publishing company mbH Co. KG. Silva, KC, Rocha, AA, Guimaraes, FQ (2016, May).Trust in the Cloud from the Sec-SLA in various models as deployment and service.InProceedings of the XII Brazilian Symposium on Information Systems on Brazilian Symposium on Information Systems: Information Systems in the Cloud Computing Era Volume 1(pp. 329-336).Brazilian Computer Society. Stupka, V., Hork, M., Husk, M. (2017, August).Protection of personal data in security alert sharing platforms.InProceedings of the 12th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security(p.65).ACM. Unger, WJ (2014).Cyber Defense - a national challenge.S F Security and Peace,32(1), 8-16. Weber, A., Weber, D. (2015, December).Governance of critical information technology in open networks.InResponsible Innovation(pp. 151-164).Nomos publishing company mbH Co. KG. Witt, T., Freudenberg, P. (2016).NIS policy.Computer and Law,32(10), 657.

Visual Impairment Essays - Ophthalmology, Visual System, RTT

Visual Impairment Vision Impairments People catergorized as visually impaired range from individuals with mild visual losses to those with low vision to those who are totally blind (Winzer,370). Vision impairments does not necessarily mean a total loss of sight. Some visually impaired person can detect light, others can see shapes and forms, and others can see nothing at all. Generally, many different problems that interfere the retina to form image or the transmission of retinal images to the brain can cause blindness or vision impairment. It can be heredity or caused by disease or damage after birth. In some cases a specific reason cannot be determined. There are four major types of vision impairments. The first type are refractive errors. It is cause by the change of shape or size of the eyeball, conera or the lens. Myopia (short-sighted) and hyperopia (long-sighted) are two common examples. People with myopia or hyperopia cannot focus image accurately on the retina. Another example is astigmatism, it is caused by the abnormal curve shape of the cornera or the lens. And it can cause distorted or blurred vision. The second type are ocular motor problems. It is caused by irregular movement of the ocular muscles that control the movement of the eyeballs. It leads to the inability for the eyes to control focusing objects. Strasbismus is an example. This condition effects about 2 percent (2 out of 100) of all young children. Strabismus is a lack of coordinated muscle movement or focusing ability between the eyes, causing the eyes to point in different directions. One or both eyes may turn inward (crossed eyes) or outward (walleye). The eyes, the brain area that controls vision, and the muscles attached to the eyeball are involved. It result in the child that looks in certain directions, double vision (sometimes), vision in one eye only, with loss of depth perception. Strabismus can affect both sexes, all ages, but it usually begins during early childhood, frequently before age 5. If not corrected through therapy or surgery, crossed eyes can result in permanent loss of vision. The third type are eye diseases, it is caused by damage or disease before or after birth to one or more structure of the eye (Winzer, 374). One off the most common causes of blindness is cataracts. Cataracts are a clouding of the lens of the eye that keeps light from reaching retina. Resulting in badly blurred vision, double vision, sensitivity to bright lights and change in color vision. One eye is often more seriously affected than the other. It may be cause by chemical change in the lens. The exact cause is still unknown, but there are many factors that can accelerate cataract formation.These include an injury, either from a blow to the head or direct eye injury, other diseases exposure to radiation of any kind (x-rays, microwaves, or infrared rays) long-term use of a corticosteroid drug. A child may be born with cataracts or develop them at an early age. These cataracts, called congenital cataracts, may be caused by a genetic disorder such as down syndrome or from a condition the mother had during pregnancy such as German measles. The fourth type are other defects such as color blindness, photophobia or albinism. Color blindness is a inherited vision disorder which is often found in male rather than in female. Persons who have color blindness do not have one of the three cone cells which are responsible for receiving either blue, green and red. Therefore, people with color blindness are likely to confuse with red and green. But the condition is not serious enough to connect with visual impairments. Albinism is a hereditary disease. It must be pass thorugh from both parents, each of whom either has albinism or is a carrier of that trait. Albinism affects the production of melanin(Winzer,379). A lack of melanin in the retina, iris and choroid will cause the pupil to become in deep red color, the iris will become in grey, light blue or pink. A person with albinism will also suffer from photophobia, which is the extreme sensitivity to light. Bright light may decreases the person's visual acuity and may blinds the persons with albinism.

Business Term Paper

Business Term Paper Business term papers are written for various business term paper topics related to business. Business term papers are of various kinds such as international business term paper, business ethics term paper, business law term paper, trading business term paper, industrial business term paper, business strategy term paper and many others. Business term papers require a vast knowledge of business and its all terms. Business term papers are written for all the fields related to business such as marketing, economics, management, business communication, financial laws, ethics of business, business reports, business solutions, business problems, business challenges, business objectives, business promotion, business planning, business advancement, strategic marketing, business institutions and many others. Business term papers need to be written with full knowledge about the field and topic that you have opted for your term paper on business. How to write a business term paper is a question t hat is questioned by students who are linked to the business field of study. For writing an effective and grade winning term paper on business, all you need is to follow standard rules set by international educationists. What are the rules for an effective writing of business term paper? They are: You have to write a clear introduction and conclusion. The introduction should introduce the topic of your business term paper while your conclusion should summarize the whole argument of your business term paper or your conclusion can also predict some findings that you have justified in your discussion part of the term paper. Your business term paper should be divided into sections and paragraphs. The paragraphs should contain some ideas and these ideas should be divided as such that each paragraph contains one idea. One idea in one paragraph will make the term paper, a comprehensive one and many ideas in one passage will jumble down the whole paragraph. Your term papers on business should contain headings because headings also help out the readers in terms of understanding and also make the term paper a presentable one. Justify all you claims and thoughts with critical and authorial opinions but do not try to use the authorial opinions as your own as it make you guilty of plagiarism. Always give proper references in terms of in text citation, endnotes and footnotes and also give the full details of resources used on a separate works cited page. Be true to yourself and never try to copy something of a pinch’s size from sources doing plagiarism or your all-academic effort will be considered an academic dishonesty. If you consider yourself unable to write a business term paper on your own follow some tips on our blog how to write a term paper or buy business term paper from a reputable custom term paper service.

Supply chain work Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Supply chain work - Essay Example Different products demand different supply chain and the difference may be in total depending on nature of products and involved organizations and managements. I, in this paper, outline supply chain for paper, and discuss the product’s transportation and storage through its current supply chain and possible improvements, planning and control for the product, and lean manufacturing ideas. Outline of the supply chain for paper Outline of supply chain for paper begins with the growth of trees, raw materials for paper, up to the nearest storage facility to the product’s final consumer. The first stage in the chain is identification of suitable seeds by a gardener for quality trees. The gardener then grows the seeds into seedlings and in a process that is informed of agricultural skills. The gardener tends the seedlings, in a nursery, for a period until a stage at which the seedlings are mature enough to survive in a real environment for its species’ growth. The young tree is then transferred into a designated location that may be a domestic environment or a forest at which it is planted. Care of the young plant transfers from the gardener to an expert in tree husbandry who cares for the young plant until its maturity time. The mature tree is the cut into logs of wood and chipped to align the material into the production process. Chipping converts the blocks of wood to â€Å"wood pulp† that is modeled into â€Å"raw paper† (Palgrave n.d., n.p.). Further processing results into â€Å"large rolls of paper† that is then refined to smaller packages. At this stage, the product has been developed and further processes relates to packaging in desirable shapes and sizes for ultimate utility. Cutting of the smaller paper rolls follows into development of â€Å"sheets of paper† that is then wrapped as the final product. Transportation of the products follows from this point into wholesalers’ warehouses and storage facili ties before further distribution to retailers’ warehouses from which the product is sold to consumers (Palgrave n.d., p. 8). The product’s supply chain outline identifies with features of the traditional supply chain. According to McKinnon et al., traditional supply chain consists of â€Å"suppliers, manufacturers, distribution centers, retailers, and customers† (2010, p. 102). Suppliers deliver raw materials to manufacturing companies that generate the finished products before delivery to intermediaries or retailers. Delivery to the intermediaries leads the products to retailers who offer the commodity to consumers. In the supply chain outline for paper, suppliers consist of the owners of the trees that are delivered as raw materials for the production process. The gardener, if operating independently from the tree farmer, can however be identified as a preliminary supplier. Processing companies that chip the delivered logs and process the raw materials into pa per and paper sheets are the manufactures under the traditional supply chain. Transportation companies and wholesalers can be considered as distributors and retailers and consumers complete the traditional supply chain outline. This means that even though the supply chain outline for paper has a long process with numerous players and activities, it identifies the structure of the traditional supply chain (McKinnon et al. 2010, p. 102; Palgrave n.d., p.

Describe the main determinants of oral health inequalities. Discuss Essay

Describe the main determinants of oral health inequalities. Discuss dental public health strategies that can be implemented to tackle oral health inequalities - Essay Example Just as healthy body contributes in creating sound mind, similarly oral health is essential in maintaining a healthy body (Audobato, 2009). Due to this it can be stated that oral health and healthy body have a positive connection with each other. Surgeon David reported oral health as ‘silent epidemics’ and emphasized on the importance of oral health by creating a strong connection of oral health with other diseases. A human mouth is the main portal of a human body and bacteria which is present in the mouth causes and creates different systematic conditions. According to the doctors, dentists and physicians every part of the body is linked with each other. Thus if any problem exists in the mouth area then it causes adverse affects all over the body (Donaghy, 2006). An oral health disease also causes harmful effects on the physical and psychological well beings of the people and this further affects the overall quality of life. According to the study conducted in America it has been stated that 23% of 65-74 year age group suffer from severe periodontal diseases. But not all of them get cured because this facility is not provided to all as 5 % of the aged Americans live in long-term care facility where the this fac ility is not provided to them, thus inequality in oral health prevails. Generally individuals are reluctant in getting their oral problems cured because of the general cost associated with oral health, i.e. oral health issues are expensive to cure. The cost factor is the biggest factor for individual’s unwillingness all over the world. Thus, Oral health knowledge and awareness is not only important for the well being of the individuals but also for the well being of the society. A large population today enjoys all the services of dental and they are being taken care of their every oral health related problem. But with deep grief there still exists a

The Role the Bible in Regards to Ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

The Role the Bible in Regards to Ethics - Essay Example The Bible gives Christians the answers to different morality aspects that often bring up arguments and disagreements. Such matters include: abortion, immorality, drug abuse, homosexuality, alcoholism, divorce and the family among other aspects of life that often bring up dilemmas. (London, 2009) The Bible talks about morality and ethics in specific and general terms. In the Book of Mark 7:20-23, the Bible specifies that it is what comes from inside of Christians that causes them to sin. The heart directs us to steal to kill and to rob; to be jealous to be immoral and to commit any form of sin against the Lord. The verse mentions specifically the acts that are known to be immoral and unethical in accordance to the Bible. In Romans 1:25-32 the Bible goes ahead into specifications that when men sin against the Lord and are involved in worshiping the creations of the Lord and not God himself; it results into acts such as homosexuality where men have a strong passion for each other instead of the natural relationships created by God. In verses 29-30 it goes ahead and specifies the evils that the Lord is against including: slander and malice, disobedience of parents, being proud and not keeping promises among others. (Clapp, 1996: pg 36) In the Book of 1 Peter 4:3, the Bible continues to specify on aspects such as drunkenness which it depicts as evil. In the same chapter, it is also stated that for every wrong that is committed, the Lord is going to judge human beings accordingly. Therefore, it is clear from the Bible that the wrong doers will be punished and those who are strong and they suffer physically for the Lord will be saved. II. Nature of the Relationship between the Bible and the Church in regards to Ethics Churches of the world regard the Bible not as a collection of verses by the ancient people but as the word of The Lord. The Bible is taken as God's voice speaking directly to us. It is the voice of the Lord to the congregation and to the entire world. This is an act of faith and is what interconnects the Bible to the church. The main purpose of the church is to interpret the word in the Bible to the congregation and let it known to individuals what is right and wrong in the eyes of the Lord. The church serves as an institution of direction to the believers on the path to follow in order to be righteous and to live a holy life and waiting on the Lord. In the book of Isaiah 40:8, the Bible states that all other things in this world will come to pass but the word of the Lord will stand forever and ever. The message of the Bible that was intended by God to guide our every step and our day's activities is preached in churches. What is right or what is wrong (ethics) is emphasized in the c hurch using the wordings of the Bible. (London, 2009) In the Book of Nehemiah 8:1-16, the people of Israel are gathered in the Watergate to listen to the word that the Lord had given to Moses for them. Ezra the priest at that time read the scripture out loud to the people and they listened attentively to every word. They stood up in respect of the word and they bowed down to the Lord and worshipped Him in song and Praise. Ezra discouraged them from being sad and he told them that the joy of

A Marketing Plan For The Company Apple

A Marketing Plan For The Company Apple Apple Inc has been very successful especially when it revolutionized its business and customer-focus by providing an operating system which was specifically designed with graphical user interface, even when it has been experiencing rigorous competition in both software and hardware marketing. Out of Apples major visions are its marketing strategies such as differentiation, unique design, own-store retailing, complete solution and brand loyalty that in turn have helped the company achieve sustainable competitive advantage and create its very own market with long-term profitability. Apple has been amazingly impacting the technology, society and the world at large and it continues to innovate to the date. Computer and digital music machines have long been presumed to be high-tech devices reserved for scientists, mathematician, intellectuals and professional musicians, but Apple, with its technology and innovation, has turned them into an essential tool of everyones daily lives. Framing of the Research Issue The main issue being discussed in this paper is the retail store marketing strategy adopted by Apple Inc and its impact on Apples overall business. This piece of research work is an attempt to explore and answer what is Apples retail-marketing and why Apple Inc has chosen this strategy? The paper will interpret the advantages of implementing the own store retailing strategy to Apple Inc and analyze how this has contributed to its business success. Apple Inc is one of the large multinational companies of today and its marketing strategies, that have helped it achieve this success, have gained increased popularity and attracted attention of academic and business experts. Companies use different strategies at different times. Some of them may turn to be highly useful while others may not be so. Due to a number of factors like globalization, fierce competition between firms, technological advances and changing consumer behaviour, business contexts have become increasingly complex (Grover and Kettinger 1995, p. 58 ) and companies therefore require adopting effective strategies to survive these challenges and complexities. Apples retailing strategy has been thus an effective ideology it used to survive competition and other marketing challenges. As Pearce and Robinson (2004, p. 6) stressed, strategic issues usually have multi-functional and multi-business consequences. Decisions regarding strategies like customer mix, competitive emphasis, organizational structure and customer focus necessarily involve a number of firms strategic business units, divisions and programs. These strategies will yield positive outcome when they are well structured and effectively managed. When it comes to Apple Inc, a number of marketing strategies it adopted has been found to be extremely beneficial to the companys success. This research paper relates to one of its strategies- own store retailing. Research Contexts, Scope and Limitations No area of marketing and economic development has perhaps been more popular than retailing. Retailing has long been a critical pillar of a strong economy (Findlay, Paddison and Dawson 1990, p. 21). Similarly, retailing has been found to be a powerful marketing element that contributes much to the economic and financial well-being of a company as well. Many large multinationals operate retail stores, may be as part of its Supply Chain strategy or to promote direct marketing of their goods or services to the customers, with an aim to seize enormous opportunities of retailing. Large scale retailers like Wal-Mart, Sainsbury, TESCO and others have been studied extensively to assess their effectiveness and find the secrets behind their success. Their marketing techniques and how their retailing helps them maintain long-term profitability have been studied by a number of researchers. But, the significance of retailing as a strategy being implemented by a particular large-scale company is seldom explored, except that some of the researchers have indentified retailing or own store retailing only as a strategy with no extensive research on its importance and contributions to the company. Rather than generally talking about the importance and benefits of retailing strategy adopted by Apple Inc, this paper aims to explore literatures regarding the same and articulate specific factors that explain why it is important to adopt retailing strategy to a company like Apple Inc and what are the major benefits of it. The researcher would like to learn different aspects of using retail marketing to a large-scale business, Apple Inc, and for this purpose, researcher would review and evaluate the literatures and examine how customers respond to this marketing facility, what consequences of such retail marketing can have on the reputation and customer satisfaction of the business. The researcher will review literatures to find relations between retail marketing of Apple Inc with a number of marketing variables like customer satisfaction, brand building, brand loyalty, customer relationship, value proposition etc. By reviewing the literature about Apples Retail-marketing, the researcher would establish the importance of using retail-marketing as a marketing strategy to enhance greater long-term profitability and gain sustainable competitive advantages. This research is merely about Apples retail-marketing and therefore the findings and conclusions of this research may not be directly applicable or closely comparable with other businesses or manufacturing firms. Statement of Research aims and objectives This research paper aims to illustrate the benefits of retail-marketing to Apple Inc and find out how retail-marketing has contributed to Apples unique success stories in recent years. The main objectives of the study are: To define and explain retail-marketing with relation to its implementation by Apple Inc. To study and interpret the literature review of the importance and benefits of using retail-marketing as a business strategy, To ascertain what literatures talk about Apples retail-marketing strategy and how this has helped the company achieve its organizational goals like gaining sustainable competitive advantages, To examine how retail-marketing is closely related with various other marketing variables like customer focus, customer satisfaction, better servicing, direct marketing, brand loyalty, brand equity and customer relationship marketing etc, To suggest some successful measures and techniques that can be used along with retail-marketing strategy in order to help the company achieve its business goals. To establish what results can bring a retail-marketing on the competitive advantages of a firm, from the case of how Apple has successfully used it. Structure of the dissertation The introductory chapter provides a brief overview of the structure of the research paper and an introduction in to the main issue being discussed in this paper- retail marketing of Apple Inc. The framing of the research issue, the scope and limitations of researching retail-marketing in relation to Apple inc, and statement of objectives of the research are detailed in the introduction. In order the research to be clearer, it is highly important to have an outlook into Apples business and its various marketing strategies. Second chapter will briefly examine Apples business overview, market-share, market strategies, competition rivalry and value propositions it delivers to its customers. The researcher considers various literatures to be reviewed in chapter 3 and discusses previous works and studies in retail marketing of Apple Inc. Chapter 4 provides an overview in to the theoretical framework and methodology that this research uses for studying retail marketing of Apple Inc. The findings and results of literature review will be discussed in chapter 5. The researcher will summarize and list out major findings, results, suggestions and recommendations, based on the research in the conclusion chapter. Chapter 2 APPLE INC: MARKET OVERVIEW In todays highly rigorous competitive market landscape, Apples hot selling of iPod, iPhone, 3G phone, and digital music players, directly or through its own-store retailing, promises to revolutionize the market opportunities of digital entertainments as well as to meet varying customer needs for advanced technology. Brand loyalty, unique hardware and software design, differentiation and own store retailing have been some of its strategies that helped the company gain greater competitive advantages. Porter (1998a, p. 29) emphasized that an effective marketing strategy take either an offensive or a defensive action in order to create a defendable position against major competitive forces. Apples marketing strategies, especially its retail-marketing and unique hardware design were more or less capable of establishing strong defense against major competitive forces like Acer, Dell, Fujitsu, Microsoft etc. Walker (2003, p. 4) found that Apples management has guided the company to create a focal point for effective decision making which in turn has been extremely useful for the company in certain ambiguous and uncertain situations. Basically, a strong marketing vision, with support of certain effective strategies has helped Apple Inc maintain a very strong profitability and ever-increasing sales figures, as accounted to be $42,905 million in financial year ending of 2009 (Datamonitor 2010). Company Profile Apple Inc is a multinational company, headquartered in Cupertino, California, that is engaged in designing, developing and marketing of personal computers, severs, communication devices, network solutions, portable music digital players and relate accessories (Datamonitor 2010). It delivers its hardware and software products and services through its own-retail stores, online stores, sales force and third party sellers (Sander and Slatter 2009, p. 81). Apple Inc has always been prospering on innovation. It has ignited the personal computer revolution in early 1990s with the development of Apple-II, reinvented the personal computer within the next decade by the development of Macintosh and gained a very successful and deeply routed brand loyalty with its iMac by 1990s (Kerin, et al, 2005, p. 395). Finally, it identified vast opportunities for very new technologies that the market until then was less aware of them and developed new markets with iPod, Apple i-phone, and 3G i-Phone in very recent years. Apple Inc, through out its plants, offices and retail stores, employs 34,300 employees around the world and offers a wide range of products and services including iPods line of portable digital music and video players, iPhone handsets, iPad portable multimedia and computer machines and software like Mac OS, iLife, iTune, iWork, and internet applications such as Safari, Quick time etc (Datamonitor, 2010). The companys inexorable efforts on ease of use, utility, customer value, simplicity, efficiency and fun have helped Apple Inc make iPhone, 3G iPhone, and other products seem to be a very different species from that of the competitors. These newer products have recently turned to be more approachable and ultimately very desirable that many or almost all brands in the market (Newsweek, 2007). Apples major competitors are Acer, Dell, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard company, IBM, Lenovo group limited, Microsoft Corp, Motorola Corp, Nokia Corp, Oracle Corp, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba (Datamonitor, 2010). Apple designed a number of marketing strategies to compete with these large companies and grab a better slice of the highly competitive market pie. Market-Share Analysis Latest reports show that Apples share in the worldwide PC market is constantly surging, as more and more customers have continuously been preferring Mac PCs even when there were rumors of iPad and iPhone that have grabbed news-headlines. According to Gartners report, Apple has become the fifth largest PC seller in the US market for the first three months quarter in 2010. Around 1.398 million Mac computers were shipped by Apple inc and thus it stands just behind HP, Dell, Acer and Toshiba (Tilmann, 2010). Apple sold 1.4 million Macs in the first quarter of 2010 which remains to be highly impressive and has been recorded to be a very healthy 34% year on year growth. With 8% market share, Apple stays to be fifth largest in worldwide PC market (Kahney, 2010). The company has recorded a total revenue of 42,905 million US Dollars during the financial year ended in September 2009, showing an increase of 14.4 % over 2008 figures. The increase in sales has been mainly due to the growth in sales of iPhones handsets and third party digital contents and other utilities, through its online as well as own-stores. iTune stores too played an important role in its increased revenues in 2009. The operating profit of the company during 2009 has been accounted as $11,740 million, showing an increase of 41% over the same of 2008. The net profit also has been recorded to be $8,235 million, with an increase of 34.6% over 2008 figures (Datamonitor, 2010). Gartners (2010) research reported that Apple is the third largest Smartphone marketer in the world just after Symbian and Research in motion. In worldwide cell-phone marketing, Apple holds 2.7 % market share, being the seventh largest worldwide cell-phone marketer. It is observed that Apples share in worldwide cell-phone market has been growing with a 112.2% increase in mobile device sales. iPhone OS release and Apples focus for the new communication service providers in UK markets increase its opportunities and to gain greater competency in its markets (Gartner, 2010). Chapter- 3 LITERATURE REVIEW Company-Owned retail marketing Large-scale companies implement a number of different marketing strategies like its-own retailing, franchising, merger and acquisition and so on. Company-owned retailing is not a new marketing strategy, but has first been used by IBM in early 1980s. Mohr, Sengupta and Slater (2009, p. 326) found that IBM opened its first product centre and own-store retailing for the personal computer in New York City in April 1982. By 1986, the number of IBMs own stores had grown to 84. Gateway expanded aggressively in to its own stores retailing during the PC industry boom, but it had to shut all 188 stores in 2004. Sony also launched its own-stores retailing in United States to showcase its products to the customers and expanded them in 1996, and reached 57 stores by June 2008 (Mohr, Sengupta and Slater 2009, p. 326). Manufacturers own retailing thus has long been considered to be a strategically powerful tool to enhance better marketing. Many of firms adopted own-store retailing has found success where as many other failed to continue retail-operation. Gateway and IBM failed and others like Apple Inc succeeded with this direct retail channel strategy. Companies found it successful were able to cut middlemen costs and middle men profits and thus to make its products quite cheaper to the customers, to establish closer relationship with customers, to deliver quality services directly to the customers and create brand loyalty to enhance long-term profitability. Marketing mix and Companys own retailing Company-owned retail marketing strategy is closely related to the place element of the Marketing-mix concepts. Out of the four Marketing-mix Ps, namely product, price, place and promotion, place or distribution is a very critical element that determines the extent of businesss success. The channels a marketer chooses for marketing its products always largely influences its marketing effectiveness. The above depiction illustrates how theoretically and strategically Apple designed its marketing-distribution strategy through its own-store retailing. As Hill, OSullivan and OSullivan (2003, p. 243) emphasized, distribution addresses the issue of how to establish an appropriate and more profitable relationship with the maximum number of relevant customers at the minimum cost to the organization. A well-designed and developed distribution strategy can lead to coverage of a wider audience, accessing more numbers of customers and enabling existing customers to have a more satisfactory expedience. When it comes to Apples case of retail-marketing, there are three factors to be highlighted, a) profitable relationship, b) with maximum number of potential customers and c) at the least costs being possible by eliminating all middle-men involvement. It thus not only attracts wider audience but also delivers all those that can increase satisfaction of the existing customers. For a manufacturer, choosing own-stores for retailing is generally justified on the ground that it eliminates middle-men costs, reduces risks of handling inventories, enables closer relationship with consumers and delivers maximum satisfaction to them. But, Raysman (2002, 4- 4) argued that the most effective form of retail distribution is likely to be through third party distributors who are well-established in the market place and have a strong distribution infrastructure, though it is possible for technology product producers to sell directly to their own retail outlets. He justified his argument that selling through third party established firms can help the producer relieve from significant logistical concerns, and third party distributor will give the producer easy access to markets which may otherwise have been time-consuming and helps reduce the producers overhead expenses (Raysman 2002, 4- 4). Apple has virtually been integrating different distribution channels. It not only used third parties for sale, but also online stores and its own retailing stores in order to grab the maximum potential opportunities from the existing market. Third part sellers helped Apple spread of its valuable information over regions and countries, its won store retailing helped it maintain closer relationship with customers and deliver direct services to them. Retail marketing / Own-store marketing strategy of Apple Inc Apple Inc used a number of different distribution channels including own store retailing or retail marketing, online store, sales force and third party sellers. Among these channels, retail marketing remains to be a very specific and unique marketing strategy that helped the company overcome difficulties associated with big-box sellers and their staffers who are ill-informed of Apples products. More over, this marketing strategy helped the company establish stronger relationship marketing in order to create customer loyalty and customer satisfaction. Apple opened its first own-store retail-marketing in McLean, Virginia in 2001. By June 2008, with phenomenal records of greater success throughout its stores, Apple operated 215 retail stores in six countries, they are USA, Australia, UK, Japan, Canada and Italy. By 2008, these 215 stores were able to contribute nearly 20 % or more as growing of Apples total revenues (Mohr, Sengupta and Slater 2009, p. 326). Kerin, Hartley and Berkowitz (2005, p. 395) found that Apple has been thriving on innovation from Apple- II to Macintosh, to Apples PCs and iMac, but its step forward to starting its own store retailing in 2001 was merely a better promise to revolutionize its market landscape. As Kerin, Hartley and Berkowitz (2005, p. 395) noted, beginning with one or two stores in 2001, Apple Inc has been able to launch more than 25 stores per year. By 2004, about half of the US population were residing within 15 miles of an Apple store. These stores created an atmosphere where consumers were able to experience the thrill of owning and using Apples complete line of Macintosh computers, wide range of entertainment equipments and utilities like digital cameras, camcorders, and the entire iPod family devices. Apples retail-stores were selling its products and services exclusively, targeting tech-savvy customers within its store-products presentation and workshop. These stores facilitated displaying of a full lines of its products, software and accessories and Genius Bar staffed by an Apple specialist (Kotler and Keller 2006, p. 485). These stores were friendly places where all of its customers, especially Mac and PC users are freely allowed to play with and explore Apples technology-lines and get software or useful utilities (insidecrm.com, 2011). Rationale Lamb, Hair and McDaniel (2009, p. 339) found that Apples management has been dissatisfied with how third part distributors were selling the computers and others products of the company and this has been the main reason behind Apples thought of starting own-store retailing. Apple observed that some third party distributors buried Macintosh displays inside major retail stores, surrounded by PCs running the more popular Windows operating system by Microsoft. This brought their attention to hire a retail executive to develop a retail strategy. Mainly due to the disappointment regarding Apples resellers, the company announced that it would begin opening and operating its own Apple stores. Steve Jobs conveyed his major concern that most resellers had been unsuccessful in making the products of Apple stylish and more appealing at customers level (Gitman and McDaniel 2008, p. 345). Most of the literatures, apart from the two mentioned above, stressed that Apples thought to start retail marketing has been mainly driven by its findings that third party resellers didnt deal with its customers in a way Apple expected how it should be. The retail stores not only must be able to sell the products to the final customers, but also, these stores must be able to deliver quality services, valuable information and facilitate customers entertainment etc. Apples stores were designed by considering all such important factors. What was predicted about Apple-stores? When Apple Inc first opened its retail-store in May 19, 2001, there were rumors and many experts and media predicted the failure of its specialty stores. They argued that Apples users already knew where to buy Apples products and therefore Apples investment in establishing retail-stores would bring nothing more that higher fixed costs (Gitman and McDaniel 2008, p. 345). Such specialty stores might increase Apples expenses and its products will be more expensive to the customers, as Apple might like to cover its costs by increasing the prices and this ultimately cause less-appeal to the mass consumer. Knowing Apples attempt to launch of retail stores in 2001, Business Week wrote Sorry Steve, Here is Why Apple Stores Wont Work. The street.com opined Its desperation time in Cupertino, Calif. Well known retail-consultant David Goldstein predicted I give (Apple) two years before theyre turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake (Jerry, 2007). A number of business experts and media were looking Apples retail stores quite surprisingly as an attempt for no use. They found nothing more than just add costs to the company and to the customers. But, the story was surprising to them that its design, outlook, services offered in-store and amenities being provided to the customers were extremely appealing to them and it finally added greater share of its total revenue. Those who predicted failure of Apples store might have generalized what was known about CompuAdd, IBM, Gateway and Microsoft. Dvorak (2010) stated that the retail-marketing has been tried by a few computer companies before Apple tried it out and they all except Apple failed for obvious reasons. CompuAdd, once a head-on-head competitor with Dell and IBM, rolled out a number of stores which in turn bankrupted the company. IBM opened few stores, even before CompuAdds stores. IBM aimed at more professional market and therefore had to shutter them all at once. Gateway opened many stores called Country Stores, but stores themselves were boring and ominous and they too created almost same story. Microsofts stores opened in 1999 were not up to the mark due to that there were no buzz or energy in the place. Apples experience of unique success with Retail-marketing Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak didnt realize that they were establishing one of the most multibillion-dollar PC industry of all times when they invented the Apple-I in a garage on April 1976 (Kerin, Hartley and Berkowitz, 2005, p. 247). The same story repeated for its retail-marketing as well. Apples retail-marketing, despite predictions of experts and media about it to be failure, has become one of its greater achievements to be unparalleled as a wise move. These stores achieved $1 billion revenues faster than any retail business in history, just taking three years to reach that success-point. Around 40 % of the people purchasing items from Apple stores are new customers (Kerin, Hartley and Berkowitz, 2005, p. 395). Gitman and McDaniel (2008, p. 345) found that Apple Inc, just three years after opening its retail stores, was attaining around one-seventh of its total revenues from its stores alone. More interestingly, customers attracted to these stores were not just current Mac or other Apples products users, but rather, half-of the Mac sold in these stores were to first time Mac buyers. Though Apples launch of a line of new retail stores in 2001 was met with major skepticism around the US, Apple has been able to turn its retail-stores to be one of the crowning achievements of the resurgence (OGrady 2008, p. 14) that many other large retailers failed to achieve. When Gateway announced closure of its line of retail-outlets in April 2004, Apple reached its retail-market growth by opening its 53rd store. OGrady (2008, p. 14) identified that this great success has been the result of effective strategic planning. Apple built a prototype store in one of its warehouse near the Apple campus to test the concept and possibilities and it arranged a combination of photos, videos, music and kids. By October 2007, it announced completion of 200 retail-stores throughout USA and other five countries. The Fifth Avenue location in New York was able to attract more than 50,000 customers per week. Apples store sales has become the top in the industry, with an average earning of $4032 per its square foot (OGrady 2008, p. 14). Twice (October, 2008, p. 28) reported that, TWICE was awarding Apples retail-stores the Award of Excellence in Retailing in the Best Vendor Retailer category in 2008. It opined that Apples retail stores, from just one in 2001 to reach 200 by 2008 is an excellent and rather a very unique success in retailing history itself. Twice (2008) found that Apple has been providing consumers a hands-on way to experience its products which are displayed in a variety of specific-categorized areas that encouraged customers to test and play with Apples products. These stores have also carried third-partys accessories and software titles that are compatible with Apple products. Twices (2008) observations about Apples stores designs, customer attraction, revenue-generating capacity and customer feedback have led it decide to give its award to Apples stores. As Twice (2008) observed, The Genius bar facilitated in Apples retail stores and moreover its sales growth of 40.5% in 2007 from the sales of 200 6 have been some other very significant factors that are highly impressive about Apples stores. Most amazingly, Apple stores have won Twices Excellence in Retailing Award four times from 2006 to 2010. Olenick (2010, p. 30) reported that Apple continued to pipe up TWICE retail awards as Apple took home the Best Vendor Retailer trophy, which was the fourth time it gained since 2006. As Olenick (2010) opined, Apple was able to take this award home due to its ongoing ability to operate unique destination stores and because of its merchandising excellence, store designs, customer service and retail innovation etc (p. 30). Apples retail-store design Apple always thrived on innovation. When it comes to its products, unique design created the brand Apple. When it comes to its retail-stores, design played pivotal roles in its success, even when many large-manufacturers own retail stores created failure-stories. For no doubt, Apples innovative store design has been one of the very powerful tool it strategically used to make its retail-stores winning. As Davis (2009a, p. 340) evaluated, Apple-owned retail stores have been designed and facilitated in a way that it has become a cultural phenomenon, with their bright lighting, clean layout, easy access to products and almost museum-like zeal for captivating its products-displays. Customers are automatically encouraged to play with its products and all of its stores have arranged an in-store Genius Bar which offers customers a place to ask questions and get answers for their doubts and troubleshoots. Jones, Comfort and Clarke-Hill (2009, p. 243) found that Apples stores, for instance one of its store opened in 2004 on Londons Regent Street, offer a variety of programs for customers. the 24,000 square feet store offers free basic getting started workshops, including showing customers how to set up a new Mac, connecting to the internet, sending e-mails, downloading or uploading photos and transferring music and television shows to an iPod etc. Apple stores have facilitated a Personal Shopping program which the company claims as new way to shop which is intended to give customers attention and allow them to take all the time they need to test drive the products they are interested in. As Danziger (2006, p. 12) noted, Apples retail-stores are clearly revolutionary in todays increasingly cluttered retailing environment and its very specific layout is the key to a unique shopping experience. the sparkling contemporary design showcases each computer and piece of peripheral devices, with minimum of products on displays. Customers are always welcome to get hands-on with computer machines, check their e-mail, use networking, and make test drive of the computer machines. This very different store design and layout is intended to guide the intellectual and emotional experience of the customers through the store (Danziger 2006, p. 12). Apple consistently listens to its network and customers at large. One of the very significant point in its store is Genius Bar, a tech-support station, which answers customers questions and deal with their troubleshooting and thus serves as Apples commitment to superior customer service. Superior customer service comes to life in the form of problem solving and helping build bigger loyalists out of Apples customer base (Davis, 2009b, p. 98). There are many strategic elements that the company planed carefully about the effectiveness of its retail store in any new location and carefully considered how each floor space can be converted in to long-term profitability. Floor (2006, p. 206) stressed that Apple opened its stores only when it expected them to be profitable within a short period of time itself. As Apple believed, using a computer is as simple as buying one would be. The store layout was so simple and logical and its design and fixtures are kept as simple as possible. Apples stores were white box with a lot of lighting, being equipped with materials like stone, metal, glass, transparent synthetic and beech-wood. Large pictures and glasses are used to differentiate departments within its stores. As the image above illustrates, Apple has designed its store in a way it can maximize net profit per square foot of the available space. Customers enter or exit the store from cashwrap area and all varieties of Mac and iPods are located in the