My area – Earls Court a very weird and different area

Earls Court a very weird and different area. But that is not the opinion of the people living there that's just my opinion. Earls Court is a different area; I like to think of it as a little town not just some area in the heart of Kensington. The streets are always covered in old crisp packets and used condoms and there always seems to be puddles of water or some liquid that never seem to dry up. Behind my house is a private garden which, on a cold winter's morning is as misty as the peak of Mount Everest and the Scottish Highlands put together. This garden is run by a Garden Committee which is headed up by a woman who changes her hair colour every single week, for example last week the woman's hair was black and this week it is about as red as Manchester United's football shirt. In this garden there is a tennis court which is set up during the summer and the rest of the year the poles on which the nets hang are used by myself and about ten other mates as football posts. However the woman with the ever changing hair colour always seems to see us and come out and confiscate the ball even though her house is about from the school to Shepherds Bush tube station. The rules for this garden are extremely, I can't think of the word, hang on, ah yes, STUPID. You are not allowed to play football, play music, play and instrument, ride your bikes or any type of game that can damage the plants. It might as well be an outdoor prison. About 2 minutes walk from my house is a giant Tesco superstore; it claims to sell everything but the trouble is you can never find everything because they keep changing where everything is so I'll probably never know if they do sell everything. I remember about a month ago now, me and my mate Gav were in Tesco's and I had to use the toilet so I told him to wait downstairs. As I came back down the stairs my hat fell off down to the ground floor below; I ran down the stairs only to find my hat had disappeared and Gav standing where it had landed with an evil little grin on his face. Then a Jamaican security guard came up to us and said, † What are you doing†, and I because I didn't want to get in trouble said in a very angry and serious voice, † Gav man, where the hell did you put my hat? , the security guard told Gav to get my hat from where he had hidden it; amongst the boxes of wine. He gave it to me and we were just about to get away without getting into too much trouble when Gav, being the stupid idiot that he is, made the mistake of bursting into a fit of laughter when the guard had just turned away; not when he was out of earshot but when he had just turned his back so the guard heard, turned around, called his colleague and literally and I emphasise the literally, threw us out of the store onto the pavement; where Gav and I proceeded to laugh our heads off. But perhaps the most prominent building in my area is the office complex; just around the corner from my house; down a side road; which runs past a Gospel church. In this complex there is about 6 or 7 cameras 2 of which overlook the gate going in. On a dark and quiet Saturday night if there is nothing else to do; what me and my mates like doing is trying to get into the complex without being spotted by the 20 or so security guards just inside the main entrance. One time I dared a boy called Adam to run in and touch the sign that is about 10 metres in front of the front door. There were about five of us including Adam; he ran past the gate, past the cameras, touched the sign, and ran back. By this time all of the guards were up out of their seats and sprinting out of the door; I was the last one to notice; Adam sprints by me screaming like a little girl and everyone is running, I hadn't noticed what was happening and when I turned around from my hiding place about 15 metres from the gate; about four of the guards were coming through the gate, I stood up and started sprinting like a cheetah chasing a zebra. When I came to the fork I went right whilst everyone else had gone left down to Adam's house, I heard one of guards say, â€Å"You lot go left while we go right, we're going to get these kids†, I though, Christ their going to catch me; I wouldn't have been so worried if they weren't carrying holsters around which could have contained a gun. I ran between and over the parked cars and over a wall about a metre or two high and hid. I waited until they had given up and then I emerged from the shadow of the crucifix, triumphant in the fact that I had given trained security guards the slip. As I mentioned before I there is Gospel church near my house which has a bright green spire and on a Sunday morning and Wednesday evening it is absolutely bursting with music and singing. But the bad thing about this is that all of the cars of the church goers block up the parking lot; the only place that we are allowed to play football. But there are other more interesting things about my area like the fact that a woman fell of the roof of my house into my garden and I still don't know how she got up there. Also about three weeks ago a complete nutter of a man was on the roof of an estate brandishing and firing a rifle. All of the surrounding roads were closed off and armed police and for some reason there was riot police there as well. Nobody was hurt except the guy firing the gun who shot himself in the leg before being arrested. Once I was riding my bike to my mate's house and a tiny, little homosexual man stood in the way on purpose even though he had about a 10 second delay before I was near enough to hurt him; he stepped out and then said in a squeaky little voice â€Å"Watch where your going you stupid little s**t†, I yelled back at him some obscenities that I cannot mention here. Around my area there is a lot of refugees who go around asking people for money. Once I was walking to school when about five of them came up to me and asked me to give them i10; I just looked at them and said, â€Å"You got to be joking†, the leader looked at me really seriously and said, â€Å"I am being seriously perfect†, and that just made me laugh. I think he meant to say, â€Å"I am being perfectly serious†, but got confused. The leader then grabbed me and said, â€Å"give me i10 now†, he was only about as tall as me so I kneed him in his groin and the rest just backed off because a security guard had come out to see what was going on. The guard ‘escorted' the leader off the premises and by that I mean threw onto one of the islands in the middle of the road. There is a tall, red brick building just around the corner from my house which used to be where the local police force lived for free until it was turned into a council flat. There is a woman called Louise who is about 40 years old and has a problem with kids. She is as thin as rake and is about medium height. Her nose is crooked and she has a terribly squeaky voice like a rusty bike chain. She has a balcony coming out of the back of her house which she likes to use for taking pictures of people passing especially kids. When we make noise she comes out and starts going on about how we are making too much noise, and then we confront her about taking pictures of us she just goes quiet and slithers off quietly like the snake that she is. Just last Sunday she came out and starting having a go at us; but when we started confronting her about taking pictures of us she said she'd even take videos of us; we just said but that's illegal, she said so is noise disturbance; then I said â€Å"but which one do you think is more serious†, at which she just walked off and I called after her â€Å"I thought so! â€Å". She wears quite trampy clothes and she probably only has one piece of clean clothing in her whole life. Around my area there are a lot of kids who wander around looking for kids to mug, but I know them so they don't try to mug me. However when I was in first year there was some kids that I didn't know trying to mug people, and once I was on my way home from school and I must have looked like a right idiot with my catholic schoolboy uniform all neat and tidy. They were walking on the other side of the road and I saw them look at me then cross the road towards me; so I crossed the road to where they had been. They were then behind me and had turned around and started walking quite quickly towards me; now you have go to remember that I was a little first year so I couldn't fight off two 16+year olds, so I started jogging, they started jogging, I picked up the pace, so did they, I was coming up to Tesco's now so I sprinted through the back way through the car park into the store up to the first floor and out through the first floor exit. As I went down the stairs I could see them through the 12ft high windows searching for me jogging through the aisles so I started jogging across the large 6 lane road to my house. As I rounded the corner I saw them come out the main entrance, point towards me and start sprinting, so I just sprinted to my house and got through the front door in record time. I opened two doors in about 6 seconds. As I said earlier I consider Earls Court like a little town; a little town with its own high street with every shop its own cinema and even its own arena and park. But with little towns there comes problems. On Thursday mornings there are piles of black bin bags waiting for the bin men to come and take them away; it smells about as bad as rotten fish and eggs put together. You trip over the bags that are strewn all over the pavement. As I go down to school I go past a bright, mustard yellow estate which all the dump trucks come out of and so that stinks even more and there are kids on the estate that spit down on people going past. All in all I think my area has some good points like the fact that most of my friends live there but there are some bad points like all the crime and rubbish on the streets. But it is my area, I've lived there all my life and I love it.

Peace and Freedom throughout a Nation Essay

Throughout the course of John F. Kennedy’s inaugural speech, he uses several persuasive appeals such as the idea of peace and freedom to inspire and gain the trust of his Nation.   In the beginning of Kennedy’s speech, he mentions that America will â€Å"pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend [and] oppose any foe† (par 4) for the preservation of liberty. This is an example of parallelism clauses that make clear of Kennedy’s intent to do anything it takes for the survival and liberty. Kennedy states that both sides of a conflict should join in creating â€Å"a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak are secure and the peace preserved† (par 19). Kennedy’s use of parallelism helps keep the people’s attention to help illustrate his key points of his speech. He later describes the â€Å"power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life,† (par 2) that uses that power to free the peoples of the world. Meaning we have the power to destroy ourselves but it should only be used to better our nation, and create a balance of peace and freedom in the world. During this time the United States was in the beginning of the Cold War and he knew that focuses had to be on containing Communism in order to assure the American people that they were safe. Kennedy constantly reminds the American people that they are a united and strong country that can make it through anything. Kennedy begins four paragraphs in a row with the same words, â€Å"To those,† (par7-8) to illustrate that he is willing to work things out with the countries America is having problems with. His use of repetition helps him remind his country that they can make it through anything in a persuasive way. He also mentions that America can solve problems with their enemies during diplomacy several times. Kennedy amplifies his desire for peace and unity when he repeats, â€Å"Let both sides† (par 14-18) he utilizes alliteration to explain his want for unity instead of division. It is brought to our attention that â€Å"if a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few that are rich (par 8). In order to sustain peace and freedom throughout the nation these things like this need to be recognized. Kennedy creates a common enemy to unite the people’s pride. While discussing newly freed countries he uses a metaphor, saying, â€Å"remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by ridding the back of the tiger ended up inside† (par 7). Also when he says, â€Å"the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans† (par 3) he is using a metaphor showing that America intends to control themselves and let no one else rule them. So our Nation â€Å"should only glow from that fire [that] can truly light the world† (par 12) meaning if everyone does something to benefit the country we will succeed and live and peace. John F. Kennedy did an outstanding job with gaining the trust of his Nation during his 1961 inaugural address. The people were able to feel safe and protected with Kennedy becoming president. The fear of being taken over by a Communist nation lessened, and peace and freedom was sure to come.

Schools inflicted with poverty Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Schools inflicted with poverty - Essay Example The six schools surveyed had fared well in their respective state literacy tests â€Å"recording between 68 to 89 percent of students who had either met or exceeded their state’s standard of proficiency†. All six schools used the ‘Four Blocks Framework’ for balanced literacy. Having established the common strain in all six schools, the writer then identified 12 factors that are important for high academic achievement and set about studying how these factors functioned in these six schools. These 12 factors are, assessment; community involvement; comprehensive curriculum; engagement instruction; leadership; materials; parent participation; perseverance and persistence; professional development; real reading and writing; and specialist support. Assessment needs to be devised in a manner that it guides instruction, the community members must assist the school in its instructional task. Curriculum should be centered on the basics in the primary stage but must not exclude science and social studies totally. There has to be a high level of student engagement in the literacy activities if real learning has to take place. Teachers have to devise a method for one-to-one instruction and monitoring even while teaching the whole class. A strong leadership â€Å"embodied in a committed, passionate and hands-on Principal† is a prerequisite for any school wanting to achieve its goals. Schools must have adequate material and resources for effective instruction. Parent participation in literacy activities enhances the effectiveness of the system. Perseverance and persistence is required no matter which method of instruction is followed, since the results will begin to show only after a reasonable period of time. Professional devel opment of teachers cannot be ignored. Teachers need to upgrade their skills constantly. To become good readers and writers, students must actually spend a lot of time

Beauty-Research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Beauty-Research - Essay Example Secondly, the fact that the findings of the study will be used for course work purposes besides other external uses such as consumers of beauty products and services as well as the manufacturers. Documentation review. This method will be utilized so as to get historical information since this study covers a wide period spanning 150 years ago. Data will be drawn from the much historical information and the researcher will use observation especially in cases when studying ancient works. Such information may include theories of design in ancient times and study of collections of ancient products. Target population. This research targets manufacturers of beauty products and services, Consumers of beauty products and materials, Media houses and the entertainment companies in order to understand the evolution of beauty. Sampling procedures. Sampling is the process of studying a small but representative group of a population with an aim of applying the results to the wider population (Patton, p.123). Simple random sampling shall be used in this study because it is convenient, timesaving and reliable. According to (Patton, p 234) a good sample must be representative of the entire population. Choosing of respondents shall be conducted randomly and therefore participation shall be by chance. However interviews targeting manufactures shall be done in a semi structured manner. The researcher shall draw elements from the population and will aim at using 200 respondents for purpose of questionnaire response, 50 will be drawn from manufacturers of beauty products, 100 will be from consumers such as women and beauty models while the remaining 50 will media houses and entertainment companies. Ethical considerations. The researcher will treat respondents as an important part of the research by according them respect and human dignity necessary for every human being. The researcher will seek to ensure that no instrument for this research is detrimental to the physical, social, emotional and cultural well being of the respondents. The research shall ensure comfort for the respondents by framing the questionnaire in a way in line with acceptable standards. This researcher shall aim at being all inclusive therefore in selecting respondents the researcher shall aim at incorporating respondent from at least all ethnic communities as well all beauty stakeholders. Any benefits arising from the research will be accorded to all subjects equally subject to copyright conditions. Mutual consent in form of formal letter of request shall be sent out to all participants in advance with an option for acceptance or declining participation. Historical as well as socio-cultural and economic back ground of participants shall be borne in mind as this could have a bearing on how different

Keep it clean Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Keep it clean - Essay Example Therefore, it is the hope of this author that the analysis will not only be beneficial in discussing and analyzing the subject matter but also in helping the reader to come to a more full and complete appreciation for how some of the same information and viewed under the lens of a different culture and a different dynamic is necessarily much different. As a function of performing such an analysis, the reader will be able to come away with a more clear understanding of how current employers utilize social media and other forms of web content as a means of narrowing down the applicant pool. Likewise, it is the further intention of this author to pain a level of distinction with regards to how American culture integrates with such a threat as compared to how Chinese culture integrates with such a threat. The application that was defined on the website consists of a specific program which is designed to pour through large amounts of social networking data as a means of targeting social n etworking data that potential employers might find offensive and helping the user to remove this content prior to this ever being an eventuality (Jones, 2011). Accordingly, this necessarily assumes two factors, the first of these is that the social networking user would necessarily have information that would be viewed negatively by a potential employer and the second of which is that they would be familiar with the service that the app can provide and seek to utilize it (Parker, 2013). The second assumption is perhaps the more important one due to the fact that if the individual is mindful enough to seek out an application to clean their social networking history, they are likely intelligent enough in the first place not to post scandalous information upon social networks which might be able to be viewed by a variety of strangers. However, the reality of the situation is that the changing and interconnected nature of the world and the hiring process has made it common for employers to seek out such information within the world wide web prior to making determinations with regards to what employee would be the best choice and the best fit for the given firm or entity in question (Arrington et al, 2011). Although it may seem as an uncomfortable level of surveillance, the fact of the matter is that these companies and firms are merely exploiting the information that social networking users so carelessly post about themselves (Clark & Roberts, 2010). Rather than seeing such a practice as somehow dubious on the part of the employer, the reader can and should integrate with the understanding that the end users are the ones that are ultimately responsible for the representation that they make to the world and so oftentimes leave as publicly accessible. In such a way, the application tha

Factory System Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Factory System - Essay Example The Factory System as it is known today when we refer to the onset of the industrial age of modern day England was the use of machinery for mass production (Boyson, 1970, pp. 34 - 52). Former cottage based industries or rather production that took place in the homes, cottages, hut (any form of residence of the workers) or any type of production that took place prior to the 1780s were moved to a centralized location that came to be known as a "factory". This was mainly caused due to the introduction of machinery for the production and manufacture of goods at the turn of the nineteenth century and since machines were too large to be housed in cottages of the workers and since it was too costly to provide each worker with an individual machine and also since several workers were necessary to operate one machine alone, the only option that was left to owners of the machinery were to house the machinery in a large buildings and have the workers manufacture the products in the "factory" un der the strict supervision of the machinery owners or supervisors who were hand picked by the owners (Thompson, 1967, pp. 81 - 93). Due to this centralization of labour and machinery, there was much migration from the villages to the industrial hubs in the country and thereby began the "factory system". And this migration from the village to the cities or the industrial centres were apparent in the early part of the nineteenth century The Impact of the Factory System on the Labour The onset of the factory system had many different impacts on the labour force, these impacts were both good and bad. By bringing workers under one roof it was easier for owners to supervise and manage the manufacture of products, they were also able to ensure that work was not duplicated and it was carried out in the most efficient manner possible. Also it was the factory system that was the cause of the development of modern day management theory through the studies that were carried out by individuals like Fredrick Taylor and others. By bringing labour under one roof the owners were able to discipline the staff appropriately and especially they were able to ensure that productivity was high, therefore as owners of the machinery they stood to gain a great deal. In the case of the workers the benefits and disadvantages that they faced were quite mixed. While the factory system gave them a steady income, living in such close quarters with so many different individuals, living in unsanitary conditions as the big cities turned out to be due to the convergence of workers and working in very unhealthy environments that were often inadequately lit up and ventilated caused much disease and also created an unsafe environment where workers were often prone to succumb to fatal accidents. While some opponents of the factory system insist that the machinery imposed discipline on the workers the author of this paper begs to differ on

The Concept of Sustainable Development Assignment

The Concept of Sustainable Development - Assignment Example This paper will evaluate the statement â€Å"the concept of sustainable development has not changed since The Brundtland Report†. The Brundtland Report is a culmination of a ‘900 day’ international work and it was jointly prepared by senior government representatives, scientists, research centers, senior NGO representatives, industrialists, and the general public. The Report had three major aims. First was to review the critical environmental issues and to develop innovative and realistic responsive measures to address the issues. The second aim was to improve the international cooperation on ensuring long-term environmental sustainability by driving new policy formations and existing policy amendments. The Third objective was to increase the level of environmental safety awareness among businesses, governments, and the general public. â€Å"The Commission focused its attention on the areas of population, food security, the loss of species and genetic resources, energy, industry, and human settlements – realizing that all of these are connected and cannot be treated in isolation one from an other† (1987:27) (Brundtland Commission: Brundtland Report, n.d.). Hence the Commission tried to coordinate and integrate international efforts for curbing various forms of environmental issues. The term sustainable development was coined by the Brundtland Commission. The Commission defines the concept of sustainable development as the â€Å"development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs† (General Assembly). Before the introduction of the term sustainable development, this concept had three constituent parts including economic sustainability, socio-political sustainability, and environmental sustainability (Social-Political Sustainability: The Human Element, n.d.). Since the term sustainable development promotes economic, socio-political, and environmental sustainability.

Women's studies - Gender, Culture and Technology Essay

Women's studies - Gender, Culture and Technology - Essay Example Sex stereotypes are defined as â€Å"socially shared beliefs that certain qualities can be assigned to individuals, based on their membership in the female or male half of the human race† (Lips, 1993, pp. 2). The individual tends to conform to the roles defined or constructed by the society. Individuals are so influenced by the socially specified categories that they tend to organize themselves according to these categories. A woman speaks in one way when she is speaking to another woman, and in a different way when she is speaking to a man. She may behave differently when she is working with a group of men than when she is working with a group of females. This is because the woman has learnt through modeling, practice and reinforcement, to behave differently in situations that differ only in relation to the gender of the partner or the group. Her role vis-à  -vis to the gender she is interacting with has already been prescribed and defined by society. Bohan (1993, pp.6) suggests that the differences between boys and girls and men and women can be explained by two different perspectives – Essentialism and Constructionism. Essentialism locates the origin of the gender qualities within the individual whereas Constructionism locates these gender qualities outside the individual as a component of the acts and actions of the individualism. Gender is therefore made external to the self. It is not intrinsic. It is only in what the actions of the individual. Gender qualities, from this perspective, are not intrinsic characteristics based on biological sex. Bohan argues that gender is not something that the individual possesses but something that the individual does. Essentialism on the other hand locates gender within the individual as intrinsic. The constructionist perspective actually locates gender in the social realm. It defines gender in terms of ‘doing’. West and Zimmerman (1993, pp. 380) define gender itself as â€Å"a routine, methodical and

Impact of trade unions on firm performance Essay

Impact of trade unions on firm performance - Essay Example They use this power to reach a compromise with the employers (Bennett & Kaufman, 2007). In spite of the outcome, the members of unions must adhere to the solution at which the two parties arrive. The history of trade or labor unions dates back to 1860’s when workers created labor unions that included a vast range of workers (Currie, 2001). However, the unions did not accomplish any notable achievements and they ended up closing their doors. Over time, worker's  approach to trade unions has changed drastically, and they have accomplished commendable results for their members. They have banded a lot of employees from various industries so as to enhance their experience in the workplace (Bennett & Kaufman, 2007). The key function of these unions is to push for improved working conditions and reasonable wages for their members. The leaders hold negotiations with employers regarding issues such as wage increments, better benefits and working hours and more vacation time among oth ers. The decision that the union arrives at is binding for all its members. The leaders also hold regular meetings to handle complains, concerns and recommendations, as well as vote on key decisions before negotiating with employers. In the case where a trade union does not reach a decision with an employer, it may result in a strike (Currie, 2001). A strike is a decision that all members must respect. Trade unions include employees from a given industry such as the agriculture industry, or a specific agency such as local or state government. Furthermore, there are some minimum requirements that unions require from their members in order to get official membership. Some unions require their new members to pay a registration fee while other requires them to have certification in order to join. The unions may include both blue color employees and professional. Different unions vary in terms of the features and qualifications since they operate in different industries and have diverse memberships. In addition to their role in enhancing the conditions of employees, the unions also take part in political activism. During the formulation of legislations especially laws that touch on the lives of workers directly, they send their representatives to influence the outcome. Although the key objective of these unions is to push for improved wages and working conditions in the workplace, this objective also includes political activism. This paper discusses how trade unions impact on performance, as well as outline how employees can best handle trade unions. Impact of trade unions on performance The key goal of the unions is to ensure that their members have the best working conditions, reasonable wages, are not mistreated by employers and get vacations as necessary (Bennett & Kaufman, 2007). However, the impact of trade unions does not only influence these factors. They affect other areas such as performance of employees among others. This can be either in a positive or a negative manner. Trade unions can either result in increased performance or decreased performance depending on the outcome. Increased performance The impact of a trade union can have positive effects on a firm’s performance. Among the key roles of a human resource manager is to motivate employees to perform in a better way. HR managers can motivate employees in a number of ways. These are better wages and working

Should the U.S. Government Levy Additional Fines or Taxes on Companies Essay

Should the U.S. Government Levy Additional Fines or Taxes on Companies That Ship Jobs Overseas - Essay Example The paper tells that according to the McKinsey Global Institute the threat posed by shipping jobs abroad has been grossly exaggerated. To start with, they argue that the number of jobs lost per year to offshoring is far fewer than the normal rate of job turnover in the economy. Secondly, savings from offshoring enables companies to invest in future technologies that create more jobs at home and abroad. Thirdly, global competition improves the skills of American companies making them more competitive. Companies that offshore have the opportunity to take advantage of distinctive skills that are available overseas. Fourthly, the U.S. runs a trade surplus in services. This means that America needs other countries to buy its surplus services. If America refuses to similarly offer overseas countries a platform for trade – by refusing to procure their services – these countries may opt to retaliate and thus leave the U.S. with no one to trade in its excess capacity. On the con trary, in â€Å"It's a Flat World After All† argues that the convergence of information and communication technologies (ICTs) have leveled the playing field and if not addressed as a critical issue by the U.S. policies, it could signal the end of American wealth and global dominance. He further argues that whereas in the past American companies offshored primarily to minimize production costs, nowadays they do so because they are unable to find the talent they need locally. Nobel Laureate Paul Samuelson agrees with Friedman when he states that free trade could leave rich countries worse off by eroding them off their comparative advantages. Moreover, who says that China, India, Russia and the other emerging economies are content with providing low-end, low-wage jobs for eternity.

Black Supremacy Essay Example for Free

Black Supremacy Essay Throughout history, white anglo-saxons have been notorious for mistreating all races other than its own. Malcolm X felt the white man had been actually nothing but a piratical opportunist who used Faustian machinations to make his own Christianity his initial wedge in criminal conquests(563). The earth is burdened by the white man! That is the true meaning of what Malcolm X is stating; the words Faustian machinations, meaning evil plotting, implies the whole white population is out for the blood of other races. Many members of the black race are adopting the idea of Afrocentricity; some call it black pride, I call it black supremacy. Afrocentricists are supporting their ideas with religion and the need for liberation. The liberation of the black man is needed! Molefi Asante describes the Afrocentric awareness [as] the total commitment to African liberation anywhere any everywhere by a consistent determined effort to repair any psychic, economic, physical, or cultural damage done to Africans(50). Liberation from what the white race? Molefis statement is completely ludicrous; the first copy of his book with this statement was printed in 1988, in my opinion blacks were fairly liberated in 1988. Now the second part of his statement, repair what damage? Any psychic damage which has been thrust upon the black race has not occurred for quite some time: slavery not in my lifetime nor separate bathrooms were in my lifetime. And I am not about to feel sorry about what happened before my time. Economic damage is not the white mans fault either. In this day anyone can do whatever he/she likes. The truth to the economic matter is that many of the oppressed races feel they now deserve a free ride. Absolutely no physical damage has occurred in my lifetime. As for as cultural damage, cultures evolve, they do not get damaged. Clearly all liberation of the black man has already occurred, therefore, there is know further need for reimbursement. The white race is evil! Further, the Afrocentric cause attempts to use religion to denounce the white race as heathens; according the Yakub myth, the colour black is the primal colour; other colours, consequently, are merely shades of black, except for white, which is the absence of black, hence the absence of perfection(Davies 151). The statement declares the white race to be inferior; why should any one race be inferior? Oh yeah, its to get back at the white race for all the years of hardship. The black race was called infidels for many years, and the black supremists just believe what goes around comes around. However, the truth to the matter is that all races are equally imperfect as the next statement will show. The Afrocentric religion goes on to state how the white race was formed, apparently, a black scientist named Yakub rebelled against Allah by producing a new creature with an excess of bad(white) genes These evil creatures were alloted six thousand years of rule (i. e. , until almost the present day), after which the oppressed blacks will be liberated from their bondage(Davies 51). Note the use of words in this passage: new creature, bad(white) genes, evil creature, and once again the reoccurring oppressed blacks will be liberated. All the words directs ones attention to the idea that the white race is nothing more than devils roaming the earth in search of its next prey. The black supremists are making the same arguments that the early whites made and are being reprimanded for. It seems this is a bit of a contradiction. Down with the white race! Feelings towards the white race are made apparent when Elijah [Muhammad] felt that evil was inherent in the white race, and preached that the whites could not help themselves, Molifi Asante adds we know now, of course, that the condition of evil in whites is not inherent, but inherited through history and environment(15). The quote is quite harsh; directly saying that the white race is evil no, not acting evil, is evil and will continue to stay this way. These words imply the need for eradication because evil is just the devil spelled without a d. One must stand against the devil before anything drastic occurs beyond what has already happened, for instance; an outburst of homosexuality among black men, fed by the prison breeding system, threatens to distort the relationship between friends these gays live in the make-believe world of white gays(Asante 57). The white race has already begun to corrupt the black race, according to black supremists, with the introduction of homosexuality, which is clearly a bad white habit. The word, threatens, leads one to the idea of defense against these evil, plotting, gay, devils. Paraphrasing what was earlier said, the white race will cease to rule after six thousand years of rule, setting all blacks free from the oppression of the devils(Davies 51). That time is now and the black supremists want another holocaust, with the white race suffering. The black supremists feel it is their turn to rule. Violence is the only way to stop the white race! During a speech Malcolm X declared, Twenty million ex-slaves must be permanently separated from our former slavemaster and placed on some land we can call our own. Then we can create our own jobs. Control our own economy. Solve our own problems instead of waiting on the American white man to solve our problems for us(Perry 68-69). Clearly, in 1963, Malcolm X feels full segregation is in the best interest of the black race. The quote appears fairly peaceful, however, two years later, Malcolm X changes his mind about peaceful action: Were for peace. But the people that were up against are for violence. You cant be peaceful youre dealing with them(Perry 159). A non-peaceful approach to further the black cause is being proposed by Malcolm Little (his more appropriate birth name, seeing how a little man resorts to violence). Eldridge Cleaver, leader of the Black Panthers, too felt violence is the best approach; I became a rapist It delighted me that I was defying and trampling upon the white mans law, that I was defiling his women I was getting revenge(14). This about says it, he was putting a notch in the head board, winning one for the boys. Eldridge Cleaver has, in my opinion, ignorant, uncivilized revolutionary ideas. He only wants revenge for the fact he was in jail. Cleaver reveals that Rather than owing and paying a debt to society, Negro prisoners feel that they are being abused, that their imprisonment is simply another form of the oppression which they have know all their lives(58). The Black Supremists want revenge. Black supremists want nothing less than for the black race to rule the world. They shall use ideas of religion to back up their claims upon the world and call it the liberation of their people. But the truth of the matter is the tides are turning. How can it be called liberation? The white race had these ideas 100s of years ago and the black supremists called it evil. Now they have the same evil ideas and are calling it liberation. No, the human race will never learn from history; we will just repeat it. The main question is will their ever be racial harmony in the world? I just dont know. We shall have our manhood. We shall have it or the earth will be leveled by our attempts to gain it. Eldridge Cleaver Works Cited Asante, Molefi. Afrocentricity. Trenton: Africa WP, 1992. Cleaver, Eldridge. Soul on Ice. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968. Davies, Alan. Infected Christianity: A Study of Modern Racism. Montreal: Mcgill-Queens UP, 1988. Perry, Bruce, ed. Malcolm X: The Last Speeches. New York: Pathfinder, 1989. X, Malcolm. Learning to Read. rpt. in Rereading America. ed. Gary Colombo, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle. Boston: Bedford Books, 1992.

Royal Mail Strategies and Responsibilities

Royal Mail Strategies and Responsibilities Royal mail is the United Kingdoms national postal service which was founded in 1516. Royal mail is having its operations all over UK as well as in International areas having more than 176000 employees. Royal mail do have parcel service, letter service, Airmail service, Business support services, money transfers and lot of services they keep on adding day by day. It is the subsidiary firm of the Royal Mail Group LTD. According to the Royal mail its highly skilled employees are its assets and the customers are the life blood of the firm. This essay describes about the following factors:- Royal Mails three strategic levels Corporate Strategic Responsibility Human resource strategies (Definition) Human Resource Strategies between 2005-2010 Swot Analysis New Human Resource strategy of the Royal Mail The Royal Mails response to the Competition and the to the recent Credit Crunch Conclusion 1.The Royal Mail do have three levels of strategies:- Corporate level -which deals with the overall organization. Ex: Geographical regions, Market selection. Business level strategy is mentioned for each type of business carried out by the Royal mail. Functional level- The Finance, Human Resource Management, Production, Marketing, Research and Development comes under this section. The Corporate strategy of Royal mail is designed in such a way that it shows their ability to cope with the market changes in a positive and negative manner. It is the hardships of the employees and their standard customer services makes the Royal mail to get a competitive advantage over its competitors like TNT, DHL etc. Royal Mail which was once said to be the Monopolist in the field of Postal services lost the title of Monopoly in the beginning of 2006. It had 99% of the market share in its hands. Royal mail do have a view to make their corporate Strategic responsibility to become a part of their strategic management process. They are:- 2. Corporate Strategic responsibility includes:- The support of the workers from the workplace which forms the backbone of the Royal mail. The management also deals with the workers in a more friendly manner without any kind of discrimination. Being workers said to be the assets of the firm, Royal Mail takes good care of their workers and regarding the working conditions too. To make its actions designed to have a strong positive effect on its workers, customers and to its suppliers. Achieve a net zero carbon footprint by 2015 and to support their clients to do their activities to have a positive advantage towards the environment and to attain a competitive advantage. With their Corporate responsibility in mind Royal Mail wishes to be different from its competitors Royal mail had created their corporate strategy by taking into consideration of their Organizational objectives and their achievement. It is in the Functional level the Human Resource Strategies arrives. The definition of the Human Resource strategy and the Human Resource Strategies of the Royal Mail from 2005-2010 are mentioned below. 3.Human Resource strategy (Definition):- Before moving to Human Resource Strategy we should know what is meant by the term strategy?.Strategy usually means selecting the best decision from a stream of decisions. According to Lundy and cowling (1998,p16), strategy is: The art of war, generalship, especially the art of directing military movements so as to secure the most advantageous positions and combination of forces. The Human Resource Management team in the Royal Mail directs the workers by motivating them and providing them proper training in order to achieve the Organizational goals and to get a competitive advantage over its rivals. The term Human Resource Strategy is well defined as Human Resource management (HRM) is a strategic approach to managing employment relations which emphasises that leverage peoples capabilities is critical to achieving sustainable competitive advantage, this being achieved through a distinctive set of integrated employment policies, programmes and practices. [Bratton and Gold,4e,p3] 4.The Human Resource Strategies from 2005 2010:- Human Resource Management forms the most important function in an Organization as the workers are considered to be the valuable assets of the firm. The right kind of people in right position at the right time is the objective of the HR Manager. It is said that normally in a day HR Manager usually spends 20% of their working hours in dealing with the grievances of the employees without affecting the Organizations routine activities. HR Executives should have an ability to deal with their staffs in a fair and friendly manner rather than imposing more control on them. The Royal Mail take the efforts made by their workers into good consideration and rely on the fact about their career development rather than simply a job. The Royal Mails Human Resource strategies in the period from 2005 to 2010 is mentioned below which includes several threats they faced and the steps undertaken to face those threats. Human Resource strategies of the Royal Mail in 2005:- One of the most important actions of the Royal Mail can be seen in the beginning of 2005 which employed candidates from the socially excluded groups. The candidates who were recruited performed very well in the selection process as well as in the Organization too. New recruits by this process were placed in position as post man, delivery van drivers, letter sorting who were ex-service men or those who are homeless. This Pilot program helped the Royal Mail in lowering the cost and labour turnovers and proved as the firm with best employee satisfaction. The employees thus had a long term commitment and had a self motivated approach to work hard for the firm to achieve its goals. The employer expectation of high commitment and the employee expectation of taking care of their social needs made the workers of the Royal Mail to be loyal to the firm and improved the ratio of trust towards the firm. The voluntary organizations like the Royal Association of Disabled and Rehabilitation, Busine ss action on Homelessness etc helped the Royal Mail to get candidates of socially excluded groups. The Human Resource team played a very important function in sorting out the list of disabled candidates and selecting the best candidates through a standard selection process. The Human Resource Manager who have the Management as an art aspect means having inborn talents will have those skills to recruit those people who can contribute to the maximum of their extend towards their Organization. The Royal mail team supervised by Mr. Adam Crozier made record annual profits in 2005 which helped to give 1074 pounds of bonuses to its workers. These were achieved by the employee performance,better customer service by properly trained staff and their performance related pay strategy of the Human Resource team. Human Resource strategies of the Royal Mail in 2006:- The Human Resource team in the Royal Mail were able to provide instant solutions to the grievances of the employees. The starting of the year 2006 was not as good for the Royal Mail as it faced a postal strike in Belfast. Nearly 200 postal workers stopped their work for 2 weeks which made a very negative impact on the Royal Mails services to the customers. The customers were said to contact the office directly for any important matters and most of the letters and documents were blocked in some places remained undelivered. The Communication Workers Union says that the strike was due to the bad and unfair practices of the managers towards the workers in Belfast and the core issue is not accepted by the Royal Mail. Important delivery including specialized services were stopped temporarily and the management took immediate action to solve the problem. The Workers in strike were assured that they will not be treated badly when they return to their work and necessary actions will be taken against those who were found guilty. The Human Resource team in the Royal Mail took the issue seriously and they guaranteed that the workers will be treated fairly and without any discrimination. The psychological contract which says high motivation and high commitment should be taken into consideration which made the Human Resource Manger to deal with the situation in a friendly and wise manner. It was this year the Royal Mail lost its position as a Monopoly in the postal Industry and started facing wide spread competition. The management agreed that their will be no reduction in the work force, high job security will be provided with raise in pay scales to the staffs. The Christmas season of 2006 also made the customers of the Royal Mail to suffer due to the strike of 800 workers which caused huge volume of undelivered documents in the office. The managements decision to change some full time post to part time when an job opening arise was objected by the trade union by saying tha t it is against the National agreement. The matter was raised very seriously and the Royal Mail responded to it by saying that the decision will be with the consent of the worker agreement. The strike was stopped by reaching to the point that the new job openings in the Royal Mail will be carried out by the management with the combined hands of the trade union to make decision regarding whether to treat the vacancy full time or part time and the management assured that no staff will be forced to change his full time job status to part time. The closing of the sorting office in Paddington, London in the same year was explained by the Royal Mail as a step taken in order to improve their customer satisfaction and productivity against the wide spread rumours about some illegal actions of the postal workers. The 950 workers who worked their were temporarily kept away from their duties and some of them were given transfer offers. The workers commitment in a firm not only depend on their s alary but also on other factors like work atmosphere, employee- employer relationship, colleague character etc. The sacking of 5 workers who treated their women colleague very badly in one of the Royal Mail branch shows the immediate response taken by the Human Resource team in those matters which affects an employee to perform well in an Organization and to reduce those activities which affects the reputation of the firm. The Human Resource team has made recently certain improvements in the health and safety measures for the workers due to the huge fine the firm had to pay regarding the death of an employee, which was made as a health and safety issue by the court. Human Resource strategies of the Royal Mail in 2007:- The Privatization of the Royal Mail was the main problem discussed by the Human Resource team in the Royal Mail and the workers point of trust towards the firm tends to decrease day by day affecting their performance in the work. The Communication Workers Union was opposing the issue but some managers say the Privatization will help the future of the Royal Mail. A deal was agreed between the management and the labour union in 2007 followed by stopping the workers strike. The new policies changed the working time and new technologies were introduced which was implemented in each and every branch of the Royal Mail improved the productivity and performance of the workers. The new modern way of thinking and acting was successful in the Royal Mail. Also Mr. Mark Higson the managing director of the Royal Mail added that the future of the Royal Mail Pension scheme will not form any part of the agreement. The Human Resource Strategy of making the employees feel they are a part of the firm made the management to come to a point of distributing around 20% of its shares to the employees was opposed by the Government and the plan was turned down. The Human Resource team and the other managing partners have plan to explore the unused markets and to identify new opportunities to make the Royal Mail to offer quick and friendly based customer services. The Human Resource Department also do have plans to provide Occupational pension schemes for their employees in future. The Human Resource Manager also responded to the worst situation of poor quality service by the Royal Mail in Scotland and he promised to provide better customer service the coming year. The contract lose with the online service provider Amazon hits very badly towards the Royal Mail and its bad position to face more rigorous competition. Human Resource strategies of the Royal Mail in 2008:- In order to face the competition and the consideration of the future of the Royal Mail, the Human Resource Department made plans to reduce the number of workers and providing better benefits for those who remains. The Workers and the union feared about the reduction of the full time jobs and including more part time workers. The Privatization of the Royal Mail which the British public doesnt like was also considered as the main issue by the trade unions and the management. The Privatization will cause more job losses says the union members but the Royal Mail needs finance to support its future plans says the Management. The Management also planned to change the offices from old buildings to new ones in which the trade unions responded and they said that the change of offices will cause problems in sorting of letters, loosing some customers and they feared about loosing jobs too. Also plans were prepared by the Human Resource team to raise the salary scale of the executive Directors o f the Royal Mail who are the main key players in obtaining maximum profit. The Devanna model which shows performance appraisal, Human resource development and reward systems should be given due consideration. Many office branches of the Royal Mail were shut down and the remaining workers should be motivated by their performance and the management should create trust from the side of the workers which in turn gives high commitment. The Soft HRM feature of high commitment and high motivation as well as the Hard HRM feature of managing the workforce in a more rational way should be undertaken by the Royal Mail. Human Resource strategies of the Royal Mail in 2009:- To Prevent the customers complaint about the closing of the post offices the Human Resources team implemented a plan to provide mobile post office services to the customers by Van. The Royal Mails plan to make 30% privatization was opposed by the public and the Government continuously, if privatized it will cause raise in prices, job losses and the customers as well as the workers trust in the Royal Mail will reduce. The Human Resources team introduced new uniforms to the workers which is suitable for the climate and having big pockets to place the hand held computers which the customers prefers to sign and trace items was considered as a part of the improvement in the delivery system of the Royal Mail. The year also faced a strike on the pay cuts, salary freeze of the workers. The Communication Workers Union said that even cutting the wages or freezing the salary will not help the Royal Mail instead it should implement new ideas in technology and new advanced machinery to support th e workers. All over the strike is making the customers to move away from receiving the services from the Royal Mail. In the matter of improving their services, the Royal Mail and the Microsoft had joined hands to hands by introducing the new e-mailing service without having computers. The HR strategy of how to compete with their rivals has made the above decision to implement in the Royal Mail. Human Resource strategies of the Royal Mail in 2010:- The Privatization of the Royal Mail is the main consideration of the Royal Mail as the firm is running out of Finance, huge pension deficits and inefficiency in operations. The private fund is needed for the smooth function of the Organization, says the Managing director of the Royal Mail. The Human Resource Manager is taking keen steps in promoting the existing workers with good training but most of the workers had lost the trust with the Royal Mail. The privatization will cause more job losses, price for the products will be raised and the top level managers will get more benefits; a trade union leader says in a meeting. The workers says that if the new management can help them in providing benefits and good promotional appraisal packages to them, it is better to get privatized. The natural constraints like volcano ashes also affected he Royal Mails service in some part of the United Kingdom. The Psychological contract between the employee and the employer is broken. The employees social and other needs are not fully met and the huge sacking of employees made them to loose commitment towards the firm which leads to inefficiency, reduced services, low productivity and down turn of profits. The Royal Mail is still considered as the provider of the best service among the European nations with lowest service charges. The Human Resource team have plans to increase the state pension age for men. The Royal Mail is trying in many ways to improve its services by providing different varieties of stamps, weekend services, superior customer service but the competition and its bad financial position is weakening its movements to go forward. Even though it is known that the entry of new firms into the Postal Industry is very difficult due to entry restrictions, the Royal Mail is facing very tough competition. The firms like TNT, DHL and many of the online services are serious treats to the Royal Mail. The day when the Royal Mail lost its Monopoly in 2006 marked the beginning of competition as a headache to the Royal Mail. Another problem which the Royal Mail faces is the reduction in the volume of the letters but the postal workers tells that the number is increasing day by day. The Royal Mail like all other firms had undergone a SWOT ANALYSIS to understand its positives and Negatives internally and Externally. TheSWOT analysis is done to identify their threats and opportunities, strengths and weaknesses. 5.SWOT ANALYSIS:- The Swot Analysis is usually conducted by the management which gives the Royal Mail a good indication of its Strength and Weakness internally and its Opportunities and Treats in the outside market. The highly skilled hard working staffs having high commitment motivated by the efficient management and the firms large and other financial resources forms the Strength of the Royal Mail. Some complaints have been raised regarding the letters not reaching the destination and stealing of the letters/parcels by its staffs affects the Royal Mails prestige and the strikes which are made by the trade unions in Royal Mail forms its major weaknesses which hardly hits its reputation and directly states that employees are not satisfied with the management actions. The Royal Mail do have new opportunities to identify more customers and Business clients and providing support to them which will have a competitive advantage over its rivals. The Competitors like TNT, DHL, UKMAIL and the possibility of more rivals to enter the Industry forms the main threats for the Royal Mail. The wide usage of internet, online banking, online delivery and e-mailing has reduced its number of customers to a large extend has made huge reduction in the volume of mails in the Royal Mail is also considered as big threats. The Royal Mail still stands as the Standard postal service in the United Kingdom with its valuable staffs and its improved services like First class service, weekend service etc. Royal Mail also provides online supports and International postal services. The Administration of the Royal Mail includes series of committees like The Audit and Risk committee, The Management board, Pensions committee, Remuneration committee, Nomination committee and Social and Responsibility Committee. The new Human Resource Strategy and policies are being Introduced by the Royal Mail in order to face these threats and for the motivation of the workers. 6.The new Human Resource strategy to support the Royal Mail in the present bad condition:- Steps have been taken in the all the levels of the Organization to support the firm from the credit crunch and competition. To the workers:- Workers are provided with improved new range of training and guaranteed performance related pays. The employees who are considered as a valuable assets in the Royal Mail were provided with revised employee policies and procedures and long term job security and motivation. In order to improve its reputation and to obtain a good employee- employer relationship some additional steps were also taken. They are:- The new plan for temporary redundancy and early retirement are going to be enforced as soon as possible. Existing contracts will be renewed and new standardized contracts will be provided to the employees. The introduction of new machinery and techniques helps the workers to achieve world class standard in performance. The new revised Pension scheme plans are going to implement for those employees in the Royal Mail pension scheme. The working hours, the minimum wages are also revised. The safety of the staffs are taken in great consideration. Improved working conditions, first aid facilities, stress relief exercises, changing their job tasks over a period of time, self appraisal process, promotional and increments are also introduced to the new plan. To the firm:- The modernization of the firm with improved customer service support is the main objective of the firm. The co-operation of the Management with the workers and the trade union added with signing an agreement in new policies and procedures of the firm supported by the trade union is going to happen. The improved efficiency and productivity with unmatched competition by providing lower price and better quality services to its clients. To the Trade Union:- The firm will give suitable position for the trade union in its management activities. Support from the trade union in motivating the workers to cope with the Organizational rules and regulations and to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. To develop new communication levels between the trade union and the management. 7.The Royal Mails respond to the Competition and to the recent Credit Crunch:- The Royal mail which was once called as a Monopoly firm now faces serious competition and holds a bad reputation due to its continuous strikes , shutting down of the offices and complaints regarding its employees. Even though any firm can compete with its rivals in two ways, one way by reducing its prices and the other is by improving its quality of service/product. The Royal Mail provides high quality service to its customers and also the lower service/product price compared with its competitors helps the Royal Mail to attain a sustainable competitive advantage. The Human Resource team is making its level best efforts to prevent such issues but the employees relationship with the management is unclear. One of the main issues is the privatization of the Royal Mail which make the staffs to loose trust towards the firm making them de-motivated. The corporate strategy is well defined and the Human resource planning and its strategical process is some what following the corporate strateg y. Making a friendly relation with the CWU and a strong psychological contract between the workers and the Management is very much needed for the smooth functioning of the Royal Mail. The recent credit crunch has made the Royal Mail to close most of its offices and to sack many of its employees. The economic downturn in the UK is being faced by the Royal Mail in some extend due to its highly skilled, flexible core employees. The peripheral workers who were highly skilled were also taken into good consideration by the Royal Mail. The customers still rely on the Royal Mail due to its better quality services and lowest prices compared to its competitors the TNT, DHL, UKMail etc. The name of the above model is The Five Forces Framework which is developed by [Porter 1980] shows the fact from where does the competition come from?. We can combine this model with the Royal Mails competitive nature. It has elements like 1.Potential entrants mentioned as new competitors of the Royal Mail. 2.Rivalry from existing firms like TNT, DHL etc which are faced by the Royal Mail with its high quality products/services and of its highly skilled workforce who are trained and developed by their talented Human Resource team. The substitutes can be shown as the e-mail, online transfers and online mail ordering groups. Threat from the customers in the form of bargaining power, their change of demand, their potential for forward integration (which is implemented by the firm with the availability of suitable Human Resources). Threat from the Suppliers includes their bargaining power, switching costs, market dominance of the suppliers, the potential for backward integration (which is implemented by the firm with the availability of suitable Human Resources). The suppliers include the printing and stationery, technology, clothes, transport and travel agents. The Royal Mail uses the Generic Strategies frame work of Mr. Porter(1985) to define how they faced these competitions. The basic idea which is derived from the framework is:- Any firm can compete with other by lowering their prices Competing in the matter of quality makes each firm different Focusing on the main market and its customers can gain competitive advantage over its rivals. The Human Resource strategy of identifying the competitive areas and setting plans for how to compete helped the Royal Mail to face all types of competition and to gain a competitive advantage over its rivals. The Human Resource Management team of the Royal Mail have a good background from the Top Ranked Business Schools added with their inborn talents and experience helps the Royal Mail to compete with their rivals in a more technical way which is difficult for the competitors to identify and which makes the Royal Mail to have a strong base in the UK postal industry. The top quality products/services with the top quality employees makes the Royal Mail to move forward with confidence. The Human Resource strategy of implementing new techniques and training services with the performance related pay aspect for the workers can be seen in the Royal Mail. Last year the Royal Mail received three bronze awards from the World Class Manufacturing Association for its performance, health and saf ety care of its workers. The Royal Mail consider each and every worker in the matter of safety and performance and they say that if they can make one worker to perform well, it will make another to perform well and it goes on and the whole workers will perform well gives high productivity and profits to the firm. 8.Conclusion:- The essay can be concluded by stating that the Royal Mail have to face the credit crunch and the present difficulties in order to hold a strong position in the UK postal Industry. The Royal Mail do have a strong corporate responsibility strategy and Human Resource strategy which is properly planned and helpful to the employees as well as the to the firm for further development. The Human Resource Strategy from 2005 2010 shows the problems faced by the Royal Mail and the Strategies used by them to solve these problems. The privatization and the pension deficits are the main problems faced currently by the Royal Mail in which the management have certain plans to overcome the situation. The new entrants and the present rivals are competing very roughly with the Royal Mail and they are faced by the Royal Mail by its good quality services and its lowest service/product prices.

Characteristics of Java Language

Characteristics of Java Language Chapter 2 Literature review About Java:- Initially java language is named as Oak in 1991, which is designed for the consumer electronic appliances. Later in 1995 the name was changed to Java. Java was developed by James Gosling, a development leader in sun micro system. Oak was redesigned in 1995 and changed the name to java for the development of the applications which can be run over internet. Using the java language, java programs can be embedded in to the html pages. Java is not only limited for the web applications, it is also useful to develop the stand alone applications. Java has a feature called OOPs, which make it more familiar. Object oriented programming replaced the old traditional techniques i.e. procedural programming. Characteristics of java:- Simple:- Java language is simple than the previous languages such as c and c++. Java eliminates the pointers concept which is earlier present in c and c++. Java also has a properties i.e. automatic allocation of memory and garbage collection, where as in c/c++ the garbage collection and allocation of memory will be done by the programmer which is a complex task. Object oriented:- All the programming languages apart from the c++ are procedural languages which are paradigm of procedures. Java programming language is object oriented because java uses the concept of the object. In java everything will depend on objects i.e. creating the objects and making objects to work together. The overall functionality of the high level program will depends on the objects. Because java is object oriented program it provides great range of reusability, modularity and flexibility. Distributed:- Java uses the http and ftp which are internet protocols, in order to have access the files over the network. So by using this libraries which are in java can easily make file transfers over the network which is connected to internet. Interpreted:- In order to run the java programs we need interpreter. When the java programs are compiled it produces the byte code, which is machine understandable language. The byte code which is produced after the compilation is machine independent, so that it can run on any system using java interpreter. Most of the compilers will convert the high level language instructions to the low-level machine understandable language as machine cant understand the high level instruction. The machine code can only be executed on that compiled native machine. For example a source code is compile on windows platform, the executable file produced after cant be executed on other platforms apart from the windows. But, coming to java it is different i.e. the source code is compiled once and the executable byte code can be run on any platform using java interpreter. The main functionality of the interpreter is, it converts the byte code to the machine language of the target machine. Robust and secure:- Java programming is more reliable. At the time of the execution time java shows all the errors. In java bad and error prone language constructs are eliminated. Java eliminated the concepts such as pointers, due to this there is no corruption of data and overwriting the memory locations. In the same way java supports the exception-handling, which makes java more reliable and robust. Java forces the programmer to write the code for the exceptions, which may occur during the execution of the program. So that program can be terminated successfully, without any error stopping the execution flow of the program. Java also provides the lot of security. Security is important over the network because the computer will be attacked by the external program. Java provides the security that; it encounters the applets for the un-trusted sources. Architecture- neutral:- Java is a interpreted language, which enables java as a architectural neutral i.e. platform independent. We can write the program once and it can be executed on any platform with the help of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). The java virtual machine can be embedded on the operating system or on web browser. Once the part of the java code is loaded into the machine, it is verified. Byte code verification play a major role, as it check all the code generated by the compiler will not corrupt the machine on which the code is loaded. At the end of the compilation, byte code verification will be done; in order to make sure thats the code is accurate and correct. So the byte code verification is the integral to the compilation and execution. Due to the property of architectural neutral had by java, it is portable. The program once written can be run on any platform without recompilation. Java does not provide any platform specific features. In other languages, such as Ada where the large integer varies according to the platform it runs. But in the case of java the range of the numbers are fixed. Java environment is portal to every operating system and hardware. Multi-threaded:- It is defined as the programs ability to perform several tasks (or) functions simultaneously. The multithreading property is embedded in the java program. Using the java programs we can perform the several tasks simultaneously without calling any procedures of the operating system, which is done by the other programming languages in order to perform the multi-threading. Constant Pool:- Every program i.e. class in java, has a array of constants in the heap memory called as the constant pool, which is available to that class. Usually it is created by the java compiler. The constants encode all the name of the (methods, variables and constant that are presented in the constant pool) which is used by particular method of any class. Each individual class i.e. stored in heap memory has a count of how many constants are there and also has offset which specifies how far in to the class description itself the array of constants begins (Laura Lemay, Charles L.Perkins, and Micheal Morrison, n.d). The constants are represented (or) typed in the special coded bytes and which has a very well defined format, when these constants are appeared in the .class file for the java class file. JVM instructions refer to the symbolic information in java, rather than relying on the run time layouts of the class, methods and fields. Sun Java Wireless Toolkit:- Sun java wireless toolkit CLDC (connected Limited Device Configuration) is a group of tools which is used to develop the applications for the mobiles and for other wireless equipments (or) devices. Although the sun java wireless toolkit is based on the MIDP (Mobile Information Device Profile), it also supports many other optional packages, which make a sun java wireless toolkit as a great tool for developing many applications. It can be supported on the windows and Linux. All the users who have account on the host machine can access this tool either singly or simultaneously. It allows you to use a byte code obfuscator to reduce the size of your MIDlet suite JAR file. It also supports many other standard Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) which are defined by the (JCP) Java Community Process program. Even though, the sun java wireless toolkit did not come up with an obfuscator, it is configured in a way that it supports the ProGaurd. All you need to do is, just simply to download the ProGuard and place it in the system, which sun java wireless tool kit can find it. But due to the flexible nature of the tool, it allows any kind of the obfuscator. BCEL:- BCEL full abbreviation is Byte Code Engineering library. The BCEL helps you to dig the byte code of the java classes. BCEL gives the utmost power on the code because it works at the individual JVM instructions, even though the power comes with cost in complexity. Using the BCEL, we can transform the existing classes transformation or we can construct the new classes. The main difference between the BCEL and Javassist is javassist provides the source code interface where as the BCEL is developed in the intension to work at the level of the JVM assembly language. BCEL is good because the approach it uses is low level, which is very helpful to control the program at the instruction level. Compared to Javassist it is more complex to work with the BCEL. BCEL has the capability to inspect, to edit and to create binary classes in java. There are 2 hierarchy components in the BCEL, in which one component is used to create the new code and the other component is used to edit (or) update the existing code. The inspection of the class aspect in the BCEL mainly deals with the duplication whatever available in the java platform using the Reflection API. This duplication is necessary (or) mandatory in classworking because we generally dont want to load the classes on which we are working until they are modified fully. Org.apache.bcel.classfile package provides all the definition which is related to inspection-related code.org.apache.bcel package provides the basic constant definitions. JavaClass is a class which is the starting point of the package. The JavaClass plays a role in accessing the information of the class using the BCEL same as like java,lang.Class does using the regular reflection in java. The JavaClass has a methods to get the information like structural information about the super classes and interfaces, to get the information of the class i.e. information about the field and methods in the class. The JavaClass will provide access to the some internal information about the class, including constant pool and identifiers. It also represents the Byte stream which is the complete binary class representation. If the actual binary class is parcel, then we can create the instance for the JavaClass. To handle the parsing BCEL provides a class called org.apache.bcel.Respository. The representation of the classes are parsed and cached by the BCEL by default, which are on the JVM path, to get the actual binary classes representation from the org.apache.bcel.util.respository instance. org.apache.bcel.util.respository is an interface which is source for binary classes representations. Changing the classes:- Not only the accessing the components of class, org.apache.bcel.Classfile.JavaClass also provide certain methods, in order to provide the liberty to change (or) alter the classes. The class component can be set to the new values by using those methods. Although those are of no direct use much, because the other classes in the package dont support constructing the new versions of the components that are building. There are certain classes in the org.apache.bcel.generic package that will provide the editable versions of the same components there in the org.apache.bcel.classfile classes. Org.apache.bcel.generic.ClassGen is the starting step (or) point for the creating the new classes. This also useful to modify the existing classes, to do this one, there is a constructor that takes a JavaClass Instance in order to initialize ClassGen class information. Once you modified the changes to the class, then we get the usable (or) useful class representation from ClassGen instance, in order get the usable representation of the class, we need to call any method that returns the class called JavaClass. Later it will be converted into the binary class information. It is little bit confusing, in order to eliminate this confusion, it is better to write a wrapper class for eliminating some differences. In order to manage the construction of the various class components, org.apache.bcel.generic provides many other classes apart from the ClassGen. It has a class called ConstantPoolGen , which is used to handle the constant pool. FieldGen, MethodGen classes which are used to handle the Fields and the methods in classes. For the working with the sequence of the JVM instructions there is other class called Instruction List. org.apache.bcel.generic also provides the classes for the each and every type instructions which are executed over JVM. We can create the instance for these classes directly some times and in other times by using the helper class called org.apache.generic.InstrcutionFactory. The main advantage of this helper class is, it handles are the book keeping details of the each and every instruction constructing for us( i.e. adding the items to the constant pool as required for the instructions). Sand Mark:- Sandmark is a tool i.e. developed to measure the performance of the software protection algorithms and effectiveness of the methods that are preventing the software from the piracy issues, water tampering and reverse engineering techniques. Sandmark is also has an ability to find which algorithm is most resiliences to the attacks and have a least performance of over head. There are many software protections are proposed both in software and hardware. The hardware protections are there from the dongle protection and now tamper-proof software. The sandmark tool is developed to evaluating and implementing the software-based techniques such as code obfuscation (making code complex to understand) and water tampering. History of reverse engineering:- Reverse engineering most probably starts with Dos (disk operating system) based computer games. The aim is to have full life and armed for the player to finish the final stage of the game. In that way the technique of reverse engineering came in to picture, it is just to find the memory locations where the life and number of weapons are stored and modifying the values of that memory locations. So that, the player can changes the values and gets through the final stage and win the game. Thats why memory cheating tools such as game hack came in to existence. Reverse Engineering:- Reverse engineering is the process of the understanding the particular aspects of the program, which are listed below To identify the components of the system and the interrelationship between the components. And enhance the components of the system and to improve the performance and scalability of the system (or) subsystem. Software reverse engineering is a technique that converts a machine code of a program (string 0s and 1s usually sent to logic processor) back in to the programmable language statements which is called as source code. Software reverse engineering is done to get the source code of the program because to know how the particular parts of the program performs particular operations in order to improve the program functionality or to fix the bugs in the program or to find malicious block of statements in the software if any. Generally, this reverse engineering will take place in older industries on machines. But now it is frequently used on computer hardware and softwar e. The important contents like data formats, algorithms what the programmer used to implement the software and ideas of the programmer (or) company will be revealed to the 3rd person by violating the security and privacy issues using reverse engineering technique. Reverse engineering is evolving as a major link in the software lifecycle, but its growth is hampered by confusion (Elliot J.chilkofsky James H.Cross ii, Jan 1990). Reverse engineering is generally implemented to improve the quality of the product, to observe the competitors products. Forward engineering is the process of moving from the high level abstracts (or) from the initial requirements stage (objectives, constraints and proper solution to the problem), logical, and independent designs (specification of the solution) to the final product i.e. implementation (coding and testing).; whereas the reverse engineering is the process of moving from the final product to the initial requirements stage in order to under the system logically, why particular function (or) action is being performed. By knowing the system logically, the flaws and errors in the system can be rectified and helps to improve the systems functionality when the source code of the application is not available. For this sake the concept of the reverse engineering techniques is evolved. Fig 1: reverse engineering and related process are transformations between or within the abstract levels, represented here in terms of life cycle phases. (Elliot J.chilkofsky James H.Cross ii, Jan 1990) Reverse engineering in and of itself doesnt mean changing the subsystem or developing the new system based on the existing. It is a process of examination (or) understanding the program (or) software but not replication (or) change. Reverse engineering involves very broad range of aspects such as starting from the existing implementation, recreating or recapturing the design ideas and extracts the actual requirements of the existing system. Design recovery is the most vital subset of the reverse engineering because in which knowledge of the domain, external (or) outer side information and deduction or fuzzy reasoning are added to the investigated (or) subjected system in order to find the high level abstract of the system, normally which is not obtained by directly observing the system. According to the Ted BiggerStaff: Students Paper: Ted BiggerStaff: design recovery recreates design abstractions from a combination of code, existing design documentation(if available), personal experience, and general knowledge about problem and application domains. Design recovery must reproduce Re-engineering is termed as renovation and reclamation, is the examination and altering the subjective system again to construct in the new form and the implementation of the new system. Re-engineering involves some form of reverse engineering i.e. to obtain the high level of the abstract of the existing system followed by forward engineering. This may be changes according to the new requirements that were not previously implemented in the system. While re-engineering is not super type of the forward engineering and reverse engineering but it uses the forward engineering and reverse engineering. Objectives:- The primary goal of the reverse engineering is to enhance the overall comprehensibility of the system for the both maintenance and new development. Cope up with the complexity. In order to meet the complexity and shear volumes of the system we have to develop a better methods i.e. automated support. In order to extract the relevant information reverse engineering methods and tools should be combined with the CASE environments. So that decision makers can control the process and product in system evolutions. Alternative views should be generated. Comprehension aids such as graphic representation as been accepted for long time. However maintaining and creating them is becoming difficult in the process. Reverse engineering facilitates the generation or regeneration of the graphical representation in the other forms. While many designers work on single diagrams such as data flow diagrams where as the reverse engineering tools will give the other graphical representations such as control flow diagrams, entity relation diagrams and structure charts to aid the review and verification process. To identify the side effects. Both haphazard initial design and intentional modifications to the system can lead to unintentional ramifications and side effects that affect the system performance. Reverse engineering can provide better observation than we can observe by forward engineering perspective. So it makes us to solve that ramifications and anomalies before users intimate them as bugs. Component reuse. Software reusability is becoming the more essential part in developing the new products in the software field. Reverse engineering can be able to help to detect the candidates for reusable components from the present system. To recover the lost information. When the continuous evolution of the long lived system which will lead to loss of information. In order to preserve the old information of the system design; design recovery of reverse engineering techniques is used. Many reverse engineering tools try to extract the structure of the legacy systems with the intension to pass this information to software engineers in order to re-engineer or to reverse engineer the existing component. Code reverse engineering:- During the evolution of the software, many changes will apply to the code, to add any functionality which is to be added and to change the code in order to rectify the defect and enhance the systems performance (or) quality. Systems with the poor documentation only the code will be reliable solution to get information about the system. As a result, the process of reverse engineering is focused on understanding the code. Thus reverse engineering has good and bad ends. Obfuscation:- Java provides platform independence to the software programs so that software programs will run independently on any platform. All the programs are compiled in order get intermediate code format i.e. A class file consists of a stream of very large amount of information regarding the program methods, variable and constant enough to do reverse engineering. When a company develops the program (or) software in java and sell this product in intermediate code format to the other organization by not giving the original software. The organization who buys the program (or) software will simply change (or) modify the software by violating the security and privacy issues of authorised company; by simply applying the reverse engineering technique. This reverse engineering will be done by the software developers, automated tools and decompilers. Java byte code can be easily decompiled, which makes reverse engineering technique easier in java. In programming context Obfuscation is described as, making program code more difficult to read and understand for security and privacy purposes of the software. Decompilers can easily extract the source code from the compiled code, in that point of view protecting the code secretly will make impossible. So the growth of obfuscators increased rapidly in order to keep effectively smoke screen around the code. Code obfuscation is the one of the most prominent and best method to protect the java code securely. Code obfuscation makes program to understand difficult. So that code will be more resistant to the reverse engineering. There are 2 byte code obfuscation techniques that are: source code obfuscation byte code obfuscation Source code technique is simply changing the source code of the program, where as byte code obfuscation is changing the classfile of the program (functionality is same as the source code). There several obfuscation techniques to prevent java byte code from decompilation. For example consider a set of class files, S, becomes another set of class files S through an obfuscator. Here the set of class files of s and s are different, but they produce the same output. Example:- class OHello { public OHello() { int num=1; } public String gHello(String hname){ return hname; } when the above code is passed through the simple obfuscator (such as Klass Master), the following code will be generated. class aa { public static boolean aa; public aa() { int aa=1; } public String aa(String ba){ return ba; } By observing the above code the class name OHello is changed to the aa and the gHello method name is changed to the aa. It is more difficult to read the program with aa than a OHello. By this way less information will be interpreted and understand to the reverse engineers. This is just a simple example by renaming the class variables and class method names. Categories of obfuscation techniques:- Description of Obfuscation techniques:- One way of obfuscating the source program by the obfuscators is replacing a symbol of a class file by illegal string. The replacement might be the private are even worst ***. Other techniques usually obfuscator will use targeting the specific decompilers (Mocha and Jode) is inserting a bad instruction in the code. The example is Let us taken an example with bad instruction, lets take the original code (decompiled): Method void main(java.lang.String[]) 0 new #4 3 invokespecial #10 6 return and after obfuscation the code is as follows (names are not changed, not to make complex): Method void main(java.lang.String[]) 0 new #4 3 invokespecial #10 6 return 7 pop By observing the above routine we notice that a pop instruction is added after the return statement. The last and final statement in the method that has return type should be return statement, but in the above routine a pop keyword is inserted which make the routine not to be executed for ever. Lexical obfuscation:- Lexical obfuscation changes the lexical structure of a program by scrambling the identifiers. All the names of classes, fields and methods which are meaningful symbolic information of java program, is renamed with meaningless name i.e. useless names. An example obfuscator for lexical obfuscation is crema. Obfuscator is defined as the program that automatically makes the transformation in the classfile in order obfuscate the classfile, to undo the reverse engineering technique to produce the source code from the class file. Layout obfuscation:- Layout obfuscation dealt with changing the layout structure of the program i.e. done by 2 basic methods Renaming the identifiers Removing the debugging information. Above 2 will make program code less informative to the reverse engineers. Layout obfuscation techniques use the one way functions such renaming the identifiers by random symbols, removing the comments, unused methods and debugging information. Though the reverse engineers can understand the obfuscated code i.e. done by layout obfuscation, it consumes the cost of reverse engineering. Layout obfuscation techniques are most commonly used in the code obfuscation. All most all obfuscators of java will use these techniques. Control obfuscation:- Changing the control flow of the program. It is easiest way to do and which make reverse engineer to find the code what exactly. For example consider a code in which a there is a method A(). Here another new method called A_Dummy() will be created and in the program Data Obfuscation:- Data obfuscation mainly deals with breaking up the data structures used in the program and encrypting the literals. This includes changing the inheritance, restructuring the arrays, making the variable names constant etc. In that way data obfuscation affect the data structures of the program. Thus data obfuscation make impossible to obtain the original source code of the program. More viable source code obfuscation methods are based on composite functions, which are Array Index Transformation, Method Argument Transformation, and Hiding Constant. The obfuscation techniques that are based on composite functions make the computation complex and extensive use of these techniques make the software to respond slowly. Some source code obfuscation methods are directed at the object oriented concept; Class Coalescing, Class splitting, and Type Hiding. Other source code obfuscation techniques may include; false refactoring, restructure arrays, inline and outline methods, clone methods, split v ariables, convert static to procedural data, and merge scalar variables. The obfuscation techniques that work over object oriented concept and other techniques like restructure arrays, split variables, merge scalar variables may distort the logic of the software, so these must be carefully used. The employment of obfuscation technique like outline methods, clone methods, convert static to procedural data increase the size of a class file without providing any significant advantage. In lining a method results in an unresolved method call when some other class calls the in lined method. Advanced obfuscation techniques for byte code:- There are several obfuscation techniques to prevent java byte code from de-compilation. Many of these tools are simply to change the names of the identifiers with the meaningless names which are stored in byte code. Many crackers can understand the actual source code, even though identifier name are changed, but it will take more time to understand. Traditionally, when a program is compiled to machine code, most of the symbolic information will be stripped off, after the compilation of the program. When the program is compiled, the address of the variable and functions of the program will be denoted by the identifiers. Even though de-compilation of such compiled code is difficult, but still it is possible to decompile the code. We say protection techniques are difficult if and only if the time and effort taken by the cracker to crack the software should be with more cost and effort. Cracking time to crack software is more than a re-writing a program, then its of no use and waste of time and valueless. Java became the most popular because of benefits that it is providing. One of the major benefits is portability i.e. compiled program can run on any platform i.e. platform independent. When the program is compiled it produces independent byte code. Java uses the symbolic references rather than the traditional memory addresses. Therefore, the names of methods and, variables and types are stored in a constant pool with in a byte code file. There are many commercial de-compilers (P C, 2001, Vliot 1996, hoeniche 2001 etc.). When the program is decompiled, it extracts the program almost identical to the source code. Making use of decompiler to extract the source code becomes the lethal weapon to intellectual property piracy. Obfuscation technique is used to stop de-compilation of the byte code. The main aim of obfuscation technique is to make decompiled program harder to understand i.e. more time and effort to understand the obfuscated code. Obfuscation scope:- Java application consists of one or more packages. A programmer might divide the program in to packages. He can also use the packages that are in standard library and proprietary libraries. Only the part of the program developed by the developer will be given outside. The proprietary library is not distributed due to the copyright restrictions. Obfuscation scope termed as the part of the program obfuscated by the obfuscation techniques, i.e. the part of the program/software developed by the developer is protected not the entire software. The package that serves as the utilities for the standard library and proprietary libraries not obfuscated. Candidates considered for identifiers scrambling:- An identifier will denote the following terms in java http://www.cis.nctu.edu.tw/~wuuyang/papers/Obfuscation20011123.doc the bytecode file. By default, parameters and local variables are stripped and deleted (or) removed from the byte code. The names of the local variables and parameters are stored in the LocalVariableTable in the byte code, if the debug info is enabled. But, by default the de-bug info is enabled in java compiler. If the local variable is not found, de-compilers itself create the names for local variable and parameter, which makes program after reverse somewhat understandable. Even, if we rename the names of the variables and parameter in LocalVariableTable, good decompiler will simply Characteristics of Java Language Characteristics of Java Language Chapter 2 Literature review About Java:- Initially java language is named as Oak in 1991, which is designed for the consumer electronic appliances. Later in 1995 the name was changed to Java. Java was developed by James Gosling, a development leader in sun micro system. Oak was redesigned in 1995 and changed the name to java for the development of the applications which can be run over internet. Using the java language, java programs can be embedded in to the html pages. Java is not only limited for the web applications, it is also useful to develop the stand alone applications. Java has a feature called OOPs, which make it more familiar. Object oriented programming replaced the old traditional techniques i.e. procedural programming. Characteristics of java:- Simple:- Java language is simple than the previous languages such as c and c++. Java eliminates the pointers concept which is earlier present in c and c++. Java also has a properties i.e. automatic allocation of memory and garbage collection, where as in c/c++ the garbage collection and allocation of memory will be done by the programmer which is a complex task. Object oriented:- All the programming languages apart from the c++ are procedural languages which are paradigm of procedures. Java programming language is object oriented because java uses the concept of the object. In java everything will depend on objects i.e. creating the objects and making objects to work together. The overall functionality of the high level program will depends on the objects. Because java is object oriented program it provides great range of reusability, modularity and flexibility. Distributed:- Java uses the http and ftp which are internet protocols, in order to have access the files over the network. So by using this libraries which are in java can easily make file transfers over the network which is connected to internet. Interpreted:- In order to run the java programs we need interpreter. When the java programs are compiled it produces the byte code, which is machine understandable language. The byte code which is produced after the compilation is machine independent, so that it can run on any system using java interpreter. Most of the compilers will convert the high level language instructions to the low-level machine understandable language as machine cant understand the high level instruction. The machine code can only be executed on that compiled native machine. For example a source code is compile on windows platform, the executable file produced after cant be executed on other platforms apart from the windows. But, coming to java it is different i.e. the source code is compiled once and the executable byte code can be run on any platform using java interpreter. The main functionality of the interpreter is, it converts the byte code to the machine language of the target machine. Robust and secure:- Java programming is more reliable. At the time of the execution time java shows all the errors. In java bad and error prone language constructs are eliminated. Java eliminated the concepts such as pointers, due to this there is no corruption of data and overwriting the memory locations. In the same way java supports the exception-handling, which makes java more reliable and robust. Java forces the programmer to write the code for the exceptions, which may occur during the execution of the program. So that program can be terminated successfully, without any error stopping the execution flow of the program. Java also provides the lot of security. Security is important over the network because the computer will be attacked by the external program. Java provides the security that; it encounters the applets for the un-trusted sources. Architecture- neutral:- Java is a interpreted language, which enables java as a architectural neutral i.e. platform independent. We can write the program once and it can be executed on any platform with the help of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). The java virtual machine can be embedded on the operating system or on web browser. Once the part of the java code is loaded into the machine, it is verified. Byte code verification play a major role, as it check all the code generated by the compiler will not corrupt the machine on which the code is loaded. At the end of the compilation, byte code verification will be done; in order to make sure thats the code is accurate and correct. So the byte code verification is the integral to the compilation and execution. Due to the property of architectural neutral had by java, it is portable. The program once written can be run on any platform without recompilation. Java does not provide any platform specific features. In other languages, such as Ada where the large integer varies according to the platform it runs. But in the case of java the range of the numbers are fixed. Java environment is portal to every operating system and hardware. Multi-threaded:- It is defined as the programs ability to perform several tasks (or) functions simultaneously. The multithreading property is embedded in the java program. Using the java programs we can perform the several tasks simultaneously without calling any procedures of the operating system, which is done by the other programming languages in order to perform the multi-threading. Constant Pool:- Every program i.e. class in java, has a array of constants in the heap memory called as the constant pool, which is available to that class. Usually it is created by the java compiler. The constants encode all the name of the (methods, variables and constant that are presented in the constant pool) which is used by particular method of any class. Each individual class i.e. stored in heap memory has a count of how many constants are there and also has offset which specifies how far in to the class description itself the array of constants begins (Laura Lemay, Charles L.Perkins, and Micheal Morrison, n.d). The constants are represented (or) typed in the special coded bytes and which has a very well defined format, when these constants are appeared in the .class file for the java class file. JVM instructions refer to the symbolic information in java, rather than relying on the run time layouts of the class, methods and fields. Sun Java Wireless Toolkit:- Sun java wireless toolkit CLDC (connected Limited Device Configuration) is a group of tools which is used to develop the applications for the mobiles and for other wireless equipments (or) devices. Although the sun java wireless toolkit is based on the MIDP (Mobile Information Device Profile), it also supports many other optional packages, which make a sun java wireless toolkit as a great tool for developing many applications. It can be supported on the windows and Linux. All the users who have account on the host machine can access this tool either singly or simultaneously. It allows you to use a byte code obfuscator to reduce the size of your MIDlet suite JAR file. It also supports many other standard Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) which are defined by the (JCP) Java Community Process program. Even though, the sun java wireless toolkit did not come up with an obfuscator, it is configured in a way that it supports the ProGaurd. All you need to do is, just simply to download the ProGuard and place it in the system, which sun java wireless tool kit can find it. But due to the flexible nature of the tool, it allows any kind of the obfuscator. BCEL:- BCEL full abbreviation is Byte Code Engineering library. The BCEL helps you to dig the byte code of the java classes. BCEL gives the utmost power on the code because it works at the individual JVM instructions, even though the power comes with cost in complexity. Using the BCEL, we can transform the existing classes transformation or we can construct the new classes. The main difference between the BCEL and Javassist is javassist provides the source code interface where as the BCEL is developed in the intension to work at the level of the JVM assembly language. BCEL is good because the approach it uses is low level, which is very helpful to control the program at the instruction level. Compared to Javassist it is more complex to work with the BCEL. BCEL has the capability to inspect, to edit and to create binary classes in java. There are 2 hierarchy components in the BCEL, in which one component is used to create the new code and the other component is used to edit (or) update the existing code. The inspection of the class aspect in the BCEL mainly deals with the duplication whatever available in the java platform using the Reflection API. This duplication is necessary (or) mandatory in classworking because we generally dont want to load the classes on which we are working until they are modified fully. Org.apache.bcel.classfile package provides all the definition which is related to inspection-related code.org.apache.bcel package provides the basic constant definitions. JavaClass is a class which is the starting point of the package. The JavaClass plays a role in accessing the information of the class using the BCEL same as like java,lang.Class does using the regular reflection in java. The JavaClass has a methods to get the information like structural information about the super classes and interfaces, to get the information of the class i.e. information about the field and methods in the class. The JavaClass will provide access to the some internal information about the class, including constant pool and identifiers. It also represents the Byte stream which is the complete binary class representation. If the actual binary class is parcel, then we can create the instance for the JavaClass. To handle the parsing BCEL provides a class called org.apache.bcel.Respository. The representation of the classes are parsed and cached by the BCEL by default, which are on the JVM path, to get the actual binary classes representation from the org.apache.bcel.util.respository instance. org.apache.bcel.util.respository is an interface which is source for binary classes representations. Changing the classes:- Not only the accessing the components of class, org.apache.bcel.Classfile.JavaClass also provide certain methods, in order to provide the liberty to change (or) alter the classes. The class component can be set to the new values by using those methods. Although those are of no direct use much, because the other classes in the package dont support constructing the new versions of the components that are building. There are certain classes in the org.apache.bcel.generic package that will provide the editable versions of the same components there in the org.apache.bcel.classfile classes. Org.apache.bcel.generic.ClassGen is the starting step (or) point for the creating the new classes. This also useful to modify the existing classes, to do this one, there is a constructor that takes a JavaClass Instance in order to initialize ClassGen class information. Once you modified the changes to the class, then we get the usable (or) useful class representation from ClassGen instance, in order get the usable representation of the class, we need to call any method that returns the class called JavaClass. Later it will be converted into the binary class information. It is little bit confusing, in order to eliminate this confusion, it is better to write a wrapper class for eliminating some differences. In order to manage the construction of the various class components, org.apache.bcel.generic provides many other classes apart from the ClassGen. It has a class called ConstantPoolGen , which is used to handle the constant pool. FieldGen, MethodGen classes which are used to handle the Fields and the methods in classes. For the working with the sequence of the JVM instructions there is other class called Instruction List. org.apache.bcel.generic also provides the classes for the each and every type instructions which are executed over JVM. We can create the instance for these classes directly some times and in other times by using the helper class called org.apache.generic.InstrcutionFactory. The main advantage of this helper class is, it handles are the book keeping details of the each and every instruction constructing for us( i.e. adding the items to the constant pool as required for the instructions). Sand Mark:- Sandmark is a tool i.e. developed to measure the performance of the software protection algorithms and effectiveness of the methods that are preventing the software from the piracy issues, water tampering and reverse engineering techniques. Sandmark is also has an ability to find which algorithm is most resiliences to the attacks and have a least performance of over head. There are many software protections are proposed both in software and hardware. The hardware protections are there from the dongle protection and now tamper-proof software. The sandmark tool is developed to evaluating and implementing the software-based techniques such as code obfuscation (making code complex to understand) and water tampering. History of reverse engineering:- Reverse engineering most probably starts with Dos (disk operating system) based computer games. The aim is to have full life and armed for the player to finish the final stage of the game. In that way the technique of reverse engineering came in to picture, it is just to find the memory locations where the life and number of weapons are stored and modifying the values of that memory locations. So that, the player can changes the values and gets through the final stage and win the game. Thats why memory cheating tools such as game hack came in to existence. Reverse Engineering:- Reverse engineering is the process of the understanding the particular aspects of the program, which are listed below To identify the components of the system and the interrelationship between the components. And enhance the components of the system and to improve the performance and scalability of the system (or) subsystem. Software reverse engineering is a technique that converts a machine code of a program (string 0s and 1s usually sent to logic processor) back in to the programmable language statements which is called as source code. Software reverse engineering is done to get the source code of the program because to know how the particular parts of the program performs particular operations in order to improve the program functionality or to fix the bugs in the program or to find malicious block of statements in the software if any. Generally, this reverse engineering will take place in older industries on machines. But now it is frequently used on computer hardware and softwar e. The important contents like data formats, algorithms what the programmer used to implement the software and ideas of the programmer (or) company will be revealed to the 3rd person by violating the security and privacy issues using reverse engineering technique. Reverse engineering is evolving as a major link in the software lifecycle, but its growth is hampered by confusion (Elliot J.chilkofsky James H.Cross ii, Jan 1990). Reverse engineering is generally implemented to improve the quality of the product, to observe the competitors products. Forward engineering is the process of moving from the high level abstracts (or) from the initial requirements stage (objectives, constraints and proper solution to the problem), logical, and independent designs (specification of the solution) to the final product i.e. implementation (coding and testing).; whereas the reverse engineering is the process of moving from the final product to the initial requirements stage in order to under the system logically, why particular function (or) action is being performed. By knowing the system logically, the flaws and errors in the system can be rectified and helps to improve the systems functionality when the source code of the application is not available. For this sake the concept of the reverse engineering techniques is evolved. Fig 1: reverse engineering and related process are transformations between or within the abstract levels, represented here in terms of life cycle phases. (Elliot J.chilkofsky James H.Cross ii, Jan 1990) Reverse engineering in and of itself doesnt mean changing the subsystem or developing the new system based on the existing. It is a process of examination (or) understanding the program (or) software but not replication (or) change. Reverse engineering involves very broad range of aspects such as starting from the existing implementation, recreating or recapturing the design ideas and extracts the actual requirements of the existing system. Design recovery is the most vital subset of the reverse engineering because in which knowledge of the domain, external (or) outer side information and deduction or fuzzy reasoning are added to the investigated (or) subjected system in order to find the high level abstract of the system, normally which is not obtained by directly observing the system. According to the Ted BiggerStaff: Students Paper: Ted BiggerStaff: design recovery recreates design abstractions from a combination of code, existing design documentation(if available), personal experience, and general knowledge about problem and application domains. Design recovery must reproduce Re-engineering is termed as renovation and reclamation, is the examination and altering the subjective system again to construct in the new form and the implementation of the new system. Re-engineering involves some form of reverse engineering i.e. to obtain the high level of the abstract of the existing system followed by forward engineering. This may be changes according to the new requirements that were not previously implemented in the system. While re-engineering is not super type of the forward engineering and reverse engineering but it uses the forward engineering and reverse engineering. Objectives:- The primary goal of the reverse engineering is to enhance the overall comprehensibility of the system for the both maintenance and new development. Cope up with the complexity. In order to meet the complexity and shear volumes of the system we have to develop a better methods i.e. automated support. In order to extract the relevant information reverse engineering methods and tools should be combined with the CASE environments. So that decision makers can control the process and product in system evolutions. Alternative views should be generated. Comprehension aids such as graphic representation as been accepted for long time. However maintaining and creating them is becoming difficult in the process. Reverse engineering facilitates the generation or regeneration of the graphical representation in the other forms. While many designers work on single diagrams such as data flow diagrams where as the reverse engineering tools will give the other graphical representations such as control flow diagrams, entity relation diagrams and structure charts to aid the review and verification process. To identify the side effects. Both haphazard initial design and intentional modifications to the system can lead to unintentional ramifications and side effects that affect the system performance. Reverse engineering can provide better observation than we can observe by forward engineering perspective. So it makes us to solve that ramifications and anomalies before users intimate them as bugs. Component reuse. Software reusability is becoming the more essential part in developing the new products in the software field. Reverse engineering can be able to help to detect the candidates for reusable components from the present system. To recover the lost information. When the continuous evolution of the long lived system which will lead to loss of information. In order to preserve the old information of the system design; design recovery of reverse engineering techniques is used. Many reverse engineering tools try to extract the structure of the legacy systems with the intension to pass this information to software engineers in order to re-engineer or to reverse engineer the existing component. Code reverse engineering:- During the evolution of the software, many changes will apply to the code, to add any functionality which is to be added and to change the code in order to rectify the defect and enhance the systems performance (or) quality. Systems with the poor documentation only the code will be reliable solution to get information about the system. As a result, the process of reverse engineering is focused on understanding the code. Thus reverse engineering has good and bad ends. Obfuscation:- Java provides platform independence to the software programs so that software programs will run independently on any platform. All the programs are compiled in order get intermediate code format i.e. A class file consists of a stream of very large amount of information regarding the program methods, variable and constant enough to do reverse engineering. When a company develops the program (or) software in java and sell this product in intermediate code format to the other organization by not giving the original software. The organization who buys the program (or) software will simply change (or) modify the software by violating the security and privacy issues of authorised company; by simply applying the reverse engineering technique. This reverse engineering will be done by the software developers, automated tools and decompilers. Java byte code can be easily decompiled, which makes reverse engineering technique easier in java. In programming context Obfuscation is described as, making program code more difficult to read and understand for security and privacy purposes of the software. Decompilers can easily extract the source code from the compiled code, in that point of view protecting the code secretly will make impossible. So the growth of obfuscators increased rapidly in order to keep effectively smoke screen around the code. Code obfuscation is the one of the most prominent and best method to protect the java code securely. Code obfuscation makes program to understand difficult. So that code will be more resistant to the reverse engineering. There are 2 byte code obfuscation techniques that are: source code obfuscation byte code obfuscation Source code technique is simply changing the source code of the program, where as byte code obfuscation is changing the classfile of the program (functionality is same as the source code). There several obfuscation techniques to prevent java byte code from decompilation. For example consider a set of class files, S, becomes another set of class files S through an obfuscator. Here the set of class files of s and s are different, but they produce the same output. Example:- class OHello { public OHello() { int num=1; } public String gHello(String hname){ return hname; } when the above code is passed through the simple obfuscator (such as Klass Master), the following code will be generated. class aa { public static boolean aa; public aa() { int aa=1; } public String aa(String ba){ return ba; } By observing the above code the class name OHello is changed to the aa and the gHello method name is changed to the aa. It is more difficult to read the program with aa than a OHello. By this way less information will be interpreted and understand to the reverse engineers. This is just a simple example by renaming the class variables and class method names. Categories of obfuscation techniques:- Description of Obfuscation techniques:- One way of obfuscating the source program by the obfuscators is replacing a symbol of a class file by illegal string. The replacement might be the private are even worst ***. Other techniques usually obfuscator will use targeting the specific decompilers (Mocha and Jode) is inserting a bad instruction in the code. The example is Let us taken an example with bad instruction, lets take the original code (decompiled): Method void main(java.lang.String[]) 0 new #4 3 invokespecial #10 6 return and after obfuscation the code is as follows (names are not changed, not to make complex): Method void main(java.lang.String[]) 0 new #4 3 invokespecial #10 6 return 7 pop By observing the above routine we notice that a pop instruction is added after the return statement. The last and final statement in the method that has return type should be return statement, but in the above routine a pop keyword is inserted which make the routine not to be executed for ever. Lexical obfuscation:- Lexical obfuscation changes the lexical structure of a program by scrambling the identifiers. All the names of classes, fields and methods which are meaningful symbolic information of java program, is renamed with meaningless name i.e. useless names. An example obfuscator for lexical obfuscation is crema. Obfuscator is defined as the program that automatically makes the transformation in the classfile in order obfuscate the classfile, to undo the reverse engineering technique to produce the source code from the class file. Layout obfuscation:- Layout obfuscation dealt with changing the layout structure of the program i.e. done by 2 basic methods Renaming the identifiers Removing the debugging information. Above 2 will make program code less informative to the reverse engineers. Layout obfuscation techniques use the one way functions such renaming the identifiers by random symbols, removing the comments, unused methods and debugging information. Though the reverse engineers can understand the obfuscated code i.e. done by layout obfuscation, it consumes the cost of reverse engineering. Layout obfuscation techniques are most commonly used in the code obfuscation. All most all obfuscators of java will use these techniques. Control obfuscation:- Changing the control flow of the program. It is easiest way to do and which make reverse engineer to find the code what exactly. For example consider a code in which a there is a method A(). Here another new method called A_Dummy() will be created and in the program Data Obfuscation:- Data obfuscation mainly deals with breaking up the data structures used in the program and encrypting the literals. This includes changing the inheritance, restructuring the arrays, making the variable names constant etc. In that way data obfuscation affect the data structures of the program. Thus data obfuscation make impossible to obtain the original source code of the program. More viable source code obfuscation methods are based on composite functions, which are Array Index Transformation, Method Argument Transformation, and Hiding Constant. The obfuscation techniques that are based on composite functions make the computation complex and extensive use of these techniques make the software to respond slowly. Some source code obfuscation methods are directed at the object oriented concept; Class Coalescing, Class splitting, and Type Hiding. Other source code obfuscation techniques may include; false refactoring, restructure arrays, inline and outline methods, clone methods, split v ariables, convert static to procedural data, and merge scalar variables. The obfuscation techniques that work over object oriented concept and other techniques like restructure arrays, split variables, merge scalar variables may distort the logic of the software, so these must be carefully used. The employment of obfuscation technique like outline methods, clone methods, convert static to procedural data increase the size of a class file without providing any significant advantage. In lining a method results in an unresolved method call when some other class calls the in lined method. Advanced obfuscation techniques for byte code:- There are several obfuscation techniques to prevent java byte code from de-compilation. Many of these tools are simply to change the names of the identifiers with the meaningless names which are stored in byte code. Many crackers can understand the actual source code, even though identifier name are changed, but it will take more time to understand. Traditionally, when a program is compiled to machine code, most of the symbolic information will be stripped off, after the compilation of the program. When the program is compiled, the address of the variable and functions of the program will be denoted by the identifiers. Even though de-compilation of such compiled code is difficult, but still it is possible to decompile the code. We say protection techniques are difficult if and only if the time and effort taken by the cracker to crack the software should be with more cost and effort. Cracking time to crack software is more than a re-writing a program, then its of no use and waste of time and valueless. Java became the most popular because of benefits that it is providing. One of the major benefits is portability i.e. compiled program can run on any platform i.e. platform independent. When the program is compiled it produces independent byte code. Java uses the symbolic references rather than the traditional memory addresses. Therefore, the names of methods and, variables and types are stored in a constant pool with in a byte code file. There are many commercial de-compilers (P C, 2001, Vliot 1996, hoeniche 2001 etc.). When the program is decompiled, it extracts the program almost identical to the source code. Making use of decompiler to extract the source code becomes the lethal weapon to intellectual property piracy. Obfuscation technique is used to stop de-compilation of the byte code. The main aim of obfuscation technique is to make decompiled program harder to understand i.e. more time and effort to understand the obfuscated code. Obfuscation scope:- Java application consists of one or more packages. A programmer might divide the program in to packages. He can also use the packages that are in standard library and proprietary libraries. Only the part of the program developed by the developer will be given outside. The proprietary library is not distributed due to the copyright restrictions. Obfuscation scope termed as the part of the program obfuscated by the obfuscation techniques, i.e. the part of the program/software developed by the developer is protected not the entire software. The package that serves as the utilities for the standard library and proprietary libraries not obfuscated. Candidates considered for identifiers scrambling:- An identifier will denote the following terms in java http://www.cis.nctu.edu.tw/~wuuyang/papers/Obfuscation20011123.doc the bytecode file. By default, parameters and local variables are stripped and deleted (or) removed from the byte code. The names of the local variables and parameters are stored in the LocalVariableTable in the byte code, if the debug info is enabled. But, by default the de-bug info is enabled in java compiler. If the local variable is not found, de-compilers itself create the names for local variable and parameter, which makes program after reverse somewhat understandable. Even, if we rename the names of the variables and parameter in LocalVariableTable, good decompiler will simply