Terrorist Finance Tracking Program Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Terrorist Finance Tracking Program - Essay Example According to  Terrorist Finance Tracking Program: Fact Sheet  (2006),   The United States â€Å"Treasury department is uniquely positioned to track terrorist money flows and assist in the broader US Government effects to uncover terrorist cells and map terrorist networks here at home and around the world† (PP. 4). In order to ensure the success of this program utilizes SWIFT. According to  Legal Authorities Underlying the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program  (n.d. ). â€Å"SWIFT-a Belgium-based company with U.S. offices that operates a worldwide messaging system used to transmit bank transaction information- seeking information on suspected international terrorists† (PP. 6).The United States government uses subpoenas in order to view this information. Based upon the terms of the subpoenas the United States government is allowed to view this information only in regards to suspected terrorist investigations. The information obtained by SWIFT is legally obtained in accordance with The International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The International Emergency Economic Powers Act was established in 1977. The President only during a time of national emergency may put forth this act in order to investigate financial transfers by means of banks and other relevant financial transactions in reg ards to a foreign individual suspected of being associated or being a terrorist. In regards to the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks former United States president George W. Bush issued executive order 13224 declaring an international emergency as future terrorist attacks were suspected. Subpoenas issued are in compliance with the United States Constitution’s fourth amendment as investigations of potential terrorists and relevant documents to terrorism are obtainable through subpoenas issued by Congress. In addition neither The Foreign Intelligence

Relationships between soldiers in The Thin Red Line (1998, Malick) Essay

Relationships between soldiers in The Thin Red Line (1998, Malick) - Essay Example This war movie consists of both cruelties and kindness. The first level of kindness that this takes place is with regards to the brotherly relations that are evident between the men of the company and platoon. On a second level, the relationships within the movie are related to the viewer with regards to the means by which father-son elements unfold also represent bright side of humanity. On the other side of spectrum we face tensions between people that result into conflicts in the movie. When seeking to understand these relationships within the context of the film, the following analysis will attempt to draw a level of focus upon the brother-brother, father-son, and exemplification of tensions between the men as they are exhibited by the actions that take place. As such, this particular analysis will seek to understand whether or not a familial level of relationships exist within the film, the type and definition of these familial relationships and some of the causal factors that h elp to encourage and develop these features. Firstly, with regards to the brother-brother relationships that are exhibited within the film, the viewer can see direct evidence of this to the type of behavior that is exhibited during their leave. Even though it may be assumed that the brotherly relations would most be exemplified during the combat scenes of the film, this is not necessarily the case. Rather, the dynamics of brotherly relations between the battle-weary men is most exhibited with regards to how the men spend their free time once they are on leave or before and after the combat. After weeks of stress and integrating with the deaths of their comrades within gruesome battles, the men settle into an uneasy, still stressful, rest that is only punctuated and made uniform by the level to which these men appreciate their own camaraderie and seek to make a communal sense of their current lives. The Narrator says the following about Witt’s realization of friendship:  "he feels the mysterious quality of deep, manly friendship which can exist between men who share the pain and death, the fear and sadness of combat—the happiness, too† (02:40). This of course helps to underscore the understanding of how the men involved within the film are defined by the conflict they are in. If such hardships did not exist within Guadalcanal, it is unlikely that the brotherly relationship exhibited during leave would have ever developed at all. Hardships bring people together, since they are fighting together for one cause against one evil enemy. Likewise, the father-son relationship that exists within the film is most adequately exposed by how Captain Staros interacts with the company commander. Captain Staros, a father figure for the men under his command, takes his role as guardian and protector of his men’s lives very seriously. Therefore, he takes full responsibility for all of the members of his platoon. Although his responsibility as an o fficer also includes implementing the orders of the officers above him, this primary motive to provide for the safety and wellbeing of the men under his command serves as something of a guiding precept by which Staros defines his role as captain. Staros right before the leave home has a warm and memorable talk with some members of his platoon. He says, â€Å"

Personal Statement Essay Example for Free

Personal Statement Essay My academic background, which has been both varied and informed by different academic settings, has seen my succeeding as a student in South Korea, Guam, and Seattle. Because of the nature of my father’s job, I have had the rare opportunity to study and to learn in a variety of different educational settings with a variety of different intellectual approaches and cultural influences. My family and I arrived in Seattle from Guam in 2003; the family’s collective goal was to relocate in order to find better educational opportunities for my younger brother and myself. Though I had taken piano lessons for many years, I decided to pursue piano as a hobby while I devoted more attention to working part-time in order to finance my studies. As a student in Seattle, I soon learned that music and psychology were my passions and my music professor truly seemed to respect my musical ability and constantly encouraged me to pursue my musical interests. Taking my professor’s advice, two years ago on Christmas Eve, a Korean woman’s association had a party to raise money for a charity organization. Needing some form of entertainment, they invited me to perform a piece of music on stage during dinnertime. I played Schubert’s impromptu op 90. Eb major. I was nervous but on the other hand I felt delighted and hoped it wouldn’t be the last performing in public and for a worthy charitable cause. Music, in sum, allows me to blend my personal passions with my academic talents in a manner that can be used to benefit society. In terms of my career goals, and my specific interest in the University of Washington, the fact is that Id like to transfer to this university because I want to learn from experts with more experience and to share my interests with peers with similar goals and aspirations. My greatest dream, is to comfort peoples’ hearts as a Music Therapist. I genuinely enjoy sharing what I have learned with everyone and I am most delighted when I sing with people while playing piano. I enjoy getting to know peoples’ minds and emotions because I have empathy and this influences my musical styles and performances. Personally, for example, I have played synthesizer in church bands throughout Korea, Guam and Seattle, and gave my time to serve as a music tutor to many students. If I’m admitted into this school, Id like to be attend in schools choir and jazz club. Sharing, both personally and academically, is the greatest way to learn and the greatest way to give back to the community/ Culture, in my view, is a manifestation of diversity. That excellence cannot be attained without diversity it seems, in the modern world, to be a rather intuitive deduction. Such a deduction is perfectly consistent with the underlying nature of any intellectually honest type of inquiry. A thesis must be formulated, tested against all of the available data, and conclusions drawn. Diversity contributes, indeed it is a necessary ingredient, for any type of rigorous analysis. Social truths cannot exist in a vacuum; truths must be tested in the real world and with real people rather than with imaginary prototypes that do not reflect the true diversity of opinion and contrary world views that reflect both our own society and the world at large. What might seem a perfectly plausible theory to one individual might seem extraordinarily unjust to another individual; a traditional approach that seems to one individual to bring the greatest good to society to another individual might threaten to socially ostracize minority opinions; and, finally, ethnocentric views inhibit academic inquiry whereas culturally diverse pools of learners break down biases and contribute to more meaningful discussions and theoretical paradigms. In the final analysis, the University of Washington is an ideal setting in which to study and shares ideas that have profound social implications As a young person already immersed in an increasingly multicultural community and world, I am especially interested in the emphasis given to multicultural approaches at the University of Washington. Such an approach, respecting and encouraging both personal development and academic development through the embrace of different cultural values and perspectives, lends itself exceptionally well to my own goals and aspirations. One of the causes of so much conflict in the world today can be attributed to a lack of effective communication that results in unnecessary misunderstandings and confusion. In reality, in my experience, people around the world have so many positive characteristics and dreams in common. People throughout the world desire peaceful environments in which to live; people desire to pursue harmonious relationships with family members and neighbors; and, most of all, people desire to avoid conflicts that are damaging in so many ways.

Automated Protocol to Restrict Password Guessing Attacks

Automated Protocol to Restrict Password Guessing Attacks ABSTRACT Password login services are now widespread and ever increasing. Attacks that take place on password-only remote login services are brute force and dictionary attack. Providing convenient login for legitimate user.In the proposed system we use Password Guessing Resistant Protocol (PGRP) which improves more security by restricting the number of attempts. PGRP allows a high number of failed attempts from known machines. PGRP uses either cookies or IP addresses, or both for tracking legitimate users. Tracking users through their IP addresses also allows PGRP to increase the number of ATTs for password guessing attacks and meanwhile to decrease the number of ATTs for legitimate login attempts. Key Words – Online password guessing attacks, brute force attacks, password dictionary, ATTs. 1. INTRODUCTION: Online password guessing attacks are the most commonly observed against web applications SSH logins. SANS report observed that password guessing attack is the top cyber security risk. SSH servers that doesn’t allow some standard password authentication suffer the guessing attacks. Online attacks have some disadvantages compared to offline attacks i.e., the attacking machines must use an effective interactive protocol which allows a easier detection of malicious attacks.Malicious attackers try only limited no. of password guesses from a single machine being that account is being locked or before being challenged to answer an ATT. An attacker will employ a large number of machines to avoid locking out. Generally users choose weak passwords. As malicious attackers control large bot nets online attacks became much easier.Restricting the no. of failed trails without ATT’s to a very small number is the effective defense system that can be used against automated online passw ord guessing attacks. Also limiting automated programs(or bots) used by attackers for password guesses for a targeted account, even many different machine from a bot net are used. This method inconveniences offers a legitimate user to answer an ATT on next login attempt after the malicious attackers guesses. Other techniques deployed in practice includes: Even though from a given machine when a certain number of failed attempts occur,it allows login attempts without ATTs from a different machine. After a certain time-out period, it allows more attempts without ATTs and also time-limited account lockinMany existing techniques proposals involve ATT’s, assuming that the challenges provided by the ATTs are difficult for botseasy for people(legitimate users). Users are increasing disliking ATTs and feels it as an unnecessary extra step. Successful attacks are being made which break ATTs without human solvers. ATTs that are to be more difficult.As a consequence, present-day ATTs are becoming more difficult for human users. Therefore, we focus more on reducing user inconvenience by challenging users with fewer ATTs and at the same time subjecting bot logins to more ATT’s, to drive up economic cost to attackers.Two well-known proposals using ATTs to limit online guessing attacks are Pinkas and Sander (PS protocol) and Van Oorsc hot and Stubblebine (VS protocol). The PS proposal reduces the ATTs. The VS proposal reduces this but a significant cost to usability.. The PGRP is being developed by using both PS VS proposals. On the other side, PGRP allows high number of failed attempts from known machines without answering any ATTs. Known machines are defined as those from which successful login has occurred over a fixed time period. These known machines are identified by their IP addresses which are saved on the login server as white list or else in the cookies stored on client. Both the white listed IP address and client cookie expire after a time-period. In both graphical user interface(e.g., browser-based logins) character-based interface(e.g.,SSH logins) PGRP can be accommodated). Both PS and VS proposals, requires the use of browser cookies. PGRP uses either cookies or IP address or both for tracking legitimate users. PGRP increases the number of ATTs for password guessing by tracking users through their IP address also to decrease the number of ATTs for legitimate login attempts.In recent years, the trend of logging in to online account through multiple personal devices (e.g., PC, laptop’s,smartphones ) is growing. When used from home environment, these devices often share a single IP address which makes IP-based history tracking more user friendly than cookies. 2. Related work: From the early days of the internet the online password guessing attacks have been known to everyone. Account locking is a mechanism which prevents a malicious attacker from multiple passwords particular username. Although account locking is temporary remedy, an attacker can mount a DOS (denial of service) in some amount of time for a particular username can be done by delaying server response after receiving user credentials, whether the password is correct or incorrect. However, for an attacker with access to a botnet, this above mechanism is ineffective. Prevention techniques that depend on requesting the user machine to perform extra computations before replying to the entered credentials are not effective with such adversaries. To prevent the automated programs (brute force dictionary attacks) ATT challenges are used in some protocols.PS presented a login protocol which challenges ATTs to protect against online password guessing attacks. PS protocol reduces the number of ATTs that authorized users must correctly answer, so that a user with a valid browser cookie will be rarely asked to answer an ATT. A deterministic function AskATT() of the entered user credentials is used to decide whether to ask the user an ATT or not. To improve the security features of the PS protocol, Van Oorschot stubblebine defined a modified protocol in which ATTs are always required, once the no. of failed login attempts for a particular username exceeds a threshold. For both PS and VS protocols, the function AskATT() requires a careful design, because the ‘known function attack’ of poor design of this function AskATT() makes the login protocol vulnerable to attacks and also ‘change password attack’. Because of these attacks, the authors proposed a secure non-deterministic keyed hash function as AskATT() so that each username is associated with one key that changes whenever the corresponding password is changed. This proposed function requires extra server-side storage per username atleast one cryptographic hash operation per login attempt. 2.2 Functions PGRP uses the following functions. They are 1.Read Credential. It shows a login prompt to the user and it returns the entered user name and password and also the cookie received from the user’s browser. 2. Login Correct If the provided user name-password is valid, the function return true otherwise it returns false. 3. Grant Access This function sends the cookies to the user’s browser and then gives the permission to access the specified user account. 4. Message It displays the text message. 5. ATT Challenge This function challenges the user with an ATT. If the answer is correct, it returns â€Å"pass† otherwise, it returns â€Å"fails† 7. Valid This function checks the validity of the cookie and it is considered invalid in the following cases: The cookie username doesn’t match with the login username. The expired time of the cookie. The cookie counter is equal to or greater than K1. This function returns true only when a valid cookie is received. 3. Cookies versus Source IP addresses PGRP keeps track of user machines from which successful logins have been initiated previously. If the login server offers a web-based interface, for this purpose choose a browser cookies as a good choice. The login server unable to identify the user in all cases, if the user uses multiple browser or more than one OS on the same machine. Cookies may also be deleted by users, or automatically enabled by the most modern browsers.Cookie theft(eg., through session hijacking)might enable an adversary to impersonate a user who has been successfully authenticated in the past. In addition cookies requires a browser interface.A user machine can be identified by the sourceIP address. To trace users depending on sourceIP address may result in inaccurate identification. This can be done because of various reasons including. 1) The same machine might be assigned different IP addresses. 2) A group of machines might be represented by a small number or a single internet-addressable IP address if NAT mechanism is in place.Drawbacks of identifying a user by means of either a browser cookie or a source IP address include: 3) Failing to identify a machine from which the user has authenticated successfully in the past. 4) Wrongly identifying a machine the user has not authenticated before. Case 1) Decreases usability since the user might be asked to answer an ATT challenge for both correct and incorrect login credentials. Case 2) Affects security since some users/attackers may not be asked to answer an ATT challenge even though they have not logged in successfully from those machines in the past.However, the probability of launching a dictionary or brute force attack from these machines appears to be low. Therefore, we choose to use both browser cookies and source IP address in PGRP to minimize user inconvenience during login process. 3.1. Decision function for requesting ATT’s: The decision to challenge the user with an ATT depends on two factors: 1) Whether the user has authenticated successfully from the machine previously. 2) The total number of failed login attempts for a specified useraccount Fig. 2.Secure but inconvenient login protocol 3.4.1Username-Password Pair Is Valid After entering a correct username-password pair. In the following cases the user will not be asked to answer an ATT challenge. 1. A valid cookie is received from the user machine and the number of failed login attempts from the user machines IP address for that username, FS[srcIP,un], is less than k1 over a time period determined by t3. 2. The user machine’s IP address is in the whitelist W and the number of failed login attempts from this IP address for that username, FS[srcIP,un], is less than k1 over a time period determined by t3. 3.The number of failed login attempts from any ,machine for that username, FT[un], is below a threshold k2 over a time period determined by t2 3.4.2Username-Password Pair Is Invalid After entering a incorrect username-password pair. In the following cases the user will not be asked to answer an ATT challenge. A valid cookie is received from the user machine and the number of failed login attempts from the user machines IP address for that username, FS[srcIP,un], is less than k1 over a time period determined by t3. The user machine’s IP address is in the whitelist W and the number of failed login attempts from this IP address for that username, FS[srcIP,un], is less than k1 over a time period determined by t3. The username is valid and the number of failed login attempts for that username, FT[un], is below a threshold k2 over a time period determined by t2. 4 System Resources No list’s are maintained in the PS protocol because of this there is no extra memory overhead on the login server. In VS protocol only FT is maintained. In PGRP, three tables must be maintained. First, the white list, W is expected to grow linearly with the number of user’s. W contains a list of{source IP address, username}pairs that have been successfully authenticated in the last t1 units of time. Second, the number of entries in FT increase by one whenever a remote host makes a failed login attempt using a valid user name, if entry is added to FS only when a valid{user name, password} pair is provided from an IP address not used before for this user name. Therefore, the number of entries in FS is proportional to the number of IP addresses legitimate users successfully authenticated from. 4.1  Background On Previous ATT Based Protocols Pinkas and Sander introduced the topic based upon a strawman login protocol that requires answering an ATT challenge first before entering the {user name, password}pair. If the user falling to answer the ATT correctly prevents the user from proceeding further. This protocol requires the adversary to pass an ATT challenge for each password guessing attempt. Simple protocol is effective against online dictionary attacks assuming that the used ATT’s are secure, legitimate users must also pass an ATT challenge for every login attempt. Therefore, this protocol affects user convenience and requires the login server to generate an ATT challenge for every login attempt. Pinkas and Sander proposed a new protocol that reduces the number of ATT’s for legitimate user’s are required to pass. This protocol stores a browser cookie on the machine of users who had previously logged in successfully. Once the user requests the login server URL, the user’s browser sense the cookie back to the server. The protocol then requests the user to enter a {user name, password} pair. If the pair is correct and a valid cookie is received from the browser then the protocol gives permission to access the account. If the pair is correct but no valid cookie is received, then an ATT challenge must be answered before account access is granted. Otherwise, if the pair is incorrect then according to a function AskATT(), an ATT challenge might be required before informing the user that the pair is incorrect. With this protocol, legitimate user must passATT’s in the following cases:1) When the user logs in from a machine for the first time. 2) When the user’s pair is incorrect and AskATT() triggers an ATT. For each password guessing attempt an automated program needs to correctly answer ATT except in one case i.e.,when the {username, password} pair is incorrect and a function AskATT() didn’t request an ATT. Van oorschot and stubblebine proposed modifications to the previous protocol which stores failed login’s per username to impose ATT challenges after exceeding a configurable threshold of failures. Hence, for an incorrect {username, password}pair, the decision to request an ATT not only depends on the function AskATT() but also on the number of failed login attempts for the username.After entering correct credentials in the absence of a valid cookie, the user is asked whether the machine in use is trustworthy and if the user uses it regularly .The cookie is stored in the user’s machine only if the user responds yes to the question. This approach aims to reduce the possibility of cookie theft since a negative answer is expected if the user was from a public machin e .The user account is set be in non-owner mode for a specified time window when a login is successful without receiving a valid cookie from the user machine; otherwise the account is set to owner mode.

Methodist Church :: essays research papers

The United Methodist Church My home church is United Methodist. I have gone there ever since I was a child because that is where my mother went to church. Through researching this paper I found many interesting things about my church. There are many points and issues I agree with and many I disagree with. Writing this really made me think about my denomination closely and if it’s the right one for me. The United Methodist Church shares a common history and heritage with other Methodist and Wesleyan bodies. The lives and ministries of John Wesley and of his brother, Charles, mark the origin of their common roots. Both John and Charles were Church of England missionaries to the colony of Georgia, arriving in March 1736. It was their only occasion to visit America. Their mission was far from an unqualified success, and both returned to England disillusioned and discouraged, Charles in December 1736, and John in February 1738. Both of the Wesley brothers had transforming religious experiences in May 1738. In the years following, the Wesleys succeeded in leading a lively renewal movement in the Church of England. As the Methodist movement grew, it became apparent that their ministry would spread to the American colonies as some Methodists made the exhausting and hazardous Atlantic voyage to the New World. Organized Methodism in America began as a lay movement. Among its earliest leaders were Robert Strawbridge, an immigrant farmer who organized work about 1760 in Maryland and Virginia, Philip Embury and his cousin, Barbara Heck, who began work in New York in 1766, and Captain Thomas Webb, whose labors were instrumental in Methodist beginnings in Philadelphia in 1767. The American Revolution had a profound impact on Methodism. John Wesley’s Toryism and his writings against the revolutionary cause did not enhance the image of Methodism among many who supported independence. Furthermore, a number of Methodist preachers refused to bear arms to aid the patriots. When independence from England had been won, Wesley recognized that changes were necessary in American Methodism. He sent Thomas Coke to America to superintend the work with Asbury. Coke brought with him a prayer book titled The Sunday Service of the Methodists in North America, prepared by Wesley and incorporating his revision of the Church of England’s Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion. Two other preachers, Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey, whom Wesley had ordained, accompanied Coke.

The Character of Ophelia in Shakespeares Hamlet :: GCSE English Literature Coursework

The Character of Ophelia in Hamlet      Ã‚   Of all the pivotal characters in Hamlet, Ophelia is the most static and one-dimensional. She has the potential to become a tragic heroine; to overcome the adversities inflicted upon her, but she instead crumbles into insanity, becoming merely tragic. This is because Ophelia herself is not as important as her representation of the duel nature of women in the play. Ophelia serves a distinct purpose: to show at once Hamlet's warped view of women as callous sexual predators, and the innocence and virtue of women.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The extent to which Hamlet feels betrayed by Gertrude is far more apparent with the addition of Ophelia to the play. Hamlet's feelings of rage against his mother can be directed toward Ophelia, who is, in his estimation, hiding her base nature behind a guise of impeccability. Through Ophelia we witness Hamlet's evolution, or de-evolution into a man convinced that all women are whores; that the women who seem most pure are inside black with corruption and sexual desire. And if women are harlots, then they must have their procurers. Gertrude has been made a whore by Claudius, and Ophelia has been made a whore by her father. In Act II, Polonius makes arrangements to use the alluring Ophelia to discover why Hamlet is behaving so curiously. Hamlet is not in the room but it seems obvious from the following lines that he has overheard Polonius trying to use his daughter's charms to suit his underhanded purposes. In Hamlet's distraught mind, there is no gray area: Polonius prostitutes his daughter. And Hamlet tells him so to his face, labeling him a "fishmonger", even if Polonius cannot decipher the meaning behind Hamlet's words. As Kay Stanton argues in her essay Hamlet's Whores:    Perhaps it may be granted...that what makes a woman a whore in the Hamlets' estimation is her sexual use by not one man but by more than one man.... what seems to enrage [Hamlet] in the 'nunnery' interlude is that Ophelia has put her sense of love and duty for another man above her sense of love and duty for him, just as Gertrude put her sense of love and duty for her new husband above her sense of love and duty for her old. Gertrude chose a brother over a dead Hamlet; Ophelia chooses a father over a living Hamlet: both choices can be read as additionally sexually perverse in being, to Hamlet, 'incestuous'.

Don’t blame the eater

Don't Blame the Eater, Blame the Eating Industry In terms of personal health, the borders of proper nutrition are similar to that of a jail cell. Zinczenko points outs the restrictive nature of food within modern day Am erica. A generalized point of view that can be taken from this is that the fast food industry is incredibly convenient and affordable for necessary needs to live and thrive in modern day America. Zinczenko brings in examples that involve personal experiences in his family, as well as an argument that the convenience and affordability issues a large health problem itself.While obesity can be seens as ither a personal or societal issue, Zinczenko proposes that the issue on obesity is a societal issue based on the circumstances of cheap-and-fast fast food restaurants, which is a reasonable claim based on Zinczenko's point of view. Affordable, efficient, and convenient food may help the population, however, it is a market based on unhealthy practices. The author elaborate s on the convenience in a matter of personal story, in which his choice as a fifteen-year-old would be â€Å"McDonald's, Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken or Pizza Hut† (Zinczenko 391).With this personal experience, he can sympathize with a population that needs fast food ecause he witnessed it as an â€Å"the only available option for an American kid to get an affordable meal† (Zinczenko 392). Luckily enough, the author managed to reach to college and fix his eating habits. He is reaching out to a vast population that shares a similar experience or lifestyle, which encompass a large amount of people, thus creating a personal approach to the topic of obesity. Along with his noted personal experience, the raw statistics and facts about obesity back his claim on fast food being a primary catalyst for obesity in America.Driving down the block to eat healthy is a bit of a stretch when there are â€Å"more than 3,000 McDonald's restaurants† in the country (Zinczenko 392). The crippling statistics under the cases of obesity since 1994 also carry a charming state of nausea and face-melting characteristics: diabetes now had more than one cause. Childhood diabetes was generally caused by genetic disorder before 1994, with only a 5% statistic being obesity-related. Today, obesity-related diabetes â€Å"accounts for at least 30 percent of all new childhood cases of diabetes in this country' (Zinczenko 392).The calorie counts in fast-food salads can ascend to â€Å"around 1040 calories,† and it is vidently hazardous when a salad can cost you â€Å"half of the government's recommended daily calorie intake† (Zinczenko 393). Obesity, on an objective point of view, is a developing problem due to the efficient and affordable nature of fast food. The author mentions his personal experience with fast food and how it is a problem beyond personal preference, and my personal experiences lead me to fully agree. With this in mind, fast food is a ve ry efficient source of food to me.With a hectic lifestyle or even a hectic household, fast food can be one of the few places to go. I do not have all the time in the world to get a proper source of nutrition. School and work constitute my time on a daily basis, and in that case, fast food helps relieve that time in order to focus on the priorities in my life. My source of coffee in the McDonalds, other gas stations) and my quick source of mediocre nutrition. In this day and age of living, food is not a big priority to people, it is always there at convenience.There is no time to worry about what you are going to eat because there is a test or report for you to do in class, or you have to make it to work on time; ime is very limited and restrictive. I can sympathize with Zenczenko's point of view on the need for fast food in a hectic lifestyle. Not only does the author mention the social stigmas that surround fast food and obesity, but also the crude facts that are the nutritional va lues of fast food and its impact on obesity.Although I do carry a hectic lifestyle, in which my go-to source of food would be a fast food place, it carries significant stress and impact on my life. Over the past school year, with work and school, my usual breakfast would include a Monster energy drink and a McChicken from McDonalds. Though this did not affect my weight, it affected my productivity. No physical withdrawals were the side effect but I was absent-minded to my convenience food intake that let me make it throughout the day.The author points out physical consequences of convenient food; however, I faced psychological and mental consequences when eating convenient food. Zunczenko proposes a very thoughtful understanding to the nature of obesity. The author constitutes the matter of obesity as a societal issue because of convenient food rather than a personal stigma. Our society hosts more than 13,000 McDonalds n its land, and since we continue to trade our money for their i nstant sustenance, I do agree that obesity is a societal issue.Expedient food helps shape the busy and it is good for the quick knick of hunger, but it is not good for the healthy nutrients our society actually needs. The convenience and affordability of â€Å"food† from the fast food industry is the convicted criminal that is building bad health habits and furthering obesity in todays society. Works Cited Zinczenko, David. â€Å"Don't Blame the Eater. † They Say, I Say. Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein. New York: W. W. Norton ; Company, Inc. , 2012. 391-394. Don’t Blame the Eater David Zincked up to the point that we have to take ‘personal responsibility for our rise in obesity, I cannot agree that he targets his opinion on that fast food restaurants are to blame. In my opinion the personal responsibility is on the parents in how they choose to teach, guide or show by example on how to make healthy choices. Temptations are everywhere, our parents tell us not to eat dirt, so we don't so why is the choice of something healthy over Junk so difficult.Let us take for instance when our kids go off to school, majority of parents pack their kids' inches, usually consisting of a drink, sandwich, vegetable or fruit, and a small treat. It is when our kids are at home that parents tend to forget the healthy choice and choose the cardboard box processed foods, or the, pop in the microwave dinners, that are contributing to the obesity in their children.Convenience is not the healthy choice. Our school systems have also recognized the need for more healthy alternative s within their cafeterias offering the breakfast and hot lunch program making the overstretched, over committed parent comfortable with knowing that at least at school our kids are eating healthy. Vending machines have been thrown out, leaving little to no temptation. So should parents not do the same within their homes?So should we sue our parents for our obesity or the McDonald's down the street who is only trying to build their sales like any other department store? You don't need to count calories to know If something Is healthy. You should Just know that a hamburger and fries Is not the better choice compared to a salad and fruit drink. I say â€Å"teach your children that If they don't know what they are eating, don't eat It' ‘ Make the healthy choice and get outside!