Multiculturalism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Multiculturalism - Essay Example To have a multicultural state, the nation must be a multi-ethnic; the cultures should be open, self-critical, and interactive in their relations with other each other (Interviews by Cindi John, 2004). It means welcomming, living, sharing and caring for and with culturally diverse people. This diversity comes from people who migrate from their respective nations in search for better conditions than those available back home. Most often the reason cited for this immigration is for a look out of a prospective job, however reasons such as looking for a safe and secure environment can also be seen. The immigration of muslim communities to muslim nations is one such example. The roots of Multiculturalism in the US can be found in the Civil Rights Movement of 1960s when the minorites (Blacks) fought for their rights (UWM, 2002). Thus it can be said that even though the immigrants do not hold citizenship of the country they live in, yet they have their rights which the a multiculturistic country must give in order to prevent discord and conflicts. Multiculturalism is thought to be connected to a solution in solving the problem of racism and discrimination in the society. According to the literature, when culturally diverse people live together, they form a bond; a sort of a relationship between themselves. After the initial conflicts and misunderstandings are over, they start to learn from each other and appreciate each other's diversity. Different cultures are understood, language is simplified, feeling of humanity is restored and as a result diversity is accepted and racism extinguished. 2. Diversity Breeds Creativity, Skills & Knowledge People from different backgrounds and cultures have different skills, talents and knowledge. This is what makes them so different. This diversity is good for any organization which employes culturally diverse people. People bring in different knowledge and skills which is essential for any growing organization. New ideas are bred, skills are exchnaged and learnt, and as a result creativity is enhanced. A study done by Sweeney, Weaven, & Herington (2008), showed the positive effect on quality of work done by diverse people working in groups. This goes on to show that countries promote multiculuralism since it is good for their country and its people. A third world nations, like Pakistan or India, can find it increasingly beneficial when foreigneres bring foreign direct investment, new technoloy and know-how, as well as any information or skills previouly not available in the country. 3. Exposure For any country, the exposure of its resources is beneficial for the economic situation. Through multiculturalism, people belonging to other countries can come and help enhance, grow and improve the existing industry. Once a country gets known for its industry, talent, skills or resources, it creates demand for more and hence get the wheel of the country moving. This is the case with Dubai, where many different cultures live and continue to come in because of the attractiveness of the Emirate. Cons of Multiculturalism Where there are countries that promote multiculturalism due to its advantages,

International development assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

International development assignment - Essay Example The following discussion will focus on this Brazil responsible sourcing project and the first three years of project implementation. Initially, the project will be outlined, then its organization and performance will be evaluated. Finally, a concluding section will assess its impacts and effects. The Brazil Responsible Sourcing Project partners are the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), TransFair USA, Walmart Stores and local Brazilian partner Sebrae-MG. Thus, the project unites the private sector (Walmart), government agencies (USAID) and non-governmental agencies (TransFair USA). It also includes a local (Brazilian) partner, Sebrae-MG a Brazilian agency dedicated to provide, through access to new knowledge, new business opportunities for micro and small enterprises. The three-year project was initiated in 2007. In total, project partners contributed $1.9 million. Of that amount, $144,000 were infrastructure upgrade grants. (USAID, 2009) By 2008, â€Å"eleven producer families [had] used the grants to build coffee drying patios on their properties so their coffee beans could reach proper quality,† according to Coopfam president Luà ­s Adauto de Oliveira. Coopfam was one of five Brazillian cooperatives that received project infrastructure grants. (USAID, 2008) The project objective was â€Å"to help smallholder farmers increase exports of Organic and Fair Trade Certified coffee by 400% and 350% respectively.† (USAID, 2009) The concept behind the project was to provide farmers with better access to global markets, thus increasing their income. A second objective was to provide retailers in the United States with enhanced access to premium-quality coffee beans. (USAID, 2009) The most noteworthy organizational aspect of the project was the number and diversity of project partners. The local Brazilian partner agency, Sebrae-MG, specializes in organizing and coordinating interested parties in developing programs that are

Evaluating 74th Constitutional Amendment Act

Evaluating 74th Constitutional Amendment Act Two sides of the same coin: Evaluating 74th Constitutional Amendment Act Abstract: To strengthen the position of urban governance in a more organized manner, the government of India took a pivotal initiative through the enactment of the 74th Constitution Amendment Act. In this paper I attempt to analyse the role of 74th constitutional amendment in increasing the functionality, authority and efficiency of the urban local bodies, in terms of the powers rendered to the urban local bodies under the 74th constitutional amendment. I attempt to analyse the effective and efficient implementation of the 74th constitutional amendment by including a small case study of urban governance in the city of Chandigarh, Punjab. Introduction: The system of local service delivery through the means of local government bodies began with a Budget Speech by a member of viceroy’s council Samuel Laing, he proposed that local services should be based on local resources. Local governance bodies have been a part of Indian governance system since the British Era, the first Municipal Corporation was set up in Madras in 1688 followed by Bombay and Calcutta. In the beginning local governance bodies were mere implementation instrument of state government’s activities but since the introduction of the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, there has been a change in this status quo. Since the early 1990s there has been a lot of initiative undertaken by the Government of India which were aimed at decentralisation of urban governance, this was the part of adoption of neo-liberal policies adopted by the government after facing failure of the state-led development model, as for under this model the government kept its role secondary giving more importance to market oriented approaches. Under this step taken by the Government of India enactment of the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, was one such initiative, this gave constitutional recognition to urban local bodies and a constitutional right to exist. AnewTwelfthScheduletotheConstitutionprovidesrecommendedlistoflocalfunctions. Under the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, it requires the state governments of all the states to amend their respective municipal laws so as to increase the powers and authority of the urban local bodies, as quoting the line for the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act â€Å"withsuchpowersandauthorityasmaybenecessarytoenablethemtofunctionasinstitutionsofselfgovernance†. The 74th Constitutional Amendment Act provides a base to the state the ability to transfer certain responsibility and authority to the urban local bodies i.e. municipalities in order to provide a strong base for municipal local governance in cities, in this regard several state government has amended their state legislature in the same regard. Under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, it is mandatory to undertake the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act and implement in the respective state legislatures. It is under the article 243ZE of the constitution which requires all the state governments to review the existing municipal laws and either repeal or modify those which are inconsistent with the provision of 74th Constitutional Amendment Act within one year from the commencement of the Act.[1] 74th Constitutional Amendment Act in a nutshell: Features and Issues Features of 74th Constitutional Amendment Act 74th Constitutional Amendment has been constituted in congruence with the idea of new public management. Under this concept the major role the state play is of withdrawing itself from directly influencing the market activities and let demand and supply correct the course of market. One of the features of this concept is that the government breaks down the huge monolithic government beaurcracies, which refers to heavy decentralisation of responsibilities and authorities. According to my understanding the enactment of the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act is very much influenced by this characteristic of new public management. Before the enactment of 74th Constitutional Amendment Act the role of urban local bodies was merely of implementation of activities undertaken by state and national government. Constitutional status has been granted to the urban local bodies under the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, under which a three tier structure of the urban local bodies has been envisaged. Formation of Municipal Corporation for larger area with higher populations the example of this can be Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, and creation of municipal councils for smaller areas which includes towns like Upleta in Gujarat, and creation of village panchayats for villages that are in transitions to become towns. Under this amendment the governing members of the municipal corporation are being elected by the people through an election in a similar way in which the members of the lok sabha are elected, the election is conducted, managed and regulated by the state election commission. This indicates that the democracy has established deep roots in the political system of the country. Under article 243Y, it makes it mandatory for every state to establish a state finance commission as it is defined by article 243I. The function of the state finance commission is advising the Governor of the state regarding the distribution of funds between state and municipalities which also includes the revenue generated from tolls, taxes and duties. The state finance commission also acts as a auditing organisation which scrutinises the employment of the finances to the urban local bodies. The 74th Constitutional Amendment Act in its article 243ZD and 243ZE makes it mandatory to form committee for district planning in each district and committee for metropolitan planning in every metropolitan area. These committees endeavour to provide newer dimension for the role of citizens and its elected representatives in preparation of plans for their respective regions, infrastructure plan being it most important component. It is sometimes that cities in the same districts share certain natural resources or problems like allocation of water, waste management which might create overlapping situations; it is the function of committee for district planning to cater to such scenarios. Whereas committee for metropolitan planning caters to the increasing infrastructure and amenities demand in metropolitan cities due to expansion of its boundaries or population. Under this act the urban local bodies are endowed with responsibilities for formulation and implementation of schemes for economic and social development, the subjects for the same have been specified under the 12th schedule i.e. article 243W. Issues in the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act The enactment of the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act marks a transformation in the role of urban local governing bodies in terms of the urban governing bodies being constitutionalised and substantial authorities being granted to them under the act regarding decision making to acquiring finance, but still certain questions remained unanswered. The first issue in implementation of the act is the identification and demarcation rural and urban areas. In states like Gujarat, West Bengal, Kerala, approximately two third of towns are non-municipal towns.[2] Even though these towns in these states have higher prevalence of non-agricultural activities these town are not recognised as cities and are still under the status of villages, this is because under the status of villages the state government can sanction grant for implementation of projects for rural development like MNREGA, NREGA etc. while on the other hand if these area are classified as cites the states would not be able to sanction money for such developmental activities from the government and the state itself will be responsible to provide grants for further infrastructure development in these newly formed cities. The implication of this is that the local bodies lose out on better sources of finance. Therefore due to the vested interest of the members of the politica l structure of the state barriers are created in the implementation of the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act. The 74th Constitutional Amendment Act makes the urban local bodies responsible not only for mere implementation of the state directives, but also makes them responsible for carrying out activities for social and economic development under 18 subject mentioned under schedule 12 i.e. article 243W, but the act does not make it clear how the three tier bodies i.e. municipal corporations, municipal councils and nagar panchayats will work in synchrony in order to accomplish this tasks. The act leaves it to the discretion of the state to work out the arrangement in this regard. One of the objectives of enacting 74th Constitutional Amendment Act was increasing people and private participation in urban planning, but due to public and private organisations being suspicious about the functioning of the urban local bodies, there has been no significant change in this regard. Case Study: Implementation of 74th Constitutional Amendment Act in Chandigarh I have adopted the following case study from an article by Deepak Sharma titled as: An Evaluation of 74th Constitutional Amendment Act: A Case Study of Chandigarh, India Background Chandigarh is a union territory and a joint capital of the state of Punjab and Haryana. With around 9, 00,000 population it is one of the fastest growing city. The municipal corporation of Chandigarh was formed in 1994 and its jurisdictional area is around 79.34 kms. The municipal corporation of Chandigarh came into being after passing of Punjab Municipal Corporation Law ordinance, 1994 under the Punjab Municipal Corporation Act, 1976. The functioning of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation is done by formation of various committees that are allocated with different task for the governance of the city. The example committees under the Chandigarh municipal corporation are as follows: Water Supply and Sewerage Committee Roads Committee Slum Development Committee Fire Services Committee Environment City Beautification Committee House Tax Committee Finance Committee Contract Committee Report of findings Under the74th Constitutional Amendment Act, the urban local bodies is also been charged with activities of social and economic development for the empowerment of the citizen of the particular cities, but in Chandigarh there has been incongruence with the mandates of the act, where the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation has been partially endowed with such responsibility education and health and the Chandigarh administration maintains a monopoly, this lead to overlapping functions, and it is conceptually against what has been mandated in the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act. As per the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, the members of the urban local bodies have to be elected by the people of the city, this what has been implemented in the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation as well, but as the members of the municipal board belong to different political parties, there has been difference of opinion regarding decision making and implementation of project, which in turn delays or either sabotages the developmental or infrastructural initiative by the Chandigarh municipal corporation at times, here there has not been a failure of the act, but this is because of different political parties acting as per their own vested interest. The municipal corporation in Chandigarh faces issue of funds accumulation because of two reasons. The first being that the funding grants are in the hands of Chandigarh administration which at times end up either blocking or delaying transfer of funds to the Chandigarh municipal corporation and the second being the inefficient state finance commission. Even if the funds are being allocated only a small fraction is employed in implementation of project as due to the layer of political agents that end up utilising funds from their own purposes. As mentioned above that the Chandigarh municipal corporation has been facing dearth of funds, one of the reason is that the municipal corporation has failed to recover tax arrears, majorly these tax arrears has been because there has been defaulters amongst liquor vendors and water tariffs. Thus this implies 1) there is an improper record system in the Chandigarh municipal corporation leading to arrears as large as $112,375,000[3], 2) extensive corruption. Conclusion: From the information about the enactment, features, flaws of the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, and by presenting the case study of Chandigarh Municipal Corporation, I finally conclude that the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act is apt in its spirit of empowerment and decentralisation of function and responsibilities to the urban local bodies, but there lies an issue with the effective implementation of the act. In this regard the blame can be given to the still existing beauracratic structure of governance in India leading to rent seeking and red-tapping, but along with this there has been lack of awareness and motivation amongst the public which are an equal part of the governance system. Appendix: References [1] Article: Implementation of the 74th Constitutional Amendment and Integration of city planning and delivery functions. [2] Adopted from article: Features of 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment [3] Figure adopted from Article: Evaluation of 74th Constitutional Amendment Act: A Case Study of Chandigarh, India by Deepak Sharma

Penny Marshall :: essays research papers

Penny Marshall has directed six films in her career: "The Preachers Wife"(1996), "Renaissance Man"(1994), "A League of Their Own"(1992), "Awakenings"(1990), "Big"(1998), and "Jumpin' Jack Flash"(1986). We know Penny best from her stint in Laverne and Shirley (1976-1983) as the hilarious Laverne De Fazio. After the series was cancelled Laverne appeared in some pictures until her directorial debut in "Jumpin' Jack Flash". This film was pretty much a bomb and Penny gained credibility as a director in "Big". Tom Hanks received a nomination for Best Actor in this picture. Marshall's best directorial accomplishment had to be in "Awakenings" starring Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams. This film was nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor (Robert DeNiro), and for Best Adapted Screenplay. Penny Marshall's style is classical. "Awakenings" and "Big" in particular are based upon a three-act structure. "A League of their Own" and "Big" are tall tales, strongly centered on plot. There exists good and bad people, and characters that are changed by their experiences (Dr. Malcolm Sayer, Josh Baskin). Character actors are prominent in her films and certainly used to reflect the persona of the star as well as to draw people to the movie. In films such as "Big" Penny places a high emphasis on setting which are highly selective in detail.Penny Marshall's typical choice of genre is comedy probably because of her comedic background, but she did direct "Awakenings" which is a drama. Her films tend to deal with contemporary issues in society such as coming of age ("Big"), oppression of the mentally handicapped ("Awakenings"), and women's accomplishment ("A League of their Own"). Penny Marshall's films are not multi million dollar movies which are filled with special effects and fancy camera action rather they are simple pictures which let the actors convey the messages. Penny does not attempt to use film as an art form; rather she uses film to tell a story. Penny Marshall's story sources consist of original and adapted screenplays. "Big" was written by Gary Ross who is best known for writing and producing "Pleasantville", and Anne Spielberg who wrote "Toy Story". "Awakenings" was adapted from a book of the same title by Oliver Sacks and written for the screen by Steven Zaillian who wrote "Schindler's List" and "A Civil Action" to name but a few. From these two films it is presumed that Penny uses a variety of sources.In "Awakenings" and "Big" Penny's style is classicism.

12 Angry Men sociological analysis Essay

12 Angry Men focuses on a Jurys deliberations in a capital murder case. A 12- man Jury is sent to begin deliberations in the first-degree murder trial of an 18-year- old Latino accused in the stabbing death of his father, where a guilty verdict means automatic death sentence. The case appears to be open-and-shut: The defendant has a weak alibi; a knife he claimed to have lost is found at the murder scene; and several witnesses either heard screaming, saw the killing or the boy fleeing the scene. Eleven of the Jurors immediately vote guilty; only Juror No. Mr. Davis) casts a not guilty vote. At first Mr. Davis’ bases his vote more so for the sake of discussion after all, the Jurors must believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty. As the deliberations unfold, the story quickly becomes a study of the Jurors’ complex personalities (ranging from wise, bright and empathetic to arrogant, prejudiced and merciless), preconceptions, backgrounds and interaction s. That provides the backdrop to Mr. Davis’ attempts in convincing the other Jurors that a â€Å"not guilty’ verdict might be appropriate. A huge feel of the film is gotten through the time period it took place in. People’s views on race were made very publicly within the Jury. Many of them seemed to have personal vendettas against different races. They deemed the boys Hispanic race to be slum and nothing more than that. A universal problem that is shown in several ways throughout the film is personal prejudice getting in the way of Judgment. Juror number ten’s reason for saying the accused boy was guilty was because he felt people from slums should not be trusted and that they kill one and another for fun. His prejudice lead him to discriminate against the boy initially by voting guilty earlier in the film, before being convinced in voting not guilty. This was during the civil rights era and all of that. We all know blacks weren’t treated equally and this makes it apparent that it wasn’t easy for any minority within the US. Theyd rather lock them up and throw away the key than give them a fair trial. Tensions run high the second the Jury went into the private room to deliberate. It was a very hot day outside and the fan wasn’t working nor would the windows open. No man wanted to spend more time than what they thought would be efficient to determine the verdict. Some even spoke about their plans for right after, thinking it would be a sure bet theyd be out of there soon with the whole night ahead of them. They were wrong. From then on the film turned into an example straight out of a sociology textbook. Everyone didn’t deviate from the norm of the group†¦ All except one, Juror #8. The rest of the Jury was outraged and deemed him a radical. They could not believe two things. One, that he voted not guilty, and second, hat he went against the group norm. He tried not one bit to conform. Rather, he stood up in grand fashion and presented his doubts to his fellow Jurors. Slowly but surely his grand scheme was working. He did not know for sure whether he was guilty or not guilty, but he had a reasonable doubt and that’s all about what the justice system stands tor. It’s so interesting when you bring a group o t 12 random people into a setting like a Jury and see what you come up with. All of these men, from different walks of life , they all brought something special to the table that was ital to their key decision. The sociological theory that tone of this film could easily fall under is the conflict perspective. At the very beginning, viewers can clearly see the tension is between the Jurors whom most have a personal prejudice against the boy for certain reason. Some Jurors simply expected that a boy from the slums would commit an act like that they were stereotyping that all people who come from slums are criminals. Even if a person is not personally prejudiced against and individual or group, stereotypes can have them make discriminatory actions such as vote guilty. The reason most of the Jurors stereotyped the actions of the accused boys is because of socialization. The way of transmission was most likely through media; crimes shown by television new or new papers are frequently from neighborhood of low economics standing. Deviance a topic I touched on earlier, is another sociological aspect that can be examined in this film. Deviance is a very relative term where depending on the group and situation, it varies. Juror 8 was the only that felt from the beginning the boy was not guilty. When the first vote most of the other Jurors by he fact he could think the boy was innocent and even were upset at him for thinking that. As the film progressed the Jurors began changing their votes, eventually the roles were reversed; Juror number 3 appear to be the one committing the deviant act since it is revealed his own reason for voting guilty is because of issues with his own son. One of the most important things I learned in observing the sociological aspects of this film is how easy norms can change. The norms of eleven out of the twelve men voted guilty, changed entirely to guilty as the film came to a chose.

Why Are Apple Products so Popular?

ESL0420Advanced Writing Analysis Paper Le Han [email  protected] edu Mar 5th, 2013 Why are Apple Products so Popular? In today's world, Apple's products are highly sought after because they are very popular for everyone. According to Yarow,editor of The Business Insider,said that the newest iPhone sold 5 million over the opening weekend (Yarow, 2012). However, it is difficult to find the reason why Apple’s products are so superior compared with other electronic products in the market.Since Apple’s products come out in our life, it has facilitated our life and brought us huge benefits. For instance, people do not need to bring their heavy laptops to go to work every day, because they already have the portable tablet PC – iPad. The ascent of Apple’s products are presented in front of everyone, it is due to Apple’s product having a creative design, unique innovation and the reasonable price. To begin with, if people want to know why Apple’s pr oducts are so popular in the recent years, one of the answers is the design of the product is very important.By comparison with other electronic products, the apple’s product is always the most aesthetic appearance of electronic products on the market. For example, the newest MacBook Air design reached unbelievably thin and light, but it still retains the Apple computer powerful, durable, capable and enjoyable to use features. On the contrary, the traditional design laptop focus on the hardware upgrade rather than the appearance of product, so the monotonous design of the traditional electronic product makes the consumer feel visual fatigue and not portable.When MacBook Air appeared on the scene, people felt that Apple’s products are so distinctive and unique; because never has a computer company can make their laptop’s thickness less than an inch thin, and has simple designs at the same time. This led Apple’s products directly to be bestselling on the wh ole electronic market. The same was true of the latest iMac, its desktop display has slim design which greatly save the area of the computer desk. For example, Pete Pachal is technology journalist who has been covering consumer technology in print and online more than ten years.He said that the newest iPhone and iPad paired with brilliant 4-inch and 9. 7-inch retina display which configuration can make the person see more detail. Even with the naked eye, the user can clearly see the type is sharper and photos are showy. Consequently the new Apple’s product makes its competitors look bad, and there is no company that has a product on the market now can compare with it (Pachal, 2012). Beside this, innovation is one of the main reasons for Apple’s products success.Before Apple unleashed the iPhone, there are many experts who worked in the technology industry knew that the touch screen would be the trend of future development. An editor named Charles Babcock from at Inform ationWeek thinks while the touch technology was not invented by Apple Company, Apple Company carried forward this technology and it eventually prospered. According to Babcock (2013), there are just a few people who believed that companies can launch this product which meet demands of customers in 2007.But Apple Company has done it proved is does not work like that. The release of the iPhone has proved it. Moreover, Apple Company is also introducing this technology to iPad. Nowadays, if there is any mobile phone without touch screen, it is out of date. The consumer just wants a mobile phone which has touch screen function. It is because Apple’s products are the first to provide a suitable touch screen that it will naturally gain traction with consumers.In addition, another reason for Apple’s products are popular on the market is that Apple Company makes the reasonable price. The reasonable price can make average consumers and corporate customers willing to buy it, becau se people consider the reasonable price to be more attractive than other products on the market. A Taiwan daily newspaper named DigiTimes, which news mainly includes semiconductor, electronics, computer and communication industries believed iPad pricing will disturb the PC market price.DigiTimes (2010) demonstrates that the first generation of iPad price was $499, at that time some tablet PC manufacturers predicted iPad’s price is about $1000 and these tablet PC manufacturers originally planned their tablet prices 20%-30% lower than the iPad. The present the iPad price is only $499, which compels the tablet PC manufacturer to re-evaluate the price strategy. If tablet PC manufacturers want their product appealing to consumers, they could only adjust the price lower than the iPad. But the final result shows that it is failed, and now iPad is the fourth generation, but it still people’s first hoice for PC tablets. If the iPhone and iPad’s price were more expensive, maybe they would not be so popular; I believe Apple Company is also aware of this In short, my conclusion is that the cause of Apple’s products being popular depends on its creative design, unique innovation and the reasonable price. If there were no Apple’s products, I believed the development of electronic products would slow down at least ten years. Because the market has Apple’s products, our life is more convenient than before. The emergence of Apple’s products makes electronic product market have more competition.No matter what, the direct beneficiaries of the price war is the consumer. The constantly price war will make commodity prices approached the cost. Consumers can buy more high-quality products at lower price. In order to attract more potential customers, companies will enhance their brand reputation, service quality and technology to meet the consumers' requirements. Meanwhile, it can promote the whole industry to improve and progress. So as I say, this may be the reason why apple products are so popular in the world. References Babcock, C. (2012). Apple beats competition with design – and design patents. InformationWeek.Retrieved from http://www. informationweek. com/hardware/handheld/apple-beats- competition-with-design-and/240006830? pgno=1%E3%80%81 DigiTimes. (2010). Apple’s iPad pricing causes disarray for PC tablet manufacturers. Retrieved from http://www. digitimes. com/news/a20100129PD217. html Pachal, P. (2012). Nine stunning examples of the new iPad's retina display. Mashable. Retrieved from http://mashable. com/2012/03/16/retina-display- examples/ Yarow, J. (2012). Iphone5 opening weekend sales come in worse than expected. BUSINESS INSIDER. Retrieved from http://www. businessinsider. com/ Iphone-5-sales-opening-weekend-2012-9

Database Security Essay Example

Database Security Essay Example Database Security Essay Database Security Essay 1 Database Security *) GUNTHER PERNUL Institut fur Angewandte Informatik und Informationssysteme Abteilung fur Information Engineering Universitat Wien Vienna, Austria 1. Introduction 1. 1 The Relational Data Model Revisited 1. 2 The Vocabulary of Security and Major DB Security Threats 2. Database Security Models 2. 1 Discretionary Security Models 2. 2 Mandatory Security Models 2. 3 Adapted Mandatory Access Control Model 2. 4 Personal Knowledge Approach 2. 5 Clark and Wilson Model 2. 6 A Final Note on Database Security Models . Multilevel Secure Prototypes and Systems 3. 1 SeaView 3. 2 Lock Data Views 3. 3 ASD_Views 4. Conceptual Data Model for Multilevel Security 4. 1 Concepts of Security Semantics 4. 2 Classification Constraints 4. 3 Consistency and Conflict Management 4. 4 Modeling the Example Application 5. Standardization and Evaluation Efforts 6. Future Directions in Database Security Research 7. Conclusions References 1. Introduction Information stored in databases is often considered as a valuable and important corporate resource. Many organizations have become so dependent on the proper functioning of their systems that a disruption of service or a leakage of stored information may cause outcomes ranging from inconvenience to catastrophe. Corporate data may relate to financial records, others may be essential for the successful operation of an organization, may represent trade *) Advances in Computers, Vol. 38. M. C. Yovits (Ed. ), Academic Press, 1994, pp. 1 74. 2 secrets, or may describe information about persons whose privacy must be protected. Thus, the general concept of database security is very broad and entails such things as moral and ethical issues imposed by public and society, legal issues where control is legislated over the collection and disclosure of stored information, or more technical issues such as how to protect the stored information from loss or unauthorized access, destruction, use, modification, or disclosure. More generally speaking, database security is concerned with ensuring the secrecy, integrity, and availability of data stored in a database. To define the terms, secrecy denotes the protection of information from unauthorized disclosure either by direct retrieval or by indirect logical inference. In addition, secrecy must deal with the possibility that information may also be disclosed by legitimated users acting as an ‘information channel’ by passing secret information to unauthorized users. This may be done intentionally or without knowledge of the authorized user. Integrity requires data to be protected from malicious or accidental modification, including the insertion of false data, the contamination of data, and the destruction of data. Integrity constraints are rules that define the correct states of a database and thus can protect the correctness of the database during operation. Availability is the characteristic that ensures data being available to authorized users when they need them. Availability includes the ‘denial of service’ of a system, i. e. a system is not functioning in accordance with its intended purpose. Availability is closely related to integrity because ‘denial of service’ may be caused by unauthorized destruction, modification, or delay of service as well. Database security cannot be seen as an isolated problem because it is effected by other components of a computerized system as well. The security requirements of a system are specified by means of a security policy which is then enforced by various security mechanisms. For databases, requirements on the security can be classified into the following categories:  · Identification, Authentication Usually before getting access to a database each user has to identify himself to the computer system. Authentication is the way to verify the identity of a user at log-on time. Most common authentication methods are passwords but more advanced techniques like badge readers, biometric recognition techniques, or signature analysis devices are also available.  · Authorization, Access Controls Authorization is the specification of a set of rules that specify who has which type of access to what information. Authorization policies therefore govern the disclosure and modification of information. Access controls are 3 procedures that are designed to control authorizations. They are responsible to limit access to stored data to authorized users only.  · Integrity, Consistency An integrity policy states a set of rules (i. e. semantic integrity constraints) that define the correct states of the database during database operation and therefore can protect against malicious or accidental modification of information. Closely related issues to integrity and consistency are concurrency control and recovery. Concurrency control policies protect the integrity of the database in the presence of concurrent transactions. If these transactions do not terminate normally due to system crashes or security violations recovery techniques are used to reconstruct correct or valid database states.  · Auditing The requirement to keep records of all security relevant actions issued by a user is called auditing. Resulting audit records are the basis for further reviews and examinations in order to test the adequacy of system controls and to recommend any changes in the security policy. In this Chapter such a broad perspective of database security is not taken. Instead, main focus is directed towards aspects related to authorization and access controls. This is legitimate because identification, authentication, and auditing1 normally fall within the scope of the underlying operating system and integrity and consistency policies are subject to the closely related topic of ‘semantic data modeling’ or are dependent on the physical design of the DBMS software (namely, the transaction and recovery manager). Because most of the research in database security has concentrated on the relational data model, the discussion in this Chapter mostly concerns the framework of relational databases. However, the results described may generally be applicable to other database models as well. For an overall discussion on basic database security concepts consult the surveys by Jajodia and Sandhu (1990a), Lunt and Fernandez (1990), or Denning (1988). For references to further readings consult the annotated bibliography by Pernul and Luef (1992). The outline of this Chapter is as follows: In the remainder of the opening Section we shortly review the relational data model, we introduce a simple example that will be used throughout the Chapter, we present the basic terminology used in computer security, and we describe the most successful methods that might be used to penetrate a database. Because of the diversity of application domains for databases different security models and techniques 1. However, audit records are often stored and examined by using the DBMS software. 4 have been proposed so far. In Section 2 we review, evaluate, and compare the most prominent representatives among them. Section 3 contains an investigation of secure (trusted) database management systems (DBMSs). These are special purpose systems that support a level-based security policy and were designed and implemented with main focus on the enforcement of high security requirements. Section 4 focuses on one of the major problems level-based security related database research has to deal with. In this Section we address the problem of how to classify the data stored in the database with security classifications reflecting the security requirements of the application domain properly. What is necessary to counter this problem is to have a clear understanding of all the security semantics of the database application and a resulting clever database design. A semantic data/security model is proposed to arrive at a conceptualization and a clear understanding of the security semantics of the database application. Database security (and computer security in general) is subject to many national and international standardization efforts. The efforts have the goal to develop metrics to evaluate the degree of trust that can be placed in computer products used for the processing of sensitive information. In Section 5 we will briefly review these proposals. In Section 6 we will point out research challenges in database security and we will give our opinion of the direction in which we expect the entire field to move within the next few years. Finally, Section 7 will conclude this Chapter. 1. 1 The Relational Data Model Revisited The relational data model was invented by Codd (1970) and is described in most database textbooks. A relational database supports the relational data model and must have three basic principles: a set of relations, integrity rules, and a set of relational operators. Each relation consists of a state-invariant relation schema RS(A1, ,An), where each Ai is called attribute and defined over a domain dom(Ai). A relation R is a state-dependent instance of RS and consists of a set of distinct tuples of the form (a1, ,an), where each element ai must satisfy dom(Ai) (i. e. aiIdom(Ai)). Integrity constraints restrict the set of theoretically possible tuples (i. e. dom(A1) ? dom(A2) ? ? dom(An)) to the set of practically meaningful. Let X and Y denote sets of one or more of the attributes Ai in a relation schema. We say Y is functional dependent on X, written X ®Y, if and only if it is not possible to have two tuples with the same value for X but different values for Y. Functional dependencies represent the basis for most integrity constraints in the relation model of data. As not all possible relations are meaningful in an application, only those that satisfy certain integrity constraints are considered. 5 From the large set of proposed integrity constraints two are of major relevance for security: the key property and the referential integrity property. The key property states that each tuple must be uniquely identified by a key and a key attribute must not have the null-value. As a consequence each event of reality may be represented in the database only once. Referential integrity states that tuples referenced in one relation must exist in others and is expressed by means of foreign keys. These two rules are application independent and must be valid in each relational database. In addition many application dependent semantic constraints may exist in different databases. Virtual view relations (or shortly views) are distinguished from base relations. While the former are the result of relational operations and exists only virtually, the latter are actually present in the database and hold the stored data. Relational operations consist of the set operations, a select operation for selecting tuples from relations that satisfy a certain predicate, a project operation for projecting a relation on a subset of its attributes and a join operation for combining attributes and tuples from different relations. The relational data model was first implemented as System R by IBM and as INGRES at U. C. Berkeley. These two projects have mainly started and also considerably advanced the field of database security research. Both systems are the basis of most commercially available products. A few words on designing a database are in order. The design of a relational database is a complicated and difficult task and involves several phases and activities. Before the final relation schemas can be determined a careful requirements analysis and a conceptualization of the database is necessary. Usually this is done by using a conceptual data model which must be powerful enough to allow the modeling of all application relevant knowledge. The conceptual model is used as an intermediate representation of the database and finally transferred into corresponding relation schemas. It is very important to use a conceptual data model at this step because only such a high level data model allows to achieve a database that properly represents all of the application dependent data semantics. De facto standard for conceptual design is the Entity Relationship Approach (ER) (Chen, 1976) or one of its variants. In its graphical representation and in its simplest form the ER regards the world as consisting of a set of entity types (boxes), attributes (connected to boxes) and relationship types (diamonds). Relationship types are defined between entity types and are either of degree 1:1, 1:n, or n:m. The degree describes the maximum number of participating entities. Following is a short example of a relational database. This example will be used throughout the Chapter. It is very simple but sufficient to discuss many 6 ecurity relevant questions and to show the complexity of the field. Figure 1 contains the conceptualization of the database in form of an ER diagram and the corresponding relation schemas (key attributes are underlined, foreign keys are in italics). The database represents the fact that projects within an enterprise are carried out by employees. In this simple example we have to deal with the following three security objects: First, Employee represents a set of employees each of which is uniquely described by a characteristic SSN (i. e. the social security number). Of further interest are the Name, the Department the employee is working for, and the Salary of the employee. Second, Project is a set of projects carried out by the enterprise. Each project has an identifying Title, a Subject, and a Client. Finally, security object Assignment contains the assignments of employees to projects. Each assignment is characterized by the Date of the assignment and the Function the employee has to perform during the participation in the project. A single employee can be assigned to more than one project and a project may be carried out by more than one employee. 1. The Vocabulary of Security and Major DB Security Threats Before presenting the details of database security research it is necessary to define the terminology used and the potential threats to database security. As already has been pointed out, security requirements are stated by means of a security policy which consists of a set of laws, rules and practices that regulate how an organization man ages, protects, and distributes sensitive information. In general, a security policy is stated in terms of a set of security objects and a set of security subjects. A security object is a passive entity that contains or receives information. This might be a structured concept like a whole database, Employee Project Assignment N M Date Function SSN Title Title Subject Client SSN Name Dep Salary Employee (SSN, Name, Dep, Salary) Project (Title, Subject, Client) Assignment (Title, SSN, Date, Function) FIG. 1. Representations of the Example DB 7 a relation, a view, a tuple, an attribute, an attribute value, or even a fact of reality which is represented in the database. A security object might also be unstructured like a physical memory segment, a byte, a bit, or even a physical device like a printer or a processor. Please note, the term object is used differently in other computer science disciplines. Within the framework presented here, security objects are the target of protection. A security subject is an active entity, often in the form of a person (user) or process operating on behalf of a user. Security subjects are responsible for a change of a database state and cause information to flow within different objects and subjects. Most sources of threats to database security come from outside the computing system. If most emphasis is given to authorization, the users and processes operating on behalf of the users must be subject to security control. An active database process may be operating on behalf of an authorized user who has legitimate access or may be active on behalf of a person who succeeded in penetrating the system. In addition, an authorized database user may act as an ‘information channel’ by passing restricted information to unauthorized users. This may be intentionally or without knowledge of the authorized user. Some of the most successful database penetration methods are:  · Misuses of authority Improper acquisition of resources, theft of programs or storage media, modification or destruction of data. Logical Inference and Aggregation Both deal with users authorized to use the database. Logical inference arises whenever sensitive information can be inferred from combining less sensitive data. This may also involve certain knowledge from outside the database system. Tightly related to logical inference is the aggregation problem, wherein individual data items are not sensitive but a large enough c ollection of individual values taken together is considered sensitive.  · Masquerade A penatrator may gain unauthorized access by masquerading as a different person.  · Bypassing Controls This might be password attacks and exploitation of system trapdoors that avoid intended access control mechanisms. Trapdoors are security flaws that were built in the source code of a program by the original programmer.  · Browsing A penetrator circumvents the protection and searches directory or 8 dictionary information, trying to locate privileged information. Unless strict need-to-know access controls are implemented the browsing problem is a major flaw of database security.  · Trojan Horses A Trojan horse is hidden software that tricks a legitimate user without his knowledge to perform certain actions he is not aware of. For example, a Trojan Horse may be hidden into a sort routine and be designed to release certain data to unauthorized users. Whenever a user activates the sort routine, for example for sorting the result of a database query, the Trojan horse will act with the users identity and thus will have all privileges of the user.  · Covert Channels Usually information stored in a database is retrieved by means of legitimate information channels. In contrast to legitimate channels covert channels are paths that are not normally intended for information transfer. Such hidden paths may either be storage channels like shared memory or temporary files that could be used for communication purposes or timing channels like a degradation of overall system performance.  · Hardware, Media Attacks Physical attacks on equipment and storage media. The attack scenario described above is not restricted to occur in databases only. For example, the German Chaos Computer Club succeeded in attacking a NASA system masqueraded, by bypassing access controls (by means of an operating system flaw) and Trojan horses to capture passwords. As reported by Stoll (1988) some of these techniques were also used by the Wily Hacker. The Internet worm in 1988 exploited trapdoors in electronic mail handling systems and infected more than 5000 machines connected to the Internet network (Rochlis and Eichin, 1989). Thompson (1984), in his Turing Award Lecture, demonstrated a Trojan horse placed in the executable form of a compiler that permitted the insertion of a trapdoor in each program compiled with the compiler. It is generally agreed that the number of the known cases of computer abuse is significantly smaller than the cases actually happened because in this topic a large number of dark figures exist. 2. Database Security Models 9 Because of the diversity of the application domains for databases different security models and techniques have been proposed to counter the various threats against the security. In this Section we will discuss the most prominent among them. In a nutshell, Discretionary Security specifies the rules under which subjects can, at their discretion, create and delete objects, and grant and revoke authorizations for accessing objects to others. In addition to controlling the access Mandatory Security regulates the flow of information between objects and subjects. Mandatory security controls are very effective but suffer from several drawbacks. One attempt to overcome certain limitations of mandatory protection systems is the Adapted Mandatory Access Control (AMAC) model, a security technique that focuses on the design aspect of secure databases. The Personal Knowledge Approach is concentrating on enforcing the basic law of many countries for the informational selfdetermination of humans and the Clark and Wilson Model tries to represent common commercial business practice in a computerized security model. First attempts to compare some of these techniques have been made by Biskup (1990) and Pernul and Tjoa (1992). Landwehr (1981) is a very good survey of formal policies for computer security in general and Millen (1989) focuses on various aspects of mandatory computer security. 2. 1 Discretionary Security Models Discretionary security models are fundamental to operating systems and DBMSs and have now been studied for a long time. From 1970 through 1975, there was a good deal of interest in the theoretical aspects of these models. Then most of the relational database security research has turned to other security techniques. However, the appearance of more advanced data models has renewed interest in discretionary policies. 2. 1. 1 Discretionary Access Controls Discretionary access controls (DAC) are based on the concepts of a set of security objects O, a set of security subjects S, a set of access privileges T defining what kind of access a subject has to a certain object, and in order to represent content-based access rules a set of predicates P. Applied to relational databases O is a finite set of values {o1, ,on} representing relation schemas, S is a finite set of potential subjects {s1, sm} representing users, groups of them, or transactions operating on behalf of users. Access types (privileges) are the set of database operations such as select, insert, delete, update, execute, grant, or 10 revoke and predicate pIP defines the access window of subject sIS on object oIO. The tuple o,s,t,p is called access rule and a function f is defined to determine if an authorization f(o,s,t,p) is valid or not: : O ? S ? T ? P  ® {True, False}. For any o,s,t,p, if f(o,s,t,p) evaluates into True, subject s has authorization t to access object o within the range defined by predicate p. An important property of discretionary security models is the support of the principle of delegation of rights where a right is the (o,t,p)-portion of the access rule. A subject si who holds the right (o,t,p) may be allowed to delegate that right to ano ther subject sj (i? j). Most systems supporting DAC store access rules in an access control matrix. In its simplest form the rows of the matrix represent subjects, the columns represent the objects and the intersection of a row and a column contains the access type that subject has authorization for with respect to the object. The access matrix model as a basis for discretionary access controls was formulated by Lampson (1971) and subsequently refined by Graham and Denning (1972), and by Harrison et al. (1976). A more detailed discussion on discretionary controls in databases may be found in the book by Fernandez et al. (1981). Discretionary security is enforced in most commercial DBMS products and is based on the concept of database views. Instead of authorizing a user to the base relations of a system the information of the access control matrix is used to restrict the user to a particular subset of the data available. Two main system architectures for view-based protection can be identified: query modification and view relations. Query modification is implemented in Ingres-style DBMSs (Stonebraker and Rubinstein 1976) and consists of appending additional security relevant qualifiers to a user supplied query. View relations are unmaterialized queries which are based on physical base relations. Instead of authorizing the users to base relations they have access to the virtual view relations only. By means of qualifiers in the view definition security restrictions can be implemented. View relations are the underlying protection mechanism of System R-based DBMSs (Griffiths and Wade, 1976). 2. 1. 2 DAC-based Structural Limitations Although very common discretionary models suffer from major drawbacks when pplied to databases with security critical content. In particular we see the following limitations:  · Enforcement of the security policy 11 DAC is based on the concept of ownership of information. In contrast to enterprise models, where the whole enterprise is the ‘owner’ of information and responsible for granting access to stored data, DAC systems assign the ownership of information to the creator of the data items in the database and allow the creator subject to grant acc ess to other users. This has the disadvantage that the burden of enforcing the security requirements of the enterprise is in the responsibility of the users themselves and cannot be controlled by the enterprise without involving high costs.  · Cascading authorization If two or more subjects have the privilege of granting or revoking certain access rules to other subjects this may lead to cascading revocation chains. As an example consider subjects s1, s2, s3, and access rule (s1,o,t,p). Subject s2 receives the privilege (o,t,p) from s1 and grants this access rule to s3. Later, s1 grants (o,t,p) again to s3 but s2 revokes (o,t,p) from s3 because of some reason. The effect of these operations is that s3 still has the authorization (from s1) to access object o by satisfying predicate p and using privilege t even if subject s2 has revoked it. This has the consequence that subject s2 is not aware of the fact that authorization (s3,o,t,p) is still in effect.  · Trojan Horse attacks In systems supporting DAC the identity of the subjects is crucial, and if actions can be performed using another subject’s identity, then DAC can be subverted. A Trojan Horse can be used to grant a certain right (o,t,p) of subject si on to sj (i? j) without the knowledge of subject si. Any program which runs on behalf of a subject acts with the identity of the subject and therefore has all of the DAC access rights of the subject’s processes. If a program contains a Trojan Horse with the functionality of granting access rules on to other users this cannot be restricted by discretionary access control methods.  · Update problems View-based protection results in unmaterialized queries which have no explicit physical representation in the database. This has the advantage of being very flexible to support the subjects with different views and to automatically filter out data a subject is not authorized to access but has the disadvantage that not all data is updateable through certain views. This is due to integrity reasons that might be violated in data not contained in the view by updating data from the view. 2. 2 Mandatory Security Models 12 Mandatory policies address a higher level of threat than discretionary policies because in addition to controlling the access to data they control the flow of data as well. Moreover, mandatory security techniques overcome the structural limitations of DAC-based protection as described above. 2. 2. 1 Mandatory Access Controls While discretionary models are concerned with defining, modeling, and enforcing access to information mandatory security models are in addition concerned with the flow of information within a system. Mandatory security requires that security objects and subjects are assigned to certain security levels represented by a label. The label for an object o is called its classification (class(o)) and a label for a subject s is called its clearance (clear(s)). The classification represents the sensitivity of the labeled data while the clearance of a subject its trustworthiness to not disclose sensitive information to others. A security label consists of two components: a level from a hierarchical list of sensitivity levels or access classes (for example: top_secret secret confidential unclassified) and a member of a non hierarchical set of categories, representing classes of object types of the universe of discourse. Clearance and classification levels are totally ordered resulting security labels are only partially ordered thus, the set of classifications forms a lattice. In this lattice security class c1 is comparable to and dominates (? ) c2 if the sensitivity level of c1 is greater than or equal to that of c2 and the categories in c1 contain those in c2. Mandatory security grew out of the military environment where it is practice to label information. However, this custom is also common in many companies and organizations where labels termed like ‘confidential’ or ‘company confidential’ are used. Mandatory access control (MAC) requirements are often stated based on Bell and LaPadula (1976) and formalized by two rules. The first (simple property) protects the information of the database from unauthorized disclosure, and the second (*-property) protects data from contamination or unauthorized modification by restricting the information flow from high to low. (1) Subject s is allowed to read data item d if clear(s) ? class(d). (2) Subject s is allowed to write data item d if clear(s) ? class(d). Few final sentences on MAC policies are in order. In many discussions confusion has arisen about the fact that in mandatory systems it is not only sufficient to have strong controls over who can read which data. Why is it necessary to include strong controls over who can write which data in systems with high security requirements? The reason is that a system with high security 13 needs must protect itself against attacks from unauthorized as well as from authorized users. There are several ways authorized users may disclose sensitive information to others. This can be done by mistake, as a deliberate illegal action, or the user may be tricked to do so by a Trojan horse attack. The simplest technique to disclose information by an authorized user is to retrieve it from the database, to copy it into an ‘owned’ object, and to make the copy available to others. To prevent from doing so, it is necessary to control the ability of the authorized user to make a copy (which implies the writing of data). In particular, once a transaction has successfully completed a read attempt, the protection system must ensure that there is no write to a lower security level (write-down) that is caused by a user authorized to execute a read transaction. As the read and write checks are both mandatory controls, a MAC system successfully protects against the attempt to copy information and to grant the copy to unauthorized users. By not allowing higher classified subjects to ‘write-down’ on lower classified data information flow among subjects with different clearances can efficiently be controlled. As covert storage channels require writing to objects the *-property also helps to limit leakage of information by these hidden paths. Mandatory integrity policies have also been studied. Biba (1977) has formulated an exact mathematical dual of the Bell-LaPadula model, with integrity labels and two properties: no-write-up in integrity and no-read-down in integrity. That is, low integrity objects (including subjects) are not permitted to contaminate higher integrity objects, or in other words no resource is permitted to depend upon other resources unless the latter are at least as trustworthy as the former. As an interesting optional feature mandatory security and the Bell- LaPadula (BLP) paradigm may lead to multilevel databases. These are databases containing relations which may appear different to users with different clearances. This is due to the following two reasons: Firstly, not all clearances may authorize all subjects to all data and secondly, the support of MAC may lead to polyinstantiation of attributes or tuples. We will discuss polyinstantiation and the mandatory relational data model in more detail in the next Subsection. 2. 2. 2 The Multilevel Secure Relational Data Model In this Subsection we will define the basic components of the multilevel secure (MLS) relational data model. We will consider the most general case in which an individual attribute value is subject to security label assignment. We will start by using the example database scenario from the Introduction. 14 Throughout the text, whenever we refer to the example we assume the existence of four sensitivity levels, denoted by TS, S, Co, U (where TSSCoU) and a single category only. In each relational schema TC is an additional attribute and contains the tuple classification. Consider the three different instances of relation Project as given in Figure 2. Fig. 2(a) corresponds to the view of a subject s with clear(s) = S. Because of the simple property of BLP (read access rule) users cleared at U would see the instances of Project as shown in Fig. 2(b). In this case the simple property of BLP would automatically filter out data that dominate U. Consider further a subject s with clear (s) = U and an insert operation where the user wishes to insert the tuple Alpha, Production, D into the relation shown in Fig. 2(b). Because of the key integrity property a standard relational DBMS would not allow this operation (Although not seen by user s Alpha as a key already exists in relation Project. ). However, from a security point of view the insert must not be rejected because otherwise a covert signalling channel occurs from which s may conclude that sensitive information he is not authorized to access may exist. The outcome of the operation is shown in Fig. 2 (c) and consists of a polyinstantiated tuple in MLS relation Project. A similar situation may occur if a subject cleared for the U-level would update Beta, null, null in Project as shown in Fig. 2(b) by replacing the null-values with certain data items. Again, this would lead to polyinstantiation in relation Project. As another example of FIG. 2. Instances of MLS Relation ‘Project’ (b) Project U Title Subject Client TC Beta, U -, U -, U U Celsius, U Production, U C, U U (a) Project S Title Subject Client TC Alpha, S Development, S A, S S Beta, U Research, S B, S S Celsius, U Production, U C, U U (c) Polyinstantiation at the tuple level Title Subject Client TC Alpha, S Development, S A, S S Beta, U Research, S B, S S Celsius, U Production, U C, U U Alpha, U Production, U D, U U 15 polyinstantiation consider that subject s with clear(s)=S wants to update Celsius, Production, C. In systems supporting MAC such an update is not allowed because of the *-property of BLP. This is necessary because an undesired information flow might occur between subjects cleared at the S-level to subjects cleared at the U-level. Thus, if a S-level subject wishes to update the tuple the update again must result into polyinstantiation. The problem of polyinstantiation arises because of the avoidance of a covert channel. Lampson (1973) has defined a covert channel as a means of downward information flow. As example let us consider the situation described above once more. If an insert operation is rejected to a subject because of the presence of a tuple at a higher level, the subject might be able to infer the existence of that tuple, resulting in a downward information flow. With respect to security much more may happen than just inferring the presence of a tuple. The success or failure of the service request, for example, can be used repeatedly to communicate one bit of information (0: failure, 1: success) to the lower level. Therefore, the problem is not only the inferring of a classified tuple, moreover, any information visible at the higher level can be sent through a covert channel to the lower level. The theory of most data models is built around the concept, that a fact of reality is represented in the database only once. Because of polyinstantiation this fundamental property is no longer true for MLS databases thus making the development of a new theory necessary. The state of development of a MLS relational theory has been considerably advanced by the researchers involved in the SeaView project. For example, see Denning et al. (1988) or Lunt et al. (1990). The following discussion of the theoretical concepts behind the MLS relational data model is mainly based on the model developed by Jajodia and Sandhu (1991a). In the Jajodia-Sandhu model each MLS relation consists of a state-invariant multilevel relation schema RS (A1, C1, , An, Cn, TC), where each Ai is an attribute defined over a domain dom(Ai), each Ci is classification for Ai and TC is the tuple-class. The domain of Ci is defined by [Li, Hi] which is a sublattice of all security labels. The resulting domain of TC is [lub {Li, i=1.. n}, lub {Hi, i=1.. n}], where lub denotes least upper bound operation in the sublattice of security labels. In the Jajodia-Sandhu model TC is included but is an unnecessary attribute. A multilevel relation schema corresponds to a collection of state-dependent relation instances R, one for each access class c. A relation instance is denoted by Rc (A1, C1, An, Cn, TC) and consists of a set of distinct tuples of the form (a1, c1, , an, cn, tc) where each ai I dom (Ai), c ? ci, ci I [Li, Hi], and tc = lub 16 {ci, i=1.. n}. We use the notion t[Ai] to refer to the value of attribute Ai in tuple t while t[Ci] denotes the classification of Ai in tuple t. Because of the simpleproperty of BLP, t[Ai] is visible for subjects with clear(s) ? [Ci]; otherwise t[Ai] is replaced with the null-value. The standard relational model is based on two core integrity properties: the key property and the referential integrity property. In order to meet the requirements for MLS databases both have been adapted and two further properties have been introduced. In the standard relational data model a key is derived by using the concept of functional dependencies. In the MLS relational mode l such a key is called apparent key. Its notion has been defined by Jajodia et al. (1990). For the following we assume RS (A1, C1, An, Cn, TC) being a MLS relation schema and A (AI{A1, , An}) the attribute set forming its apparent key. [MLS Integrity property 1]: Entity Integrity. A MLS relation R satisfies entity integrity if and only if for all instances Rc and t I Rc 1. Ai I A ? t[Ai] ? null 2. Ai, Aj I A ? t[Ci] = t[Cj] 3. Ai I A ? t[Ci] ? t[CA] (CA is classification of key A) Entity integrity states that the apparent key may not have the null value, must be uniformly classified and its classification must be dominated by all classifications of the other attributes. [MLS Integrity property 2]: Null Integrity. R satisfies null integrity if and only if for each Rc of R the following conditions hold: 1. For every tIRc, t[Ai]=null ? t[Ci] = t[CA] 2. Rc is subsumtion free, i. e. does not contain two distinct tuples such that one subsumes the other. A tuple t subsumes a tuple s, if for every attribute Ai, either t[Ai, Ci] = s[Ai, Ci] or t[Ai] ? null and s[Ai] = null. Null integrity states that null values must be classified at the level of the key and that for subjects cleared for the higher security classes, the null values visible for the lower clearances are replaced by the proper values automatically. The next property deals with consistency between the different instances Rc of R. The inter-instance property was first defined by Denning et al. (1988) within the SeaView framework, later corrected by Jajodia and Sandhu (1990b) and later again included in SeaView by Lunt et al. (1990). [MLS Integrity property 3]: Inter-instance Integrity. R satisfies the interinstance integrity if for all instances Rc of R and all c’ c a filter function s produces Rc’. In this case Rc’ = s(Rc, c’) must satisfy the following conditions: 17 1. For every t I Rc such that t[CA] ? c’ there must be a tuple t’ I Rc’ 2. There are no additional tuples in Rc’ other than those derived by the above rule. Rc’ is made subsumtion free. The inter-instance property is concerned with consistency between relation instances of a multilevel relation R. The filter function s maps R to different instances Rc (one for each c’c). By using filtering a user may be restricted to that portion of the multilevel relation for which the user is cleared. If c’ dominates some security levels in a tuple but not others, then during query processing the filter function s replaces all attribute values the user is not cleared to see by null-values. Because of the use of this filter function a shortcoming in the Jajodia-Sandhu model has been pointed out by Smith and Winslett (1992). Smith and Winslett state that s introduces an additional semantics for nulls. In the Jajodia-Sandhu model a null value can now mean ‘information available but hidden’ and this null value cannot be distinguished from a null-value representing the semantics ‘value exists but not known’ or a null-value with the meaning ‘this property will never have a value’. In a database all kinds of nulls may be present nd at a certain security level it may be hard for the subjects to say what should be believed at that level. Let us now draw our attention to polyinstantiation. As we have seen in the example given above polyinstantiation may occur on several different occasions. For example, because of a user with low clearance trying to insert a tuple that already exists with higher classification, because of a user wanting to change values in a lower classified tuple, but it may also occur because of a deliberate action in form of a cover story, where lower cleared users should not be supported with the proper values of a certain fact. Some researchers state that using polyinstantiation for establishing cover stories is a bad idea and should not be permitted. However, if supported it may not occur within the same access class. [MLS integrity property 4]: Polyinstantiation Integrity. R satisfies polyinstantiation integrity if for every Rc and each attribute Ai the functional dependency A Ci  ® Ai (i=1.. n) holds. Property 4 states that the apparent key A and the classification of an attribute correspond to one and only one value of the attribute, i. e. polyinstantiation may not occur within one access class. In many DBMSs supporting a MLS relational data model multilevel relations exist only at the logical level. In such systems multilevel relations are with t’[A, CA] = t[A, CA] and for Ai I A t’[Ai, Ci] ={ t[Ai, Ci], if t[Ci] ? c’ null, t[CA], otherwise. 18 decomposed into a collection of single-level base relations which are then physically stored in the database. Completely transparent multilevel relations are constructed from these base-relations on user demand. The reasons behind this approach are mostly practical. Firstly, fragmentation of data based on its sensitivity is a natural and intuitive solution to security and secondly, available and well-accepted technology may be used for the implementation of MLS systems. In particular, the decomposition approach has the advantage that the underlying trusted computing base (TCB) needs not to be extended to include mandatory controls on multilevel relations and this helps to keep the code of the TCB small. Moreover, it allows the DBMS to run mostly as an untrusted application on top of the TCB. We will come back to this issue in Section 3 when discussing different implementations of Trusted DBMSs. 2. 2. 3 MAC-based Structural Limitations Although being more restrictive than DAC models MAC techniques need some extensions to be applied to databases efficiently. In particular, we see as limitations the following drawbacks in multilevel secure databases and mandatory access controls based on BLP:  · Granularity of security object It is not yet agreed about what should be the granularity of labeled data. Proposals range from protecting whole databases, to protecting files, protecting relations, attributes, or even certain attribute values. In any case, careful labeling is necessary because otherwise it could lead to inconsistent or incomplete label assignments.  · Lack of automated security labeling technique Databases usually contain a large collection of data, serve many users, and labeled data is not available in many civil applications. This is the reason manual security labeling is necessary which may result in an almost endless process for large databases. Therefore, supporting techniques are needed, namely guidelines and design aids for multilevel databases, tools that help in determining the relevant security objects, and tools that suggest clearances and classifications.  · N-persons access rules Because of information flow policies higher cleared users are restricted from writing-down on lower classified data items. However, organizational policies may require that certain tasks need to be carried out by two or more 19 persons (four-eyes-principle) having different clearances. As an example onsider subjects s1, s2 with clear(s1) clear(s2), data item d with class(d) = clear(s2) and the business rule that writing of s2 on d needs the approval of s1. Following Bell-LaPadula’s write-access rule would require the same level of clearance for s1 and s2. This may be inadequate for business applications of MLS database technology. 2. 3 The Adapted Mandatory Access Control Model Adapting mandatory access controls to better fit in to general purpose data processing practice and offering a design framework for databases containing sensitive information are the main goals of the Adapted Mandatory Access Control (AMAC) model. In order to overcome the MAC-based limitations stated above AMAC offers several features that assist a database designer in performing the different activities involved in the design of a database containing sensitive information. For AMAC as a security technique for databases we see the following advantages:  · The technique supports all phases of the design of a database and can be used for the construction of discretionary protected as well as for the construction of mandatory protected databases.  · In the case mandatory protection is required a supporting policy to derive database fragments as the target of protection is provided. This overcomes the discussion about what should be the granularity of the security object in multilevel systems.  · In the case mandatory protection is required automated security labeling for security objects and subjects is supported. Automated labeling leads to candidate security labels that can be refined by a human security administrator if necessary. This overcomes the limitation that labeled data often is not available.  · In AMAC security is enforced by using database triggers and thus can be fine-tuned to meet application dependent security requirements. For example, the n-eyes-principle may be supported in some applications and may not in others where information flow control is a major concern of the security policy. We will first give a general overview of the AMAC technique which is followed by a more formal discussion and an example. 20 2. 3. 1 AMAC General Overview Adapted mandatory security belongs to the class of role-based security models which assume that each potential user of the system performs a certain role in the organization. Based on their role users are authorized to execute specific database operations on a predefined set of data. The AMAC model does not only cover access control issues but includes in addition a database design environment with main emphasis on the security of resulting databases. Resulting databases may be implemented in DBMSs supporting DAC only or supporting DAC and MAC. The technique combines well known and widely accepted concepts from the field of data modeling with concepts from the area of data security research. By using AMAC the following design phases for security critical databases can be identified. (1) Requirements Analysis and Conceptual Design. Based on the role they perform in the organization the potential users of the database can be classified into different groups. For different roles data and security requirements may differ significantly. The Entity-Relationship (ER) model and its variants serve as an almost de facto standard for conceptual database design and have been extended in AMAC to model and describe security requirements. The security and data requirements of each role performed in the organization are described by individual ER-schemas and form the view (perception) of each user group on the enterprise data. Please note, in this setting the notion of a view denotes all the information a user performing a certain role in the organization is aware of. This information includes data, security requirements, and functions. Thus, the notion of views appears different from that in a DAC environment. In order to arrive at a conceptualization of the whole information system as seen from the viewpoint of the enterprise AMAC uses view integration techniques in a further design step. The resulting conceptual database model is described by a single ER-schema extended by security flags indicating ecurity requirements for certain user roles. (2) Logical Design. In order to implement the conceptual schema into a DBMS a transformation from the ER-schema into the data model supported by the DBMS in use is necessary. AMAC contains general rules and guidelines for the translation of ER-schemas into the relational data model. Output of the transformation process is a set of relational schemas, global depende ncies defined between schemas and necessary for database consistency during further design steps, and a set of views, now describing access requirements on relation schemas. If the DBMS that should hold the resulting database is only capable to support DAC the relational schemas are candidates for implementation and the view descriptors are used for discretionary access controls. In the case the DBMS under consideration supports MAC further design activities are 21 necessary. The Requirements Analysis, Conceptual and Logical Design phases in AMAC are described by Pernul and Tjoa (1991). (3) The AMAC security object. In order to enforce mandatory security it is necessary to determine security objects and security subjects which are both subject to security label assignments. In AMAC a security object is a database fragment and a subject is a view. Fragments are derived by using structured database decomposition and views are derived by combining these fragments. A fragment is the largest area of the database to which two or more views have access in common. Additionally, no view exists that has access to a subset of the fragment only. Pernul and Luef (1991) have developed the structured decomposition approach and the automated labeling policy. Their work includes techniques for a lossless decomposition into fragments and algorithms to keep fragmented databases consistent during database update. It should be noted that a database decomposition into disjoint fragments is a natural way to implement security controls in databases. (4) Support of automated security labeling. As in most IT applications labeled data is not available, AMAC offers a supporting policy for the automated security labeling of security objects and security subjects. Automated labeling is based on the following assumption: The larger the number of users cleared to access a particular fragment, the lower is the sensitivity of the contained data and thus, the lower is the level of classification that needs to be provided for the fragment. This assumption seems to be valid because a fragment that is accessed by many users will not contain sensitive information and at the other side, a fragment that is accessible for few users only can be classified as being highly sensitive. Views (respectively the users having the view as their access window to the data) are ordered based on the number of fragments they may access (they are defined over) and additionally based on the assigned classifications for the fragments. In general, a view needs a clearance that allows the corresponding users to access all fragments the view is defined over. The suggested classification class(F) applies to the whole fragmental schema F as well as to all attribute names and type definitions for the schema while the suggested clearance clear(V) to all transactions executing on behalf of a user V. It should be noted that classifications and clearances are only candidates for security labels and may be refined by a human database designer if necessary. (5) Security Enforcement. In AMAC the fragments are physically stored and access to a fragment may be controlled by a reference monitor. Security is enforced by using trigger mechanisms. Triggers are hidden rules that can be fired (activated) if a fragment is effected by certain database operations. In databases security critical operations are the select (read access), the insert, 22 elete, and update (write accesses) commands. In AMAC select In AMAC security constraints are handled during database design as well as during query processing. During database design they are expressed by the database decomposition while during query processing they are enforced by the trigger mechanisms. In the following we will give the technical details of the decomposition process, the decomposition itself, the automated security labeling proc ess, and certain integrity constraints that need to be considered in order to arrive at a satisfactorily fragmentation. In AMAC it is assumed that Requirements Analysis is performed on an individual user group basis and that the view on the database of each user group is represented by an Entity-Relationship (ER) model. The ER model has been extended to cover in addition to data semantics the access restrictions of the user group. The next design activity is view integration. View integration techniques are well established in conceptual database design and consist of integrating the views of the individual user groups into a single conceptual representation of the database. In AMAC the actual integration is based on a traditional approach and consists of two steps: integration of entity types and integration of relationship types (Pernul and Tjoa, 1991). During the integration correspondences between the modeling constructs in different views are established and based on the different possibilities of correspondences the integration is performed. After the integration the universe of discourse is represented by a single ER diagram extended by the access restrictions for each user group. The next step is the transformation of the conceptual model into a target data model. AMAC offers general rules for the translation into the relational data model. The translation is quite simple and results into three different types of modeling constructs: relation schemas (entity type relations or relationship type relations), interrelational dependencies defined between relation schemas, and a set of view descriptors defined on relation schemas and representing security requirements in the form of access restrictions for the different user groups. 23 In the relational data model user views have no conceptual representation. The decomposition and labeling procedure in AMAC is build around the concept of a user view and this makes a simple extension of the relational data model necessary. Let RS(ATTR,LD) be a relation schema with ATTR a set of attributes {A1, ,An}. Each AiIATTR has a domain dom(Ai). LD is a set of functional dependencies (FDs) restricting the set of theoretically possible instances of a relation R with schema RS (i. e. ?i dom(Ai)) to the set of semantically meaningful. A relation R with schema RS is a set of distinct instances (tuples) {t1, ,tm} of the form a1, ,an where ai is a value within dom(Ai). Let RS1(ATTR1,LD1) and RS2(ATTR2,LD2) be two relation schemas with corresponding relations R1 and R2. Let X and Y denote two attribute sets with XIATTR1 and YIATTR2. The interrelational inclusion dependency (ID) RS1[X]IRS2[Y] holds if for each tuple tIR1 exists at least one tuple t’IR2 and t[X]=t’[Y]. If Y is key in RS2 the ID is called key-based and Y is a foreign key in RS1. Let V={V1, ,Vp} be a set of views. A view Vi (ViIV, i=1.. p) consists of a set of descriptors specified in terms of attributes and a set of conditions on these attributes. The set of attributes spanned by the view can belong to one or more relation schemas. View conditions represent the access restrictions of a particular user group on the underlying base relations. For each user group there must be at least one view. The concepts defined above serve as the basis of an AMAC conceptual start schema SS. SS may be defined by a triple SS(A,GD,V), where: A = {RS1(ATTR1,LD1), ,RSn(ATTRn,LDn)} is a set of relation schemas, GD = {ID1, ,IDk} is a set of key-based IDs, and V = {V1, ,Vm} is the set of views. In the case discretionary protection is sufficient, the relational schemas are candidates for implementation in a DBMS, the views may be used to implement content-based access controls and the set GD of global dependencies may be associated with an insert-rule, a delete-rule, and a modification-rule in order to ensure referential integrity during database peration. In the case DAC is not sufficient and MAC should be supported it is necessary to determine the security objects and subjects and to assign appropriate classifications and clearances. In order to express the security requirements defined by means of the views a decomposition of SS into single level fragments is necessary. The decomposition is based on the derived view structure and results in a set of fragmental schemas in a wa y, that no view is defined over a subset of a resulting schema only. A single classification is 24 ssigned to each fragmental schema and the decomposition is performed by using a vertical, horizontal, or derived horizontal fragmentation policy. A vertical fragmentation (vf) results into a set of vertical fragments (F1, ,Fr) and is the projection of a relation schema RS onto a subset of its attributes. In order to make the decomposition lossless the key of RS must be included in each vertical fragment. A vertical fragmentation (vf) R=(F1, ,Fr) of a relation R is correct, if for every tuple tIR, t is the concatenation of (v1, vr) with vi tuple in Fi (i=1.. r). The (vf) is used to express ‘simple’ security constraints that restrict users from accessing certain attributes. The effects of (vf) on an existing set of FDs have been studied by Pernul and Luef (1991) and the authors show that if R is not in 3NF (third normal form) some FDs might get lost during a decomposition. In order to produce a dependency preserving decomposition in AMAC they have suggested to include virtual attributes (not visible for any user) and update clusters in vertical fragments in the case a schema is not in 3NF. A horizontal fragmentation (hf) is a subdivision of a relation R with schema RS(ATTR,LD) into a subset of its tuples based on the evaluation of a predicate defined on RS. The predicate is expressed as a boolean combination of terms, each term being a simple comparison that can be established as true or false. An attribute on which a (hf) is defined is called selection attribute. A (hf) is correct, if every tuple of R is mapped into exactly one resulting fragment. Appending one horizontal fragment to another leads to a further horizontal fragment or to R again. A (hf) is used to express access restrictions based on the content of certain tuples. A derived horizontal fragmentation (dhf) of a relation Ri with schema RSi(ATTRi,LDi) is partitioning RSi by applying a partitioning criterion that is defined on RSj (i? j). A (dhf) is correct if there exists a key-based ID of the form Ri[X]IRj[Y] and each tuple tIRi is mapped into exactly one of the resulting horizontal fragments. A (dhf) may be used to express access restrictions that span several relations. A view Vi (Vi IV) defined on A represents the area of the database to which a corresponding user group has access. Let F (F=ViCVj) be a database fragment then F represents the area of the database to which two groups of users have access in common. If F=Vi Vj, then F is only accessible by users having view Vi as their interface to the database. In this case, F represents data which is not contained in Vj and must therefore not be accessible for the corresponding user set. From the point of view of a mandatory security policy a certain level of assurance must be given that users Vj are restricted from accessing F. In AMAC this is given by separation. For example, fragment (Vi 25 Vj) is separated from fragment (VjVi) and fragment (Vi CVj) even if all fragments belong to the same relation. The construction of the fragments makes a structured database decomposition necessary and in order to support mandatory access controls, the access windows for the users is constructed in a multilevel fashion such that only the necessary fragments are combined to form a particular view. Let Attr(V) be the attrib ute set spanned by view V and let the subdomain SD(V[A]) be the domain of attribute A valid in view V (SD(V[A])IDom(A)). Two particular views Vi and Vj are said to be overlapping, if: $Ao(AIAttr(ViCVj) and SD(Vi[A])CSD(Vj[A]) ? ?, otherwise, Vi and Vj are called isolated. The process of decomposing A (A={RS1(ATTR1,LD1), ,RSn(ATTRn,LDn)}) is performed for any two overlapping views and for each isolated view by using the (vf), (hf), and (dhf) decomposition operations. It results in a fragmentation schema FS={FS1(attr1,ld1), ,FSm(attrm,ldm)} and a corresponding set of fragments F (F={F1, ,Fm}). If Ei ATTRi = Ej attrj (i=1.. n, j=1.. m) the decomposition is called lossless and if Ei LDi I Ej ldj (i=1.. , j=1.. m) it is called dependency preserving. Please note that (hf) or (dhf) may result in additional FDs. A fragmental schema FSjIFS is not valid if for any view V ($Fj’IFj) (V? Fj’, VUFj). Here, V? F denotes that users with view V have access to fragment F while VUF means that F is not included in view V. To illustrate the concepts defined above we will apply the fragmentation policy to the example given in the Introduction of this Chapter. We assume, that the Requirements Analysis has been performed and that the resulted ER model has been translated into the following start schema: SS = ( A= { Employee ({SSN, Name, Dep, Salary}, {SSN  ® Name, Dep, Salary}), Project ({Title, Subject, Client}, {Title  ® Subject, Client}), Assignment ({Title, SSN, Date, Function}, {Title, SSN  ® Date, Function})}, GD ={AssignmentDatabase SecurityIProjectDatabase Security, Assignment[SSN]IEmployee[SSN]}, V = {V1, V2, V3, V4, V5}) The security policy of the organization requires to represent the following conditions on the security:  · View V1 represents the access window for the management of the organization under consideration. Users with view V1 should have access to 26 the whole database. Views V2 and V3 represent users of the pay-office department. Their requirements include access to Employee and Assignment. For V2 access to Employee is not restricted. However, access to attribute Function should only be provided in the case the employees’ Salary ? 100. Users V3 should only have access to employees and their assignments in the case the attribute Salary ? 80.  · View V4 has access to Project. However, access to attribute Client should not be supported in the case the subject of a project is ‘research’.  · View V5 represents the view of the users of the quality-control department. For them to perform their work it is necessary to have access to all information related to projects that have a subject ‘development’, i. e. to the project data, to the assignment data, and to the data concerning assigned employees. For security req

Different types of healthcare options in America Essays

Different types of healthcare options in America Essays Different types of healthcare options in America Paper Different types of healthcare options in America Paper Medicare and Medicaid programs were enacted in America’s constitution around 44years ago with an aim of setting aside a fund that would provide medical care for all American citizens. However, even with the presence of government programs, the public healthcare system is in a terrible state. (Anne O. James A. 564). In 2004 for instance, 45 millions of Americans were uninsured and â€Å"turned to hospital emergency rooms for even routine care† numbers of uninsured, it is projected that Medicare program will run out of funds if no suitable remedial action is taken. The reason why a lot of Americans are not insured is because they can nit afford the exorbitant medical care is attributed to the highly fragmented medical care system every medical care provider attempt â€Å"to get the biggest cut of health care dollar they can.† The industry reports that it is forced to charge high medical bills because they need to finance research and development. . (Anne O. James A. 564) As a result of the unaffordable charges, the number of people who have put off medical care is increasing leading to serious health conditions. There are different types of insurance for health care option and are categorized into:    Employed based health insurance coverage Under this we have: Small employer group This insurance option applies to employers who have 2-50 employees. The federal health insurance portability and accountability Act of1996 requires that health insurance contracts for small health groups be on guarantee issue basis and also guarantee renewable unless the employer has failed to pay premiums, committed fraud, intentionally misrepresented or has failed to comply with the terms of the health insurance contract. (Harry A. S 222)   This particular scheme is advantageous especially to smaller companies. Some small health group insurance programs provide additional benefits like free dental care. There is a large network of medical care providers who participate in these programs. There is benefit of economies of scale, making the charges per person lower than individual programs. The contributions of employers and in some cases the workers are not taxed. (Harry A. S 240) However, this scheme is not flexible whereby some organizations allows medical care from specified physicians. The employees in such cases are denied the opportunity of getting medical care from their favorite physicians or the physician of their choice. (Harry A. S 254) Large employer group This program is applicable for employers who have from 51 or more employees. The average charges are lower than both small groups and individual health insurance opting due to economics of scale. The contributions of both employers and employees in most cases are not taxable. Many employers allow their employees to temporary continue their health insurance under specified conditions for a specified period of time. (Ben Irvine) Individuals who have other insurance coverage or have not exhausted COBRA coverage are not provided with this benefit. This option also precludes individuals who did not previously belong to any health insurance coverage as well as those who have not stayed for 18 months prior to the previous creditable coverage. (Applicable to Washington State) Individual health insurance coverage This is the common plan that is in most cases entered by the self-employed and unemployed people. The person intending to secure this kind of plan is medically examined and his/her financial status evaluated by the insurance provider to determine whether the person is financially capable of sustaining the premium payments. (Ben Irvine)   This particular program has several advantages one of which is that a person can choose the benefits that she/he would like provided in the insurance package. If a person under an individual health insurance is unable to pay the monthly dues other insurance organizations that a person has entered can share the medical expenses incase the person becomes ill. (Ben Irvine) On the other hand it is a little bit more expensive than the group insurance schemes and for a person to be eligible to this plan; he/she must have been previously covered. Coverage for medically uninsurable persons