Phishing and Pharming Attacks

Phishing and Pharming Attacks In this report, it provides overview about phishing and pharming like what is phishing, what is pharming, what are the impacts that caused by phishing and pharming and what are the solutions can be apply to remediate or minimize the chance of being attack by phishing and pharming. Phishing are internet frauds or identity thefts that use to acquire or steal targeted victims sensitive information like personal identity data or financial account credentials. Phishing can be carried out by attackers using social engineering like sending email, through instant messaging (IM), peer to peer (P2P) networks, search engine and other techniques to redirect users to fraudulent website. Pharming is the new twist of internet fraud or identity theft. It is the evolutionary of phishing that used to achieve the same goal, but pharming is more sophisticated. Pharming can be carry out by using technical subterfuge such as DNS cache poisoning, domain hijacking and other techniques to redirect users to fraudulent website or proxy server to solicit users sensitive personal information. Phishing and pharming attack will cause financial impacts on the targeted victims or hard-hit to small organization. It will also cause the undermining of consumers confident in using internet over secure transaction or communication. Beside from this, phishing and pharming will also cause the law investigation become harder. Table of Content Summary2 Table of Content-3 Table of Tables and Figures4 Introduction-5 Method of Phishing Attack-6 2.1. Link Manipulation6 2.2 Filter Evasion7 2.3 Website Forgery7 2.4 Phone Phishing-8 2.5 Example of Phishing9 2.6 Phishing Report-10 Method of Pharming Attack13 How Pharming Works13 DNS cache poisoning16 Domain Hijacking16 Registration of similar sounding domains17 Impact caused by phishing / pharming18 Prevention of phishing and pharming20 Prevention: What to do?20 Prevention: What not to do?-21 Classic phishing defenses 21 Client-side21 Server-side22 Enterprise-22 Additional Pharming-Specific defenses23 Change Management, Monitoring and Alerting-23 Third-party Host Resolution Verification Services-24 DNS Server Patching, Updating and Configuration25 Search Engine Control-26 Conclusion-27 Recommendation29 Reference30 Bibliography31 Appendix32 Template 1.032 Template 2.034 TABLE OF TABLES AND FIGURES Figure 1-9 Figure 210 Figure 311 Figure 412 Figure 514 INTRODUCTION Phishing and Pharming are two of the most organized crimes of the 21st century requiring very little skill on the part of the fraudster. These result in identity theft and financial fraud when the fraudster tricks the online users into giving their confidential information like Passwords, Social Security Numbers, Credit Card Numbers, CVV Numbers, and personal information such as birthdates and mothers maiden names etc. This information is then either used by fraudsters for their own needs such as impersonate the victim to transfer funds from the victims account, purchase merchandise etc., or is sold in a variety of online brokering forums and chat channels for a profit. The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) study indicates that 26,877 phishing attacks were reported in October 2006, a 21 percent increase over Septembers 22,136 attacks and an increase of 70% as compared to October 2005. Through these attacks the fraudsters hijacked 176 brands resulting in huge financial losses and loss of reputation to enterprises. The Gartner study reported that more than 2 million Americans have had their checking accounts raided by criminals in 2004, the average loss per incident being $1,2002. With phishers developing evermore sophisticated attacks, these numbers are bound to increase in the near future. Hence, battling these attacks has become a high priority for Governments and Industry Groups. METHOD OF PHISHING ATTACK Link Manipulation Most methods of phishing use some form of technical deception designed to make a link in an e-mail (and the spoofed website it leads to) appear to belong to the spoofed organization. Misspelled URLs or the use of sub domains are common tricks used by phishers, such as this example URL, http://www.yourbank.example.com/. Another common trick is to make the anchor text for a link appear to be valid, when the link actually goes to the phishers site, such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genuine. An old method of spoofing used links containing the @ symbol, originally intended as a way to include a username and password (contrary to the standard). For example, the link http://[emailprotected]/ might deceive a casual observer into believing that it will open a page on www.google.com, whereas it actually directs the browser to a page on members.tripod.com, using a username of www.google.com: the page opens normally, regardless of the username supplied. Such URLs were disabled in Internet Explorer, while Mozilla and Opera present a warning message and give the option of continuing to the site or cancelling. A further problem with URLs has been found in the handling of Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) in web browsers, that might allow visually identical web addresses to lead to different, possibly malicious, websites. Despite the publicity surrounding the flaw, known as IDN spoofing or a homograph attack, no known phishing attacks have yet taken advantage of it.[citation needed] Phishers have taken advantage of a similar risk, using open URL redirectors on the websites of trusted organizations to disguise malicious URLs with a trusted domain. Filter Evasion Phishers have used images instead of text to make it harder for anti-phishing filters to detect text commonly used in phishing e-mails. 2.3 Website Forgery Once the victim visits the website the deception is not over. Some phishing scams use JavaScript commands in order to alter the address bar. This is done either by placing a picture of a legitimate URL over the address bar, or by closing the original address bar and opening a new one with the legitimate URL. An attacker can even use flaws in a trusted websites own scripts against the victim. These types of attacks (known as cross-site scripting) are particularly problematic, because they direct the user to sign in at their bank or services own web page, where everything from the web address to the security certificates appears correct. In reality, the link to the website is crafted to carry out the attack, although it is very difficult to spot without specialist knowledge. Just such a flaw was used in 2006 against PayPal. A Universal Man-in-the-middle Phishing Kit, discovered by RSA Security, provides a simple-to-use interface that allows a phisher to convincingly reproduce websites and capture log-in details entered at the fake site. To avoid anti-phishing techniques that scan websites for phishing-related text, phishers have begun to use Flash-based websites. These look much like the real website, but hide the text in a multimedia object. 2.4 Phone Phishing Not all phishing attacks require a fake website. Messages that claimed to be from a bank told users to dial a phone number regarding problems with their bank accounts. Once the phone number (owned by the phisher, and provided by a Voice over IP service) was dialed, prompts told users to enter their account numbers and PIN. Vishing (voice phishing) sometimes uses fake caller-ID data to give the appearance that calls come from a trusted organization. EXAMPLE OF PHISHING As scam artists become more sophisticated, so do their phishing e-mail messages and pop-up windows. They often include official-looking logos from real organizations and other identifying information taken directly from legitimate Web sites. The following is an example of what a phishing scam e-mail message might look like. Figure 1: Example of a phishing e-mail message, which includes a deceptive URL address that links to a scam Web site. To make these phishing e-mail messages look even more legitimate, the scam artists may place a link in them that appears to go to the legitimate Web site, but it actually takes you to a phony scam site or possibly a pop-up window that looks exactly like the official site. These copycat sites are also called spoofed Web sites. Once youre at one of these spoofed sites, you might unwittingly send personal information to the con artists. PHISHING REPORT Figure 2: The number of websites hosting key logging crime ware systems raise by over 1,100, reaching 3,362, the second highest number recorded in the preceding 12 months. Web sense Security Labs believes much of this increase is due to attackers increasing ability to co-opt sites to spread crime ware using automated tools. Figure 3: The number of unique key logger crime ware variants detected in January reached a new high of 364, an increase of 1.4% from the previous high in October, 2007. Figure 4: Anti-Phishing Working Group, Phishing Activity Trends Report, June 2005 Phishing undermines consumer confidence. Corporate websites of valid, well-respected companies are being cloned to sell nonexistent products, or to get consumers to participate in money-laundering activities while believing that they are dealing with a legitimate organization. The public relations consequences for the company that has had its website cloned can be as severe as the financial losses. 3.0 METHOD OF PHARMING ATTACK You must be well aware of phishing and its potential to cause damage. They bait bank customers with genuine looking emails and manage to usurp money or personal information from unsuspecting customers with reasonable success. You are also aware that responding to mails sent by your bank may not be a good idea because banks never require to send emails to get your credentials. They have more secure channels to get that information. However, pharming attacks do not require an attacker to send mails. By carrying out pharming attacks, a criminal can get access to a wider target than phishing emails and as quickly as possible. Hence the ph effect on the word farming. They are not fishing, they are farming for gullible people! By the way, pharming is a real dictionary word. HOW PHARMING WORKS Pharming attacks do not take advantage of any new technique. They use the well known DNS cache poisoning, domain spoofing and domain hijacking techniques that have been around for quite long. However, the motives of carrying out these attacks have changed. Earlier they were interested in just disrupting services and causing nuisance. But now, the game has become a matter of money than that of chest thumping. These techniques continue to exist because administrators and website owners dont care to secure and monitor their DNS servers while they have invested millions of dollars in application firewalls. How a typical pharming attack is carried out: Figure 5: 1. The attacker targets the DNS service used by the customer. This server can be a DNS server on the LAN or the DNS server hosted by an ISP for all users. The attacker, using various techniques, manages to change the IP address of www.nicebank.com to the IP address of a web server which contains a fake replica of nicebank.com. 2. User wants to go the website www.nicebank.com and types the address in the web browser. 3. Users computer queries the DNS server for the IP address of www.nicebank.com. 4. Since the DNS server has already been poisoned by the attacker, it returns the IP address of the fake website to the users computer. The users computer is tricked into thinking that the poisoned reply is the correct IP address of the website. The user has now been fooled into visiting fake website controlled by the attacker rather than the original www.nicebank.com website. Once the attacker has managed to get the user to visit the fake website, there are many ways in which the user can be tricked into revealing his / her credentials or giving out personal information. The beauty, or lets say, the notoriety of pharming over phishing is evident from the fact that one successful attempt in poisoning the DNS server can be potentially used to trick all the users of that DNS service. Much less effort and wider impact than phishing. DNS cache poisoning All DNS servers cache the queries that users have made for a certain period of time. This is done to speed up the responses to users for frequently used domains. This cache maintained by the DNS server can be poisoned by using malicious responses or taking advantage of vulnerabilities in the DNS software itself. Domain Hijacking This is an actual incident that took place a year ago. Panix, an ISP based in New York was the target of a domain hijack attack. All domains are typically registered with registrars which store information about the owner of a domain and location of the domains DNS servers. If any of this information is required to be changed, the approval of the domain owner is required. A domain owner can even switch registrars depending on costs and convenience. However, confirmation of the switch is required from all three parties, the domain owner, the old registrar and the new registrar. In case of Panix, a change was initiated by an unknown person in Australia. The person managed to skip confirmation from the old registrar and the domain owner. This was because the new registrar was not following the domain transfer process strictly. The result was, the unknown person managed to gain control over the panix.com domain completely. The person managed to divert all the web traffic of panix.com and customer emails to another server located in Canada. Domain hijacking has the widest impact because the attacker targets the domain registration information itself. Registration of similar sounding domains Similar sounding or similar looking domains are another source of security issues for internet users. An attacker can register a domain www.n1cebank.com and carry out pharming and phishing attacks on unsuspecting customers who dont notice the difference in the letter i being replaced by a 1. Also domain names created by typos on the original words (e.g. www.nicebqnk.com) manage to attract a lot of traffic. One such study on a popular domain cartoonnetwork.com shows that one in four people visiting the website incorrectly type a simple name like cartoonnetwork.com. So what about typo domains? One quick search in Google reveals that it is quite a big concern. An attacker can easily buy typo domains and setup his fake website on these domains to fool unsuspecting visitors. IMPACT CAUSED BY PHISHING AND PHARMING There are impacts that caused by rising of phishing and pharming. One of the impacts that caused by phishing and pharming is the lost of financial on both organizations and consumers. According to the InternetNews.com, there are about $1.2 Billion lost in financial of banks and credit card issuers at year 2003, while at year 2004, there is about  £12 Million lost in financial reported by the Association of Payment Clearing Services in United Kingdom. Due to the credit card association policies, the online merchants that accepted and approved transactions made by using credit card numbers which solicit through internet fraud may need to liable for the full amount of those transactions. This may cause hard-hit to those small organizations. Another impact that caused by phishing and pharming is the undermining of the consumers trust in the secured internet transaction or communication. This situation occurred because the internet fraud like phishing and pharming made consumer feel uncertain about the integrity of the financial and commercial websites although the web address display in the address is correct. Phishing and pharming also caused some impact on the Law investigation. It makes the law investigation become harder because the technique that used by attackers to perform phishing and pharming is more sophisticated. In nowadays, those attackers can perform all of the phishing and pharming attack at a location that provided with the internet connection. With the available of internet connection, they can make use of it to perform attacking activities. Those activities included the control of a computer located in one place to perform phishing and pharmings attack by using computer located at another place. The investigation become harder also because of the division of attacking tasks to several people located in different locations. PREVENTION OF PHISHING AND PHARMING Pharming attacks tend to be harder to defend against that traditional Phishing attacks due to the distributed nature of the attack focus and the use of resources not under the control of the victim organisation.   In addition, the manipulation of the DNS resolution process occurs at such a fundamental level that there are very few methods available to reliably detect any malicious changes. 5.1 PREVENTION WHAT TO DO? By using anti-virus software, spyware filters, e-mail filters and firewall programs and make sure that they are regular updated to protect your computer. Ensures that your Internet browser is up to date and security patches applied. Be suspicious of any e-mail with urgent requests for personal financial information or threats of termination of online account. Dont rely on links contained in e-mails, even if the web address appears to be correct, and use only channels that you know from independent sources are reliable (e.g., information on your bank card, hard copy correspondence, or montly account statement) when contacting your financial institution. When submitting credit card or other sensitive information via your Web browser, always ensure that youre using a secure website. Regularly log into your accounts. Regularly check your bank, credit and debit card statements to ensure that all transaction are legitimate. PREVENTION WHAT NOT TO DO? Dont assume that you can correctly identify a website as legitimate just by looking at its general appearance. Dont use the link in an e-mail to get to any web page, if you suspect the message might not be authentic. Avoid filling out forms in an e-mail messages or pop-up windows that ask for personal financial information. CLASSIC PHISHING DEFENCES Many of the defences used to thwart phishing attacks can be used to help prevent or limit the scope of future Pharming attacks. While readers are referred to the detailed coverage of these defence tactics explained in The Phishing Guide, a brief summary of these key defences is as follows: Client-Side Desktop protection technologies Utilisation of appropriate, less sophisticated, communication settings User application-level monitoring solutions Locking-down browser capabilities Digital signing and validation of email General security awareness 5.3.2 Server-Side Improving customer awareness Providing validation information for official communications Ensuring that the Internet web application is securely developed and doesnt include easily exploitable attack vectors Using strong token-based authentication systems Keeping naming systems simple and understandable 5.3.3 Enterprise Automatic validation of sending email server addresses, Digital signing of email services, Monitoring of corporate domains and notification of similar registrations, Perimeter or gateway protection agents, Third-party managed services. ADDITIONAL PHARMING-SPECIFIC DEFENCES While Phishing attacks typically use email as the attack delivery platform, Pharming attacks do not require any email obfuscation attacks to succeed therefore Phishing defences that rely upon email security play a lesser role. The defences that will be most successful in preventing Pharming attacks focus upon the following areas: Change management, monitoring and alerting Third-party host resolution verification DNS server patching, updating and configuration Search engine control 5.4.1 Change Management, Monitoring, and Alerting The potential for an administrator or other authoritative employee to maliciously modify DNS resolution information without detection is great.   As financial incentives increase, organisations and ISPs will need to ensure that adequate change control, monitoring and alerting mechanisms are in place and enforced. It is recommended that: Wherever editing is possible, access to DNS configuration files and caching data is limited to approved employees only. A change management process is used to log and monitor all changes to DNS configuration information. Auditing of DNS record changes is instigated by a team external to any DNS administrative personnel; with automatic alerting of changes conducted in real time. Regular audits and comparative analysis of secondary DNS and caching servers should be conducted. Third-party Host Resolution Verification Services Toolbars Many third-party developed plug-in toolbars originally designed to detect Phishing attacks are deceived by Pharming attacks.   Typically, these Phishing toolbars show the IP address and reverse lookup information for the host that the browser has connected to, so that customer can clearly see if he has reached a fake site.   Some managed toolbars (normally available through a subscription service) also compare the host name or URL of the current site to an updatable list (or real-time querying) of known phishing sites. Some toolbars now offer limited anti-pharming protection by maintaining a stored list of previously validated good IP addresses associated with a particular web address or host name.   Should the customer connect to an IP address not previously associated with the host name, a warning is raised.   However, problems can occur with organisations that change the IP addresses of their online services, or have large numbers of IP addresses associated with a particular host name. In addition, some toolbars provide IP address allocation information such as clearly stating the geographic region associated with a particular netblock.   This is useful for identifying possible fake Pharming sites that have been setup in Poland pretending to be for an Australian bank for instance. Server Certificates To help prevent pharming attacks, an additional layer can be added to the authentication process, such as getting the server to prove it is what it says it is.   This can be achieved through the use of server certificates. Most web browsers have the ability to read and validate server identification certificates.   The process would require the server host (or organisation) obtain a certificate from a trusted certificate authority, such as Verisign, and present it to the customers browser upon connection for validation. 5.4.3 DNS Server Patching, Updating and Configuration As with any Internet-based host, it is vial that all accessible services be configured in a secure manner and that all current security updates or patches be applied.   Failure to do so is likely to result in an exploitation of any security weaknesses, resulting in a loss of data integrity. Given the number of possible attacks that can be achieved by an attacker whom manages to compromise an organisations DNS servers, these hosts are frequently targeted by attackers.   Therefore it is vital that security patches and updates be applied as quickly as possible typically organisations should aim to apply fixes within hours of release. Similarly, it is important that organisations use up to date versions of the service wherever possible.   As we have already discussed in section 3.6, each new version of the DNS software usually contains substantial changes to protect against the latest attack vectors (e.g. randomising DNS IDs, randomising port numbers, etc.) 5.4.4 Search Engine Control Internet search engines are undergoing constant development.   Many of the methods used by attackers to increase their page ranking statistics are known of by the search engine developers, and a constant cycle of detection and refinement can be observed by both parties.   For instance, Google modified its search algorithm to reset the page rank statistics of web sites that had recently changed ownership this was to reduce the impact of instant backlinks and the weighting they attach to a ranking. Traditionally the emphasis on increasing a pages ranking has been for revenue or lead generation most closely associated with advertising.   However, the increasing pace at which customers are relying upon search engines to access key services (such as online banking) means that a Pharmer who can get his fake site ranked at the top is likely to acquire a high number of victims. Organisations should ensure that they regularly review keyword associations with their online services.   Ideally automated processes should be developed to constantly monitor all the popular search engines for key search words or phrases customers are likely to use to locate their key services.   It is also important that region-specific search engines also be monitored. CONCLUSION The term phishing is about the use of social engineering by performing online imitation of brands to send spoof email that contain of hyperlink to fraudulent website to solicit users sensitive personal information like credit card number, PIN, mothers maiden name and etc. Phishing can also be done through installing keylogger at users computer. Pharming use technical subterfuge like DNS cache poisoning, domain hijacking, routers setting or firmware malconfiguration to redirect users to a fraudulent website. Pharming may also perform by sending the targeted victims an email that contained of viruses or Trojan horse that will install small application that will redirect user to fraudulent website. There are impacts that caused by both phishing and pharming. Those impacts included the lost of financial, undermining of user confident in secured online transaction or communication, hard hit to small organizations and cause the law investigation harder. As a web developer, SSL certificate, switching of the recursion queries or DNS security extension should be apply because it can protect the DNS or website from phishing and pharming attack. Visual clues can also be use so that user can easily differentiate between authentic website and fraudulent website. Token based authentication also one of the technique that can be apply to protect the website or DNS server from phishing and pharming attack. Users are also responsible to protect their self from phishing and pharming attack by not opening email or download attachment from unknown sender or email that required user to respond by clicking on the hyperlink contained in the email. User should also double confirm the URL at the address bar when a warning message like SSL certificate do not match with the sites appear. User can also install security suite or firewall in the computer in order to protect user from phishing and pharming. User can also look for the lock or key icon at the bottom of the browser that lock the site they want to enter their sensitive personal information. As a user, we can also report the attack of phishing and pharming to the related agencies or company through internet or telephone to assist the work of minimize the attack. In addition, laws are also being introduced to against phisher and pharmer. RECOMMENDATION To prevent from becoming the victims of phishing and pharming, I suggest to users that must install security suite or firewall in their computer and the detection signature of the security suite should be up to date. Besides from this, I also suggest that users should beware in opening any email or attachment that they receive in order to prevent their self from becoming the victims of phishing and pharming. I also suggest to web developers that they should use SSL certificate, switch off the recursion queries, install DNS security extension in protect

Dramatic Dialogue Analysis Essay

Language is a natural process of living. It plays a great part in our lives. Its effects are remarkable, and include much of what distinguishes man from animals. We use it to interact with one another, to construct and maintain our interpersonal relations and order. In doing so, we interpret and represent the world for one another and for ourselves. Language is used to store the experiences built up, both personal and collective. It is a tool for constructing knowledge and for constructing meaning. The study of language is an inquiry into the nature of mind and thought on the assumption that languages are the best mirror of the human mind (Stainton, 1999). Analysis of everyday language use affirms that it is in the realm of art that their challenges are most evident and tangible (Gerbig and Muller-Wood, 2006). Linguistics shares a common tradition with literary study. Not so long ago, language and literature were studied together by philologists, who saw the study of both areas as mutually beneficial. Later development and the advent of specialization in both fields have oven produced scholars whose work does not cross over form one field to another (Oaks, 1998). Even so, scholars in either discipline regularly voice the truism that there is natural conjunction between literature and linguistics. After all, both fields deal with the raw material of human communication and expression – language. There is a need for interdisciplinary cooperation between the disciplinary identity of linguistics as empirical and descriptive while literary study being interpretative and analytical (Gerbig and Muller-Wood, 2006). Linguistics helps us to â€Å"trust the text† (Gerbig and Muller-Wood, 2006), to interpret the text, rather than impose interpretations upon on it. Application of linguistic empirical tools to literature may not lead to ultimate truths. It can nevertheless bring precision to otherwise often impressionistic treatment of text. There is a need to treat text as interchangeable products of a discursive system. Mogliola (1981) posed the question: â€Å"what are the structural conditions for the valid reading of a text, in so far as these conditions are revealed by a phenomenology of interpretative experience? † Heideggerian hermeneutics takes as its origin the pre-objective oneness of interpreter and phenomenon (be the literary text) – sees in interpretation a reading that is faithful to this oneness. Interpreter is never neutral, but always approaches a text with an explicit or implicit question. Interpretative activity manifests three functions: the interpretative question, the textual aspect, and the interpretation which is the meaning. Any given interpretative question should select and illuminate its affiliated â€Å"textual aspect†, an aspect which is there is the text. Linguistics can place literature more firmly and credibly in its context for other aspects of meaning depend more on the context and the communicative intention of the speakers. Communication clearly depends not only on recognizing the meaning of words in an utterance, but recognizing what speakers mean by their utterances. The principles and rules of grammar are the means by which the forms of language are made to correspond with the universal form of thought. The study of generative grammar represented a significant shift of focus in the approach to problems of language. The shift focus was from behavior or the products of behavior to states of mind/brain that enter into behavior, the central concern becomes knowledge of language: its nature, origins, and use. The three basic questions arise: ‘What constitute knowledge of language? ’, ‘How is knowledge of language acquired? ’, and ‘How is knowledge of language put to use? ’. The answer to the third question would be a theory how the knowledge of language attained enters into the expression of thought and the understanding of presented specimen of language, and derivatively, into communication, an other special uses of language (Stainton, 1999). The third question takes an important part in this study, particularly in the performance of the language which main purpose is communication. Communication is conceived as a relation that binds together the three elements: sender, receptionist, and topic. Corresponding to the three elements are three distinct functions: expression, appeal, and representation. These functions consist communicative function depending on what takes the center-stage. The function does exclusively what is represented or depicted in the communicative act. The three functions become the explicit focus of conversation (Medina, 2005). Alongside communication is conversation. Smith (2001) describes conversation as a process of two people understanding each other. Thus it is a characteristic of every true conversation that each opens himself to the other person, truly accepts his point of view as worthy of consideration and gets inside the other to such an extent that he understands not a particular individual, but what he says. The thing that has to be grasped is the objective rightness or otherwise of his opinion, so that they can agree with each other as a subject. Furthermore, in conversation, knowledge is not fixed thing or commodity to be grasped. It is an aspect of process. It arises out of interaction. In conversation, there is a to-and-fro play of dialogue. Dialogue is the encounter between men, mediated by the world, in order to name the world. It is culturally and historically specific way of conceiving certain verbal transactions and as such has considerable rhetorical force (Maranhao, 1990). The root sense of dialogue is that of talk (logos) that goes across or back and forth (dia). In contemporary English, dialogue is a conversation of two persons. At formal level, it is an economics of verbal exchange. In the functional usage of dialogue, a text or social interaction is treated as a social field across which multiple voices and multiple cultural logics contend with each other (Tedlock and Mannheim, 1995). What makes something as dialogue? The spirit of its participants of the form its utterances take? In Plato’s inception, dialogue has always been and continues to be programmatically liminal: interstructural, between two states or conditions, essentially unstructured rather than structured by contradictions; because of its deliberate avoidance of closure and finality. It serves perpetually as a vehicle for reformulating old elements into new patterns. Dialogue provides a meeting ground, community, and manifests itself in a variety of spontaneous and ritual modes of discourse in which nature and structure meet. Understood as a conceptualization of a kind of discourse and also a way of viewing and interpreting discourse, dialogue shares with narrative the characteristic of being atemporal, existing in many times and places. As discourse phenomena, it is internally atemporal. It does not talk about events in time; instead it spans in ‘dialectic event (i. e, discourse event) and meaning’; it presents utterances, ideas, and undertakings in nonlinear, recursive, diaeretical, and synthesizing sequences (Maranhao, 1990). Treating dialogue as an ideal evidently has an ethical implication. Furthermore, when a particular mode of communication is chosen as a model of dialogue, it becomes identified with the sense of goodness or rightness adhering in the ideal to the exclusion of other modes of communication. (Maranhao,1990). Spoken and written languages are what Maranhao (1990) termed as modes of communication. Although written and spoken languages are very different, they are not easy to separate. In fact, they are closely intertwined, and in daily life people participate in literacy events where reading and writing are mixed with spoken language and with other means of communication. Writing is based on speech in some very real ways; spoken language is the basis for the most people’s learning of written language, for instance, and the very form of written language gets inspiration form spoken language. However, other aspects of communication come into play with written language. Most significantly, it is visual: laid out in some way and displayed. The importance of the role design, layout and other aspect of the physical context should be evident and they form part of what is meant by writing. Writing enables us to go much further than spoken language: its ability to fix things in space and time. Writing results in text. It extends the functions of language, and enables to do different things (Barton, 2006). It is in the realm of art where study of language is evident and tangible. Dramatic dialogue, the interplay between written and spoken language, fits for the study. It is therefore desirous to investigate the workings of dramatic dialogue. Dramatic dialogues usually serve a number of purposes such as developing the plot, and presenting the characters and providing information about them. Playwrights attempt to achieve balance between some features of actual speech and the employment of dialogue by putting not too much closeness to actual speech so as not to make dialogues dull and uninteresting (Al-Rubai’i and Al-ani, 2004). Dramatic dialogues (plays) exist in two ways – on the page and on the stage. It is therefore necessary to adhere to the argument that sensitive understanding of plays (explicitly contains dramatic dialogue) can be arrived at through â€Å"mere reading† through linguistic analyses that dramatic text contains very rich indications as to how they should be performed. Dramatic dialogue takes into account that one crucial aspect in which drama differs from poetry and fiction is in its emphasis on verbal interaction, and the very relationship between people are constructed and negotiated through what they say. It is where linguistics takes into its own. Linguistics, and the techniques of discourse analyses in particular, can help analyze the exchanges between characters, in order to: help us understand the text, help us understand how conversation works, and allow us to appreciate better the skill demonstrated by the playwright (Thornborrow and Wareing, 1998). Chapter 2 Dialogue as discourse is characterized by a fundamental structural principle: it is interactive and interactional. It is a mode of speech exchange among participants, speech in relation to another speech not merely the verbal expression of one character or actors’ part. In the study of dialogue as interaction, the dramatic text as written text, addresses a context of performance which requires a change in mode of discourse – the transformation and transmutation of the written lines into dynamics of speech, which involve more than recitation of the lines by the actors (Herman, 1995). In the study of dramatic dialogue, understanding the workings of the dialogue as interaction and conversational speech versus dramatic speech are taken into account. It is also important to note that dramatic dialogue, taking part in the speech exchange system, must be safeguarded from conversation in order to preserve the formers’ ‘literary’ quality (Herman, 1995). In the construction of conversational practices and actions, participants use co-occurring structures and devices from different levels of linguistic organization as well as the employment of linguistic features in conversation. In the linguistic analyses of dramatic dialogue, Gricean semantics and analyses on the linguistic features: turns, pauses or silences, adjacency pairs, chaining, and back channel support, will be employed. According to Gricean Semantics, in ordinary conversation exchanges, there is much more to the meaning of an utterance than what appears on the grammatical and logical surface: utterances often convey things other than what they literally mean and they often imply things other than what they strictly entail. The adequate understanding of meaning requires the processing of what has been termed as ‘an invited inference’. Grice formulated the maxims as follows: ‘Make your contribution to the conversation as informative as possible, but not more informative or less informative that is required (Maxims of Quantity); ‘Do not say what you believe to be false’ and ‘Do not say that which for you lack adequate evidence (Maxims of Quality); ‘Avoid obscurity’, ‘Avoid ambiguity’, ‘Be brief’, Be orderly’ (Maxims of Manner), and ‘Be relevant’ (Maxims of Relevance). According to Grice, all these different maxims are corollaries of the most fundamental principle of communication that governs all conversation. This is what he called as Cooperative Principle which read as follows: ‘Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk-exchange in which you all engaged. ’ (Medina, 2005). The central premise of the Gricean approach is that the communicative intention of a normal speaker under normal circumstances conforms to the cooperative principle and the conversational maxims that derive from it. For Gricean semantics, the speakers’ conversational contributions are governed first and foremost by these general rules of cooperative communication, rather than by the semantic conventions that fix word-meanings and sentence-meanings. It is also important to note that intended meanings of speakers can depart sometimes even wildly like that of ironic utterances. Grice’s analyses of intended meanings put a lot of weight in the speaker’s communicative intentions undermining the traditional emphasis on linguistic conventions, which on his view become mere tools to be used and bent in all kinds of ways (Medina, 2005). One of the linguistic features in conversation which tends to be modified in dramatic dialogue is the way turns are taken, the way people having a conversation organize who is going to speak next. Schegloff (1995) had the idea that syntax of spoken language in interaction should be looked upon as resource that is deployed and exploited for the organization of turns and sequence in conversation. Turn-taking is one important communication skill emerging during preverbal routines. It is a mechanism use to reorganize conversation so that interactants smoothly exchange speaking consequences. Through turn-taking, participants coordinate their conversational contributions to each other. Turn-taking works as the onset of dialogue and is a prerequisite for latter emergence of communicative rule (Haslett and Samter, 1997). In general, for the construction of conversational practices and actions, participants use co-occurring structures and devices from different levels of linguistic organization, not only from prosodic, phonetic-phenological, but also form morpho-syntactic and lexico-semantic structures in turns-at-talk in their sequential context. The possible types for turn constructional units (TCU), for English, are sentential, clausal, phrasal, and lexical. Syntactic units are important resources for the construction of TCU and turns. TCU is a linguistic unit in talk constructed in the interplay of syntax and prosody in its sequential context. For spoken language in interaction, syntactic entities like sentences are not to be conceived as static or fixed, but flexible. That is why when talking about transmission relevance placed as the relevant loci for the negotiation of turn-taking; ends of sentences, clauses or phrases etc. are not talked about but the ‘possible completion points’ of sentences, clauses, phrases, and one-word construction. It is the flexibility of the possible syntactic unit that enables them to be used for the organization of turn-taking in conversation (Hakulinen and Selting, 2005). In the construction of conversation, participants are not concerned with the construction of units as such, but the construction of units is contingent upon practices or activities such as holding, organizing, and yielding the turn. TCUs are not themselves relevant for participants, but for the practices and activities of turn-taking and activity constitution (Haslett and Samter, 1997).

They Are Made Out of Meat

They’re Made Out of Meat is a short story by Terry Bisson. It consists entirely of dialogue between two characters. The beginning of this dialogue seems to be rather strange and incomprehensible; the characters are speaking about meat and it is difficult to understand what this â€Å"meat† means in this particular context. But gradually the reader begins to tune in, and soon he finds out that they use the word â€Å"meat† to imply human beings. And these two creatures themselves are aliens, sentient beings that are capable of travelling faster than light and their mission is to meet with human beings, to welcome them and to set contacts with them. The fact that they use such words as Orfolei, Weddilei, C space, G445 zone proves that they come from a different planet (from outer space). The speech of the creatures is rather informal. There are a lot of contracted forms, colloquial words and elliptical sentences in their conversation (â€Å"They’re made out of meat. †; â€Å"That’s impossible. †; â€Å"†¦they’re like†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ; †¦crackpots†¦, â€Å"A dream to meat! †). This fact proves that they know each other well and besides they are absorbed in the topic of their conversation and do not pay much attention to their speech. Judging by the dialogue, it is obvious that one of the creatures is better aware of the way people are organized (â€Å"I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they’re made out of meat. †). And he tries to explain it to the other one who is skeptical and incredulous (â€Å"That’s impossible. †; â€Å"That’s ridiculous. †; Thinking meat! You’re asking me to believe in thinking meat! †). The situation is really incredible and at first the second creature does not believe in the story, but a bit later accept this theory as true (â€Å"Omigod. You’re serious then. They’re made out of meat. † â€Å"Finally, Yes. †). The story represents a critical glance from outside at humans’ behaviour. The aliens consider human beings to be curious and predictable (â€Å"†¦they’ve been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years. †; â€Å"First it wants to talk to us. Then†¦to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual. â€Å"). Besides people are viewed as inferior creatures (â€Å"†¦but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. â€Å"; â€Å"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat? â€Å"). So, taking into accounts all these points, the aliens decide not to fulfill their initial mission. They come to a conclusion that it is better to ignore â€Å"meat†, erase all the records and mark this sector unoccupied. The thing is that they are sure that they know a lot about humans, but in fact they do not know anything. They consider themselves to be much more superior, they feel themselves to be the centre of gravity. But actually, they are biased and hostile towards human beings just because humans are different. The whole story rolls around the concept of meat. First of all the repetition of this word sets the rhythm. Besides the meat is personified and it makes the story funny and humorous. (â€Å"†¦thinking meat, conscious meat, loving meat, dreaming meat†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ). The fact that these creatures are talking like humans also provides humorous effect. (â€Å"Omigod.  Singing meat. This is altogether too much! †). At first it may even seem that they are scientists or researchers, who are discussing a recent experiment or discovery in the sphere of astronomy. The topic of the story is the relation between different creatures, nationalities and civilizations. The author is mocking these two characters because of their hostile and stereotypical attitude towards other creatures and civilizations; and wants to show that it is important to be patient, clarify controversial things and not to be too presumptuous.

Biography of Jose Maria Morelos, Mexican Revolutionary

Josà © Marà ­a Morelos (September 30, 1765–December 22, 1815) was a Mexican priest and revolutionary. He was in overall military command of Mexico’s Independence movement in 1811-1815 before the Spanish captured, tried, and executed him. He is considered one of the greatest heroes of Mexico and countless things are named after him, including the Mexican state of Morelos and the city of Morelia. Fast Facts: Jose Maria Morelos Known For: Priest and rebel leader in the war for Mexican independenceAlso Known As: Josà © Marà ­a Teclo Morelos Pà ©rez y Pavà ³nBorn: September 30, 1765 in Valladolid,  Michoacà ¡n,  New SpainParents: Josà © Manuel Morelos y Robles, Juana Marà ­a Guadalupe Pà ©rez Pavà ³nDied: December 22, 1815  in San Cristà ³bal Ecatepec,  State of Mà ©xicoEducation: Colegio de San Nicolà ¡s Obispo in Valladolid, Seminario Tridentino in Valladolid, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolà ¡s de HidalgoAwards and Honors:  The Mexican state of  Morelos  and city of  Morelia  are named after him, and his picture is on the 50-peso noteSpouse: Brà ­gida Almonte (mistress; Morelos was a priest and could not marry)Children: Juan Nepomuceno AlmonteNotable Quote: May slavery be banished forever together with the distinction between castes, all remaining equal, so Americans may only be distinguished by vice or virtue. Early Life Josà © Marà ­a was born into a lower-class family (his father was a carpenter) in the city of Valladolid in 1765. He worked as a farm hand, muleteer, and menial laborer until entering the seminary. The director of his school was none other than Miguel Hidalgo (leader of the Mexican revolution) who must have left an impression on the young Morelos. He was ordained as a priest in 1797 and served in the towns of Churumuco and Carà ¡cuaro. His career as a priest was solid and he enjoyed the favor of his superiors. Unlike Hidalgo, he showed no propensity for dangerous thoughts before the revolution of 1810. Morelos and Hidalgo On September 16, 1810, Hidalgo issued the famous Cry of Dolores to kick off Mexicos struggle for independence. Hidalgo was soon joined by others, including former royal officer Ignacio Allende, and together they raised an army of liberation. Morelos made his way to the rebel army and met with Hidalgo, who made him a lieutenant and ordered him to raise an army in the south and march on Acapulco. They went their separate ways after the meeting. Hidalgo would get close to Mexico City but was eventually defeated at the Battle of Calderon Bridge, captured shortly thereafter, and executed for treason. Morelos, however, was just getting started. Morelos Takes up Arms Ever the proper priest, Morelos coolly informed his superiors that he was joining the rebellion so that they could appoint a replacement. He began rounding up men and marching west. Unlike Hidalgo, Morelos preferred a small, well-armed, well-disciplined army that could move fast and strike without warning. He would often reject recruits who worked the fields, telling them instead to raise food to feed the army in the days to come. By November, he had an army of 2,000 men and on November 12, he occupied the medium-sized town of Aguacatillo, near Acapulco. Morelos in 1811-1812 Morelos was crushed to learn of the capture of Hidalgo and Allende in early 1811. Still, he fought on, laying an abortive siege to Acapulco before taking the city of Oaxaca in December of 1812. Meanwhile, politics had entered the struggle for Mexican independence in the form of a Congress presided over by Ignacio Là ³pez Rayà ³n, once a member of Hidalgos inner circle. Morelos was often in the field but always had representatives at the meetings of Congress, where they pushed on his behalf for formal independence, equal rights for all Mexicans, and continued privilege of the Catholic Church in Mexican affairs. The Spanish Strike Back By 1813, the Spanish had finally organized a response to the Mexican insurgents. Felix Calleja, the general who had defeated Hidalgo at the Battle of Calderon Bridge, was made Viceroy, and he pursued an aggressive strategy of quashing the rebellion. He divided and conquered the pockets of resistance in the north before turning his attention to Morelos and the south. Celleja moved into the south in force, capturing towns and executing prisoners. In December of 1813, the insurgents lost a key battle at Valladolid and were put on the defensive. Morelos’ Beliefs Morelos felt a true connection to his people, and they loved him for it. He fought to remove all class and race distinctions. He was one of the first true Mexican nationalists and he had a vision of a unified, free Mexico, whereas many of his contemporaries had closer allegiances to cities or regions. He differed from Hidalgo in many key ways: he did not allow churches or the homes of allies to be looted and actively sought support among Mexico’s wealthy Creole upper class. Ever the priest, he believed it was God’s will that Mexico should be a free, sovereign nation: the revolution became almost a holy war for him. Death By early 1814, the rebels were on the run. Morelos was an inspired guerrilla commander, but the Spanish had him outnumbered and outgunned. The insurgent Mexican Congress was constantly moving, trying to stay one step ahead of the Spanish. In November of 1815, the Congress was on the move again and Morelos was assigned to escort it. The Spanish caught them at Tezmalaca and a battle ensued. Morelos bravely held off the Spanish while the Congress escaped, but he was captured during the fighting. He was sent to Mexico City in chains. There, he was tried, excommunicated, and executed on December 22. Legacy Morelos was the right man at the right time. Hidalgo started the revolution, but his animosity toward the upper classes and his refusal to rein in the rabble that made up his army eventually caused more problems than they solved. Morelos, on the other hand, was a true man of the people, charismatic and devout. He had a more constructive vision than Hidalgo and exuded a palpable belief in a better tomorrow with equality for all Mexicans. Morelos was an interesting mixture of the best characteristics of Hidalgo and Allende and was the perfect man to carry the torch they had dropped. Like Hidalgo, he was very charismatic and emotional, and like Allende, he preferred a small, well-trained army over a massive, angry horde. He notched up several key victories and ensured that the revolution would live on with or without him. After his capture and execution, two of his lieutenants, Vicente Guerrero and Guadalupe Victoria, carried on the fight. Morelos is greatly honored today in Mexico. The state of Morelos and city of Morelia are named after him, as are a major stadium, countless streets and parks, and even a couple of communications satellites. His image has appeared on several bills and coins throughout Mexicos history. His remains are interred at the Column of Independence in Mexico City, along with other national heroes. Sources Estrada Michel, Rafael. Josà © Marà ­a Morelos. Mexico City: Planeta Mexicana, 2004Harvey, Robert. Liberators: Latin Americas Struggle for Independence. Woodstock: The Overlook Press, 2000.Lynch, John. The Spanish American Revolutions 1808-1826. New York: W. W. Norton Company, 1986.