Functional Family Therapy (FFT) Essay

Functional Family Therapy (FFT) is a family-based prevention and intervention program that deals with such juvenile problems as child abuse and neglect, early sexual involvement, alcohol and drug abuse, youth conflict and aggression. Since these problems originate within the family structure in many cases, FFT program refers to every member of the family in order to achieve the highest treatment results. It is important to emphasize that FFT recognizes that both positive and negative behaviors influence and are influenced by multiple relational systems.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The main positive influence of FFT is that it develops inner strengths and sense of being of each member of the family. In such a way, family members are united under the common viewpoints on life, activities and goals. As a result, the situation within the family might be improved due to different intervention and assessment phases. Functional Family Therapy consists of three specific intervention phases: engagement and motivation, behavior change, and generalization. Each of these phases has certain goals, risk and protective factors, assessment focus and therapist/interventional skills that might be related to each of the phases. The first phase – engagement and motivation – helps to increase family’s hope and expectation of change, improve trust between therapist and family, and reduce negativity within families and toward the community as well as build respect to individual values and differences. During the second phase – behavior change – therapists develop long-term plans of behavior change that can fit to certain culture, family situation and understand the unique characteristics of each family member. Cognitive, interactive and emotional components are included into behavior change phase. The main focus of this phase is to improve the quality of relations skills because of the risks dealing with poor parenting and communication skills, negativity and blaming. Thus, FFT program gives an opportunity to model the change plan, train each member and control the whole process. Finally, generalization phase helps to unite the families with available community resources in order to prevent relapses in the behavior change. It is directed to improve the ability of the family to affect the multiple systems like school, juvenile justice system, community, etc.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Since FFT program addresses each member of the family where there are problems with juveniles, it helps to identify the core reasons of juvenile behavior change which in most cases happen within the family. Parents learn to understand their children, but most important to listen to their thoughts, opinions, problems, and many other issues which are important for juveniles, but might be neglected by the adults. At the same time children learn to understand the behavior of their parents, to respect and listen to the adults as well as improve their relations with the families, school and community as a whole. Due to FFT program recidivism rates greatly decreased in the recent time. Certainly, there is no single treatment which is commonly accepted and can help all juveniles and heir families to solve the problems or prevent them. However, FFT I is considered on of the best way to prevent juvenile delinquency since it does not only solve the problem itself, but addresses the core reason for this problem to occur – the juvenile family and community he/she lives in.

George VI Essay

A conscientious and dedicated man, he worked hard to adapt to the role into which he was suddenly thrown. Reserved by nature, and of deep religious belief, he was helped in his work by his wife. He had married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923. King George VI paid State Visits to France in 1938, and to Canada and the United States in 1939 (he was the first British monarch to enter the United States). His greatest achievements came during the Second World War, when he remained for most of the time at Buckingham Palace (the Palace was bombed nine times during the war). He and his wife, Queen Elizabeth, visited severely bombed areas in the East End of London and elsewhere in the country, gained him great popularity. The King developed a close working relationship with his wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, as most of Europe fell to Nazi Germany. Recognising the total nature of modern warfare, in 1940 the King instituted the George Cross and George Medal, to be awarded for acts of bravery by citizens. In 1942, the George Cross was awarded to the island and people of Malta in recognition of the heroism with which they had resisted the enemy siege. Having served in the Navy during the First World War, including the Battle of Jutland, the King was anxious to visit his troops whenever possible. He went to France in 1939 to inspect the British Expeditionary Force, and to North Africa in 1943 after the victory of El Alamein. In June 1944, the King visited his Army on the Normandy beaches 10 days after D-Day, and later that year he visited troops in Italy and the Low Countries. On VE (Victory in Europe) Day, 8 May 1945, Buckingham Palace was a focal point of the celebrations. The war had immeasurably strengthened the link between the King and his people. In 1947, the King undertook a major tour of South Africa, accompanied by the Queen and their daughters, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret – the first time a monarch had undertaken a tour with his family. When India and Pakistan became independent in 1947, George ceased to be Emperor of India. Changes in the Commonwealth meant that its tie was no longer based on common allegiance to the Crown, but upon recognition of the Sovereign as Head of the Commonwealth. These changes in the Commonwealth relationship and the social reforms of the post-war Labour government occurred against the background of Britain’s weak post-war economic position and the beginning of the Cold War, which meant that the privations of war were extended well into the post-war period. By 1948, it seemed that Britain had overcome the worst hardships of the post-war years, but the strain of the Second World War and the tensions of the post-war period had taken their toll on the King’s health. The King failed to recover from a lung operation, and died in his sleep on 6 February 1952 at Sandringham; he was aged 56. After lying in state at Westminster Hall, the King’s funeral was held at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, where he lies buried. At the King’s funeral, attached to the Government’s wreath was a card on which Churchill had written the phrase inscribed on the Victoria Cross – ‘For Valour’.

Killing and Letting Die Essay

Foot’s calculated article entitled, ‘Killing and Letting Die’ is one which provides arguments through hypothetical situation’s, discrediting opinions and beliefs of other modern philosophers. Its main cause is to locate moral differentiation between the active taking of life versus allowing death to occur by means of not producing assistance. Afterwards Foot applies these beliefs onto the sub-topic of abortion, highlighting flawed examples of pro-abortion arguments she then counters these with her own strong outlooks. In this critical report I intend to analyse the relevance and application of Foot’s arguments highlighting both strengths and weaknesses in Foot’s judgements. Foot opens by expressing that in specific circumstances, for instance our negligence to end third world starvation as opposed to the giving of poisoned food to these starving individuals, our moral agency has a role. This is a sound argument, we have sufficient resources to end starvation with little if any detriment to ourselves yet we fail to provide. This failure is just as morally wrong as providing poisoned food. This is not to say Foot believes killing and allowing to die are the same. It is merely her belief in this particular circumstance that they are not morally dissimilar. Proceeding this is a hypothetical proposal of two circumstances: One, in which 6 individuals are reliant on the intake of a certain rare drug. One individual requires the full quota of this specific medification in order to live, thus the other five would not receive the drug and would consequentially die. It is therefore clear to Foot that the five should receive the drug and regrettably allow this individual to die. The other, where five persons require organs and to save their life one patient is killed to obtain these for the five in need. The clear moral distinction between these two is the role played by moral agency. We play our part as an ‘agent’ in the death of a person whereas in the other we cannot be held responsible for the eventual outcome- being his death. It is our active involvement in the case of ‘the killing for spare parts’ which is denounced as morally wrong by Foot, whereas in the case of providing the medicine at a lower quantity to the five patients rather than all the medicine to the one patient; we are not an agent in the death as the resources were insufficient to keep the individual alive. Thus Foot concludes a morally justified stance is adopted. This point is further continued in Foot’s ‘Rescue I’ and ‘Rescue II’ cases she offers. Rescue I involves a rescue team hurrying to save five persons from drowning before the receive news of one person threatened by some other happening, they choose to continue to save the five and regretfully allow him to die. This is then contrasted with the hypothetical situation of Rescue 2. Rescue 2, the rescue team are on their way to save the five from drowning when blocking their road is an individual trapped on their route. To continue and save the five the team would have to drive over the individual resulting in certain death. Foot progresses this point by stating, â€Å"We cannot originate a fatal sequence, although we can allow one to run its course. † It is therefore apparent Foot is establishing her stance as against the idea killing and allowing to die are morally divergent. This stance though can be countered with an example proposed by James Rachels which is recognised by Foot. In the first case, a child is intentionally held underwater in the bath until they drown. And in the second an individual see’s the child slip and fall underwater, whilst the child drowns they do nothing. Foot accepts that both are morally wrong however she provides weak and incoherent reasoning for her contradiction. Resorting to an argument involving ‘levels of badness’, as if an untoward deed can be rated on a scale. It is ludicrous to suggest any act of malicious or evil intent can be inferior to another simply because of the outcome. Also Foot suggests that because the two cases differ in their acts, the result cannot be known to be the same. Foot’s established beliefs are then applied to the sub-topic of abortion, and if there are any situations it is morally justifiable to abort a foetus. Foot introduces an argument voiced by Thomson in favour of abortion. Thomson’s belief is that abortion is always morally justifiable as no human being has the right to use of another’s body, therefore the foetus’ rights are waived and the mother’s rights to remove the foetus as a hindrance take precedence. Foot recites Thomson’s flawed example of an dangerously ill individual being hooked to the body of another person without consent in order to survive being similar to that of a pregnant woman. She continues to say if the unconsenting person detaches himself he is not a murderer as the ill person is proving an inconvenience to them. Foot breaks down this argument by showing there is an intrinsic difference between instigating a fatality and not providing the means to continue life. Foot finds that the language used to describe failing to provide the means to survive does not serve purposes of this argument. Foot indicates the word ‘kill’ is unimportant and it is infact the outcome of death is not instigated by an agent it is otherwise allowed to take place. This is relative to the act of abortion as Foot suggests the foetus is dependant on its mother in the same way children depend on their parent’s for food and shelter. Thus Foot hints that the previous suggestions by Thomson are horrendously faulty, by denouncing her comment that a mother’s rights override a foetus’ rights as it hinders her life. Surely this is saying that if an alive child is proving a encumbrance to it’s parents lives it is morally justifiable that they terminate its life. Foot correctly highlights that the arguments hinges upon the audiences perception of a foetus’ moral status. Be it as a human being or otherwise. Foot proclaims that if the foetus should be considered a human being then Thomson’s argument is as similar to ‘the killing of the man for spare parts’. Concluding that the foetus’ status remains at the core of justifying the opposition or support of abortion as an act.

Personal statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 27

Personal Statement Example Therefore, this course would greatly sharpen my entrepreneurial skills and would be a responsible manager in the business world. When I started my undergraduate course at Bangor University, I acquired basic knowledge of accounting and management. In freshman sophomore, I acquired a lot of knowledge related to accounting courses, which will boost my performance at the collage. At the second grade in the university, I majored in finance and banking, which was my favorite, and I excelled scoring an average of 71.17. Additionally, in the third grade at the University I advanced my interest and took behavioral finance, corporate risk management and operational management. I successfully passed in the majored subjects in all grades. This new course will greatly benefit me in succeeding in my entrepreneur business since I will require all the acquired skills (Baty & Michael, P. 57). All the previous courses have enabled me hold various positions, which I have performed excellently. Additionally, I have been recommended positively in all organizations I have worked for and they have requested me to work with them onc e am through with my studies. Any successful enterprise manager does not require only enterprise knowledge, but one requires mastering the financial knowledge. Additionally, companies require to get detailed feedback from managers and therefore, enrolling at your college will enable me acquire the necessary skills to become a manager. When managers posses a more comprehensive knowledge they are likely to deal with any kind of business related idea and one does not encounter challenges when formulating business strategies. Additionally, immediately I enroll for my course, I will begin looking for a job in the banking sector or any other related industry in order to practice the knowledge acquired from the university. Therefore, during this period I will also be searching for other various

David Oliver's Cancer Vlogs Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

David Oliver's Cancer Vlogs - Assignment Example s documentation of all disease factors that affect the well-being of an individual as well as helping the learners in pointing out emerging health problems that affects the quality of life such as depression, cancer and sexual dysfunction (P. 261). For this reason, new challenges to personal responses of the management of chronic illness such as denial and anxiety were correctly and broadly understood through class discussions and brain-storming. Demonstratively, it was brought to an understanding that, for the first diagnosis individuals with chronic illness develop a physical, psychological and social disequilibrium. Similarly, it was brought to an understanding that different individual’s response differently when exposed to different life conditions (P. 262). For instance, the denial concept as a defensive mechanism for the individuals affected with chronic diseases forces them to response slowly to chronic illness management strategies as well achieving a quality life standard. Nevertheless, I was able to develop a sense of understanding from being a dependent individual to self-dependant individual allowing me to carry out self-management initiatives against different chronic conditions (P. 262). However, I was able to reverse my imaginations from being narrowed to the causes, effects and the impacts of chronic diseases to developing a suitable knowledge that help in adjusting to my new lifestyle. In addition, I was able to understand that, anxiety and denial are among the essential symptoms evidenced in chronically affected individual who lack suitable chronic illness management strategies

The Real Computer Virus Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Real Computer Virus - Essay Example It is, however, examples with dangerous consequences that give a chilling shock to readers and forces them to take notice of effects of disinformation. Careless use of unsubstantiated information can have dangerous and lingering effects on social groups. Cannon recalled that in a â€Å"PrimeTime Live† show hosted by Dianne Sawyer, she claimed a â€Å"government statistic† indicated that gay teenagers were thrice as likely to commit suicide than others. Though she later shunned responsibility by attributing this information to Ellen Degeneres, the guest on the show, the effects were long lasting. Investigation revealed that this assertion about gay teenagers was not a statistic but just an opinion of a social worker in San Francisco. In fact, real studies by professional organizations like the CDC had concluded that there was no evidence to back this claim. Still, the myth of gay teenagers being amenable to suicide crept into the Internet domain and newspapers of repute such as New York Times, Chicago Tribune and others. Television networks picked it up and propagated it further. Gay rights activists too, including a Governor of Massachusetts, used it to gain public relation victories. In reality, however, this compartmentalized the gay community further and labelled them as suicide prone. Other than unsubstantiated labelling of a social community, this disinformation also could become a false refuge for gay teenagers who struggle for their identity. In yet another example, a major health disaster loomed over South Africa as a result of believeing an already discredited piece of information on the Internet. President Thabo Mbeki, refused discounts for South Africa on life-saving drugs for AIDS simply because he believed they were not the cure. His source of this information, or rather disinformation, was a website. With many theories surrounding the disease of

Risk Plan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Risk Plan - Essay Example Integrated marketing communication is an important part of every marketing activity before the event which helps organizers to achieve high response rate and popularity. The second risk is that the first deadline is due one week before the golf tournament, so there will be no time left for changes and improvements (the leaflets, ads, etc. are printed, and all arrangements are made). The third negative factor is that the same three persons are involved 100% in the final preparation, so neither of them will be able to make possible changes and help with new promotion opportunity. If Betty is involved in both activities, she could not objectively define the threats and drawbacks of the new advertising campaign. When morale is low, and feelings of frustration or alienation are found to exist, it is important that positive action is taken to remedy the causes. The sixth risk is that the staff can resist strongly changes in adverting campaign. They would be frustrated because the company d oes not appreciate their efforts and time spent on 'the old adverting plan". 1. The best solution for the first risk is to implement adverting campaign before the gold tournament according to the previous schedule. The new promotional opportunity an be added to the previous plan. It will not take much time and efforts of employees and ensure that the company will reach the main target audience. Senior management needs to develop a broad strategic vision, which calls for redesigned business processes (Campbell, 1997). 2. To meet the first deadline and avoid changes, it is important to consult the responsible persons during the preparation process. Also, it is possible to develop a rough plan if the primary plan would not work well. In order to leverage change, the manager can identify primary and secondary activities. Primary change activities are most directly related to the project. Primary change activities will include inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, sales and marketing, and service. The other group is support activities which will not have a direct impact on the project. It will help to avoid uncertainty and haste. 3. It would be possible to appoint the forth person in order to solve secondary problems of the plan. The project manager should identify a few core processes to be redesigned, focusing on those with the greatest potential payback. Symptoms of inefficient processes include excessive data redundancy and reentering information, too much time spent handling exceptions and special cases, or too much time spent on corrections and rework. The analysis should identify what organizational group owns the process, what organizational functions or departments are involved in the process, and what changes are required. The methods for identifying organizational information requirements described earlier in this chapter may be useful here. 4. Before the changes are made, the project manager should inform Betty about recent changes and ask her opinion about additional duties. Also, the company could pay her for additional hours, and

IDS Alert Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

IDS Alert - Essay Example If my computer pointer starts moving by itself then I will at once pull out the network cable (LAN) or phone line from my PC as it is the point through which any external source can enter my PC. Port 3389 is a remote desktop connection port in windows which is usually opened in many computers on network. (Denning, 1990) A hacker can exploit it using a remote desktop connection and could send malicious threats or Trojans to gain access to the computer from this port. Removing my PC from the network will help isolate it and stop transferring the threat or virus to other Computers on the network. A well define thought and planning is necessary before installing an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) on a network. Besides technical issues and product selection another serious factor are the resource issues that includes manning the sensor feeds, product expenses and infrastructure support that must also be kept in mind. After the computer has been isolated the next step would be to detect and remove the threat using the appropriate Intrusion Detection Systems. Updated versions of spy ware and Antivirus software will be installed on the PC if the current versions could not detect the threat.

American Literature Exam question Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

American Literature Exam question - Coursework Example Linda is denied the right to raise her own children, as are many other black women. Slaves are not allowed to marry whom they choose, and a black husband and wife sometimes are not allowed to live together. White men father children with black women, but lack absolutely any kind of parental obligation towards the children, and in some cases, like with Mr. Sands, may be tempted to sell them to get out of financial trouble. We see that the hatred slavery enforces distorts the most basic of all emotions: that of a parent towards his child. The lack of freedom and basic human rights does not affect only individuals, but all social structures. Normal human relationships inside and outside of a family cannot survive the devastating influence of the slavery system which deliberately dehumanizes black people, shamelessly stripping them off their dignity and rights as human beings.

Define and discuss sustainable development by focusing on a global Essay

Define and discuss sustainable development by focusing on a global issue - Essay Example Global warming is an issue that has to be looked into urgently in order to curb these effects before they even get worse than they are now. And in dealing with these issues, so many things have to be put into consideration. Will the measures taken be able to sustain this problem over the years to come and will the generations to come be able to put up with these measures? Without a doubt, it is evident that there exist symbiotic relationship and dependency between society (human beings) and natural resources. This relationship is what we refer to as â€Å"social metabolism† (Ghosh & Goswami, 2014, pg. 67). In any given society, natural recourses are what keep the economy moving. They are the backbone of any economy in society. Human beings depend on forests in so many ways. Forests are the sole source of wood used in construction of houses, commercial buildings; office and house hold furniture and so on. Literally in any building or place one walks into, rarely will one miss a â€Å"wood† aspect around them. Forests too are a good source of charcoal and firewood used at homes. Rural societies and some urbanites depend on forest for medicinal purposes since it is in these forests that you will find herbs and wild vegetation that contain medicinal value for curing various human and animal diseases. Forests are a good water catchment area and source of some rivers. Rivers, lakes and other water bodies provide human beings with water. â€Å"Water is life† no living thing in the world can survive without water. Water from rivers is used in irrigation and in other domestic uses by human beings. Water bodies are a source of habitat for creatures that benefit society in one way or the other (Ghosh & Goswami, 2014, pg. 68). Fish is a good source of healthy food for humans. Other than being used for home purpose, most societies living around fresh water bodies have built their economy through the sale of fish, both locally and to other

MUSCULOSKELETAL Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

MUSCULOSKELETAL - Essay Example Factors such as doing heavy physical work may cause degeneration of discs. Obesity, which can be linked to the patient’s lifestyle and the family’s history, may as well cause disc degeneration (Rajasekaran, Venkatadass, Babu, Ganesh, & Shetty, 2008). A thorough understanding of the five factors and how they are interrelated is important in the treatment of the patient. I agree with Christopher Johnson on prioritization of treatment as the best thing to do. This is because it aims at relieving the acute nature of the patient’s injury thereby alleviating pain. This way, his good health will see to it that he can carry on with his activities of daily living. When treated, the patient will be capable of reaching out to his relatives and friends for assistance. The assistance may come I form of meal preparation and transportation to and from physical therapy (Fink, Gebhard, Fuerst, Berger & Schà ¤fer, 2013). The patient’s overweight could be caused by factors such as stress and depression, which can lead to overeating or poor food choices (Mikhael at al., 2013). The patient’s counseling will only be effective if the pain is relieved first. (2013, April). Management of newly diagnosed symptomatic multiple myeloma: updated Mayo Stratification of Myeloma and Risk-Adapted Therapy (mSMART) consensus guidelines 2013. In Mayo Clinic Proceedings (Vol. 88, No. 4, pp. 360-376).

The different stakeholders Essay Example for Free

The different stakeholders Essay Introduction In this task, I will be talking about the different stakeholders of the two organisations. I have chosen the two organisations are the Harris Academy Peckham and Tesco’s. I will introduce with this two organisations and explain what are their stockholders, listing the internal and external stakeholders and describing their stakeholders. Harris Academy Peckham Introduction Harris Academy Peckham is one of many Academies under the Harris federation. Harris Academy is a not-for-profit charity with almost twenty five years’ experience of primary, secondary and sixth form education in and around London. This charity was created by Lord Harris of Peckham. He and his family take an active interest in every Harris Academy, supporting the Academy financially and with their time. Sponsors Harris Academy Peckham is sponsored by Lord Harris. He wanted to give good education to children in London, and he want to give full education from primary to sixth form and he started GCSEs and A-Levels in Harris Academy Peckham but the Harris Academy Peckham is government funded and they appoints head teachers in school to take over and run properly and they are government bodies. Government Harris Academy Peckham is a non-profit organisation. Harris Academy Peckham is funded by government because is a public sector and it’s kind of a charity. The Harris Academy Peckham get fund by the government for the student’s education and with the help of government the school run because  school have to pay the wages of the teachers and others staff. Employee Harris Academy Peckham has enough employees to teach the students and the employees are very qualified and able to handle as many students. Harris Academy Peckham has employees their employees with good offering salary. Parents Harris Academy Peckham main customers are the person who’s leaving in the local area and the parents who’s in the local community. The Harris Academy Peckham is a secondary and sixth form school where the parents always were worrying about their children’s educations and them always looking for a better place where they can easily find a good school. Harris Academy Peckham has got lots a good community where the school have good number of students in the school. Tesco Introduction Tesco PLC is a British multinational grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, England, and United Kingdom. It is the third largest retailer in the world measured by profits and second-largest retailers in the world measured by revenues. Shareholders and founders Jack Cohen founded Tesco’s in 1919 from a market stall in London’s East End. Over the year our business has grown and Tesco’s now operate in 12 countries around the world. An American Depositary Share (ADS) is a US dollar-denominated form of equity ownership in Tesco; it represents Ordinary Share on deposit in the United Kingdom (UK). Supplier Piloting Supply from Chain Impact Assessments with suppliers in China, Thailand and the UK, allowing Tesco and its suppliers to better understand their impact on the lives of factory workers and communities associated with the supply chain so Tesco can replicate successes, helping to support better jobs and working conditions. The Tesco also have the UK suppliers such as from the farm and others supplies. Tesco also have their own farms and where  they get some of the vegetables and other dairy product supplies. Government The government affairs team so they can engage effectively on political developments and policy formulation in Westminster and the devolved assemblies. Government team also help to check policy changing and delaying with, and also in other financing information. The government get lots of tax, NI income for their employee and other taxes from the Tesco’s Employees The Tesco operation in the UK is the largest in the group, and 310,000 employees. Tesco have various type of job for all kind of people and the Tesco employee part-time and full-time employees, and they have plenty of employees in their stores to help their customers. Customers Tesco have many stores in the UK. The Tesco have many customers and they have record for their customers by asking them to register and be a club member and with that help the Tesco have all information about the customers. The Tesco gives many discounts and offers to attract their customers and the customers also enjoy with the Tesco and customers have many choices to buy their groceries, home products and electronic products.

A Study Of Anwar Ibrahim

A Study Of Anwar Ibrahim Introduction Anwar Ibrahim is without a doubt one of the most influential politician ever to emerge after our nation`s Independence Day in 1957.Without any sufficient political background he struggles through the political period during his University life. Although not famous at that time, his social, political and economical ideas gained a rapid support from the community when he became the Deputy Prime Minister in 1993. His involvement in politics was a success, with his ideology being accepted by the community in a great variety from the aspect of social to politics. Anwar Ibrahim was born on 10th August 1947 in a small village on the mainland in Sungai Bakap, Seberang Prai and was raised in Cherok ToKun.He received his early education in Sekolah Melayu Cherok ToKun and Sekolah Rendah Stowell, Bukit Mertajam, one of the renown primary school in Penang. Anwar Ibrahim was raised in a comfortable middle class family with his father, Ibrahim Abdul Rahman who was a porter in a hospital and his mom, Che Yan, a housewife. However, both his parent got involved in politics when, his father became a politician and retired as a Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Health. Similarly his mother also joined the UMNO. After finishing his high school in 1967, he enrolled his secondary education in Malay College Kuala Kangsar (MCKK) till 1966.during his period MCKK, he actively involved himself in interschool debate competitions and was subsequently elected as the students` president prior to his achievements and reputations in MCKK. Anwar pursued Malay Studies in one of Malaysias top University, University Malaya. In University Malaya, Anwars potential as a politician leader became obvious. He became the President of Persatuan Kebangsaan Pelajar Islam Malaysia (PKPIM).At the same time he was also the President of Malay Language Society. In University Malaya, Anwar gained his reputation and support by involving himself fiercely in defending the Malay community and the Muslims during the black days, 13th May 1969. One of the most daring act he had done during the racial war was, joining forces with Dr.Mahathir Mohamad in critising Tunku Abdul Rahman ruling who was the Prime Minister at that time. Since then, Anwar was known as a leader who always fights for students and social rights in his university. In 1971, he graduated in University Malaya by receiving the Ijazah Sarjana Muda Sastera. At the end of the year, the Muslim Youth movement of Malaysia was founded and Anwar became the first president. The Muslim Youth movement by Anwar proved to be one of the most influential societies when Anwar successfully formed a group of potential leaders who implies the teaching of Islam in daily life as well in leadership. His quality as a leader for this society was even approved and appreciated by the President of Pakistan, Zia Ul-Haq. The 1970s period is well known for its economical crisis in Malaysia due to the decrease in rubber price. Anwar saw his opportunity to solve the problem and gain more support, therefore, he rushed to solve the poverty issue in Baling. He leaded the anti poverty riot in 1974 which has landed him a punishment in ISA without trial where he spent almost two years in Kamunting detention center. In the year 1982, the supporters were astonished by the news saying that Anwar was stepping into the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). This is because he was a organisation which is also known as Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (ABIM) during that year too. It is known as the most organized force in Islamic revivalism in Malaysia. Meanwhile, United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) was lead by Tun Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad in the year 1981. Anwars involvement in defending the rights and justice of the society made the UMNO to set an eye on him. The UMNO sees him as a potential leader and soon, he was brought in the political party. In 1982, Anwar became the parliamentary speaker for Permatang Pauh. Later, he was designated as the Deputy Prime Minister. Anwar Ibrahim was a potential leader who has the ability and power to influence and affect human behaviour and accomplished mission. Due to his leadership qualities, he obtained a lot of support from the public. This was the main factor Anwar was elected as the president of the National Union of Malaysian Muslim Students from the year 1968 to 1971. In 1983, Anwar became the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports. He also held the position of Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Education and finally as the Minister of Finance in 1991. In the 1990s, Anwars relationship with Prime Minister, Dr.Mahathir Mohammed had begun to deteriorate. 1990s witnessed the downfall of Anwar, Anwar was framed and claimed to be involved in many foul play in politics such as corruption. He was alleged under nepotism and cronyism in 1999 and was sentenced to prison for six years. In the year 2000, he was sentenced for another nine years for a sodomy case. After his release, Anwar won the Permatang Pauh by-election in 2008.This marks the rise of a politician after all the struggles he went through. Anwar Ibrahim is a very influential man. He is known to have numerous connections with various politicians in different countries. He too, took part in a lot of uprising political activities. Anwar Ibrahim : The Rise The first stage as we can see began during his years at the University of Malaya. He was the president in many societies. As we can see, he was the president of the Malay Language Society University (PBMUM). Persatuan Bahasa Melayu Universiti Malaya (Malay for University of Malaya Malay Language Society) (PBMUM) is a Malay language, literature and culture oriented student body that has played an active role in the development of the modern Malay language in Malaysia and Singapore. It is marked as one of the most influential bodies in history of language development in Malaysia. The mission of PBMUM is committed towards the development of the Malay culture and language. The core of PBMUMs principle in 1954 was to persuade the Malayan government to recognise the Malay language as its national language. So, by recognising PBMUMs voice and struggle, the Majlis Undangan Persekutuan Tanah Melayu (Malayan Council) finally agreed on to make the Malay language as Malayas national language on 31 march 1995. PBMUM believes that it represents the voice of the people. PBMUM stands strongly against racism and upholds the view that its primary principle is in the development of the nation. Anwar, as the president of PBUM, had championed the implementation of Malay as the national language of our nation. By the time he completed his university studies, Anwar was already a popular national figure actively pursuing the reform agenda. He formed the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (ABIM) in 1971. It is to promote and uphold the principles of moderate Islam and to campaign for moral uplifting and social justice. After Anuar had been completed his study in university, he holds many ministerial post. He also had been married to Wan Azizah Wan Ismail. They also have 6 children, Nurul Izzah Anwar Ehsan Anwar Nurul Nuha Anwar and 3 others. In the year 1982, the supporters were astonished by the news saying that Anwar was stepping into the United Malays National Organization (UMNO). Anwar was invited to join the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) in 1982 by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Anwar has also been highly engaged in the international arena. He has been a strong advocate for dialogue among civilizations and has worked tirelessly towards the ideals of the mutual coexistence of civilizations and the interplay of different social, cultural, and spiritual ideas. Between 1995 and 1998, he organized a series of conferences on the Asian Renaissance, aimed at crossing geo-political barriers between societies and nations and creating political structures to promote dialogue across cultures. His first posts in the government were as the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports in 1983. After that, in 1984 he headed the agriculture ministry before becoming Minister of Education in 1986. By then, speculation was rife about Anwars ascent to the Deputy Prime Ministers position as it was a commonly-occurring phenomenon in Malaysia for the Education Minister to assume the position of Deputy PM in the near future. Anwar introduced numerous pro-Malay policies in the national school curriculum when he was in office as Education Minister. He wanted to make many changes in education system, for example one of the major changes that he did was to rename the national language from Bahasa Malaysia to Bahasa Melayu. However, the changes were criticized by Non-Malays. It was because, they had thought this move would cause the younger generation to be detached from the national language, since they would attribute it to being something that belongs to the Malays and not to Malaysians. Furthermore in 1991, he had been appointed as Minister of Finance. In 1993, he became Mahathirs Deputy Prime Minister after winning the Deputy Presidency of UMNO against Ghafar Baba. Because of that, Anwar had been accused at using large cash payments to win support. To secure his position as deputy president of UMNO, Anwar was alleged to have resorted to money politics. Anwars followers were seen by foreign journalists handing out packets of money to acquire support of UMNO division leaders. The followers, after a brief interview, are said to be working under Anwars instructions. Anwar was being groomed to succeed Tun Mahathir as Prime Minister, and frequently eluded in public to his son-father relationship with Tun Mahathir. So, Tun Mahathir appointed Anwar to be acting Prime Minister while he took a two-month holiday in early 1997. However, the relationship with Mahathir had begun to deteriorate, towards the end of the 1990s. It also triggered by their conflicting views on the governance of the country. In Mahathirs absence, Anwar had independently taken radical steps to improve the countrys governing mechanisms which were in direct conflict with Mahathirs capitalist policies. Issues such as how Malaysia would respond to a financial crisis were often at the forefront of this conflict. Mahathir angered when Anwars frontal attack against what he described as the widespread culture of nepotism and cronyism within UMNO. It shows that as did his attempts to dismantle the protectionist policies that Mahathir had set up. Cronyism was identified by Anwar as a major cause of corruption and misappropriation of funds in the country. The events of late 1998 marked the beginning of Anwars descent within UMNO and his subsequent ouster from the party and from Malaysian politics. Asian Financial Crisis occurred in 1997. During that period Anwar, in his capacity as finance minister, supported the International Monetary Fund (IMF) plan for recovery. An austerity package slashed government spending by 18%, cut ministerial salaries and deferred major investment projects were also instituted by him. Large-scale infrastructure development projects known as mega projects were set back as well, despite being a cornerstone of Tun Mahathirs plans for developing the nation. , Anwar declared: There is no question of any bailout although many Malaysian companies faced the threat of bankruptcy. The banks will be allowed to protect themselves and the government will not interfere. Anwar advocated a free market approach, sympathetic to foreign investment and trade liberalization, whereas Mahathir favored currency and foreign investment controls, blaming unchecked speculation by currency speculators like George Soros for the shrinking economy. There is disagreement among economists whether Anwars policies would have been more or less successful than Mahathirs. The Malaysian economy had plummeted to its lowest level yet since the recession of the early-1980s, so by the time Mahathir decided to impose currency controls and preventive measures to keep hedge funds in check Anwar had been named as the Asian of the Year. in 1998 Newsweek magazine. However, in that year, matters between Anwar Ibrahim and Tun Mahathir came to a head around the time of the quadrennial UMNO General Assembly. It would initiate a debate on cronyism and nepotism had been given noticed by The Youth wing of UMNO, headed by Anwars associate, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. The response was swift, as Tun Mahathir issued lists of cronies who had benefited from government share allocations and privatizations. Anwar and Zahid, along with several of Anwars other allies also included in the lists. Anwars father and his two brothers are showed to have received shares allocated by the government for the bumiputra. The shares amounted to an amount of about more than 7.1 million units in three companies held by his father Datuk Ibrahim Abdul Rahman and his brothers, Farizan and Marzukhi. On 2 May 1998, Dato Ibrahim Abdul Rahman, owned 250,000 shares of Pengkalen Holdings Berhad and 3,790500 on Nissan Industrial Oxygen Incorporated. Farizon owned 250,000 shares of Pengkalen Holdings Berhad. Marzukhi owned 2,800,000 shares in Penas Corporation. In the list, Datuk Ibrahim Abdul Rahman owned 2,000,000 shares in Industrial Oxygen Incorporated Bhd on 1993. In 1998, Anwar was also chairman of the Development Committee of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. During his tenure he strongly endorsed the initiatives of debt cancellation and reprieve for poor countries, particularly those in Africa. Anwar was awarded the Presidential Medal by Georgetown University, USA, and an honorary doctorate by the Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines because of his contributions, in 1996. In 1993, shortly after becoming finance minister, Euromoney named him as one of the top four finance ministers; in 1996, Asiamoney named him Finance Minister of the Year. Anwar has held lecturing positions at St. Anthonys College at Oxford and at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University since 2004. He was also a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Anwar is a consultant to the World Bank in the areas of governance and accountability and was also appointed as honorary president of the London-based group, Accountability in March 2009. He is chairman of the board for the Foundation for the Future and also serves as an adviser to the Peoples Justice Party (Parti Keadilan Rakyat) in Malaysia. He is an internationally renowned speaker on the subjects of democracy, freedom, governance, Islam and democracy, and the need for accountability. In November 2006, Anwar made a public statement indicating that he would run for Parliament in 2008, after his disqualification is expired. Since he was released from the prison, Anwar has been critical about our government policies, which provides the affirmative action for the Bumiputeras. One of his quotes policies is units of housing and initial public offerings that must be met. In the year of 1997, Malaysia had to undergo an economic crisis which was known as the Asian Economic Crisis. During this turbulent period, Anwar Ibrahim was holding the post as Minister of Finance of Malaysia. As a capable leader, Anwar had taken an action by introducing a series of economic reforms and austerity measure in order to overcome the economic crisis. However, this action was intensified a great negative feedback because Anwar was nominated for the controversial amendments for the Anti Corruption Act. This act was being notorious to raise the power in Anti Corruption Agency. On the other hand, the Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad sacked Anwar from all his post, due to the unsatisfactory towards these measurements. As a result, this incident had led to protest from the public and finally formed the Reformasi movement. At first, the Gerakan Reformasi or Reformation started when Anwar`s wife, Dr Wan Azizah formed Parti Keadilan Nasional (National Justice Party), on 4th April 1999. The party was then joined by the Democratic Action Party (DAP), the Malaysian Peoples Party (PRM) and the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) completing a fully fledged opposition coalition known as, Barisan Alternatif (Alternative Front) to take on the ruling Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalition in the 1999 general elections. For which, in the election held that year, he party entered the campaign with many of its key leaders under arrest and as a result saw it winning only five parliamentary seats in the elections despite gaining 11.67% of the total votes cast. The Barisan Alternatif as a whole gained 40.21% of the total votes cast with PAS gaining 27 seats and DAP gaining ten seats. After the elections, there were negotiations between Parti Keadilan and Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM) regarding a possible merger of force. Despite some opposition in both parties to the move, a 13 point Memorandum of Understanding was eventually signed by the two parties on 5 July 2002. On 3 August 2003, the new merged entity was officially launched and assumed its current name. (Current main/head advisor of PKR) Anwar Ibrahim controversial issues The first issues that that involve Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim was in 1999 when he was charged under the corruption case. He was sentenced to six years in prison. At the time, Dato Seri Mahathir bin Mohammad was the Prime Minister of Malaysia. Dato Seri Mahathir bin Mohammad is the people who expose the Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim activity and his colony. Then, Dato Seri Mahathir Mohammad was direct the Public Prosecutor to charged Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim under the case of corruption. According to the special branch of the police, Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim also involve in illegal activity. Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim was arrested by the police on charged of receiving bribes from the other people using his power as the minister and also the deputy of prime minister at that time. Then the case was bring to the court and the case is the most controversional issues in Malaysia. Then, the case of Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim was bring to the trial. The trial was held at the Federal Court. The chief judge at that time was Tun Haji Mohamed Salleh bin Abbas. Tun Salleh bin Abbas was the Lord President of the Federal Court of Malaya. Because of the constitutional crisis he was dismissed from his post during the 1988 Malaysian Constitutional crisis. At that time, the executive branch tried to interfere with the judicial branch system. Dato` Seri Anwar Ibrahim`s second controversial issues was the case of sodomy. At that particular time, the case is look very weird because it is impossible that he is the homosexual. In 1999, Anwar brought legal action against Prime Minister Mahathir for defamation for allegedly uttering accusations of immoral acts and calling Anwar a homosexual at a news conference in Malaysia. The police were instructed to investigate the veracity of the claims that Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim was the people who make the sodomy. Then, the trial began and Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim was charged with sodomy. He found guilty and was convicted to 15 years in prison sentence. This is because the person who was charged was the Deputy Prime Minister and Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim also has his own followers. This started a crisis in the government. At this time also, a lot of riot was held. This is because the people were not satisfied with the government who tried to interfere with the judicial system at that time. (Anwar Ibrahim was released from jail in the year 2004, Federal court acquitted Anwar and Sukma of the sodomy charge. However one of the three judges, Abdul Hamid Mohamad said he was inclined to believe that the alleged incident at Tivoli Villa did take place) Other issues, that hit Dato` Seri Anwar Ibrahim was charged for a second sodomy trial. This time, Dato` Seri Anwar Ibrahim was charged because of the case sodomy his former private assistant who is Saiful Bukahri. This case was calamity the public because this is the second charged on the same person but different victim. This case also has many doubts about the evidence presented by the prosecute officer evidence presented by the prosecute officer evidence presented by the prosecute officer. In this case also, the people involved were mostly of the politically active individuals. So, it can be a political technique to not trust the people who involve in the case. If the person is involved this case, he or she would be a political person, his reputation in the politic will go down and the people will not trust anymore about him. This is maybe only the political propaganda. Besides that, the competitions between the political parties nowadays make the authority lose their power. This is maybe the reason why is this particular thing happening now days. The other issues that Involve Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim is about the Malaysian Defence System. The government said that Dato` Seri Anwar Ibrahim was an America spy in Malaysia. Anwar Ibrahim`s Contributions In Umno Anwar Ibrahim joining the United Malays National Organization known as UMNO now days that lead by Dato Seri Mahathir Bin Mohammad, who had become the Prime Minister in 1981. Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim moved up the political ranks very quickly and his first ministerial office was in charged by him is the Minister of Culture, Youth, and Sports in 1983. When he held the post, he administered the government well. At that time also, he had numerous supporters with him. After that, he was the person who headed the Ministry of Agriculture in 1984 and he moved his post to the Minister of Education on 1986. At that time, he made lots of changes in the Malaysian education system. He also made the education system more sophisticated and systematically advanced. During that period, he wanted to make sure that all citizens will be able to get and enjoy a proper education for the benefit of everyone. Then, we have heard about speculations regarding Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim holding the post of the Deputy Prime Minister and it was commonly occurring phenomenon in Malaysia or Minister of Education to assume the position of Deputy Prime Minister in the near future. During his time as Education Minister, Anwar introduced numerous pro-Malay policies in the national school curriculum. One of the major changes that he did was to rename the national language from Bahasa Malaysia to Bahasa Melayu. Non-Malays criticized this move as it would cause the younger generation to be detached from the national language, since they would attribute it to being something that belongs to the Malays and not to Malaysians. In 1991, Dato` Seri Anwar Ibrahim was appointed Minister of Finance. When he became the Minister of Finance, the government people says that he takes o lat of the government money for his private usage. In 1993, he became Dato` Seri Mahathir Mohammad Deputy Prime Minister after winning the Deputy Presidency of UMNO against Ghafar Baba. There was a report on Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim using large cash payments to win support. Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim is alleged to have resorted to money politics to secure his position as deputy president of UMNO. Anwar followers were witnessed by even foreign journalists handing out packets of money to acquire support of UMNO division leaders. These followers are said to be working under Anwars instructions. Dato` Seri Anwar Ibrahim had a lot of followers and he could achieve many things. Dato` Seri Anwar Ibrahim at that time had a lot of influence. Towards the end of the 1990s, however, the relationship with Tun Mahathir had begun to deteriorate, triggered by their conflicting views on governance. In Mahathirs absence, Anwar had independently taken radical steps to improve the countrys governing mechanisms which were in direct conflict with Mahathirs capitalist policies. Issues such as how Malaysia would respond to a financial crisis were often at the forefront of this conflict. Anwars frontal attack against what he described as the widespread culture of nepotism and cronyism within UMNO (and the ruling coalition as a whole) angered Mahathir, as did his attempts to dismantle the protectionist policies that Mahathir had set up. Cronyism was identified by Anwar as a major cause of corruption and misappropriation of funds in the country. The events of late-1998 marked the beginning of Anwars descent within UMNO and his subsequent ouster from the party and from Malaysian politics. Dark period of Anwar Ibrahim Dark period of Anwar Ibrahim was started on 2 September, when Prime Minister Mahathir dismissed Anwar from the government. He was no longer a deputy prime minister and also finance minister. He was also expelled from UMNO. Before that, the Youth wing of UMNO, headed by Anwars associate Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, gave notice that it would initiate a debate on cronyism and nepotism. The response was swift, as Prime Minister Mahathir issued lists of cronies who had benefited from government share allocations and privatizations. The list included Anwar and Zahid, along with several of Anwars other allies. Anwars trial and subsequent conviction were widely discredited by the international community. Many world leaders called for his release from prison. On September 29, 1998 Anwar appeared in court and pleaded innocent to charges of corruption and sodomy. The black eye was explained by Mahathir Mohamad and Rahim Noor as being self-inflicted and caused by pressing a glass over his eyes. Only after a Royal Commission was convened did Rahim Noor admit that he had administered the beating to Anwar. Rahim apologized for the incident in August 2005. Rahim Noor was eventually charged for the assault and was given a two-month prison sentence and fined 2,000 ringgit. In 1999, he was sentenced to six years in prison for corruption, and in 2000, to another nine years for sodomy. The police were instructed to investigate the veracity of the claims that he was being a homosexual guy. Anwar was charged with sodomy, convicted and given a 15 year prison sentence. Anwars trial and subsequent conviction were widely discredited by the international community. Many world leaders called for his release from prison. In 1999, Anwar brought legal action against Prime Minister Mahathir for defamation for allegedly uttering accusations of immoral acts and calling Anwar a homosexual at a news conference in Malaysia. However, this verdict was partially overturned in 2004, resulting in Anwars release from prison. A panel of three judges of the Federal Court (Malaysias highest court) overturned the sodomy conviction by 2 to 1, finding contradictions in the prosecutions case on 2, September 2004. After Anwar released from prison, he was reportedly suffering from serious back problem. His family said was the result of the beating by the ex-police chief. the UMNO-owned newspaper, the New Straits Times, alleged that the injuries had actually been caused by a fall from a horse in 1993 during Anwars tenure as deputy prime minister. His wife had argued that during his imprisonment that he required treatment for his condition at a clinic in Germany. The government refused, claiming that such treatment was readily available in Malaysia, offering medical treatment if necessary. However, in September 2004, after the Federal Court quashed his conviction for sodomy, Anwar was free to travel to Munich for back surgery. On August 28, 2008, Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia. formally declared Anwar, the leader of the 3-party opposition alliance. Anwar continued to attack Najib first day as prime minister, stating he found inconsistencies in the latters decision to release 13 Internal Security Act detainees. He said as long as the ISA existed, Barisan Nasional (National Front) could still detain citizens at will. Anwar has already missed several deadlines he himself set for the transfer of power, each of which came and went: the most recent was Tuesday 16 September 2008. Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak chose that day to initiate a broadband internet program Anwar opposes, saying that he had not doubted that the government would still be in office on 16 September. Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi too pointed out that Anwar had missed his own deadline, and dismissed his claim to have secured the defection of 30 MPs. On 24 October 2008, Anwar admitted problems with his stalled bid to topple UMNOs majority, saying that Pakatan Rakyat is running out of options to create a majority. His credibility among ordinary Malaysians has been somewhat dented after Sept 16 and the new promise of forming the Government has not generated the sort of anticipation or excitement as before. Media within the country have taken an increasingly hostile view towards Anwars protestations and failed threats to assemble a majority government. Anwar Ibrahim has voiced support to allow the former leader of the Communist Party of Malaya, Chin Peng to be allowed to return to Malaysia. However, his remarks have been slammed by UMNO leaders who called them regrettable to accusation as a plot to gain support of the Chinese community. On June 29, 2008, an online news portal Malaysia Kini, reported that an aide of Anwar Ibrahim had lodged a police report claiming that he had been sodomised by Anwar. The news has since been updated with reports that SMS messages are being distributed claiming that the person who made the report is Anwars aide, Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, who was arrested and allegedly forced to make a false confession. The same text message also claimed the possibility of Anwar being arrested. Malaysian police issued an arrest warrant on July 15 for Anwar Ibrahim, and investigating Officer Jude Pereira signed and issued the letter requiring Anwar to appear at a police station for questioning before Wednesday at 2 p.m. local time. Anwar has said that the possibility of a prison sentence as a result of these allegations could be seen as an attempt to remove leadership and transference of power issues caused by his growing support and by-election victories. He also reaffirms his innocence and cites proof in the form of medical reports. Conspiracy to Bring Anwar Ibrahim down Financial Crisis: During the year of 1997 saw Malaysias economy being affected by the Asian Financial Crisis. Anwar Ibrahim, as the Finance Minister during that period, in his capacity as a Finance Minister, has taken action to support the International Monetary Fund (IMF) plan for recovery. He also instituted an austerity package that slashed the government spending by 18% by cutting down ministerial salaries and deferred major investment projects. Not only that, large-scale infrastructure development projects known as mega projects were set back as well. Anwar had advocated a free market approach, sympathetic to foreign investment and trade liberalization, whereas Mahathir favored currency and foreign investment control, blaming unchecked speculation by currency speculators for the shrinking economy. Anwar Ibrahim has also instituted a series of economic reforms and austerity measures in response. These actions were exacerbated when he tabled controversial amendments to the Anti Corrupt Act that sought to increase the powers of the Anti Corruption Agency. Dr. Mahathir, who was the Prime Minister at that time, disagreed with the measures taken by Anwar and had ultimately sacked Anwar from all of his posts and positions. In my own opinion, there is a great disagreement among economist whe

Who Was Benjamin Franklin Religion Essay

Who Was Benjamin Franklin Religion Essay Benjamin Franklins ideas on God and human nature were significantly different from the puritan norm at the time.   While Franklin saw God as a good and wise creator, the puritans feared Him as an almighty being.   The puritans saw human nature as the ultimate conduit for sin, while Franklin believed that humans as products of God were good at heart.   Franklin believed in a God discrete from both mans activity on earth and the puritan ideal of who He was, and in humans not as slaves to sin and redemption, but as masters of their own destiny. Puritanism was a very widely held belief system in the early colonies. A direct descendant of Calvinism, Puritanism had strong roots among a vast number of the colonists throughout early American settlements. As a sect of Christianity, they believed in the bible as the word of God, and Jesus as Gods son. It was common for puritans of the time to fear God and look at all misfortune that befell them as punishment for their sins. And as it struck my hand, so it struck my heart; for I suddenly rose up and went into a wood; and there I cried bitterly, and now concluded that God, God had found me out. (Dane, 4) The puritan God can almost be seen as a tyrannical leader; one who strikes fear into the hearts of His subjects, yet demands their love and respect. Franklins semi-present creator-God was distinctly different from that of the punishing overseer of the puritans. Franklin was one of few deists at the time. It is said that had he published his deism tract thirty years earlier, he would have risked imprisonment and execution in the British Empire. The norms of the time, the puritans, were an overwhelming majority. The puritan God was always there, always watching over his creations. As John Dane repeated from his mother, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Go where you will, God he will find you out. (Dane, 2) The puritans spent their lives with the ever present notion of Gods wrath hanging over their shoulders. Franklins God was not the same entity. He was the creator, and that to Franklin was as far as His relationship with man went. God did not inspire man to write the books of the bible, nor did he send His Son to die on a cross for mans sin. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦after doubting by turns of several pointsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ I began to doubt of Revelation itself . (Franklin, 5) Franklins God gave man life and free will, and then gave him the reigns to control his own destiny. The puritan conception of human nature was based on the idea of original sin. Original sin is a term used to describe the bibles story of Adam and Eve eating the fruit from the tree of good and evil under temptation of Satan. Puritans believed that because of this original sin, humans are all inherently corrupt and impure of mind; because man is born into sin, it is impossible for him to escape it. Your best duties are tainted, poisoned, and mingled with some sin, and therefore are most odious in the eyes of a holy God. (Wigglesworth, 4) In the eyes of the church, the only redeeming quality of human nature was that they themselves were made by God. They were obedient to God and His word because they were afraid of his punishment. The only hope the puritans had in life was that they might be chosen in Gods eyes as worthy of redemption. Franklin saw the nature of humans in a very different light. While he did look to God for wisdom and insight, he believed that man could be good without God. He came to this conclusion not with religion, but with intellect and logic. He created a list of thirteen virtues that he believed could bring a man to moral perfection. These too were not created with any particular religious sect in mind, but rather with the idea that all people could better themselves through them. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦that vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful, the nature of man alone consideredà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ (Franklin, 15) He believed that evil or morally wrong actions were wrong, not because God said so, but because they were hurtful to humanity. Human nature by itself was not corrupt, and it was possible for a man to be truly good. Franklins beliefs on human nature were different in many ways than that of the puritans. While the puritans saw man as essentially evil from conception, Franklin saw man as able to create his own destiny. While both parties believed in God as being important to the life of men, Franklin saw his importance as more of a guide, and less as a strict path like that of the puritans. The Puritans had only one way to achieve completion in life; to earn Gods redemption. Franklin believed that as man tried to be a better person, he was achieving his destiny in life. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦tho I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtainingà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ I was, by the endeavor, a better and happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ (Franklin, 14) The puritans did not believe this was the case, as good works to them meant nothing if God did not give favor. Your good duties cannot save you, yet your bad works will damn you. (Wiggleswort h, 4) The separate parties idea of human nature was directly affected by their respective ideas of God. The puritans believed in a God that was almighty and all encompassing. They thought of themselves as unworthy beasts without purpose, and only with the favor of God did they have any chance of happiness on this earth or after it. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦everyone sinned in Adam and everyone deserves eternal deathà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ (Wigglesworth, 4) Franklin saw a God that was less involved in the lives of men. He put much more emphasis on the worth of a persons works and endeavors, and less on whether or not this person had been chosen by God. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦there was in [my scheme] no mark of any of the distinguishing tenants of any particular sect. I had purposely avoided themà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ that it might be serviceable to people of all religionsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ (Franklin, 15) Both groups ideals were founded in belief, and were distinctly different because of the differences in the belief of each re spective God. As much as the puritan ideals were similar to that of the deist Benjamin Franklin, the differences of each faith is what defines them. Franklin believed in a God based in logic, while the puritans God was founded in faith and tradition. From this belief in separate Gods, separate belief in human nature arose; the puritans believing in Human nature as evil and Franklin believing in it as independent and just. Franklin found that the path to righteousness could be obtained through good works that bettered humanity; while the puritans believed that only strict adherence to the guidelines set forth by God could bring salvation. Each point of view has its own foundations and each gives historians a different yet equally relevant perspective on life in the early American colonies.

Deception in Tartuffe, Phaedra, and The Marriage of Figaro Essay

Deception in Tartuffe, Phaedra, and The Marriage of Figaro  Ã‚   In literature, deception can provide motivation for the characters, provide comedy, play a part in the advancement of plot or exist as a sub-theme. The works considered in our studies thus far provide prime examples of the use of deception in the aforementioned ways. This essay will focus on the act or acts of deception in Tartuffe by Molià ¨re, Phaedra by Racine, and The Marriage of Figaro by Beaumarchais. In Molià ¨re's Tartuffe, the primary action of the play is focused upon the deception of Orgon as performed by Tartuffe. Tartuffe is a hypocritically pious Christian much like the televangelists of the present day. His nature is best illustrated in scene two of act three with: Hang up my hair-shirt, put my scourge in place, And pray, Laurent, for Heaven's perpetual grace. I'm going to the prison now, to share My last few coins with the poor wretches there. This statement, made for the benefit of Dorine, illustrates Tartuffe's hypocritical nature. Tartuffe's religious piety is much like his hair-s... Deception in Tartuffe, Phaedra, and The Marriage of Figaro Essay Deception in Tartuffe, Phaedra, and The Marriage of Figaro  Ã‚   In literature, deception can provide motivation for the characters, provide comedy, play a part in the advancement of plot or exist as a sub-theme. The works considered in our studies thus far provide prime examples of the use of deception in the aforementioned ways. This essay will focus on the act or acts of deception in Tartuffe by Molià ¨re, Phaedra by Racine, and The Marriage of Figaro by Beaumarchais. In Molià ¨re's Tartuffe, the primary action of the play is focused upon the deception of Orgon as performed by Tartuffe. Tartuffe is a hypocritically pious Christian much like the televangelists of the present day. His nature is best illustrated in scene two of act three with: Hang up my hair-shirt, put my scourge in place, And pray, Laurent, for Heaven's perpetual grace. I'm going to the prison now, to share My last few coins with the poor wretches there. This statement, made for the benefit of Dorine, illustrates Tartuffe's hypocritical nature. Tartuffe's religious piety is much like his hair-s...

A-Bomb yes? :: essays research papers

The relevance of the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was that it ended World War II, which is the main goal of the any war so yes, it was necessary. The two bombs dropped mightconvince the Japanese any further resistance was futile, which worked. After the bombings, there were rumors of Japanese ready to surrender the next few day which claimed to make the two bombings â€Å"unnecessary†.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The generally accepted view that the Japanese would fight to the very end put that rumor at a very small percentage. The Japanese also wanted their current emperor to remain on throne and they were afraid that the surrendering terms would cause the Japanese to choose a new Emperor.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The atomic bomb lead America to the atomic age, causing it to build many thousands of nuclear bombs. Having the many nuclear bombs was a great defense, not for shooting, but to generally let countries know that â€Å"hey we have more nuclear weapons than you all combined† so that they would think twice, even three times before attacking America. The dropping of the first atomic bomb proved that by ending the war. The second dropping of the bomb was just as important to causing the Japanese to surrender as much as the first. Just two days after Hiroshima, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. Dropping the second bomb on Nagasaki would make the surrender of Japan inevitable. What would have happened had the A-bomb not been used? Of course, thewar would have continued. US forces; therefore, would have had to invade the home island of Japan. Doing so, would end in many casualties. American forces would not only have to fight Japanese forces, but Japanese civilians as well. The Japanese civilians may not seem like a lot compared to the U.S. forces, but the Japanese government had been giving the civilians weapons from guns to spears. With the overwhelming number of civilians compared to American Forces, it would prove to be a hard battle which could lead to many casualties. The number of Japanese civilian casualties could have been greater than that of the atomic bomb and it would have taken a longer period.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Chief of Staff predicted that the Japanese would have surrendered on September 1944, but they were still fighting. So there was no way of knowing if the Japanese were going to surrender or not.

Books Vs. Movies Essay

Why are audiences so upset with the way the movie turned out after reading the book? † Ask any reader who has seen the movie version of a favorite book, and the answer will usually be, the book was better.† (Corliss, 2005, p. 1)They are frequently disappointed because the movie versions are not sticking to their all-time favorite book. Growing up with books like Harry Potter, as readers or having someone reading to us our minds wonder off to this mystical land, picturing how our heroes and villains would look and act. As they take in the words, the reader can almost smell the trees and here the wind blow through the castles. Reading a book compared to watching the movie brings up controversy; with books readers use their minds while watching a movie people sit back and enjoy. It all starts with the book and how the reader’s mind starts to imagine what it will look like; the smell, taste, and feel. Then they bring the movie with the director’s view on the story. Let’s start with how people view the story that they are reading. The reader will take the story from the book and make it their own personal story, internalize from their own perspective and imagination. Each reader will see and interact with the story in their way. With Harry Potter readers, some say they feel closer to the main characters because it easier to see what’s going on in their minds. The directors have read the same books too and have challenges to overcome. Bringing Harry Potter to life on the big Screen, and appease all the children that have read the books. His job is to make the movie exciting; some books have some narrative that can just drag on. Sometimes what you read may not work in the movies. Some directors like to change things up so the viewers will be surprised and not be bored because they know everything that was going to happen. Now, back to how the audience sees the main character in a different light concerning reading, then on the big screen. The book builds this character that they grow to like; readers may see themselves as the leading actor. Some readers will picture their favorite actor playing the part. Characters are what keeps the readers coming back every time or make it impossible to put the book down because they want to find out what happens next. As a reader, you feel closer to what’s happening; you feel all the emotion that the characters are going through. Concerning the big screen, the character usually gets a brief back ground. The director determines the character for you; he will pick the actor for the spot. Sometimes they will pick a different gender to play the part. The director has to take a book like Harry Potter and cut some of the characters out so that the main character gets more time. They also cut out scenes. Let’s take for example, the Dursley’s family that was to keep Harry safe when not in school. After the third film they cut them out most of the other films. In book 4 they were to meet the Weasleys and that was cut out for the movie. (Bibbiani (2011)), â€Å"The audience spent way too much time with the Dursley family over the course of the franchise to deny them their only redeeming moment.† The director will put his own insights and how he pictures the characters to be and what scenes he wants. The story line people see in our mind from reading may change on the big screen. With reading, they get the whole story from beginning to the end, the readers will know everything about their character; including where they live and what time period they’re from. It all goes back to how they imagine it will be like. In every story it starts out slow so it can build you up to the main event. It may take up to 100 pages to explain a character. After reading the book, must readers feel that they lived another life, unless it’s a series, the reader will feel completed. However, with the movie there are time constraints to think about and they need to achieve the right rating for the movie. In the books the writers has more freedom with the story line, when it comes to the movie they need to make sure it targets the right audience. The Harry Potter movies always have been geared toward children and teens, so they cut things out to achieve that goal. The Goblet of Fire was a 734- page book that would be a 10 hour movie. The screen writer Steve Kloves said †it took him two years to figure out how to make the movie and deciding what parts to cut out† (Corliss, 2005, pp. 3-3). They took the first hundred pages and put it into a thrilling 20 minutes. They need to make the movie exciting by cutting out some of the narrative and zipping through some of it. There are some movie critics that love the movies because they cut out the boring narration of the books. Readers interact with the book and use their minds to imagine the story while movie-audiences are more passively enjoying the movie. We see how and why things change from reading books and how the movie may have a different concept. When reading books, a person is creating their own movie in a sense. You know how the character speaks, what they look like. Where the director is showing how he perceived the story and characters. Can we as readers see books and movies as different entities? Not all movie versions might be considered worse than the books. Books require your imagination to run wild with in the story. Movies are an in-depth perspective toward the story. In some people opinion they need to change some of the details from the book to make the movie more enjoyable. Think about how dull that movie may be if you put everything from the book into the movie. Next time you are out watching a movie and you have already read the book try to remember that it is not going to be how you imagined it, it’s someone else’s story and how they perceived it. â€Å"If we were more naà ¯ve, new to the plot and characters, things might be different, but since we’ve read the books, and read them emphatically, possibly more than once we can’t know that for sure. We can only compare to what we know, and already love† (Mario & Mario, 2012, pp. 3-2). References: Bibbiani, W. (2011). Crave Online. Retrieved from http://www.craveonline.com/film/articles/171155-the-top-ten-things-the-harry-potter-movies-left-out Corliss, R. (2005, Nov.). Books Vs. Movies. Time, (),. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1134742,00.html Mario, A., & Mario, R. (2012, may). The Trouble with Making Books We Love into Movies. The Atlantic Wire, (), 5. Retrieved from http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2012/03/trouble-making-books-we-love-movies/50220/

None of The Above Voting Essay

None of The Above or â€Å"against all† vote is designed in order to allow the voter to indicate his/her disapproval of all the candidates in the voting system. Election is all about choosing the right candidate, not voting against or showing dissatisfaction over a particular party. Points in Favor-  · Gives true meaning to democracy  · People will be able to express what they actually want  · Political parties can project right and clear candidates  · Promotes spirit of democracy The right purpose of democracy is to choose a leader who is fit to run the constituency. A leader has to be selected if he/she is the right candidate, the decision should not be biased. Here, NOTA is a good option because this choice is always better than no voting. At least the political parties can know what people are looking for and right candidates can be presented. It would foster purity and vibrancy of elections, and more and more people will come to vote in order to express whether they are satisfied with the candidates, the political parties represent. Points against NOTA-  · Lack of proper mechanism  · May lead to wastage of time and money  · Can also lead to re-election Even if 90% of the voters choose NOTA, the majority of the remaining 10% will be the winner.so there will be no point for the voters to choose NOTA. Apart from this, it can be wastage of time. Suppose all the voters choose the NOTA option, then what is point of election? India is a democratic country where leaders are chosen on the basis of votes and if none of the candidates are selected then the whole election is a waste of time. Also it can lead to wastage of money because if no party wins or gets the majority of votes, re-election will be held, requiring a lot of spending.

Birthday party by Katharine Brush

They were a couple in their late thirties, and they looked unmistakably married. They sat on the banquette opposite us in a little narrow restaurant, having dinner. The man had a round, self-satisfied face, with glasses on it; the woman was fadingly pretty, in a big hat. There was nothing conspicuous about them, nothing particularly noticeable, until the end of their meal, when it suddenly became obvious that this was an occasion—in fact, the husband’s birthday. And the wife had planned a little surprise for him.It arrived, in the form of a small but glossy birthday cake, with one pink candle burning in the center. The headwaiter brought it in and placed it before the husband, and meanwhile the violin-and-piano orchestra played â€Å"Happy Birthday to You† and the wife beamed with shy pride over her little surprise, and such few people as there were in the restaurant tried to help out with a pattering of applause. It became clear at once that help was needed, bec ause the husband was not pleased. Instead he was hotly embarrassed, and indignant at his wife for embarrassing him.You looked at him and you saw this and you thought, â€Å"Oh, now don’t be like that! † But he was like that, and as soon as the little cake had been deposited on the table, and the orchestra had finished the birthday piece, and the general attention had shifted from the man and the woman, I saw him say something to her under his breath—some punishing thing, quick and curt and unkind. I couldn’t bear to look at the woman then, so I stared at my plate and waited for quite a long time. Not long enough, though. She was still crying when I finally glanced over there again.Crying quietly and heartbrokenly and hopelessly, all to herself, under the gay big brim of her best hat. Purpose of the story is that Appreciation is the best reward of the hard work in close relations. In story the woman wants to surprise his husband on his birthday, for that p urpose she arranged cake for him and also she dressed a big hat which shows her happiness on that occasion. But at last the husband shows a rude behave. Literary devices used by Narrator: Devices used by narrator to show efforts did by wife to surprise. 1. Glossy birthday cake 2. One pink candle3. Served by headwaiter 4. Music of violin-and-piano The women walk with a huge hat to show excitement on her husband’s birthday. Hot behave of husband to show that he is now happy with his wife excitement. Opposite to narrator ( not included in answer) . The women walks in with a huge hat [looking for attention] and grabs a seat. The man is want a simple birthday party with dinner only. The waiters come out with a huge PINK cake. It sounds like the women is doing much for her husband, and is excited. He says something short yet hurtful and she bursts out in tears.Attention here once again. It was a pink cake and the man wasn't looking for to much attention, and narrator seems to direc t all the attention on the cake purchased by wife. Therefore when reading it, you may think at first, how rude of the man. But analysis shows that hey, it wasn't really all his fault, the women was trying to make a scene. But we can't see this because of the narrator is watching from a far and doesn't show the thoughts and emotions. Reference: 1. www. sccollege. edu/projects/433/Birthday%20Party%20K. %20Brush. doc

Real-Time Fraud Detection: How Stream Computing Can Help the Retail Banking Industry

Para os meus pais, porque â€Å"o valor das coisas nao esta no tempo que elas duram, mas na intensidade com que acontecem. Por isso existem momentos inesqueciveis, coisas inexplicaveis e pessoas incomparaveis† como voces! Obrigado por tudo, Filipe Abstract The Retail Banking Industry has been severely affected by fraud over the past few years. Indeed, despite all the research and systems available, fraudsters have been able to outsmart and deceive the banks and their customers. With this in mind, we intend to introduce a novel and multi-purpose technology known as Stream Computing, as the basis for a Fraud Detection solution.Indeed, we believe that this architecture will stimulate research, and more importantly organizations, to invest in Analytics and Statistical Fraud-Scoring to be used in conjunction with the already in-place preventive techniques. Therefore, in this research we explore different strategies to build a Streambased Fraud Detection solution, using advanced Dat a Mining Algorithms and Statistical Analysis, and show how they lead to increased accuracy in the detection of fraud by at least 78% in our reference dataset. We also discuss how a combination of these strategies can be embedded in a Stream-based application to detect fraud in real-time.From this perspective, our experiments lead to an average processing time of 111,702ms per transaction, while strategies to further improve the performance are discussed. Keywords: Fraud Detection, Stream Computing, Real-Time Analysis, Fraud, Data Mining, Retail Banking Industry, Data Preprocessing, Data Classi? cation, Behavior-based Models, Supervised Analysis, Semi-supervised Analysis Sammanfattning Privatbankerna har drabbats hart av bedragerier de senaste aren. Bedragare har lyckats kringga forskning och tillgangliga system och lura bankerna och deras kunder.Darfor vill vi infora en ny, polyvalent strommande datorteknik (Stream Computing) for att upptacka bedragerier. Vi tror att denna struktur kommer att stimulera forskningen, och framfor allt fa organisationerna att investera i analytisk och statistisk bedragerisparning som kan anvandas tillsammans med be? ntlig forebyggande teknik. Vi undersoker i var forskning olika strategier for att skapa en strommande losning som utnyttjar avancerade algoritmer for datautvinning och statistisk analys for att upptacka bedragerier, och visar att dessa okar traffsakerheten for att upptacka bedragerier med minst 78% i var referensbas.Vi diskuterar aven hur en kombination av dessa strategier kan baddas in i en strommande applikation for att upptacka bedragerier i realtid. Vara forsok ger en genomsnittlig bearbetningstid pa 111,702ms per transaktion, samtidigt som olika strategier for att fortsatta forbattra resultaten diskuteras. Acknowledgments â€Å"Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone† Gladys Bronwyn Stern When I wrote the ? rst words in this report I think I had no idea what a Master Thesis is about!I can’t blame myself though since I never wrote one before, but if you ask me now to describe this experience I would say that it’s like a road trip: you set yourself a destination, you have a loyal crew that is always there for you, a roadmap, supporters on the side and then the journey begins. Within the latter, you face setbacks with the help of others, you share knowledge, you meet new people and most importantly you get to know them†¦ This journey would not have been possible without the support, camaraderie and guidance of many friends, colleagues and my family.For all these reasons, I couldn’t let the journey end without expressing my gratitude to each and everyone of them. First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Philippe Spaas, who made it possible for me to work in this project under his supervision and in collaboration with IBM. It was a privilege to work alongside with him and a unique learning opportunity for me! I am indebted for his precious guidance and for the time dedicated not only in helping me understand how a research paper should be formulated, but also in reviewing the latter.Thank you! I am very thankful as well to Tybra Arthur, who graciously accepted me in her team and supported my internship, Jean de Canniere who accepted to be my Manager and without whom I wouldn’t have had this opportunity. In this line of thought, I am also grateful to Hans Van Mingroot who helped me secure this project in its negotiation phase. All three were key elements, and their support and guidance throughout the research were important to me and very much appreciated.I would also like to express my gratitude to Professor Mihhail Matskin at KTH – the Royal Institute of Technology – for having accepted this Master Thesis and for being my examiner. His insights and help were invaluable to achieve more sound end results and put together this ? nal report! In addition, I would like to ext end my personal thanks to my Erasmus Coordinator, Anna Hellberg Gustafsson, for her support, kindness and dedication for the duration of the research which was key to the organization of the latter.She is, for me, the best coordinator I have met and heard about! I would probably not have taken the appropriate steps to have this opportunity within IBM if it weren’t for the initial support and guidance of Karl De Backer, Anika Hallier, Anton Wilsens and last but not least Parmjeet Kaur Gurmeet. I truly value their follow-up both on the research and on my experience! On a special note I would like to thank Parmjeet for having been always a good mentor to me and for her support and trust ever since the Extreme Blue internship.I want to thank each IBMer with whom I came in contact with in the Financial Services Sector Department for welcoming me into their working environment and for making my stay very enjoyable. In addition to the aforementioned IBMers, among many others and in no speci? c order I would like to thank Daniel Pauwels, Patrick Taymans, Hedwige Meunier, Gauthier de Villenfagne, Michel Van Der Poorten, Kjell Fastre, Annie Magnus, Wouter Denayer, Patrick Antonis, Sara Ramakers, Marc Ledeganck, Joel Van Rossem and Stephane Massonet. It was a real pleasure to share the open space and, more importantly, to meet them!Dan Gutfreund at IBM Haifa was a key element in the development of this thesis. I am very thankful for the discussions we had about Fraud Detection and for his advice in the different phases that compose this research. In addition, I would like to extend my thanks to Jean-Luc Collet at IBM La Gaude for his valuable help in obtaining a stable virtual machine with InfoSphere Streams. I am thankful to Professor Gianluca Bontempi and Liran Lerman at Universite Libre de Bruxelles for ? nding the time to discuss about Fraud Detection and Data Mining techniques.Their insights were vital for the development of the prototype and the overall rese arch. On the same vein, I would like to thank Chris Howard at IBM Dublin for his help in understanding Stream Computing and InfoSphere Streams. His guidance was crucial for a timely comprehension of the ? eld without which I wouldn’t have been able to develop the prototype. I want to thank Mike Koranda and John Thorson at IBM Rochester for their help in understanding the integration of Data Mining and Stream Computing and how to achieve the latter in a more ef? cient manner.I really appreciated their help with the prototype, especially when atypical errors occurred to more quickly detect the source of the problem. I am also thankful to IBM, as a company, for providing me the opportunity and necessary facilities to conduct my thesis project, as well as to KTH, as university, for having allowed me to take on this experience. I want to take this opportunity to thank my friend, Thomas Heselmans, for having been there ever since the beginning of the research despite my busy agenda . His support and concern were vital in times of great stress and trouble, thank you for your friendship!The same applies to Stephane Fernandes Medeiros, a great friend of mine who was always there for me and followed my work very closely. In addition, I am thankful to two of my greatest friends, Nicola Martins and Alberto Cecilio, for their friendship, for always supporting me and always having my back. Margarida Cesar is a very important person in my life, and I would like to express my gratitude for all the discussions and advice we shared, as well as for the support demonstrated ever since we met. I always take her advice very seriously and she has helped me cope with dif? ulties in more than one occasion, namely during the thesis, and for that I’m very thankful! I am also very grateful to my friend, Arminda Barata, for all the help she provided me in moving and adapting myself to Stockholm. Without her help and concern I wouldn’t have felt at home so easily, and I wouldn’t have liked Stockholm from the very ? rst day. I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to thank all my colleagues and friends in Stockholm for making these two years of study unforgettable, and for shaping the person I am today.Among so many others, I would like to thank in particular Sanja Jankolovska, Boshko Zerajik, Pedram Mobedi, Adrien Dulac, Filipe Rebello De Andrade, Pavel Podkopajev, Cuneyt Caliskan, Sina Molazem, Arezoo Ghannadian and Hooman Peiro. I couldn’t have made it through without all of them! Last but de? nitely not least, because I didn’t have the chance to formally thank my friends in my previous studies, I would like to take this opportunity to extend my thanks to them for all the good moments we spent together throughout our bachelor degree as well as today.In particular I would like to thank Miruna Valcu, Rukiye Akgun, Vladimir Svoboda, Antonio Paolillo, Tony Dusenge, Olivier Sputael, Aurelien Gillet, Mathieu Duchene, Br uno Cats, Nicolas Degroot and Juraj Grivna. I reserve a special thank you note to Mathieu Stennier, for both his friendship and support throughout my academic life, and for having shared with me what were the best moments I had in Brussels while at University!I would very much like to express myself in Portuguese to my family so that they can all more easily understand what I have to say, thank you for your understanding: Nao podia deixar de agradecer a toda a minha familia o apoio que demonstraram ao longo deste percurso academico que conhece hoje um novo capitulo. Gostaria de agradecer a todos sem excepcao por acreditarem em mim e nunca duvidarem das minhas capacidades. Obrigado por estarem sempre presentes apesar da distancia, obrigado por se preocuparem comigo e por fazerem com que eu saiba que poderei sempre contar com voces!Sou verdadeiramente um ser afortunado por poder escrever estas palavras†¦ Um obrigado especial a minha grande avo Olga por estar sempre disposta a sac ri? car-se por nos e por telefonar quase diariamente a perguntar se estou bem e se preciso de alguma coisa. Agradeco-lhe do fundo do coracao esse amor que tem pelos netos e que tanta forca transmite! Queria agradecer tambem aos meus primos Rui e Hugo, que sao para mim como os irmaos que eu nunca tive, a forca que me transmitem para seguir em frente face as adversidades da vida. Ambos ensinaram-me imenso durante toda a vida e sao uma fonte de inspiracao constante para mim!A admiracao que tenho por eles foi como um guia que me levou onde estou hoje†¦ Obrigado por acreditarem em mim para levar a bom porto este projecto e por terem estado sempre presentes a apoiar-me! Gostaria de deixar uma mensagem de apreco ao David, que e mais do que um primo para mim, e um melhor amigo, que sempre esteve presente e sempre se preocupou comigo durante a tese. Foram momentos, frases e situacoes da vida que ? zeram com que o David se tornasse na pessoa importante que e para mim e ao longo da tese a s suas mensagens de apoio foram sempre bem recebidas porque deram-me um alento enorme.Aproveito tambem para agradecer a minha querida tia Aida e ao meu estimado primo Xico pela preocupacao que tem sempre comigo e por serem uma fonte de inspiracao para mim. Desejo tambem aproveitar esta oportunidade para agradecer a Nandinha e Jorginho todo o apoio que me deram nao so durante estes 6 longos meses mas desde os meus primeiros passos. Sao como uns segundos pais para mim cujo apoio ao longo deste curso e capitulo da minha vida foi primordial. Agradeco, do fundo do coracao, o facto de me tratarem como se fosse um ? lho, por me guiarem e sempre ajudarem! Tenho ainda um lugar especial reservado para o meu tio Antonio.Um tio que admiro muito, que sempre me quis bem e cujo dom da palavra move montanhas! O seu conselho e para mim uma maisvalia, e agradeco todo o seu apoio e ajuda durante esta investigacao e sobretudo por me guiar quando nao ha estrelas no ceu. Aproveito para vos deixar a todos um pedido de desculpa por nao estar presente como gostaria, e agradeco o facto de que apesar de tudo voces estejam todos de pe ? rme atras de mim! Sem o vosso apoio nunca teria feito metade do que ? z! Costuma-se guardar o melhor para o ? m, e por isso nao podia deixar de agradecer aos meus pais tudo o que ? eram e fazem por mim! A lingua de Camoes e escassa para que eu consiga descrever o quao grato estou†¦ Dedico-vos esta tese, por sempre me terem dado todo o amor, carinho, e ajuda necessaria para ter uma vida feliz e de sucesso. Deixo aqui um grande e sentido obrigado por terem estado sempre presentes quando mais precisava, por me terem sempre apoiado a alcancar os meus objectivos, por me terem ensinado a viver, a amar, a partilhar e a ser a pessoa que sou hoje. Obrigado! Em particular gostaria de agradecer ao meu pai a compreensao que teve comigo durante este periodo mais ocupado.Agradecer-lhe a ajuda em conseguir por um meio termo as coisas e a olhar para elas de outro pr isma. Agradeco tambem a calma que me transmitiu e transmite, e o apaziguamento que me ensinou a ter face as adversidades da vida. Sem estas licoes de vida, que guardarei sempre comigo, sinto que a tese nao teria sido bem sucedida e eu nunca teria alcancado tudo o que alcancei! A minha mae, agradeco†¦ por onde hei-de comecar? Pela ajuda diaria durante a tese para que os meus esforcos se concentrassem no trabalho? Pela inspiracao diaria de um espirito lutador que nao desmorona face as di? culdades e injusticas da vida?Agradeco por tudo isto e muito mais pois sem a sua ajuda diaria nao teria conseguido acabar a tese. A admiracao que tenho pela sua forca e coragem ? zeram com que eu tentasse seguir os mesmos passos e levaram-me a alcancar patamares que considerava inalcancaveis! A paciencia que teve durante todo o projecto, mas sobretudo no ? m, e de louvar, e sem o seu ombro amigo teria sido tudo muito mais complicado. Obrigado a todos por tudo! Thank you all for everything! Filip e Miguel Goncalves de Almeida Table of Contents 1 Introduction Part I: Setting the Scene 2 Retail Banking and The State of the Art in Detection and Prevention of Fraud 2. The Retail Banking Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. 1. 1 A Short Walk Down Memory Lane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. 1. 2 The Retail Banking IT Systems’ Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. 2 Fraud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. 2. 1 Internet and E-Commerce Fraud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. 2. 2 Other Consumer Fraud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. 3 Current Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. 3. 1 Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. 3. 2 Analytics and Statistical Fraud-Scoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Problem De? nition 3. 1 Weak Links in Currently Available Solutio ns . 3. 1. 1 Bank Card and Pin Code . . . . . . . . . 3. 1. 2 One-Time-Password or Card Reader . . 3. 1. 3 Biometrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. 1. 4 Analytics and Statistical Fraud-Scoring 3. 2 Facts and Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. 2. 1 France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. 2. 2 United Kingdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. 3 E-Commerce and Internet Banking . . . . . . . 3. 4 Mobile Banking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 3 3 3 4 6 6 12 12 13 14 15 15 16 17 18 18 19 19 19 20 21 22 22 23 23 23 24 24 25 25 28 28 29 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 31 31 31 32 32 33 34 Research Methodology 4. 1 Objective of the Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. 2 Data Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. 2. 1 FICO’s E-Commerce Transactions Dataset . 4. 2. 2 Personal Retail Bank Transacti ons . . . . . 4. 3 Data Analysis Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. 3. 1 Partitioning of the Data . . . . . . . . . . . 4. 4 Instruments and Implementation Strategy . . . . . 4. 4. 1 InfoSphere Streams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. 4. 2 SPSS Modeler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. 4. 3 MySQL Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part II: Behind the Curtains 5 Phase 0: Data Preprocessing 5. Getting to Know the Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. 1. 1 Attributes and their Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. 1. 2 Attributes in the Retail Banking Industry and in FICO’s Dataset . . . . . . 5. 1. 3 Statistical Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. 2 Data Reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. 2. 1 Dimensionality Reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. 2. 2 Supervised Merge and Transformat ion of Nominal and Categorical Data . 5. 3 5. 4 5. 5 5. 6 . 7 5. 8 Cleaning Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. 3. 1 Missing Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. 3. 2 Noisy Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Data Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. 4. 1 Transformation of Times and Dates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. 4. 2 Transformation by Normalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sampling Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. 5. 1 Clustering using K-Means Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. 5. 2 Under-Sampling Based on Clustering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preprocessing Data with Stream Computing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. 6. 1 Receiving and Sending Streams of Transactions . . . . . . . . . . 5. 6. 2 Retrieving and Storing Data to a Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. 6. 3 Data Preprocessing using SPSS Solution Publisher . . . . . . . . . 5. 6. 4 Data Preprocessing using a Non-Generic C++ Primitive Operator Rule-Based Engine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. 7. 1 Streams with a Business Rules Management System . . . . . . . . Final Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 36 36 37 37 37 39 40 41 42 42 43 45 45 46 48 49 50 51 51 52 53 53 54 55 56 57 57 58 60 60 61 62 62 63 63 66 71 71 73 76 77 6 Phase I: Data Classi? cation 6. 1 Supervised Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6. 1. 1 Ensemble-Based Classi? er . . . . . . . . . . . . 6. 2 Classi? cation Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6. 2. 1 Support V ector Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . 6. 2. 2 Bayesian Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6. 2. 3 K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) . . . . . . . . . . 6. 2. 4 C5. 0 Decision Tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6. 3 Classi? cation using the Data Mining Toolkit . . . . 6. 3. 1 Weaknesses of the Approach . . . . . . . . . . 6. 4 Classi? cation using SPSS Modeler Solution Publisher 6. 4. 1 Implementation Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6. 5 Model Retraining Architecture: High Level Overview 6. 6 Final Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Phase II: Anomaly Detection and Stream Analysis 7. 1 Data Aggregation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7. 2 Bank Customers Aggregation Strategy . . . . . . . . 7. 3 Anomaly Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7. 3. 1 Techniques for Anomaly Detection . . . . . . 7. 3. 2 Mahalanobis Distance . . . . . . . . . . . . 7. 4 Stream Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7. 4. 1 Window-Based Operators . . . . . . . . . . . 7. 4. 2 Window-Based Anomaly Detection Strategy 7. 5 Final Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part III: Critical Review 8 Overall Evaluation 8. 1 Performance Measurement Techniques . . . . . . . . . 8. 1. 1 Performance Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8. 1. 2 Accuracy Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8. 2 Data Preprocessing and Business Rules Analysis . . . 8. 3 Data Classi? cation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8. 3. 1 Un-preprocessed Classi? er Analysis . . . . . . 8. . 2 Preprocessed Un-Sampled Classi? er Analysis 8. 3. 3 Preprocessed Sampled Classi? er Analysis . . . 8. 3. 4 Ensemble-Based Classi? er Analysis . . . . . . 8. 4 Anomaly Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8. 5 Overall Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8. 6 Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8. 6. 1 Extend Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8. 6. 2 eXtreme Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 78 78 79 80 80 81 83 84 87 88 89 90 91 92 i 8. 7 8. 6. 3 Architecture and Data Mining Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Final Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 94 95 i vi 9 Conclusion Appendix A Supporing Figures Glossary List of Figures Figure 1. 1 Figure 2. 1 Figure 2. 2 Figure 2. 3 Figure 2. 4 Figure 2. 5 Figure 2. 6 Figure 2. 7 Figure 2. 8 Figure 2. 9 Figure 3. 1 Figure 3. 2 Figure 3. 3 Figure 3. 4 Figure 3. 5 Figure 3. 6 Figure 3. 7 Figure 3. 8 Figure 4. 1 Figure 4. 2 Figure 4. 3 Figure 4. 4 Figure 4. 5 Figure 4. 6 Figure 4. 7 Figure 5. 1 Figure 5. 2 Figure 5. 3 Figure 5. 4 Figure 5. 5 Figure 5. 6 Figure 5. 7 Figure 5. 8 Figure 5. 9 Figure 5. 10 Figure 5. 11 Figure 5. 12 Figure 5. 13 Figure 5. 14 Figure 5. 15 Figure 6. Figure 6. 2 Figure 6. 3 Figure 6. 4 Figure 6. 5 Lost in Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . As-Is Banking IT Architecture . . . . . . . . . . Hype Cycle for Application Architecture, 2009 To-Be Banking IT Reference Architecture . . . . MitB Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Possible Paypal website (1) . . . . . . . . . . . Possible Paypal website (2) . . . . . . . . . . . Keyboard State Table method . . . . . . . . . . Windows Keyboard Hook method . . . . . . . Kernel-Based Keyboard Filter Driver met hod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 5 5 5 8 10 10 11 11 11 16 16 17 20 20 20 21 21 24 25 26 26 27 28 29 30 32 32 33 34 35 35 36 37 40 40 42 45 46 48 50 51 52 53 54 Components of the Chip and Pin Attack . . . . . . . . . . . . Attack to Card Illustrated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . One-Time-Password Hacking Material and Architecture . Number of European Internet Users and Online Purchasers Forecast: US Online Retail Forecast, 2010 to 2015 . . . . . . . Web Growth has Outpaced Non-Web Growth for Years . . . US Mobile Bankers, 2008-2015 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . US Mobile Banking Adoption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CRoss-Industry Standard Process for Data Mining . . . . . . . . . Streams Programming Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . â€Å"Straight-through† processing of messages with optional storage. Backup and Fail-Over System for Streams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Multiple-Machines Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Analytical and Business In telligent Platforms Compared . . . . . Global Flow of Events: Stream-Based Fraud Detection Solution . Overall SPSS Modeler Stream for the Of? ine Data Preprocessing Phase Frequency of Transactions per Hour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Amount Transferred per Transaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Data Feature Selection in SPSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Data Preparation Preprocessing Phase in SPSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SPSS Stream CHAID Tree Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CHAID Tree for Data Reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Filtering Null Values with SPSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cyclic Values of Attribute hour1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . K-Means Modeling in SPSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Clustering with K-Means in SPSS Modeler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stream-based Application: Data Preprocessing and Rule-Based Engine Stream-based Application: Data Preprocessing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stream-based Application: Rule-Based Engine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Interaction Between a BRMS and a Stream-based Application . . . . . Classi? cation in Stream-Based Application .Ensemble-Based Classi? er . . . . . . . . . . . Classi? cation in SPSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Support Vector Machines (SVMs) Illustrated Example of a Bayesian Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i Figure 6. 6 Figure 6. 7 Figure 6. 8 Figure 7. 1 Figure 7. 2 Figure 7. 3 Figure 7. 4 Figure 7. 5 Figure 7. 6 Figure 7. 7 Figure 7. 8 Figure 7. 9 Figure 7. 10 Figure 7. 11 Figure 7. 12 Figure 7. 13 Figure 8. 1 Figure 8. 2 Figure 8. 3 Figure 8. 4 Figure 8. 5 Figure 8. 6 Figure 8. 7 Figure 8. 8 Figure 8. Figure A. 1 Figure A. 2 Figure A. 3 Figure A. 4 Figure A. 5 Figure A. 6 K-Nearest Neighbors Illustrated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Section of C5. 0 Decision Tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SPSS C&DS: Classi? er Retraining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anomaly Detection Stream-based Application . . . . . . . . . . . . Aggregate Bank Customers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Learning a classi? er model for the normal class of transactions . . Transaction not belonging to a cluster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Transactions far from the clusters’ center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mahalanobis Distance Illustrated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mahalanobis Distance: Stream-based Application . . . . . . . . . . Window Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tumbling Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sliding Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Partitioned Keyword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Account average expenses and frequency of transactions in 3 days Window-Based Analysis: Stream-based Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 55 60 61 63 64 65 65 66 67 71 71 72 73 73 74 78 79 84 86 88 89 92 92 94 ii iii iii iv iv v Benchmarking Stream-based Application: Concept for Each Processing Step . . Confusion Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Comparison between Un-Preprocessed and Preprocessed Data: Accuracy Levels Comparison between Sampled Datasets: Accuracy Levels (TP/FP) . . . . . . . Stream Analysis: Debited Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overall View of the Solution: Accuracy Levels (TP/FP/FN) . . . . . . . . . . . . Overall St ructure of the Financial Services Toolkit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In-Memory Database with InfoSphere Streams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stream-Based Application: a Flexible and Multifaceted Architecture . . . . . . . Stream-based Application: Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Time per Transaction for each of the Data Preprocessing Approaches . . . . . . . Time per Transaction for Preprocessing the Data and Examine the Business Rules . Metrics Data Classi? cation Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anomaly Detection Time per Transaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fraud Detection: Time per Transaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . List of Tables Table 3. 1 Table 5. 1 Table 5. 2 Table 6. 1 Table 7. 1 Table 8. 1 Table 8. 2 Table 8. 3 Table 8. 4 Table 8. 5 Table 8. 6 Table 8. 7 Table 8. 8 National fraud in France categorized by transaction type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Communalities PCA/Factor Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Steps for Under-Sampling Based on Clustering (SBC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Supported Mining Algorithms: Data Mining Toolkit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hardware Speci? cation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Individual Classi? er Accuracy Levels – Un-Preprocessed Training Set . . . . . Individual Classi? er Accuracy Levels – Un-Sampled Preprocessed Training Set Multiple Sampling Ratios Analyzed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Multiple Sampling Ratios Analyzed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ensemble-Based Classi? r: Balanced . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ensemble-Based Classi? er: Maximum Fraud Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ensemble-Based Classi? er with Mahalanobis: Balanced Model Combination . Ensemble-Based Classi? er with Mahalanobis: Maximizing Fraud Detectio n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 34 41 56 77 81 83 85 85 87 87 89 89 List of Algorithms Algorithm 1 Algorithm 2 Algorithm 3 Algorithm 4 Algorithm 5 Algorithm 6 Algorithm 7 Algorithm 8 Algorithm 9 Algorithm 10 Algorithm 11 Algorithm 12 Algorithm 13 Algorithm 14 InputSource: Receive Incomming Transactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ODBCEnrich: Enrich an Incomming Transaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Non-Generic C++ Primitive Operator: Manual Preprocessing . . . . . . . . . Preprocessing: Manual Preprocessing of Incoming Transactions . . . . . . . Functor: Split Stream for Preprocessing and Rule-Based Engine . . . . . . . . Join: Append Business Rules to Preprocessed Transaction . . . . . . . . . . . Join: Append Business Rules to Preprocessed Transaction . . . . . . . . . . . Data Mining Toolkit Operator: Decision Tree C5. 0 Classi? er . . . . . . . . . . Non-Generic C++ Primitive Operator: Supervised Analysis . . . . . . . . . . Classi? cationEnsembl e: Constructor() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Classi? cation Ensemble: process(Tuple & tp, uint32_t port) . . . . . . . . . . Variance-Covariance Inverse Matrix used in the Mahalanobis Distance . . . Individual Account Anomaly Detection Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Voting Protocol: Mahalanobis Distance, Window-Based and Classi? er Score . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 44 45 46 47 47 47 56 58 58 59 68 75 75 Chapter 1 Introduction â€Å"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step† Lao Tzu â€Å"If you work on fraud detection, you have a job for life†. These were the words used by Professor David J.Hand1 in one of his talks to synthesize the vast research ? eld that is Fraud Detection. Indeed, this ? eld consists of multiple domains, and is continually evolving through time with new strategies and algorithms to counter the constantly changing tactics employed by fraudsters2 . In this line of thought, currently available solutions ha ve been unable to control or mitigate the everincreasing fraud-related losses. Although thorough research has been done, only a small number of studies have led to actual Fraud Detection systems [27], and the focus is typically on novel algorithms aiming at increasing the accuracy levels.To this end, we want to look at the problem from a different angle, and focus on the foundations for a real-time and multi-purpose solution, based on a technology known as Stream Computing, able to encompass these algorithms while creating the possibilities for further research. We subdivide our study in three main parts. We begin with an overall understanding of the topic being discussed by de? ning the research environment, its problems and presenting the solutions currently available. In addition, we conclude this ? rst part by both specifying the structure, and outlining the objective of the research.The second part explores the overall course of action to bring about a Stream-based Fraud Detect ion solution. From this perspective, we discuss different strategies previously researched in Data Preprocessing, Data Classi? cation and Behavior-based Analysis, and tackle their combination and integration in a Stream-based application. Last but not least, we review the overall solution proposed, and examine the possibilities offered by the latter for further research in the ? eld of Fraud Detection in the Retail Banking Industry. Senior Research Investigator and Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the Imperial College of London, and one of the leading researchers in the ? eld of Fraud Detection – http://www3. imperial. ac. uk/people/d. j. hand – link to the presentation: http://videolectures. net/mmdss07_hand_stf/ 2 a person intended to deceive others (i. e. one who commits fraud) [de? ned in the Glossary] 1 Part I: Setting the Scene â€Å"Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together† Vincent van Gogh Fraud Detection in itself is interlinked with numerous ? lds of study, and before the play’s main action, we want to set the stage. In order to avoid getting off track and allowing you to better understand the scope, contents, choices made, and requirements of the research, we divided this act in three scenes. In the ? rst, we introduce the main actors – namely banks, bank customers and fraudsters. In addition, we also present the current situation in the Detection and Prevention of Fraud in banks, describing the techniques being used both to counter and to commit fraudulent transactions. The second scene introduces the overall problem of fraud in the Banking Sector.It identi? es the weaknesses of the latest solutions, and quanti? es fraud losses as accurately as possible in some European countries and this based on the most recent data. We then take a step further and comment on new trends, and predict possible risks banks might incur from them. Before the end of the act, we introdu ce the two main parts of the play, as well as how we intend to approach the problem. More precisely, we provide some speci? cs regarding the research conducted, the tools used and the plan followed to reach our conclusions. Figure 1. : Lost in Translation 2 Chapter 2 Retail Banking and The State of the Art in Detection and Prevention of Fraud â€Å"There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception† Aldous Huxley Businessmen and politicians, before sealing deals or taking political decisions, are known to go through a phase of reconnaissance – the military term for exploring enemy or unknown territory. Just as it is important to them, so it is for you when you are about to dive into the speci? cs of a real-time fraud detection solution.In this line of thought, it is important to grasp the context of the research to better understand the concepts discussed. To do so, we start this chapter with an overall view of the Retail Ba nking Industry, to understand both its services and IT architecture (Section 2. 1); we continue with a de? nition of fraud together with a description of the different fraud types that affect banks and how they operate (Section 2. 2); lastly, we give an overview of some of the current solutions available (Section 2. 3). 2. 1 The Retail Banking Industry To describe the banking industry’s evolution that started earlier than 2000 B.C. [91], deserves almost a research paper on its own. For this reason, and because we don’t want to divert from the topic, we start by solely providing a simple and brief resume about the origins of the banking industry (Section 2. 1. 1). The latter is an interesting talking point that not only allows you to understand how it all started, but also to perceive the challenge of keeping a bank pro? table. Additionally, it is a good introduction to understand a more technical description of the IT architecture behind the banking services (Section 2 . 1. 2). 2. 1. 1 A Short Walk Down Memory LaneIt all started with barter back in the time of Dravidian India, passing through Doric Greece to preRoman Italy, when a cow or an ox was the standard medium of exchange. [91] However, given the dif? culty of trading fairly, evaluating different goods with the same standards, and ? nding suitable goods for both parties involved, the invention of â€Å"money† inevitably developed. Indeed, the origin of the word money is pecunia in Latin, which comes from pecus, meaning cattle. Through time, money evolved in the different civilizations and became not only a symbol but also a key factor in trading.Together with the development of the art of casting, the different mediums of exchange evolved gradually from random precious metals to what we now know as currency. This developments made our forefathers the proponents of the ? rst banks for reasons that are still of applicability in today’s banking system. The code of Hammurabi in th e early 2000 B. C. stated â€Å"If a man gives to another silver, gold or anything else to safeguard, whatsoever he gives he shall show to witnesses, and he shall arrange the contracts before he makes the deposits. [91] It is therefore clear that the Babylonians already placed back in their time their valuable possessions in a safe place, guarded by a trusted man. 3 Nevertheless, the real inspiration for the banking system as we know it today came from the Greeks. Unlike the Babylonians, the Greeks didn’t have a government and therefore the country was divided into independent states that were constantly either at war or in a state of unrest. [91] In these turbulent times, they found Temples to be the only safe place able to survive the test of wartime.They were seen as safe deposit vaults, marking the beginning of the functions of our current banks. Indeed, records show that the Temples not only kept money safe but also lent the funds at a certain interest rate. In addition , even though safeguarding the money started as a service free of charge, it soon turned into a business where small commissions were applied. The banking industry continued to evolve through time, from the commercial development of the Jews; passing by the establishment of the Bank of St.George, the Bank of the Medici and the Bank of England, to the rise of the Rothschilds, and the development of banking in the land of the Vikings. [91] At this moment in time, a major bank is a combination of a dozen of businesses, such as corporate, investment and small business banking, wealth management, capital markets. One among these is the retail banking industry. [46] The retail banking industry is characterized by a particularly large number of customers and bank accounts in comparison to any other banking business, which results in a much higher number of transactions, services and products.In addition, it relies more and more on technology due to the levels of cooperation between banks, retailers, businesses, customers leading to an ever-increasing amount of information processing requirements. In a nutshell, today’s banks follow the same principle described earlier by borrowing from clients in surplus and lending to those in de? cit. This triangulation is a win-win situation for the bank and its customers: the bank makes revenue from the net interest income, which is the difference between what it pays to the lending customer and what it receives from the borrower.Nevertheless, the bank can’t lend all the deposits and needs to guarantee that a certain percentage is kept aside to satisfy customer withdraws and requirements. [92] Even though the situation varies from bank to bank, it is noteworthy to mention that â€Å"more than half of a retail bank’s revenue, perhaps three-quarters, comes from this intermediation role in the form of net interest income†. [46] To conclude, in today’s world, and after years of evolution, retail ban ks provide you with a multitude of services for which they charge fees, mainly to cover the maintenance of the infrastructure and the bank’s structure.These added up together account between 15% to 35% of the net interest income. [46] Among the services you can ? nd payment services, phone banking, money transfer, ATMs1 , online banking, advisory services, investment and taxation services, mobile banking and many more. How does a bank ef? ciently govern, offer and maintain all these services? 2. 1. 2 The Retail Banking IT Systems’ Architecture Just as banking services evolved through time so did the overall back-end architecture allowing a bank to provide all the aforementioned services. This evolution was especially prominent after the unveiling by Barclays Bank f the ? rst ATM machine in 19672 : from that moment on, banks started investing heavily in computerized systems with the goal of automating manual processes in an effort to improve its services, overall status in the market and cut costs. From this perspective, the IT systems of banks matured from the creation of payment systems together with the launch of the international SWIFT network3 in the 70s, to today’s core banking system: a general architecture that supports all the channels and services of a bank and where each one of them is digitalized.An overview of such general architecture is illustrated in Figure 2. 1 [77]. 1 acronym for Automated Teller Machine, a machine that automatically provides cash and performs other banking services on insertion of a special card by the account holder [de? ned in the Glossary] 2 http://www. personal. barclays. co. uk/PFS/A/Content/Files/barclays_events. pdf 3 Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is a member-owned cooperative that operates a worldwide standardised ? nancial messaging network through which the ? nancial world conducts its business operations http://www. wift. com 4 This architecture was in plac e in many banks some years ago, and still is in some cases, but even though it provides the clients with all the necessary banking tools, it had certain drawbacks that became visible through the modernization and improvement of services. As it is described by both Microsoft [82] and IBM [77]: the as-is architecture has no true enterprise view of a customer because information is duplicated, which leads to inconsistent customer services and promotions across channels; when adding new or changing current products, it takes time to bring Figure 2. : As-Is Banking IT Architecture (source [77]) them to the market and a signi? cant amount of changes to the core system code. This leads to a dif? culty in responding quickly to new challenges and evolving regulatory pressures. Faced with the aforementioned problems, banks had the need to change towards a more ? exible and ef? cient architecture that would allow them to comply with the ever-changing needs of the clients and of the technology. With this n mind, the major players in core banking have switched to a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) with the intended goal of improving growth, reducing costs, reducing operational risks, and improving customer experience. [69] [94] [83] [77] [82] As reported by Forrester in a survey in 2007 [82], out of 50 European banks, 53 percent declared they were already replacing their core system while 27 percent were planning to do so and 9 percent had already completed a major transition. The same survey assessed that 56 percent of the banks already used SOA and 31 percent were planning to.Additionally, in Gartner’s 2009 report (Figure 2. 2 [28]), supports this strategy and believed that SOA-based architectures was increasingly being adopted and would be widely accepted in a time frame of 2 to 5 years. In the latest update (2011th Edition [29]), SOA is entering the Plateau of Productivity, which indiFigure 2. 2: Hype Cycle for Application Architecture, 2009 cates that the ma instream adoption is starting to take off. (source [28]) With this transition to an agile banking platform with a more ? exible product de? ition built on SOA principles, banks expect to gradually simplify their business and become more ef? cient in the long term. Indeed, the aforementioned platform which is illustrated in Figure 2. 3, is meant to provide the banks with faster and easier ways to update the system and comply with changing industry regulations and conditions. Additionally, by having a holistic view of the customer-relevant data across systems, a bank is able to better focus and analyze it with the goal to improve its customers experience by investing in more ef? cient and ? xible customer-centric offerings. Lastly, the architecture allows for integrated customer analytics and insight capabilities. In this line of thought, a stream-based real-time fraud detection solution would be easy to integrate in such an architecture, allowing the bank, as we will see later on, to broaden its services, data analysis capabilities and detect fraud in realtime. Figure 2. 3: To-Be Banking IT Reference Architecture (source [77]) 5 2. 2 Fraud When one wants to get something from others illegally he can do it in two ways: force or trick them into doing so. The ? st is better known as robbery and is usually more violent and noticeable; the second is known as fraud, which is more discrete and therefore preferred by fraudsters. [76] From this we can understand that fraud includes a wide variety of acts characterized by the intent to deceive or to obtain an unearned bene? t. [30] Many audit-related agencies provide distinct insights into the de? nition of fraud that can be brie? y summarized in this way: De? nition 1. Fraud consists of an illegal act (the intentional wrongdoing), the concealment of this act (often only hidden via simple means), and the deriving of a bene? (converting the gains to cash or other valuable commodity) [30] Given this de? nition, we can furt her classify the known types of fraud by victim, perpetrator and scheme [76]: †¢ Employee Embezzlement – Employees deceive their employers by taking company assets either directly or indirectly. The ? rst occurs without the participation of a third party and is characterized by an employee who steals company assets directly (e. g. cash, inventory, tools, etc. ). In the second, the stolen assets ? ow from the company to the perpetrator through a third party.Indeed, indirect fraud happens usually when an employee accepts bribes to allow for lower sales or higher purchases prices, or any other dishonest action towards the company. †¢ Vendor Fraud – This type of fraud usually happens when a seller overcharges its products; ships lower quality goods; or doesn’t ship any products to the buyer even though it received the corresponding payment. Vendor fraud happens more frequently with government contracts and usually becomes public when discovered, being one of the most common in the United States. Customer Fraud – Customer fraud takes place when a customer doesn’t pay for the products he purchased, pays too little, gets something for nothing or gets too much for the price. All these situations occur through deception. †¢ Management Fraud – Management fraud, also known as ? nancial statement fraud, is committed by top management who deceptively manipulate ? nancial statements. The interest behind these actions is usually to hide the real economic situation of a company by making it look healthier than it actually is.However, for the purpose of this research, and given the fact that we are focusing on fraud perpetrated in the retail banking industry, we will mainly focus on every possible bank transaction that a customer can perform. The research will be based in debit, online banking – namely electronic bill payment and giro transfers – and debit plastic card transactions. Fraud that can be perpet rated against these transactions falls within the category known as consumer fraud. Additionally, the latter can be sub-categorized in Internet and e-commerce fraud and other (non-)internet related fraud that we will now describe in more detail. . 2. 1 Internet and E-Commerce Fraud The Internet†¦ a technology that was unknown to many of us 25 years ago and is used now by billions of people either at home, work or on-the-go. We can ? nd webpages from business home pages, to informational wikis, passing through social networking sites; ? les that take the form of text, audio or video; and a multitude of services and web applications. It took just 3 years for the Internet to reach over 90 million people while the television and the radio took respectively 15 and 35 years to reach 60 million people! 76] This is how fast the medium through which e-commerce fraud takes place has evolved. This informational and technological revolution led to new ways for fraud to be perpetrated while techniques to avoid it have dif? culties to keep up with the pace. Today, businesses depend on the Internet to perform paperless transactions and exchange information between them: they mostly use e-business connections, virtual private networks (VPNs1 ), and other specialized connections. 76] This type of commerce is known as e-commerce, or electronic commerce, because it takes place over electronic systems. Therefore, even if you think you are not using the Internet, any operation you make at a local branch, any withdraw you do from an ATM or any purchase you make at a local store with your bank card, a Network transaction takes place. 1 it’s a method employing encryption to provide secure access to a remote computer over the Internet [de? ned in the Glossary] 6Since most businesses rely on Network-based transactions and, as we will describe later on, Internet users use the network more and more frequently to buy products or services, the North American Securities Administ rators Association (NASAA) considers that Internet fraud has become a booming business. [76] With this in mind, there are three standpoints that need to be taken into consideration when describing in more details the risks involved in this category that undermine banks and more importantly their customers: risks lying inside and/or outside the organization.Risks Inside Banks and Other Organizations The main risks come from within the bank. [76] Indeed, a perpetrator with inside access has knowledge regarding the environment, the security mechanisms and how to bypass them. Additionally, any employee with access to the organization’s network has automatically bypassed ? rewalls and security checks making it easier to in? ltrate systems, steal information or data and cause damage to the bank. From this perspective, the most common example is the superuser access that most IT-related employees (e. g. rogrammers, technical support, network administrators or project managers) have within the company’s infrastructure and database systems. [76] In one survey, â€Å"more than a third of network administrators admitted to snooping into human resource records, layoff lists, and customer databases†. [76] A related survey found that â€Å"88 percent of administrators would take sensitive data if they were ? red, and 33 percent said they would take company password lists†. [76] Even if a perpetrator does not have personal access to the targeted system and information, there are techniques that he can use to get at them indirectly, i. . via a person of interest: – Snif? ng, also known as Eavesdropping: Snif? ng is the logging, ? ltering, and viewing of information that passes along a network connection. Applications are easily and available for free on the Internet, Wireshark1 and tcpdump2 that allow network administrators to troubleshoot any possible problem in the network. Nevertheless, these applications can as easily be used by hackers to gather information from unencrypted communications. 76] A good example is the usage of unencrypted e-mail access protocols like Post Of? ce Protocol 3 (POP3) or the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) instead of other more secured ones. Since e-mail clients check messages every couple of minutes, hackers have numerous opportunities to intercept personal information. [76] A user could in addition encrypt the body of the email by using Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME) or OpenPGP in order to avoid that sensitive information passes through the network in plain text.Even though security experts have successfully managed to encrypt emails, the reason behind this lack of security is that they have failed to take into consideration the needs of the end-user – namely, â€Å"the ability to occasionally encrypt an email without much trouble at all†. [113] – Wartrapping: Wartrapping happens when hackers set up free access points to the Internet t hrough their laptops in speci? c locations like airports or inside a company’s headquarters. Users, unaware that the wi? passes through a hacker’s computer, connect to the latter and navigate the Internet as if they had a secured connection.When logging their internet banking services and performing transactions, or simply access their emails, the hacker can see the bits and bytes of every communication passing through any laptop in the clear. In this line of thought, hackers can get caught in their own web as companies are also using what they call honeypot traps. The latter is an information system resource, like a computer, data, or a network site (e. g. wireless entry), whose purpose is not only to divert attackers and hackers away from critical resources, but also to serve as a tool to study their methods. 1] These systems are placed strategically so to look like part of the company’s internal infrastructure even though they are actually isolated and monito red by administrators of the organization. One of the most widely used tools is honeyd3 . [89] 1 2 3 http://www. wireshark. org/ http://www. tcpdump. org/ http://www. honeyd. org/ 7 Passwords are the Achille’s heel of many systems since its creation is left to the end user who keeps them simple and within his or her preferences and life experiences (e. g. birthdays, family names, favorite locations or brands).In addition, users tend to re-use the same password for different purposes in order to avoid having to remember different ones, which leads perpetrators to gain access to different services and accounts with a single password from the person. In addition, another source of threats are the laptops and mobile devices that many employees take with them outside the company’s protected environment. While in these unsecured contexts, the devices are exposed to viruses, spyware, and other threats that might compromise again the integrity of other organization’s sy stem once these computers are plugged in the network.Viruses, trojans and worms are able to enter the protected environment without having to go through ? rewalls and security checks, making it easier to in? ltrate key information systems and bypass defense mechanism. Risks Outside Banks and Other Organizations The Internet not only became a source of services to users and companies but also a rich medium for hackers to gain access to personal systems. Indeed, when performing attacks, hackers are relatively protected because they cross international boundaries – which puts them under a different jurisdiction than the victim of the attack – and are mostly anonymous – making tracking dif? ult. Therefore, the Internet became the defacto technological medium to perform attacks and there are numerous ways of doing so: – Trojan Horses: A trojan horse is a program designed to breach the security of a computer system and that has both a desirable and a hidden, us ually malicious, outcome. [86] These programs can be embedded in a bank user’s computer when he views or opens an infected email, visits or downloads a ? le from an unsecured website or even when visiting a legitimate website that has been infected by a trojan. [85] From this perspective, a good example is the man-in-the-browser (MitB) attack, represented in Figure 2. , which uses trojan horses to install extensions or plugins in the browser that are used to deceive a bank customer: Whenever a speci? c webpage is loaded, the Trojan will ? lter it based on a target list (usually online banking pages). The trojan extension waits until the user logs into his bank and starts to transfer money. When a transaction is performed, the plug-in extracts data from all the ? elds and modi? es the amount and recipient according to the hacker’s preferences through the document object model (DOM1 ) interface, and resubmits the form to the server.The latter will not be able to identify whether the values were written by the customer or not and performs the Figure 2. 4: MitB Operation (source2 ) transaction as requested. [85] – ATM Attack Techniques: An Automated Teller Machine (ATM), is a computerized device that allows customers of a ? nancial institution to perform most banking transactions and check their account status without the help of a clerk. The device identi? es the customers with the help of a plastic bank card, which contains a magnetic stripe with the customer’s information, together with a personal identi? ation number (PIN) code. [2] ATMs are attractive to fraudsters because they are a direct link to customers information and money, and there are security pitfalls with their current architecture [2]: the way data is encoded in the magnetic media makes it easily accessible if a hacker invests some money to buy the easyto-be-found equipment, and time to decode and duplicate the contents; in addition, with a four 1 An interface that let s software programs access and update the content, structure, and style of documents, including webpages [de? ed in the Glossary] 2 www. cronto. com, blog. cronto. com/index. php? title=2fa_is_dead 8 digit PIN, not only will one in every 10. 000 users have the same number but it also allows brute force attacks to discover the combination. Not to mention the possible physical attacks on ATMs which cannot be considered as fraud (see De? nition 1), there are a couple of ways fraudsters steal money from bank customers [2]: 1. Skimming Attack: skimming is the most popular approach in ATMs and consists in using devices named skimmers that capture the data from the magnetic strip.These devices can be plugged in an ATM’s factory-installed card reader and allows for download of all personal information stored on the card. In addition, to obtain the PIN code fraudsters use either shoulder-sur? ng and hidden video cameras, or distraction techniques while the customer uses the ATM. [2] S ometimes fraudsters take a step further and create their own fake teller machines to deceive bank customers; this is considered to be a spoo? ng attack that we will describe in more details below. [39] 2.Card Trapping: this tech