Corrupt Vba Project Error While Converting and Access Database to 2002
Under some circumstances, Access users need to convert a database from one file version to another. It is a very useful option, provided by Microsoft Access. But sometimes, when you attempt to convert Access 97 MDB file to Access 2002, the process may fail and you may get the following error message:
“An error occurred while loading Form_FormName. Do you want to continue?”
Followed by the second error message:
“The Visual Basic for Applications project in the database is corrupt.”
Because of these error messages, the conversion fails and your database becomes completely inaccessible.
Grounds of the issue
You get above error messages if the Access database that you are attempting to convert from one file version to another is not in the compiled state, or the database was damaged before you have tried to convert it.
Whatever the cause of this problem is, the ultimate result would be the incomplete conversion of the data and corruption in MDB file. It is never accepted due to the importance of stored data and thus you need to have required actions to get your database repaired.
Resolution
To fix this problem, you can use any of the below given methods:
? Use Compact and Repair to get the database repaired and then restart conversion.
? In spite of converting the database, import database from Access 97 into 2002.
? Delete references to Utility.mdb and then reattempt conversion.
Though, these methods work in some cases and can fix the problem, but if you are having problem due to corrupted MDB file, you need to use some advanced methods for Access recovery.
Access recovery is best possible using the third party Access recovery software. These software are very powerful and carry out excellent Access repair in almost all possible cases of MDB corruption. Without having any sound and prior technical knowledge, you can use these software very easily for perfect Access recovery.
Stellar Phoenix Access Recovery is the best suitable Access repair software for having trouble-free, quick and absolute Access recovery. Having cool looking and intuitive user interface, this Access repair software is extremely easy to use. You can use this advanced Access recovery software for all file versions of Microsoft Access including Access 97, 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2007.
Simpson Raid
http://www.articlesbase.com/data-recovery-articles/corrupt-vba-project-error-while-converting-and-access-database-to-2002-687271.html
Buy Cheap Diet Pills Online – Order Weight Loss Prescription Pill
Obesity is a chronic disease with a strong familial component. This medical condition also increases the risk of developing health related risks like high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease and cancer of the breast, prostate and colon. Only way out from the effects of obesity for you is the quick weight loss with the help of weight loss diet pills. Whole array of weight loss diet pills is available in market, it become next to impossible to choose best out of the available one. We simplified this process for you as brought best collection of information on different diet pills for you.
You can buy weight loss diet pills online on this site and read more about this medication. Order this medication online at a cheap and discount price with no need of prior prescription.
Leave all tension related to weight loss for us as we take care of all your needs once you put your precious faith on us. The true meaning of weight loss term can be understood as the targeted reduction in body mass characterized by a loss of adipose tissue (body fat) and skeletal muscle. To make quick weight loss a possibility lot of varieties of weight loss medication is available in the market. But such weight loss medications are available only on prescription. Information regarding varied aspects of weight loss program and diet pills becomes all important for desired weight loss.
Buy weight loss pills online at cheap and low prices from our discount store and get free phentermine online prescription. We provide you the top medications that are available to order online from a FDA approved licensed pharmacy.
Come to us for a peaceful and tension free weight loss program as we gathered best information on various aspects of weight loss with complete information on prominent medications. Whole array of weight loss information is free of cost with us. So for what you are waiting! Come to the best on the web for weight loss diet pills information in all possible aspects.
Weight loss diet pills are available in different brands in the market. It becomes all important to explore these diet pills on various effects and side effects of these weight loss medications, here is the desired complete information in all aspects for you. Weight loss diet pills industry is ruled by medication like Phentermine, Didrex, Xenical, Adipex, Meridia, Bontril, Tenuate, Ionamin, Diethylpropion and Phendimetrazine.
We always keep on aiming for the best with upgraded information on various topics related to weight loss. Come and enjoy the memorable world of weight loss with us. Target weight loss with us for well shaped perfect figure that matches with that of celebrities. We also take care of your drugs purchasing needs; here you get the best deals for all weight loss pills namely Phentermine, Didrex, Xenical, Adipex, Meridia, Bontril, Tenuate, Ionamin, Diethylpropion and Phendimetrazine available in the market. Buy cheap and discounted weight loss pills from us. We assure you best authentic and secure deals for weight loss pills on the web.
Gbush
http://www.articlesbase.com/medicine-articles/buy-cheap-diet-pills-online-order-weight-loss-prescription-pill-53071.html
Dog Bite Laws in California
In California the owner of any dog is liable for the damages suffered by any person who is bitten by the dog while in a public place, or lawfully in a private place. The owner of the dog is liable even if the dog bites on the owner’s property. It does not matter if the owner new the dog was vicious or not. A person is considered to be lawfully upon the private property when he is on the property in the performance of any duty imposed upon him by the laws of the State of California or by the laws or postal regulations of the United States, and also when the person on the private property on invitation from the property owner, the invitation could be expressed or implied.
Someone breaking into a private home and bitten by a dog would not have a cause of action. If your dog rushes out and bites someone knocking on your door and bites someone that is there for the purpose of converting you to their religion or to sell you a subscription to a nonexistent magazine, then they would have a cause of action, because of implied inviation. If you happen to have a fence that is locked or just closed and with a sign advising that no one is invited implied or expressly then you are unlikely to be liable, but exceptions to this rule also apply.
Under the California law if you are bitten where you have a right to be, you automatically win on liability, and it is only a matter of proving damages. If you are bitten after ignoring a sign that says noone no invitation is made to enter my property expressly or impliedly then a different standard applies. The standard is one of negligence, was the owner’s conduct reasonable. Training an attack dog to attack any human being upon entering the property is probably not reasonable. There is also the mail man exception, the mail man has to drop off the owner’s mail and if bitten would have a lawsuit against the dog owner, regardless of whether there is a sign or not.
The best way to avoid liability if you own a dog might be to put up a sign that says, one that says there is no implied invitation to this property, keep out, all others in consideration for entering this property you assume the risk of getting bitten by a dog. It would not eliminate the risk of liability for a dog biting a human being, especially if it is at night and there is no light on the sign, but otherwise if the sign can be read, it would help minimize or eliminate the liability.
If you happen to be the victim, it is unlikely that you had fair warning and that you were bitten while breaking into someone’s home. A dog bite or dog attack is a special kind of personal injury claim. It is a type of claim that is not evaluated by a computer. The type of damages that are pursued are often for pain, suffering, emotional distress, disfigurement, loss or earnings, reasonable and necessary medical expenses, and future medical treatment. If the dog attack while the victim was doing something illegal, it is unlikely that a lawsuit can be maintained.
A person cannot bring a lawsuit when a bite occurs if the dog is a military dog or police dog and the person bitten was annoying, harassing, or provoking the dog and the dog was defending itself. A person cannot bring a lawsuit against a military dog or police dog if the dog was assisting an employee of the agency in apprehension or holding of a suspect where the employee has reasonable suspicion of the suspect’s involvement in criminal activity. There is no real clear line as to what reasonable suspicion means. No lawsuits are permitted when the military or dog is assisting an employee of the agency in investigation of a crime or possible crime, in the execution of a warrant, and in the defense of a peace officer or another person.
If the person bitten by a military or police dog is not a party to, nor a participant in, nor suspected to be a party to or a participant in, the act or acts that prompted the use of the dog in the military or police work, is allowed to bring a lawsuit. It is not unusual for passerbys or bystanders to get bitten by a poorly trained dog.
For the police and military dog exception to apply the agency must also have adopted a written policy on the necessary and appropriate use of a dog for the type of work the dog is to do.
If a dog bites a human being, the owner of the dog is required to take steps to remove the danger of a bite from the same dog on another person.
If the dog has bitten twice, any person, the DA, or city attorney can bring an action in court t6 determine if the confinement and treatment of the dog is sufficient to keep it out of danger to other persons. The court has the power, after hearing, to order that remove the dog fro the are where it is confined, or to destroy it if necessary.
A different standard applies when the dog has been trained to fight. If the dog has been trained to fight only one bite is required for any person, the district attorney, or city attorney to bring an action in court to determine if the dog’s confinement is sufficient to keep the dog from biting another human being. The court after hearing, has the power to prevent the reoccurence of a bite, by removal of the dog from the area or destruction if necessary.
In California there are no free bites. If the dog bites a human being, there is liability for personal injury, unless there some sort of exception such as a police dog or military dog exception.
Arnold Hernandez
http://www.articlesbase.com/pets-articles/dog-bite-laws-in-california-101437.html
Gift Ideas for Corporate World
Giving gifts is an incomparable scheme, the goal of that is to bring a smile to the person who will receive the gift. In turn, it leaves a lasting impression on the person that tells how much you value Gifts for Men or a Gifts for Women. No wonder why people values the idea of giving and receiving gifts. In reality, gifts are symbols of one’s point of view and feelings towards the other person. They embody our family whenever we are away from our loved ones; our friends back home whenever we pass by the memories of yesteryears, and one’s treasured person when you are at the time of coldness. That is why people put so much value on the gifts that they give and receive because they know how special it is for the person who will receive it as it is for them. When giving gifts, it can either be formal or personal. Things may vary according to who will receive the gift. Usually, it is not difficult to buy a gift for your love ones or for your friends. Unfortunately, when it comes to giving gifts in your corporate circle like your boss, a colleague, or a business partner, careful considerations must be observed. At the same time you must employ some creative thinking in order to come up with a remarkable gift.
1. Gift Giving For The Corporate World
– In Hopes Of A Promotion – Sign Of Gratitude – Way Of Saying Thank You – Peace Offering – Clear Up A Misunderstanding – Offer In Good Faith For A Contract Agreement
2. Pay Attention To Details: When it comes to corporate gifts, you should not take it for granted. Every detail must be carefully laid out and must be delicately enhanced. For example, before presenting a corporate gift, be sure that it is undamaged and unspoiled in every detail. Moreover, when presenting or giving corporate gifts, it should fit the taste of the person who will receive it. That is why it is important to consider the taste of the person, the likes and dislikes, and whatever details that will describe his or her preferences.
3. Mugs: For corporate people who addicted to coffee, you can give them mugs of different varieties. You may purchase one from the well-known coffee shops or from those that they frequently hang out. These mugs come in different designs and styles that will truly fascinate your special someone, whether personally or professionally. You can also give them personalized mugs to give that special touch. You can have their pictures printed on the mug or a picture where both of you are included.
4. Crystal Items: For so many years now, crystals are known to exude sheer elegance and sophistication. So, when choosing a gift for your lady boss, it’s best that you give her any items that have crystals on it. The most typical and appropriate gift would be jewelries with various crystals on it. Crystals put a flattering remark on everyone’s good taste and wants; hence, it is best to give them something made of crystal so as to generate positive responses.
5. Scented Candles: These candles will produce the kind of aroma that could relax the senses thereby invigorating renewed spirit and personality. There are scented candles that help eliminate stress and anxieties. Also, scented candles come in creative designs, too. So, they can be creative displays on one’s table. So, it’s a great idea to give your corporate friends some scented candles.
6. Personalized Items: These are the ultimate corporate ideas that you can use when you need to give a gift to your boss or to your colleagues. Giving them personalized items will make them feel how much you value them by exerting such efforts in order to come up with an amusing item. For example, you can buy a clock then add some personal touches like replacing the numbers with colourful buttons. Andy Steave
http://www.articlesbase.com/relationships-articles/gift-ideas-for-corporate-world-50169.html
Inconsistency Assertions 3624 or Error Message 7987 in Sql Server
SQL Server errors are not hostages of only the complex operations, but while the normal and usual operations like SELECT and UPDATE are attempted; several error messages may also be seen. The error messages, as mentioned below, indicate that the SQL database is suffering from some sort of inconsistencies, but, at the ultimate resort, can make you feel need of SQL repair. However, there are few assertion error messages, which may indicate inconsistencies in the database, such as:
Msg 3624
Location: recbase.cpp:SQLServerVersion
Expression: m_offBeginVar < m_SizeRec SPID: ProcessID
Process ID: SQLServerEXEProcessID
Msg 3624
Location: p:sqlntdbmsstorengdrsincluderecord.inl:SQLServerVersion
Expression: m_SizeRec > 0 && m_SizeRec <= MAXDATAROW SPID: ProcessID
Process ID: SQLServerEXEProcessID
Research shows that when the SQL Server application tries to read data from the data page, the mentioned assertions may be observed, during which an error log file is created which records the corresponding information. Now, as there were no clear indicatives about what has caused the error to occur, SQL 2000 Service Pack 4 has changed the scene in which the problematic assertions appeared. Now, these problems come in the form of the following error message:
Error: 7987, Severity: 22, State: 1 A possible database consistency problem has been detected on database ‘<dbname>’. DBCC CHECKDB and DBCC CHECKCATALOG should be run on database ‘<dbname>’.
Thus, as the stated error messages are occurring and some inconsistencies exist in the database, you need to have MDF repair by running the DBCC CHECKDB command and resolving the reported issues. However, if you come at the stage, when removal of errors is being hard and you have no database access due to the corruption, use third party SQL recovery applications and correct the issue.
MDF recovery software is a tool to scan, repair and restore the corrupted SQL database in the original view and content. They offer a definite SQL repair help in all the database corruption scenarios. For best cure, choose best help.
Stellar Phoenix SQL Recovery uses the most powerful scanning algorithms and repairs them effectively. With Phoenix SQL recovery treatment, you would find an interactive interface to work with and a consistent MDF repair mechanism. This MDF recovery application is found to be compatible with SQL Server 2000 and 2005.
Simpson Raid
http://www.articlesbase.com/data-recovery-articles/inconsistency-assertions-3624-or-error-message-7987-in-sql-server-711739.html
“Unquenchable Russia”, or Forbidden Themes in Nabokov’s Prose
“…What I feel to be the real modern world is the world the artist creates, his own mirage, which becomes a new mir (“world” in Russian) by the very act of his shedding, as it were, the age he lives in” . Such an answer Nabokov once gave to an interviewer who was interested in his opinion regarding the modern world and contemporary politics. The book which contains this interview as well as many others, is entitled Strong Opinions, and, indeed, Nabokov is well-known not only for his brilliant fiction but for his original, independent and uncompromising views on creativity, art and the place of artist in the world. Whenever interviewed, he avoided discussion of “general ideas” such as social, political and moral issues and asserted that such global concerns lay outside the realm of art: “A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual, and only the individual reader is important to me. I don’t give a damn for the group, the community, the masses, and so forth… There can be no question that what makes a work of fiction safe from larvae and rust is not its social importance but its art, only its art . A work of art, for Nabokov, is a world in itself, brought to life by one’s creative imagination. It leads its own independent existence, unrelated to its historical surroundings and realities. In the introduction to his Lectures on Literature Nabokov explains once again: “…The real writer, the fellow who sends planets spinning and models a man asleep and eagerly tampers with the sleeper’s rib, that kind of author has no given values at his disposal: he must create them himself. The art of writing is a futile business if it does not imply first of all the art of seeing the world as the potentiality of fiction” . In this statement, visions of cosmic grandeur and an obvious reference to the story of Adam and Eve reflect a parallel between creator-artist and creator-God. In one of his interviews Nabokov explicitly brings out this comparison: “A creative writer must study carefully the works of his rivals, including the Almighty. He must possess the inborn capacity not only of recombining but of re-creating the given world” .
Nabokov’s position is, to a degree, a reaction to the situation in Soviet Russia, where demands of the state dominated the needs of a human being, where the individual was suppressed by the collective and details by generalities. He asserts once again the power and independence of personal creativity, the ability of one’s imagination to build worlds of its own, and makes a sharp distinction between a work of fiction and everything outside of it, including the personality of its creator. “Literature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult to both truth and art” .
Nabokov insisted on a specific approach to literature from the readers as well. He renounced the usual tendencies of identifying oneself with a book’s characters, searching for clues to the social and political realities of the time the work was written, or trying to form “general ideas” about a book without absorbing all its specific details. Emotional involvement, he pointed out, could also prevent the reader from objective appreciation of the work “…A wise reader reads the book of genius not with his heart, not so much with his brain, but with his spine. It is there that occurs the telltale tingle even though we must keep a little aloof, a little detached when reading” .
Nabokov avoided formulating his ideas under the famous slogan “art for art’s sake” just as he avoided labels of all kinds, but this well-known phrase can undoubtedly be used to describe his views and attitudes towards literature. In this hierarchy of values, aesthetic concerns dominate all others, and the influence of a great work of art on its reader is limited to a “tingle in the spine”. However, it remains to be seen, to what extent Nabokov’s ideas penetrate his own fiction; whether his novels are entirely a product of his creative imagination or a result of the deep personal experience that saturates them with great intensity.
Nabokov changed countries and languages during his creative life, and it is interesting to analyze whether these changes affected his books. Comparing two of Nabokov’s novels, The Gift, written in Russian mostly in Berlin of the 1930s, and Pale Fire, written in English at a much later date, can provide an insight into these questions.
As Nabokov mentioned in the foreword to The Gift, “the main heroine” of the novel is Russian literature, and the main character is a writer, an emigre author Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, who shares many autobiographical details with Nabokov. Like Nabokov during his post-Cambridge years, Fyodor lives in Berlin of the 1920s, writes poetry and makes a living by giving lessons in English and French. He leads, for the most part, a solitary existence, devoting his time first and foremost to literature. Happy childhood in St. Petersburg, love of butterflies and chess problems, synesthesia, – all this Fyodor has in common with Nabokov. Description of certain episodes mirrors incidents from Nabokov’s own life, depicted much later in his autobiographical book Speak, Memory, – for example, the story of a childhood illness: high fever, obsession with numbers and a huge Faber pencil, given as a gift by the mother.
Perhaps, the most significant trait that Fyodor shares with Nabokov is passionate love of literary language, faith in the power of the written word: “Since there were things he (Fyodor) wanted to express just as naturally as unrestrainedly as the lungs want to expand, hence words suitable for breathing ought to exist” . Fyodor reflects on his youthful interest in rhyme and meter, analyzing the very mechanisms by which words interact and fit together like pieces of a puzzle to form the harmonious whole of a poem. Fyodor shares Nabokov’s dislike of generalities such as social issues or psychiatry. When he briefly considers the possibility of fulfilling his acquaintance, Mme. Chernyshevski’s yet unvoiced request to write about her son, he explains his aversion to the idea as follows: “I would have become enmired involuntarily in a “deep” social-interest novel with a disgusting Freudian reek” .
Most clearly, Fyodor’s (and Nabokov’s) views on literature are expressed in Fyodor’s (imaginary) conversations with Koncheyev – a fellow emigre poet, the only one whose work he admires and whose opinions he considers valuable. When Fyodor and Koncheyev leave a literary gathering and walk together down the street, a unique, brilliant dialogue, filled with allusions to various works of Russian literature, takes place between them. “…There are only two kinds of books: bedside and wastebasket. Either I love a writer fervently, or throw him away entirely” , – declares Fyodor, and the two proceed to discuss what, in their opinion, is the best and the worst in the works by famous Russian writers. Both are utterly uninterested in “general ideas” or the moral significance of the writings they talk about (aspects which always attracted Russian critics and gained new importance in the Soviet period), and all they do is lovingly point out purely artistic findings of this or that writer. They praise Leskov’s Jesus – “the ghostly Galilean, cool and gentle, in a robe the color of ripening plum” or “the gray sheen of Mme. Odintsev’s black silks” in Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons. Speaking of dismissed Dostoyevski, Fyodor notes: “In the Karamazovs, there is somewhere a circular mark left by a wet wine glass on an outdoor table”, – and that, for him, is the only thing “worth saving” . As for several writers known for their beautiful depictions of nature, Fyodor ruthlessly criticizes them for mistakes in their descriptions of natural phenomena: “My father used to find all kinds of howlers in Turgenev’s and Tolstoy’s hunting scenes and descriptions of nature, and as for the wretched Aksakov, let’s not even discuss his disgraceful blunders in this field” . All these statements obviously echo Nabokov’s own approach to literature, with his love of detail, his insistence on accurate knowledge of the natural world and dismissal of any other criteria in judging works of literature.
Nabokov’s belief in the power of deception and invention in creating fiction frequently finds expression in his attempts to mislead the reader, to establish this or that false move in the development of the plot, which, after a few pages, turns out to be an illusion, a figment of the character’s imagination. The whole exchange between Fyodor and Koncheyev proves to be such an illusion: “Whose business is it that actually we parted at the very first corner, and that I have been reciting a fictitious dialogue with myself as supplied by a self-teaching handbook of literary inspiration?” However, the significance of this non-existent conversation in the novel is not limited to expression of opinions on art and display of Nabokov’s mystification devices. It shows the extent of Fyodor’s loneliness, the absence of interlocutors with whom he could share his extensive knowledge of literature and love of language: the degree of detachment from the surrounding world. In his book Speak, Memory Nabokov describes the way native Europeans were perceived by Russian immigrants in Germany or France: “These aborigines were to the mind’s eye as flat and transparent as figures cut out of cellophane, and although we used their gadgets, applauded their clowns, picked their roadside plums and apples, no real communication, of the rich human sort so widespread in our own midst, existed between us and them” . The Gift recreates that atmosphere of cultural and human isolation in which Fyodor has to dwell. Deprived of his own cultural environment, Fyodor feels nothing but resentment towards the German-speaking world he is trapped in. “The Russian conviction that the German is in small numbers vulgar and in large numbers – unbearably vulgar was, he knew, a conviction unworthy of an artist” , – and still he cannot help it, as he directs all his irrational hatred at a German who pushes him in a bus (and who, ironically, turns out to be a Russian).
Like Nabokov, Fyodor is trilingual, but his French and English in his current situation serve a purely utilitarian purpose, whereas Russian remains the language of his soul and his art. Riding a bus to one of his tedious teaching jobs, Fyodor thinks of himself: “…there he is, a special, rare and as yet undescribed and unnamed variant of man, and he is occupied with God knows what, rushing from lesson to lesson, wasting his youth on a boring and empty task, on the mediocre teaching of foreign languages – when he has his own language, out of which he can make anything he likes – a midge, a mammoth, a thousand different clouds” . This is why there are hardly any examples of word play and language switch in The Gift.
On the way to yet another hateful lesson Fyodor becomes completely immersed in the memories of Russia and his past life there, – memories ”swift and senseless, visiting him like an attack of a fatal illness at any hour, in any place” . The warm, sunny vision of the Russian countryside after a short summer rain stands out in such a sharp contrast with the surrounding colorless reality and the upcoming encounter with a hopeless pupil, that Fyodor ends up skipping the lesson and going home to his writings. This is another theme expressed in The Gift with great emotional power – the theme of nostalgia, longing for the lost homeland. Whenever faced with the question about Russia during his interviews, Nabokov gave replies such as “all the Russia I need is always with me” or “exile means to an artist only one thing – the banning of his books” . Sometimes, however, he speaks of Russia quite differently: “In the first decade of our dwindling century, during trips with my family to Western Europe, I imagined, in bedtime reveries, what it would be like to become an exile who longed for a remote, sad and (right epithet coming) unquenchable Russia, under the eucalypti of exotic resorts. Lenin and his police nicely arranged the realization of that fantasy” .
References to Russia in Nabokov’s novels, particularly The Gift, bear a trace of an overwhelming and bitter sense of loss, coming, undoubtedly, from personal experience. Like Nabokov, Fyodor transforms his inner world into art, and his poetry, born out of childhood memories, justifies, as he says, the years spent in exile. But even creative fulfillment in literature cannot fully relieve Fyodor of his nostalgia, which sometimes becomes almost a physical sensation: “For a long time he had wanted to express somehow that it was in his feet that he had the feeling of Russia, that he could touch and recognize all of her with his soles, as a blind man feels with his palms” . Again and again, he imagines an impossible return to his familiar and changed country: “And when will we return to Russia? What idiotic sentimentality, what a rapacious groan must our innocent hope convey to people in Russia. But our nostalgia is not historical – only human- how can one explain this to them?” Immediately following these lines is one of Nabokov’s central thoughts expressed through the words of his character and given a somewhat ironic ending: “It is easier for me, of course, than for another to live outside Russia, because I know for certain that I shall return – first because I took away the keys to her, and secondly because, no matter when, in a hundred, two hundred years, I shall live there in my books – or at least in some researcher’s footnote. There; now you have a historical hope, a literary-historical one…”
In this passage, there are two distinct perspectives on Russia, two different ways of perception – that of an artist and that of a simple human being, and it is the more independent, proud and detached position of an artist that Nabokov prefers to present to the world. He always vigorously protested against being identified with his characters, and, perhaps, it was his way of concealing that part of himself, which contained his own human feelings and dreams, often painful, often helplessly irresolvable. Nevertheless, just like in one of Fyodor’s childhood memories colors leak into his vision of letters and irrevocably affect his perception of language, this private and forbidden world of Nabokov inevitably enters his fiction in various guises and through different characters. Besides the theme of nostalgia, there is another highly personal development of the plot in The Gift, and it is Fyodor’s relationship with his father. Konstantin Godunov-Cherdyntsev is an explorer who is also very absorbed in his occupation and uninterested in the major upheavals that occur in Russia. In 1917, despite the troubled situation in Russia, he departs on one of his expeditions and never returns. It is another loss that haunts Fyodor: even though there is hardly any hope of seeing his father again, he keeps dreaming of his return, imagining that one day he would meet his father on the street, or hear a phone call… In one of the most poignant episodes in the novel, the phone rings, after all, in the middle of the night, and Fyodor rushes to the house of his former landlady along the streets of Berlin which suddenly become transformed into a beautiful, mysterious world somewhat reminiscent of St. Petersburg in a white night. Fyodor enters the room and sees his father. “With a moan and a sob Fyodor stepped toward him, and in the collective sensation of woolen jacket, big hands and the tender prickle of trimmed mustaches there swelled an ecstatically happy, living, enormous, paradisal warmth in which his icy heart melted and dissolved” . And again, almost unbearably this time, the whole scene turns out to be one of Nabokov’s false twists, and Fyodor wakes up from yet another dream to a cold and empty morning.
Nabokov denied a work of art any kind of “truth” aside from artistic one, but the episode with Fyodor’s father radiates with human truth: warmth, longing, vulnerability, the void of shattered hopes… One just has to remember the tragic death of Nabokov’s own father, to understand where all this is coming from.
In The Gift, covers are often transparent, and its hero is presented from multiple angles. He is not just a writer who “treats life as a possibility of fiction”, he is a human being who sees the world through the prism of his own experience, his own joys and sorrows.
The Gift was the last novel Nabokov wrote in Russian. In 1940, he immigrated to the United States and, since then, wrote his major works only in English. The change, as he said, was not easy: “My complete switch from Russian prose to English prose was exceedingly painful – like learning anew to handle things after losing seven or eight fingers in an explosion” . Pale Fire, one of Nabokov’s English novels, was written partially at the end of his stay in America, partially in Switzerland, where Nabokov spent his later years. The novel has important structural and thematic similarities to The Gift. Like The Gift, where a whole separate chapter is devoted to Fyodor’s biography of Chernyshevsky, a book on its own, Pale Fire contains a work of literature within it – a long poem written by an American poet John Shade. The rest of the novel is a commentary, which for the most part has nothing to do with the poem itself. It is an elaborate story of remote Zembla, whose king has been swept off the throne by the revolution and fled the country. Gradually, it becomes clear that Charles Kinbote, Shade’s neighbor and the author of the commentary, is himself the fugitive king. Therefore, as in The Gift, there is a theme of exile and a theme of creativity, though in Pale Fire they take quite a different development.
As Kinbote explains, “the name Zembla is a corruption not of the Russian zemlya, but of Semblerland, a land of reflections, of “resemblers” . Zemblan language resembles several European languages at the same time. There are obvious traces of Russian in it, and some words are borrowed almost unchanged: for example, there is a picture of bogtyr (bogatyr’ in Russian) in a Zemblan history book, and there are “stone-faced, square-shouldered komizars” (Russian: commissar) maintaining order on Zemblan streets after the revolution. Besides, French and German can be vaguely discerned in other phrases. “Minnamin, Gut mag alkan, Pern dirstan (my darling, God makes hungry, the Devil thirsty)” , – a Zemblan nurse says to Kinbote, and one hears, besides the Russian “alkat’” and, possibly, the English “pernicious”, “mon amie”, “Gott”, and the first person of the German “mochten”.
Nabokov in his interviews stressed that Zembla is not Russia, and, indeed, there is another Russia in the novel, a totalitarian state that contributes to the Zemblan revolution. Kinbote talks about “the tainted gold and the robot troops that a powerful police state from its vantage ground a few sea miles away was pouring into the Zemblan Revolution” . Kinbote’s constantly talks about Zembla, but his memories of it lack that depth of human feeling, which marks Fyodor’s nostalgia. Even though Kinbote repeats again and again “my Zembla”, “dazzling Zembla” , tenderness that shines through the best pages of The Gift, is missing from his story. It is essentially a story of himself and his escape from the country. For a king, Kinbote shows a remarkable lack of interest in the revolution that struck his country and the possible causes which led to it. He is more preoccupied with aesthetic and literary pleasures and calls the whole business of politics “a tiresome subject” . As for the revolution, all he can say about it is that it was “tedious and unnecessary” . In Kinbote’s attitude, there is some of Nabokov’s own indifference towards social and political issues. On the whole, the theme of exile is treated in the novel with certain coldness and detachment, but there are passages, which by their warmth and profound lyricism can be compared to The Gift. For example, Kinbote comments on his roommate who gets up early in morning and plants flowers with a very curious name: Heliotropium turgenevi. “This is the flower whose odor evokes with timeless intensity the dusk, and the garden bench, and a house of painted wood in a distant northern land” . Even aside from the reference to Turgenev, it is clear that this land, for Nabokov, is no other than Russia, – not the monstrous police state in the vicinity of Zembla, but the real, immortal, beloved Russia of Nabokov’s memory. And this short passage retains more emotional freshness and power than colorful descriptions of Zemblan mountains that have no counterpart in the author’s childhood recollections.
It seems that, to Kinbote, being in exile means not so much the loss of the homeland as the loss of his name and title (which he now has to hide), and thus partially the loss of his identity, and in this way his isolation and detachment is more complete than that of Fyodor in The Gift. One of the critics of Pale Fire interprets his behavior as follows: “…he is trying to get the poet John Shade to confirm his identity, to validate the Zemblan reality which is his hope of salvation by turning it into a poem” . With maniacal persistence Kinbote keeps talking with Shade about Zembla: “I mesmerized him with it, I saturated him with my vision, I pressed upon him, with a drunkard’s wild generosity, all that I was helpless myself to put into verse” . Kinbote calls his relationship with the poet “friendship”, but, in fact, he cannot care less about Shade as a human being with his own hopes and sorrows. While commenting on the poem, he utterly neglects the parts about Shade’s wife and daughter. Sybil Shade, who protects her husband from his neighbor’s intrusions, for Kinbote, is just as annoying obstacle in the way, and to him, the tender lines that Shade devotes to his wife are nothing but “embarrassing intimacies” . Kinbote haughtily deals with the theme of Shade’s daughter, Hazel’s, suicide, obviously a very painful and personal subject for the poet, as if it was merely a stylistic device: “The whole thing strikes me as too labored and long, especially since the synchronization device has been already worked to death by Flaubert and Joyce” . When Kinbote feels lonely and afraid in his empty house, he wishes that Shade had a heart attack, – just to have an excuse to come over and escape loneliness and fear. At the end of the novel, when Shade has been mistakenly shot by the assassin, his “friend” is in no hurry to call for help: instead, he rushes to hide the poem, which, he thinks, contains the story of his own life.
In comparison to Kinbote, John Shade appears to be a much more appealing character, and he possesses some traits that bring more human warmth into his image: he can be lazy, he likes hearty meals, brandy and wine; he loves his wife and daughter and is generally more tolerant towards people who are not as bright and talented as he is. Nabokov gives his character some of his most cherished thoughts. For example, Shade, who is also a teacher of literature, expresses his views on teaching: “First of all, dismiss ideas, and social background, and get the freshman to shiver, to get drunk on the poetry of Hamlet or Lear, to read with his spine and not with his skull” . However, since Shade’s personality is seen in the novel only through Kinbote’s uncaring eyes, his inner world is more or less concealed from the reader. It is only through Shade’s poem that one can glimpse into the questions, which preoccupy the poet. The poem, on the whole, is a painful, difficult search for meaning, an attempt to make sense of the whole puzzle of human life and death, to find a way of transcending one’s mortality. No human thought or emotion can relieve one from being trapped in one’s own finite world. Everything fails except art: art for its own sake, art that contains a unique, perfectly harmonized inner reality, which can be perceived as a reflection of a greater pattern:
I feel I understand
Existence, or at least a minute part,
Of my existence, only through my art,
In terms of combinational delight…
“Combinational delight”, indeed, is important not only in Shade’s poem but in the whole novel. As in The Gift, artistic detail is a focus of concentration in Pale Fire, but here attention is focused on an even subtler level where language itself is analyzed. Pale Fire is an example of extremely dense prose where individual words are more than just carriers of meaning: they become, in a way, themselves a subject of the novel. One of Shade’s warmest images of his family together is a memory of the evenings when both he and Sybil helped their daughter to understand really obscure words from her English textbook. A difference of one letter in the words “mountain” and “fountain” becomes crucial in the story of Shade’s attempt to penetrate the mystery of the hereafter. The book is filled with examples of word play, often involving several languages, and references to numerous works of literature (some of which are likely to be Nabokov’s own inventions). In Shade’s poem, there are such peculiar combinations as: “Fra Karamazov, mumbling his inept all is allowed” , which is a mixture of Alyosha Karamazov, Raskol’nikov, and, perhaps, Italian painter Fra Angelico with his intensely spiritual religious art. But nobody in the novel is more involved in digging into words than Kinbote. He is constantly preoccupied with deciphering literary allusions, musing over interplay of words, meanings, rhymes and sounds. Nabokov mentioned in his lectures that a dictionary should be a necessary attribute of a good reader, and, ironically, Kinbote, who can hardly be called a good reader, dutifully follows the lines of Shade’s masterpiece with his dictionary. For the most part, he is obsessively searching references to Zembla and his own life story in the poem, but sometimes he simply takes aesthetic pleasure in certain lines of it:
“Lines 131-132: I was the shadow of the waxwing slain by feigned remoteness in the windowpane.
The exquisite melody of the two lines opening the poem is picked up here. The repetition of that long-drawn note is saved from monotony by the subtle variation in line 132 where the assonance between its second word and the rhyme gives the ear a kind of languorous pleasure as would the echo of some half-remembered sorrowful song…” Shade’s commentator genuinely enjoys the magic of words, and so does Nabokov, whose multilingualism, artistic sense and incomparable mastery of language found full expression in the creation of the truly marvelous poem, as well as other parts of the novel.
Perhaps, the refined world of literature allows Kinbote a way of escape from his troubled personal reality, and so it does for Shade, and, to a degree, for Fyodor in The Gift, and, ultimately, for Nabokov. In his commentary, Kinbote recounts an episode when someone in the presence of Shade tells a story of a mad railroad worker, who “thought he was God and began redirecting the trains”. “That (“mad”) is the wrong word”, – he (Shade) said. – “One should not apply it to a person who deliberately peels off a drab and unhappy past and replaces it with a brilliant invention” . Still, comparison of Nabokov’s novels shows that the most “brilliant invention” becomes truly alive only if the light of one’s own human experience, however “drab and unhappy”, illuminates it from within. In Pale Fire the walls sheltering Nabokov’s private world of memory and feeling are thicker than in The Gift, and the novel follows more closely Nabokov’s ideas of art as elegant deception, an entirely invented world which should be approached on aesthetic rather than emotional grounds. This is the major difference between Pale Fire and The Gift.
Time is likely to be one of the factors behind this change: Pale Fire was written almost twenty years later than The Gift, as greater and greater distance separated Nabokov from his Russian past with which he had stronger emotional bond than with the years spent abroad. Another important factor is, probably, language. Nabokov was very proud of his English works and repeatedly called himself an American writer, but sometimes he provided his readers with unexpected revelations such as: “My private tragedy, which cannot, indeed should not, be anybody’s concern, is that I had to abandon my natural language, my natural idiom, my rich, infinitely rich and docile Russian tongue, for a second-rate brand of English” . In another interview, when asked which language he considered the most beautiful, Nabokov replied: “My head says English, my heart, Russian, my ear, French” . It is possible to say that for him Russian conveyed emotional power, while English had more of an intellectual appeal, and this is one of the reasons why Pale Fire, written in English, appeals to the brain more than it does to feelings.
One of the most striking confessions that bridges Nabokov’s inner world with his public self exists in a poem. An Evening of Russian Poetry, written in English in 1945, is a rhymed presentation of a public lecture which Nabokov gives to an audience of American students, predominantly female. Russian poetry is the theme of the lecture, but Nabokov approaches it in the way typical for him: he does not talk about schools, trends and periods. Again, he speaks of letters, shapes, individual intricate details, and hidden tenderness shines through his words, staying invisible for his listeners. They ask him questions about his favorite trees and stones, echoing that insensitive critic from The Gift, whose “discussion of Koncheyev’s book boiled down to his answering for the author a kind of implied questionnaire (Your favorite flower? Favorite hero? Which virtue do you prize most?)” In Nabokov’s discussion of Pushkin and Nekrasov everything merges and melts together: the sky and the grass, the beauty of verse and human feeling, – and inevitable theme of exile. Nabokov speaks of memories, saying openly: “I must remind you in conclusion that I am followed everywhere and that space is collapsible” . His private tragedy is lost on his young listeners, whose innocent inquiry prompts what becomes the most remarkable ending of a poem:
How would you say “delightful talk” in Russian?
How would you say “good night”?
Oh, that would be:
Bessonnitza, tvoy vzor oonyl i strashen;
lubov moya, otstoopnika prostee.
(Insomnia, your stare is dull and ashen,
my love, forgive me this apostasy.)
All of Nabokov’s carefully hidden private world that, he insists, “cannot, indeed should not, be anybody’s concern”, is suddenly revealed in these poignant lines: long nights, loneliness, the feeling of guilt over abandoning one’s language and nostalgia for inaccessible, unforgettable, “unquenchable Russia”.
Bibliography
1). Kernan, Alvin B. “Reading Zemblan: The Audience Disappears in Nabokov’s Pale Fire”. Vladimir Nabokov (Modern Critical Views). Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. 101-125.
2). ???????, ????????. ???. ??????: ??????, 1990.
3). Nabokov, Vladimir. The Gift. New York: Capricorn Books, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1970.
4). —. Lectures on Literature. Harcourt Brace & Company, 1982.
5). —. Pale Fire. New York: Quality Paperback Book Club, 1993.
6). —. Poems and Problems. McGraw-Hill International, Inc. 1970.
7). —. Speak, Memory. New York: Quality Paperback Book Club, 1993.
8). —. Strong Opinions. McGraw-Hill International, Inc. 1973.
Elena Koutcherova
http://www.articlesbase.com/fiction-articles/unquenchable-russia-or-forbidden-themes-in-nabokovs-prose-204030.html
Buy Acomplia | Cheap Acomplia | Meridia Online | Mail Order Pharmacy
Fast foods and junk food all over the world is the main reason of obesity nowadays. Not only adults but kids too are putting on some extra kilos in young age. It is indeed a major problem that has to be tackled as soon as possible. As we need to keep our body fit. Only crash diets or heavy exercise can not be helpful there has to be something else to make our body fit and energetic. Reduction in appetite has happened to be pivotal problem that has swallowed the health of aging people around the world generally and in western sphere particularly. As soon as they cross 60 years of age they suffer a variable reduction in appetite due to excessive consumption of junk food during early life when they were not aware of aftermath it would cause to their health. However, UNO health concerned authorities putting into motion various strategies to formulate schemes to curb the problem. UN studies surface statistics that more than 70% people of Western countries including the USA and European countries put on much weight after their healthful life. However the problem has gained pace in adults as well.
In such trying times when the sword of Damocles hanging on the health of people acomplia proves to be savior to infuse blood into dying oldies of nation. Acomplia Online has sustainability to produce appetitive by improving digestive systems and putting into motion the defunct machinery of human physical systems. However, acomplia could be taken without consulting a doctor but make it ascertain according to the advices given by the specialist. Whereas, pharmacists are also available to be asked of about proper dosage but usually it is to be taken before breakfast everyday. The tablet needs to be swallowed.
Comparatively acomplia online is available with major online stores to drive the disease away. Online stores provide us with accomplished medicine that meets primary requirements to retain appetite. Those stores offer cheap acomplia so that the patients should not be worried about varying cost. Therefore, don’t feel tossed off just go to buy acomplia and enjoy the best moments of life with physique in a proper unique standing.
Acomplia is one of the best online meds unlike meridia. Acomplia is more effective when taken with meridia because both of them help in the maintenance of health to control weight and retain health. You can easily buy meridia online with online mail order pharmacy. Mail order pharmacies assure you of their keenness by delivering orders on time.
Acomplia and meridia, both nowadays, are most popular drugs among American and European countries are due their result-oriented goal. However once these pills have been added to the diet with punctual diet control prescribed or suggested by the doctors you would not quit them because of their profound effectiveness. Acomplia more importantly can tackle any kind of problem regarding obesity whereas meridia has short term usage to be taken as a drug because of limits ascribed by the pharmacists and doctors.
Sohan sharma
http://www.articlesbase.com/alternative-medicine-articles/buy-acomplia-cheap-acomplia-meridia-online-mail-order-pharmacy-714785.html
Basic Idea About the Data Recovery Methods
The computer hard drive crash is the gravest nightmare which may occur to anyone who is totally dependent upon computers for his/her day to day activities. When anybody talks about the hard drive crash, it usually implies problems into the computer system. The extent of hard drive crash could be ascertained only when data is retrieved.
Basically there are two types of hard drive damage could take place- the physical damage and the logical damage. These both types of hard drive crash are totally different from each other and have varying impacts on the hard drive and your data.
Physical hard drive crash
As the name implies, physical hard drive damage refers to the actual damage to physical components of your hard drive. After physical damage the hard drive becomes unrecognizable by the BIOS and it requires repairing or replacement of components for smooth running.
Logical hard drive crash
On the other hand, logical hard drive crash occurs due to file system corruption, operating system corruption, hard drive formatting, incorrect registry entries, damaged system files, virus attack and so forth. In case of logical damage, the physical hard drive components remain intact.
Most of your data could be easily recovered if you have a proper backup of your important data. Data backup is extremely significant and all of the computer users should implement it regularly.
Though, backup can save your life savings- data in grave situations, but most of the users do not understand it worth to make backup. When the data loss occurs, they do not have any way to perform data recovery and may fall in disastrous situations.
At this point of time, data recovery comes into action and helps you in salvaging your most critical business data. Data recovery is the life saver for all the data loss victims.
According to the reasons of hard drive crash, the data recovery solutions are also varying. In case of physical hard drive damage, the data recovery service will work. However in case of logical crash, you can perform Do It Yourself data recovery using data recovery software.
Stellar Information Systems Ltd is the leading provider of both data recovery solutions i.e. data recovery software and data recovery service. Best quality data recovery software of Stellar are available for all computer operating systems. The personalized data recovery service of Stellar is the best of data recovery industry and is offered in Class 100 Clean Rooms by highly qualified and experienced data recovery professionals.
shally spears
http://www.articlesbase.com/data-recovery-articles/basic-idea-about-the-data-recovery-methods-702451.html
A Nontoxic Approach To Alternative Treatments For Head Lice
We are fortunate that we now live in a world that for most ailments there is a medicinal cure. Many age-old complaints are being treated, or at least their symptoms can be treated, so they do not bother people anymore. But as the medicines get better so does the bacteria get stronger and become more immune to it. Head lice have been around forever and recent advances in medicine brought about a variety of treatments that has been able to get rid of them. Unfortunately, head louse can from time to time adapt to these medicines, so when this happens it is time to turn to alternative treatments for head lice techniques.
No More Chemicals
Alternative treatments for head lice are a surefire way of treating them, and alternative treatments will also help reduce the need for the chemicals found in medicine off of your head. Many of them are found to be harmless, but there is at least one (lindane found in the medicine Kwell) which is known to be toxic, in particular to children and seniors. If using an alternative treatment for head nits it can be cheaper than purchasing medicine, but first you should know some techniques to get rid of the head nits without the use of medicine.
One of the quickest and easiest methods to naturally remove head lice is to warm up a towel in your dryer for 20-30 minutes. Wrap the warm towel around your head, and the heat should be sufficient to kill both the lice and their eggs, ending the infestation in a matter of minutes. It does leave a bit of a window open for some nits (louse eggs) to survive if you’re not careful. Therefore, you can consider another option for an alternative treatment for head lice like olive oil. Massage olive oil into the scalp and let it sit there for ten minutes before washing out. The Olive oil smothers the head lice so they can’t breathe. If you do use olive oil, you’ll also need to perform head lice egg removal.
The best method in carrying out head lice egg removal is by using a warm towel, and then proceeding with the use of olive oil to ensure that none of them hatch. When combing through the hair use a nit comb or if you do not have one a very fine toothed comb. As you can see, there are several easy and cheap methods for alternative treatments for head lice, and they don’t involve rubbing toxic chemicals into your scalp. As always, you’ll need to check for nits every few days for a couple of weeks to make sure that none survived, but you would need to do that as well if you used medicine.
Gloria Gangi
http://www.articlesbase.com/diseases-and-conditions-articles/a-nontoxic-approach-to-alternative-treatments-for-head-lice-549315.html
It’s All About People, Process, and Technology. Technology is Dead Last in the Order of Importance When it Comes to Security
The recent and explosive growth of the Internet and technology has brought many good things such as e-commerce, collaborative computing, online markets and new avenues of sharing and distributing information. But each side has its counterpart, and with the technological advances came hackers. With this dark side and the many security breaches that are associated with it, companies, governments and individuals are afraid of hackers breaking into their servers or networks, stealing valuable data, collecting passwords and intercepting financial and credit card information.
And many times this can become reality. Recently, there has been a flurry of security breaches among large organizations such as Western Union, that reported a security breach on their Web site that let loose the credit-and debit-card information for 15,700 customers. Another recent hacker case is a 16-year-old youth, who admitted hacking into military and NASA computer networks. His activities caused a three-week shutdown of NASA’s systems and a security breach of a military computer network which protects against conventional, biological, chemical and nuclear-weapon attacks. That’s just a small sampling of actual hacks. Most industry watchers agree that only a handful of security breaches are ever reported.
For a long time, most computer network crackers hacked a system for the same reason: “Because it’s there.” But that’s no longer the only reason or even the dominant one. More hackers now do it because “It’s where the money is.” In the past decade, hackers have changed from script kiddies who hacked websites and spread worms to professionals sponsored by foreign governments and organized crime. Modern hackers want more than infamy. They exploit new technologies to crack systems or hack into computer systems and hold data for ransom. Hackers today commit real crimes, sometimes for significant financial gain.
To safeguard themselves from the modern hackers, most companies and government agencies that want to uncover network and system security vulnerabilities have two choices: they can hire a team of penetration experts to scan and probe their systems and uncover their vulnerabilities, or they can wait for a malicious hacker to come by and exploit them. Unfortunately, many times it is the latter. A security analysis or penetration test, performed by a security consultant, would produce a report or security posture assessment, detailing all vulnerabilities found and the actions needed to remedy them and minimize the risk of being the victim of a successful hack attack.
The security consultant or penetration expert can be a “white hacker”, someone who uses ethical hacking to discover vulnerabilities within a network or a reformed “black hacker”, who once was an active part of the dark side and used to exploit the identified security holes. The subject of whether it is ethical to use former hackers to evaluate a network’s security is a topic that is often hotly debated – and for many reasons.
Ethical hackers or security consultants typically have very strong programming and computer networking skills and have been in the computer and networking business for several years. Their base knowledge and expertise is augmented with detailed knowledge of the hardware and software, project management skills and methodology which are necessary for the actual vulnerability testing, as well as when reporting after the test was performed. In addition to that, ethical hacking seminars, courses and certifications are being offered to IT professional to broaden their horizon and skills in these fields. But many times these hacking courses and seminars only provide a very limited insight, outdated hacking or only basic hacking techniques. Their main purpose is to educate professionals but not to create a new generation of hackers. The goal is to fill security holes, not exploit them.
A disadvantage that white hackers or security consultants have over hackers is the real world experience and the insight knowledge. There are many things that cannot be taught in a seminar or learned from a book. The most obvious advantage former hackers have, is the real world hacking experience. As each network system differs based on various network defenses and configurations, the hack approach will be unique and only someone with plenty of real world hacking experience can efficiently go from using one technique to another as required by the present situation.
Another positive aspect of hiring reformed hackers as security consultants is that staying up on the latest security exploits, vulnerabilities and countermeasures is part of their job. A good hacker has a level of security knowledge that goes far beyond that of most other IT professionals. Keeping up with the latest exploits and countermeasures is a full time job and although the IT professional has an acceptable level of security knowledge, they must focus most of their attention on the day to day responsibilities of keeping the network up and running. To make up these “deficiencies” many white hackers and security consultants rely on automated and commercial vulnerability and penetration software, that can provide needed security reports, but their functions are limited. The huge differences can be seen when comparing the results from an automated scan and a hacker assessment or professional penetration test.
But before a company makes the decision to hire a reformed hacker, one needs to evaluate the negative sides. Certainly there are several types of hackers that can be found. One kind oft them are the “gray hats” – the unpaid tinkerers who find flaws to improve security for everyone. They are the best hackers, because their passion for tinkering drives their excellence and they do not break the laws. The black hat hackers – the criminals – break the law and feel justified doing it. They are the kind of hackers who seek to increase their fame in the hacker community, while others want to prove at any cost that their targets’ security is vulnerable. Black hats wreak havoc not only by their own actions but also by drawing attention to weaknesses that they and cybercriminals can exploit. The last and worst kinds of hackers are the cybercriminals, who perpetrate the worst crimes. They are paid to use existing tools and techniques to steal confidential personal, government or industry information, and particularly financial data. Cybercriminals usually work for foreign governments, organized crime or independently.
The probably biggest negative in the decision making process is trust. Which hacker will you hire and how much can you trust them? The main premise of security is deciding who you trust and then locking out everyone else. When hiring a hacker as a security consultant, because of network’s security concerns, paradoxically the trust goes to the criminal. Not only is it the trust factor that plays a major role in the decision making process but also the impact the decision might have on customers and shareholder. How will the customers react, if they knew a former criminal was hired to test the security of a system or database that contains all personal and financial information? Someone with a questionable morale and judgment, is not someone who should have control of a corporate network with sensitive data. In most cases hackers, and that is what makes them hackers, do not appreciate or respect standard business processes and structures. A disgruntled hacker with inside knowledge of a company’s networks could create a nightmare scenario.
Hackers are like adventurers, motivated by intellectual curiosity. “The more secure you make your systems, the more you attract them. The hacker mind-set is like exploring space, except they’re exploring the network. If that essential curiosity on finding out how things work, which is what causes people to be hackers, goes away, then you don’t necessarily want that person as a hacker or security consultant. However, just because a hacker has the desire and capabilities to explore a network, does not necessarily make them prepared to build a secure network and fix identified vulnerabilities. Breaking into things, does not always mean knowing how to fix them. These are two different skill sets. Once security threats have been identified, these need to be communicated including the potential business processes affected by the vulnerability, along with a list of impact assessments and countermeasures. Besides technical knowledge, the hacker will need to have experience in business processes and management, to relay his findings to the company.
Another hey factor to consider before making a decision who to hire as a security consultant, is to know that no computer system is ever completely secure, especially when considering the human factor. Spending astronomical amounts of money pursuing total security, by hiring security consultants and eventually becoming dependent on them, is not going to help. Some corporations in some industries must guard against intrusions from tech-hungry foreign governments – in particular China, France, Israel, Japan, Germany and Russia – that converted their cold-war spy machinery into “economic espionage” units, but that does not apply to all businesses. A realistic set of goals of what to expect from a security consultant need to be set first.
But no matter what the decision is and if the company hires a professional security consultant or a reformed hacker, the real threat will be still there. Any hacker, who wants to exploit a system will always try to use the path of least resistance. This path of least resistance is often through the front door. The front to door can be “identified” as the area over which businesses may have the least control: people. People are the weakest but first link when it comes to security. With good social engineering skills and not very well trained employees, disgruntled workers and ex-employees, a hacker can get enough information to access a system, insert malicious codes that contain keystroke and network sniffers and other means to collect information. The hacker just “exchanged” his keyboard with social engineering. And this is a part of security where a highly educated security consultant or a reformed hacker will not be able to help you.
Dasha Deckwerth
http://www.articlesbase.com/security-articles/its-all-about-people-process-and-technology-technology-is-dead-last-in-the-order-of-importance-when-it-comes-to-security-703665.html