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TWTV Hall of Fame
The Cheers Legacy: Season 2
By Eevin Klster, August 29, 2013
By Roger Cormier
There's really no reason why I shouldn't already be tired of Sam and Diane after two seasons of Cheers. A fair share of episodes revolve around one character or the other, or is an examination directly on their relationship, and the rest of the stories typically need to be dissected by the two, because Sam and Diane are the most sensible characters on the show, and their opinions therefore carry the most weight to the audience. But thus far, the two kids who just can't seem to get it together haven't lost their intrigue.
Season two's center was Sam and Diane's romantic relationship, beginning with their first night together in the season premiere, "Power Play," and culminating in the two-part finale, "I'll Be Seeing You," with an act-long verbal and Three Stoogesian fight and break-up. The plotting of the rise and fall of the lovebirds wasn't perfect, documenting a relationship over 22 episodes that had a definitive blissful beginning, a delineated apex with Sam's declaration of love, a clear downward spiral when Sam began to miss his old bachelorhood days, and a slapping, nose-pinching ending. In other words, it's how we've come to know how relationships that do not ultimately last tend to play out on television (usually without the violence).
The most contemporary example of this is season two of How I Met Your Mother, still widely believed to be its best work. After a first season of Ted and Robin taking turns liking one another at the wrong time, the show opened its sophomore year with the two beginning their relationship, and ending with their amicable break-up. Sound familiar? It was also at the midpoint of the season when an episode focused on a character who was not accustomed to long-term relationships comically struggled with saying the three words "I love you." With the advantage of 20years of hindsight, HIMYM actually dealt with it in a funnier, less broad manner, having Robin substitute Those Three Words with "falafel," whereas Sam simply couldn't physically finish the phrase (not to mention the assumed-gender-role switcheroo). Ted and Robin were fond of one another, but the two fundamentally saw the world differently; more specifically, as the Sam of the two, Robin could not change the fact that she still considered herself young and capable of achieving a bigger celebrity profile, and that Ted seemed at times one-dimensionally obsessed with the idea of marriage.
What has made Sam and Diane entertaining to watch and worthy of emotional investment is how equal the two really are, without ever truly realizing it. For all of the times that the two openly complain about how little they have in common, they're both clearly upset that their mutual attraction doesn't make sense on paper. They both possess biting senses of humor. Sam is probably just as intelligent as Diane; Diane is just far more educated. They are both stubborn. That was the problem. Also, Sam couldn't change overnight, or in six months with Diane. It isn't as if the producers of Cheers knew then that the show would last for 11 years, but they knew that it would be dishonest if Sam Malone continued to participate in a monogamous relationship. He's still emotionally adolescent, openly admitting in the finale that he likes the idea of "millions" of women fantasizing about him. Diane Chambers isn't completely mature herself—she did still have a bunch of stuffed animals sharing a bed with her in "Power Play" before Sam defenestrated them. She's still essentially a 1983 version of a hipster, secretly possessing and watching a tiny black and white television and fond of singing Dylan alone while drunk on wine. Without hitting us over the head with it, we know that it's a "right person, wrong time" situation.
A romance that just might very well stand the test of time is of Norm and Cliff. The two were firmly established as best friends in this batch of episodes. It almost made Cliff Clavin a likable fellow. For whatever reason, I haven't yet warmed to the postal worker, even though he gets Norman "Moonglow" Peterson's and the rest of the bar's seal of approval. Attempts to humanize him bordered on the too ridiculous, like in "Cliff's Rocky Moment," when he faked a knowledge of karate to not look like a coward, resulting in Diane having to drive him to the hospital. A fellow U.S. Mail employee claiming that his supervisor is known to admonish employees by yelling at them to stop being a "pain in the Clavin" makes Cliff pathetic and depressing, not a misunderstood know-it-all who sometimes is caught by Diane as a phony.
It's all forgiven whenever he's around Norm, humorously failing miserably at handling two women flirting with them at the bar, or trying to look cool by making prank calls using a joke that minutes earlier they had dismissed as dumb. The second episode of the season cemented the relationship when Norm volunteered to be the one to tell Cliff that the woman (Rhea Perlman, playing Carla's sister) he had "fallen for" and wanted to marry didn't even know his name. Norm insisted that anyone who laughed at Cliff for looking foolish would have to answer to him, a touching moment that permeates the DNA of your standard Judd Apatow movie.
Poor Norm though doesn't have it all together himself. The man finally found some employment (thanks to Sam) and got back together with his wife Vera (who I understand we will never see throughout the series), but multiple episodes dealt with Norm's struggle with being perceived by the rest of the bar as one of the boys. He openly weeped on Sam's couch in "No Help Wanted" moments after getting into a shouting match with Mr. Malone in front of everybody. He revealed to Sam in "Norman's Conquest," after chickening out of committing adultery, that he actually, sincerely, loves the wife he constantly makes fun of. Of course, when he tries to go back to the bar and proudly defend Vera he is immediately shot down and reverts back to his old, crowd-pleasing routines about the old wench.
Public persona is important on Cheers, as well as preserving your flimsy masculinity. When Cliff was in serious danger of being shamed out of ever returning to the bar, Norm did nothing because he would have also been perceived as an outcast, a non-act reciprocated when Cliff joined in on the hazing of Norm by some male denizens about not sleeping with the client.
Season two didn't exclusively dabble in stakes-free, brightly colored story, but it didn't venture into the really dark, controversial territories it did in its first year either. Cheers still was fine with sometimes portraying the characters as all too human. Coach's anger at a dead friend turning out to have been nothing like the saint he had thought he was was tough to watch in a good, entertaining way, and a story that began as kind of wonderful ("Where There's a Will") that turned rotten needed the characters to act like greedy jerks to move the story along.
As far as changes and explorations, we finally left the bar. When the premiere ventured to Diane's apartment, I felt like Sam, since we were both in alien territory for the very first time. Of course, the living room in Diane's apartment was actually the only new set built for the new season, but after a year of never leaving Cheers it was a newsworthy, sensory overloading event. Also, some episodes had the modern day structure of an A story and what can be considered a B story instead of a brief series of related gags. "They Called Me Mayday" was an episode that concluded simply because the show ran out of time—we are just left to assume that Sam and Diane's memoir proposal about Sam's playing days never materialized.
An older friend of mine and I talked about Cheers (at a bar of all places), where he recounted how he would be able to pick up television frequencies on his car radio sometimes and listen to repeats of the show. He found himself able to follow and thoroughly enjoy the episodes without any of the visuals. I have heard and read similar stories about how the show was written like theater, and now I believe it. I care about all of these characters, even Carla and Coach who I barely write about (so far), and the awkward, at times snide as hell Cliff, because they are all nuanced and real, and unknowingly very funny. A lot of that goes to the dialogue. But it would be silly to not sing the praises of the visual sketch work Cheers can also master. One of my favorite moments from the season was in "Coachie Makes Three" when gradually every main character had to run out to catch the previous one because of Coach's continued clarifications on who he actually was referring to. Except for Norm of course; he walked, beer in hand, towards the door. Only men like Ted Mosby would leave a beer behind.
Categories: The Cheers Legacy
Tagged: Cheers, How I Met Your Mother, Robin, Ted Danson, Ted Mosby
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Christmas seems such a long time ago and this post about our Christmas holiday is long overdue. For the last few years, we have gone on an annual pre-Christmas holiday, enjoying some of the best Christmas markets Europe has to offer. This is the latest in a long line of adventures (see my previous posts on Prague, Helsinki, Tallinn), but it is special for several reasons: It covered 4 countries – the most I have covered in a single trip anywhere, as well as being a no fly holiday – we took trains all the way. In this post, I will take you through the itinerary and highlights of our trip.
There were several options for us to get from Birmingham to Vienna, and we took the option of going via Cologne on the Nightjet sleeper train as I wanted to try the deluxe sleeper compartment with shower and toilet.
1425 Train from Brussels midi to Cologne Hbf.
We booked tickets with Loco2.
1610: Arrived in Cologne, where we had a 5 hour break till our sleeper train to Vienna. We spent the time exploring the famous Cologne Cathedral, the Christmas Market and having dinner in a traditional beer hall. Being the penultimate Saturday before Christmas, the Cologne Christmas market was extremely busy.
2120: We boarded the Nightjet sleeper train to Vienna. (We booked tickets with the Austrian rail booking site, OBB). This is where we were in for a severe disappointment. As it was cold (-3 degrees Celsius) the water on the deluxe train carriage had frozen. This meant that the shower and toilet in our sleeper compartment were not working. They did have some nice amenities on offer (hand towels, slippers, ear plugs, water, snacks and sparkling wine) which made up a little for the lack of shower and bathroom.
Tip: If I was to repeat the trip, I would not choose the Vienna to Cologne sleeper. Lack of shower facilities aside, it took a very long time to get there. In hindsight, I think a better option would be to leave London very early in the day, and travel to Vienna via Frankfurt, arriving in the evening (More details here). However, this does mean spending an extra night in London, unless you happen to live there.
We spent the rest of the day enjoying the Leopold museum in Vienna and the Christmas markets.
In the evening, we attended a performance by the Vienna Royal Orchestra, playing some of the best known classics by Mozart and Strauss. Some of the pieces were accompanied by singers and/or ballet dancers. Ticket costs vary from about 30 to 60 Euros (depending on the seats). However, a note of caution here: The tickets sellers (who are normally around Museum Quarter) do convey a feeling of it being more grand than it actually is. This is a show put on specially for tourists. The orchestra is 10 pieces (but does have all the main elements, piano, strings, wind and brass and percussion instruments). The concert hall is in the Akademisches Gymnasium building with no tiered seating. However, the performances were excellent and the musicians, singers and dancers were talented. We enjoyed the performance and considered it good value for money, but if you turned up expecting something on par with the Vienna State Opera, you would be disappointed.
After the performance, we had time for a late night coffee and cake at Cafe Schwarzenberg, located on the ring road not far from the concert hall. The cafe dates back to the 19th Century and the interiors have changed little since then. We also learnt that the Schwarzenberg is unusual compare to other Viennese cafes as it was frequented by entrepreneurs and financiers, as opposed to musicians and artists.
Tip: Where to Stay – We stayed at the Steinberger Hotel Herrenhof in Vienna. This is in a great location and very central. The rooms are comfortable and the hotel does a nice breakfast. It is also right next to a metro station.
1000: Today, we spent most of the day on the Big Bus Vienna City Tour. We tried the red route first, which starts at the opera house and covers the old town first and crosses the Danube to see the Vienna International Centre (locally known as UNO city), which is home one of the four official UN headquarters.
1230: Lunch at Cafe Mozart. This cafe was made famous by the film the Third Man and dates back to 1794. There was a sizeable queue to get in, but the quick and efficient service meant that we didn't have to wait for long.
1430: After lunch, we got on the Big Bus blue route, with a stop at Schobrunn Palace to explore the Christmas market there.
1030: Today, were were heading to Budapest, but we took a detour to Bratislava. The Slovakian Capital is only an hour by train from Vienna, so it seemed a shame to miss it. In the summer, you can make this trip by boat along the Danube, but in the winter, the boat service is not available.
1230: The centre of Bratislava is short walk from the train station.
In comparison to it's neighbours such as Prague, Vienna and Budapest, Bratislava is smaller and feels somewhat run down. However, the centre of twon is cosy and has a good Christmas market.
We had time to enjoy the Christmas market and a traditional Slovakian lunch, before getting on the train to Budapest.
We spent the morning on the City Sightseeing Budapest tour bus. Compared to Big Bus Vienna, the the city sightseeing tour Budapest was a big disappointment. The top deck on many of the busses was not covered, which meant that you had to endure the bitter cold if you wanted to sit at the top. Downstairs on the bus was no better, as there was no heating. To make matters worse, the Audio Guide was out synch with the sights. All in all, not a good experience.
Tip: If you are visiting Vienna and then Budapest, buy the Big Bus combined ticket for Vienna and Budapest. This is cheaper than buying separate tickets in two cities. The combined ticket gives you 2 day tickets, night tour, as well as river cruise in both cities. From what we could see, Big Bus was much better than City Sight seeing tour bus, in both cities.
We spent the afternoon exploring Buda castle and Christmas markets.
1000: Exploring the Hero Square and surrounding park in Pest. The park is home to the famous Széchenyi Thermal Baths. Budapest is famous for its Thermal baths and there are many scattered around the city. Széchenyi Thermal Baths is the largest of its kind in Europe and dates back to 1913.
We also explored the Vajdahunyad Castle and the surrounding Christmas market. The Castle was 1896 for the Hungarian Millennial Exhibition which celebrated the 1,000 years of Hungary since the Hungarian Conquest. The castle was designed to feature replicas of several landmark buildings from different parts the Kingdom of Hungary, including the famous Hunyad Castle in Transylvania.
In the evening, we enjoyed a Wine Tasting Casino Cruise on the Danube. In you are wondering what this is, it is a 3 hour cruise on the river Danube taking in the major sights such as Parliament and Buda castle. You get to blind-taste 7 wines, and "bet" on the colour, type and year of wine on a specially made roulette table. (You are given chips to play with, so there is no risk of losing any money). There is also live music and Hungarian folk singing and dancing. All in all it was an excellent experience, the food, wine and the service was great and the entertainment excellent, what what stood out for me was the riverside attractions, in the evening lights.
Hungarian Folk Singing and Dancing – including balancing Wine on the head!
Today we had some time to explore the Hungarian Parliament in daylight and the Shoes by the Danube monument.
We spent the afternoon further exploring the Christmas Markets and stocking up on Christmas presents.
In the evening, we boarded the night train from Budapest to Zurich. The train was very similar to many other sleeper trains we have taken. It was a two berth cabin, with a washbasin and mirror inside the compartment. There was plenty of space for luggage. There was water and snacks provided – we had to search for these for a bit, as they were inside a mirrors cabinet above the sink.
0840: Arrived at Zurich Hbf. We dropped our luggage at Hotel Schweizerhof and headed to Vaduz for our day trip to Lichtenstein. I'm going to write a separate post about this, so I won't go into the details here.
0630: Heading home, it was an early start from Zurich. We took the train to Gare du Nord, and boarded the Euro Star to London. Despite a 2 hour delay on the Euro Star, we were still able to get back home on time.


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Better Hearing Sydney
Welcome to our community.
© 2015 Better Hearing Sydney - Green Avenue Design
John Steel
John holds an Associate Diploma in Securities Management from the University of Technology, Sydney and is an associate fellow of the Australian Institute of Management. He is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, a fellow of the Corporate Directors' Association of Australia and a Justice of the Peace in New South Wales.
John has been a Director of the Securities Registrars Association of Australia Inc. since 1984, Vice President from 1999 to 2003 and Secretary since 2003.
He has been a Director of the National Club since 1995 and a Director of the Australasian Pioneers' Club since 2001 and was appointed Secretary in June 2004 and Vice President in May 2005. Mr Steel is also the President of Better Hearing Australia (Sydney) Inc., having served as a volunteer for some time.
Prior to his retirement in September 2002, Mr Steel spent 11 years with State Street Australia Limited as Senior Manager of the organisation's Corporate Trustee and Registry Services division. He was a member representative Trustee of the State Street Superannuation Fund from 1992 to 2002 and Chairman from 1997 to 2001.
Before joining State Street Australia Limited in 1991, Mr Steel worked for more than 25 years in a number of Senior Management roles covering all facets of the Stockbroking/Securities industry.
Marion Malins
Hon Secretary
Marion joined BHA in 2008 following her retirement from the workforce where she worked as a bookkeeper/office manager for a Diesel engineering firm for 25 years and then with a company involved in the production of colour film separations for the printing industry.
She is the treasurer of her school's ex-students' association. Her hobbies are travelling, reading, philately, cooking and Tai Chi.
Carmen Malins
Hon Treasurer
Carmen, who is Marion's younger sister, joined BHA in 2009 when she retired from her position as Loans Manager of Comtax Credit Union Ltd, a position she held for 31 years. Carmen is enjoying her retirement with gardening, philately, philumeny (match box collecting), travelling and Tai Chi.
Carmen is the Treasurer for the Strathfield-Burwood Philatelist Society.
Andrew Bush, our immediate past National Secretary, has spent the majority of his working life working with Church and para-Church counselling, social service, and welfare agencies. In 1978, he joined the staff of The Scots' Church, Melbourne and served as its Missioner, and the Missioner of the Presbyterian and Scots' Church Joint Mission, a Day Centre for Homeless People based in Drummond Street Carlton, where he served until 1985. Andrew was a Justice of The Peace in NSW for fifty years, and was a Justice of The Peace and a Bail Justice in Victoria for about eight years in the 1980s and 1990s."
Warwick Smith
Warwick was educated at Fort Street Boys' High School and then he worked at the Sydney office of the Bank of New South Wales (now Westpac). Since 1988 he spent 15 years as the National Credit Manager at Schwarzkopf until that company was taken over by the Henkel Corp a few years back. He has recently assumed the position of Office Manager at BHA Sydney.
Warwick has had a great interest in sport, playing both rugby and cricket at school and he went on to captain a cricket team to a premiership afterwards. His other interests include philately, history (both modern and ancient), cooking and reading as well as Australian Rules football.
Sunny Stuart
Teacher, Hurstville Class
Sunny suffered gradual loss of hearing from early adulthood and was fitted with hearing aids in the late 1980s. In 2001, she heard of Better Hearing Australia and joined a local hearing loss management class to interact with other people facing similar issues.
During 2002 Sunny completed the required training to become a tutor and since 2003 has been leading her class as they support and encourage each other in living in the "real world" with a hearing loss. In 2005 she featured in the Hurstville Council's annual Community Service Awards in acknowledgement of her contribution to the hearing impaired of that community.
Margaret Dengate
Co-ordinator of Teachers; Teacher, Chatswood and Concord Classes
Margaret is one of our few teachers who is not hearing impaired. In her early life she lived in Kogarah Bay, attending Carlton South and Blakehurst High schools. She qualified at Sydney University in Arts and Education, the latter covering languages and Mathematics. Her first teaching appointment was at Leichhardt Girls' Junior High. After spending six months in Europe, she worked in a primary school as an ESL teacher (English as a Second Language).
After marrying her husband, Doug, they lived in Concord for three years before settling in Frenchs Forest where they have been ever since. She left teaching once the family started and, in the many years since then, she has been involved in a variety of voluntary work including helping people with their shopping and teaching French to seniors. After joining BHA in 2006, she completed the Teachers' Training Course and has already conducted several short courses on Hearing Loss Management.
Her hobbies include reading, cryptic crosswords and tennis.
Vijay L Sodhi
Teacher, Bondi Junction and Parramatta Classes
Vijay is our very devoted and committed teacher. Originally from India, Vijay came to Australia in 1982 with her husband and two little children. She worked with Centrelink for more than 22 years before retiring in 2008. She has a long history of volunteering, working with The Smith Family as a volunteer English Teacher during her full time employment.
After retiring, her quest for helping her community got bigger and bigger. She started BHA as a Trainee Teacher and has since completed her training. Having studied as a teacher in India, she absolutely loves teaching. She is also involved in other volunteer work with Meals on Wheels and Vision Australia.
Roma Wood OAM
Vice Patron
Roma brings a wealth of knowledge and experience gained as a person with hearing loss, and as a cochlear implantee. Even a decade later, Roma still finds that there is a whole new world out there.
During her National Presidency in 1982, Roma was awarded a Churchill Fellowship which allowed her the opportunity to study rehabilitation services in Europe and the U.S. The knowledge gained, together with her personal experience has resulted in the production of specialised resource material for hearing impaired clients, including a lip reading handbook widely used by isolated people, in country or rural areas.
Roma was honoured for her work when in 1991 she was awarded the Order of Australia and in 1990 named Quota International's Woman of the Year in the South Pacific Area. Roma was elected an Honorary Life Member at the 2006 National Annual General Meeting.
Roma continues to heighten community awareness to the issues of hearing loss by her involvement in many speaking engagements, media presentations, seminars and workshops.
Roma was appointed Vice Patron in June 2015.
Sister Judith Barwick LCM
Sister Judith Barwick LCM is a support teacher with BHA Sydney in the Hearing Loss Management Program at Hurstville Sydney. Judith is a member of the Little Company of Mary Sisters – a worldwide congregation of religious sisters, founded by an English woman Mary Potter – in Nottingham England in 1877 to be present with the suffering and the dying people of our world.
Judith's professional background is in general, midwifery, psychiatric and gerontologcial nursing, in clinical practice and management. She has a moderate neurosensorial hearing loss with bilateral hearing aids. Following her professional retirement in 2011, Judith joined BHA Sydney as a volunteer, completing her training as a teacher in Hearing Loss Management in 2013.
Judith is also a member of the Committee of Management of Better Hearing Australia Sydney Inc.
Kerrin Parry
I was educated at Cheltenham Girls' High school, then completed a B.A. at the University of Sydney. The major part of my working career was spent in a number of different administrative roles at Macquarie University.
My introduction to the issues and challenges presented by hearing loss began when our first son was born with severe to profound bilateral deafness, 38 years ago. We joined the Shepherd Centre programme when he was about 9 months old, and were very actively involved from then on with his speech acquisition, social development and education. About 20 years ago, my husband acquired a moderate to severe hearing loss, so I have an understanding of the effects of hearing loss on both children and adults.
Following my retirement in 2007, I decided to undertake voluntary work. After finding out about BHA, I completed the Teachers' Training Course, and have since lead classes at Pennant Hills and Chatswood. I have enjoyed helping BHA members develop and improve their skills to cope with and manage hearing loss, in a supportive and friendly setting.
For relaxation I enjoy gardening, reading, and going to the theatre and I have a life-long interest in nature, conservation and the environment.
Lorna Clayton
Lorna Clayton, Pennant Hills Class (sharing the class with Kerrin Parry). . . trained as a primary school teacher and ended up teaching English as a Second Language. I have been wearing hearing aids since I was forty (long enough to discover how much they can improve over the years) and wouldn't be without them. I have been a U3A group leader in various subjects for about 20 years and am still leading a creative writing group. I love to write - both prose and poetry.
Gina Carovigno
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Popular Ghanaian actress Yvonne Nelson has just been involved in an airplane accident in New York.
The actress who is endowed with height and long legs has taken to social media to appreciate as she recounts on how she narrowly escaped death considering her plane got involved in an accident in New York.
The actress was among 205 passengers on a Delta Air Lines Flight 420 from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York to Kotoka International Airport in Accra when the incident happened.
The pilot had aborted takeover due to an unknown issue and while landing, the gear was engulfed in flames.
The breaks of the Boeing 767 overheated causing the landing gear to catch fire.
Fire and rescue officials rushed to the scene to douse the fire.
"My flight! So this happened to us! Thank you Jesus #Deltapleasesitup," Yvonne Nelson said as she shared videos of the incident.


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Home >Poems >National Poetry Competition, npc, NPC 2013 >Love on a Night Like This
National Poetry Competition
Love on a Night Like This
by Josephine Abbot
Outside, air is balancing itself. We can hear
branches in motion, some twigs breaking,
wires like violin strings, trees breathy as bass flutes.
The acoustics of friction. The science of equilibrium
isn't at all easy. Effort is needed
to walk against the wind. Love isn't easy.
Something – a plastic pot or a chair –
skitters on a path. A bin tips over.
Tonight, things are on the move:
leaves, dead and alive; seeds; fences;
flying insects and spiders new-worlded;
birds made helpless as plastic bags;
dust, sand, water, all turned to spray
and spread. Small trees blow over.
We are skittering on a path
though we're heavy with flesh, bone, eyes, tongues;
we're sea-birds in the teeth of a gale
trying to anchor ourselves in place;
we're storm-petrels, called little Peters because
we only look for a while as if we can walk on water;
Mother Carey's chickens;
oiseaux du diable.
Somewhere else, seas heap up and crests break.
Here, we're ditching meteorology for myth:
the wind's a creature broken out of a cave;
a wolf, and this is Ragnarök.
Glass breaks; a car alarm sounds; trees wrench.
There's a science and a logic to loving you,
but there's superstition on a night like this
and all the stirring of the world to settle first.
3rd Prize winner in the National Poetry Competition 2013.
Filmpoem by Kate Sweeney, commissioned in collaboration with Alastair Cook and Filmpoem.
From the judge: 'This poem is full of incidental sounds that seem loaded with meaning. Its world is in motion from start to finish, as it searches restlessly for equilibrium. "Tonight, things are on the move," the poem says. Indeed they are. The poem is an attempt to replicate the risky balancing act of loving another human being. It depicts both the simplicity and enormity of that act – the way it has us completely at its mercy, reduced as we are, in the presence of love, to "sea-birds in the teeth of a gale." What we admired about this particular poem was its energy, atmosphere and detail – a plastic pot skittering on a path, birds "made helpless as plastic bags" – and the way each couplet bristles with sound and movement. This is a poem in which the personal and universal, the minute and the enormous, do more than co-exist: they are one and the same thing.' Julia Copus
Josephine Abbot
Josephine Abbott, who won third place in the National Poetry Competition 2013, was born in Manchester, studied Latin and English Language at Sheffield University and now lives in Derby, where she has led a variety of poetry and creative writing projects. She has had poems published in magazines including Acumen, Agenda, The Frogmore Papers, Staple and Stand, and has won awards for her poetry, including an East Midlands Bursary, Lancaster LitFest 2000, a runner-up prize in the Bridport Competition 2009 and a commendation in the National Poetry Competition 1999. Her collection Trying Not To Levitate was published by Blinking Eye (2006).


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It is clear that your company is indeed part of your heart and soul, and it is inspiring to know that you have selflessly given your talent, energy and compassion in your commitment to bring superior service, security and love into the lives of senior citizens. I thank you and your care companions for your ongoing devotion and sustained adherence to your mission of love.
They were always timely and dependable.
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It is my happy privilege to recommend Caring Companions and the company president, Renee Smith, to you. I have known Ms. Smith since 1992 and find her to be a very hard worker with a sincere heart for helping seniors. I used her company for my mother in the declining days of her life.
accommodating my spur of the moment request for service. All my caregivers were great but Toyrica had such a sweet spirit and could get my mother to do things that no one else could. Special people at Caring Companions. Thank you all so much!
Thank you all so much for the wonderful care your agency provided for my husband.
The caregivers were very skilled and had such a big heart. They took such good care of him and made sure he stayed cleaned and dry. Turned him every 2 hours to prevent wounds. Bathed, dressed, and transferred him when needed. They also kept my house cleaned which gave me a lot more time to focus on everything else I needed to do or just so I could rest. They reported to me any changes in his condition that I might not have noticed. My husband past away but I know that he left this world with the best and most loving help one can find! I definitely recommend Caring Companions to anyone! Thanks again for everything!
All your staff was very compassionate, and went out of their way to make sure all my requests and needs were taken care of. It was a long journey but having Caring Companions made my hard days much better. I am in remission now, and credit part of my recovery to the incredible staff who gave so much encouragement, care and love.
I was physically unable to lift, transfer and care for my husband after his stroke. I was mentally & physically exhausted, and felt I might have to put him in a nursing home. The rehab suggested Caring Companions, and I am so happy I followed through! My caregivers were patient, kind and very well trained on how to care for a stroke patient. I would definitely recommend this company to anyone who needs help with a family member at home.


text:
{% extends 'base.html' %}
{% load staticfiles %}
{% load i18n %}

{% block head %}
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <title>Sign-Up/Login Form</title>
  <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Titillium+Web:400,300,600' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/normalize/5.0.0/normalize.min.css">
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="static/form/css/style.css">
{% endblock head %}

{% block body %}

Log In

 Sign Up

          <form action="{% url 'login' %}" method="post" role="form">{% csrf_token %}

              *

          <input type="text" class="form-control" id="username" name="username">

              *

            <input type="password" class="form-control" id="password" name="password">

Forgot Password?

            <button type="submit" class="button button-block">{% trans 'Log in' %}</button>
          {% trans 'Sign up for Echopen Challenge' %}

          </form>

{% endblock body %}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Huawei Mate 50E
Huawei Mate 50E price in Bangladesh
Brand: Huawei
Display: 6.7" OLED (1224 x 2700 px)
Camera: Back: 50+13 & Front: 13 MP
OS: HarmonyOS 3.0
RAM & ROM: 8/128 & 8/256 GB
CPU: Octa-core 2.4 GHz Cortex
Battery: Li-Po 4460 mAh
Huawei Mate 50E - Specification
Glass Front & Back, Aluminum Frame
Silver, Purple & Black
6.7 inches, 108.9 cm2
OLED capacitive touchscreen, 1B colors
Bezel-Less Display
Punch Hole Display
18.5:9 ratio
~88.6% screen & body ratio
- 90Hz Refresh rate
GSM / CDMA / HSPA / CDMA2000 / LTE
CDMA 800
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 17, 18, 19, 20, 26, 28, 34, 38, 39, 40, 41
HSPA 42.2/5.76 Mbps, LTE-A
HarmonyOS 3.0
Qualcomm SM7325 Snapdragon 778G 5G (6 nm)
Octa-core (1x2.4 GHz Cortex-A78 & 3x2.2 GHz Cortex-A78 & 4x1.9 GHz Cortex-A55)
- 64 Bit
128GB/256GB
8GB/128GB & 8GB/256GB
- UFS 3.1
NM (Nano Memory), up to 256GB (uses shared SIM slot)
50 MP, f/1.4-f/4.0, 24mm (wide), PDAF, Laser AF, OIS
13 MP, f/2.2, 13mm, 120˚ (ultrawide), PDAF
Leica optics, dual-LED dual-tone flash, panorama, Exposure compensation, ISO control, Phase Detection autofocus, Continuos Shooting, High Dynamic Range mode (HDR), Digital Zoom, Auto Flash, Face detection, Touch to focus
4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60/120fps, gyro-EIS
13 MP, f/2.4, 18mm (ultrawide)
4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60fps
USB Type-C 3.1, 1.0 reversible connector, USB On-The-Go
Under Display, Optical
Yes, with A-GPS. Up to tri-band: GLONASS (3), BDS (3), GALILEO (2), QZSS (2), NavIC
- Face ID
- Barometer
- Color spectrum
Non-removable Li-Po
About 40 min with 66W Fast charging
- 66W Fast wireless charging
- 5W Reverse wireless charging
huawei mate 50e price in bangladesh and review
Huawei Mate 50E price in bangladesh including unofficial & official bd price, launch date, reviews, colors, variants, news, full specifications, features, RAM, internal storage, size, performance, comparison, and every single feature rating of the mobile is given below…
Model: Huawei Mate 50E
Price in Bangladesh: Coming soon
Colors: Silver, Purple & Black
Display: 6.7″ OLED (1224 x 2700 pixels)
Camera: Back: 50MP+13MP and Front: 13MP
Variant: 8GB/128GB & 8GB/256GB
Processor: Octa-core 2.4 GHz Cortex
The company announced this device on 06 September 2022 and released it on 23 October 2022.
6.7 inches OLED capacitive Touchscreen, 1B colors supported display phone has a resolution of 1224 x 2700 pixels, with a PPI of 442.
Made of Glass on the front, Glass back, and aluminum material on the back. The mobile is available in 3 colors on the market. This mobile is available in Silver, Purple & Black colors on the market. The Under Display, Optical fingerprint runs quite accurately and fast. Being a sensor accelerometer, gyro, proximity, barometer, compass, and color spectrum sensor. Face unlock is also quite correct.
The phone has supported 2G, 3G, and 4G Network facilities. Moreover, GPRS and EDGE facilities also have. HSPA 42.2/5.76 Mbps, LTE-A speed on the phone.
HarmonyOS 3.0 Operating system and Qualcomm SM7325 Snapdragon 778G 5G (6 nm), Octa-core (1×2.4 GHz Cortex-A78 & 3×2.2 GHz Cortex-A78 & 4×1.9 GHz Cortex-A55) processor on the phone.
The company has launched the phone in 2 variants of 8GB/128GB & 8GB/256GB. In the case of gaming, graphics, and RAM are fairly good. Full HD-quality graphics games can be easily run and played quite smoothly.
The Back of the phone has a 50MP+13MP camera with which you can record beautiful quality pictures and a maximum of 4K@30/60fps video. Moreover, it remains an extra feature like the phone has a 13MP selfie camera with which you can take beautiful quality pictures and selfies. You can record a maximum of 4K@30/60fps video with the front camera. High–quality Selfie work can be done effortlessly with the camera on the phone.
The mobile uses a Non-Removable Li-Po 4460 mAh battery. With this, you can get an average of up to 97 hours of standby time, and 12:33 hours of net browsing. On the full charge, you can talk for almost Up to 23:44 hours. The phone will take about 40 minutes to fully charge with 66W charging.
huawei mate 50e price in bangladesh:
huawei mate 50e price in bd is Coming Soon. Considering the price, we hope it will be a great phone.
With this intention, All of our product data collection sources are on the Internet. Our team shared all kinds of reviews, details, and prices in Bangladesh that have been collected from various websites on the Internet. We have tried to present the information to you through verification and selection from the internet. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Before buying any product, you should check and choose well.
Huawei Mate 50E Reviews
More Device from Huawei
Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ 5G
Huawei nova Y9a
Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra ৳179,999.00 ৳154,999.00
Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Pro ৳44,000.00
BLU G71
KTM Duke 125 European ৳480,000.00
Loncin GP 150 ৳180,000.00
Yamaha R15M ৳575,000.00


Milsoft Acquires Daffron | Daffron & Associates, Inc.
Abilene, Texas – April 4, 2019 – Milsoft Utility Solutions Inc., an industry leader in electrical engineering analysis, outage management, communications and geospatial information systems software and services, has announced the acquisition of Daffron & Associates. The addition will clear the path for the introduction of Milsoft customer information systems.
"Milsoft recognizes the desire for customer choice in vendor partners for customer information, financial management, work management and bill presentment services. The acquisition of Daffron & Associates allows us to expand our services toolbox in a meaningful and value-added direction for current and future customers," said Brian Carr, CEO, Marketing, Milsoft.
About Milsoft Utility Solutions: Milsoft Utility Solutions has served the small utility marketplace, cooperatives, municipalities and universities, with industry-leading analysis software and services for 30 years. A recognized leader in engineering and operations solutions, Milsoft is dedicated to our customers and our employees, passionate about our support, and strive to bring technology vision to deployment while enhancing our customers' ability to execute.
About Daffron & Associates: Daffron & Associates believes that successful utilities are built on a strong foundation. They are dedicated to providing the platform on which businesses operate. From billing and customer service to financials, accounting, inventory and work management, their highly trained staff of specialists ensures that utility systems they install are integrated and functioning at optimal efficiency.


Thumbnail represents your video. If you want to attract viewers than you must have a lucrative video thumbnail. I have another video on thumbnail where I used a third party website to create video thumbnail. In this video, I used photoshop to show you the way I create most of my thumbnails.


text:
\section{Introduction}
This paper introduces Activation Codes (ACs) as a generic term for codes that are used in many different digital services. They are known by many different names including voucher, e-coupon and discount code. The common properties of these codes are that they need to be short, human-readable, have a fixed length and can be traded for economic benefit. There are schemes~\cite{blundo2002lpg,blundo2005secure,cimato-online} that include all kinds of property information in the code itself or include digital signatures~\cite{kumar-sales,jakobsson1999secure}. This makes the codes unsuitable for manual entry and thus for printing on products, labels or receipts. The focus of this paper is on ACs that can be printed and manually entered such as the AC that is printed on a receipt in Figure~\ref{pic:acexample}. In this case the customer can enter the AC `\texttt{TY5FJAHB}' on a website to receive some product. We propose a scheme called BEPAC to generate and verify this class of ACs. BEPAC is an acronym for Best Effort and Practice Activation Codes. Here `\emph{best practice}' covers the use of a keyed hash function to satisfy authenticity and `\emph{best effort}' covers the use of a Feistel network to satisfy confidentiality.

\begin{wrapfigure}{r}{0.45\textwidth}
  \vspace{-20pt}

    \includegraphics[width=0.44\textwidth]{pictures/acexample}

  \caption{Activation Code}\label{pic:acexample}
  \vspace{-20pt}
\end{wrapfigure}
Security plays an important role in the design of an AC system because of the economic value it represents. A system breach could result in big financial losses.
Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, there are no guidelines on the design of secure AC systems that consider the previously mentioned properties.
Despite the lack of general guidelines for good practice, ACs are extensively used.
This underlines the need for a proper AC scheme that relies on elementary, well-studied, cryptographic primitives to provide authenticity and confidentiality.
First, we discuss some examples that illustrate the need for a scheme that provides both confidentiality and authenticity. Then, we give a general definition of an AC scheme and use it as a reference throughout this paper.

\paragraph{Our Contribution}
This paper addresses some known methods that are used to generate ACs and proposes BEPAC, an AC scheme that combines best effort with best practice. BEPAC is based on well-studied cryptographic primitives to guarantee unique and authentic codes that provide a satisfactory level of confidentiality. Confidentiality is obtained by a Feistel construction. The Feistel construction has weak theoretical bounds when it is used on a small domain, therefore we do not rely on it for authenticity. We use the work of Black and Rogaway~\cite{black2002caf} on small domain encryption and make some small changes to achieve confidentiality. A practical attack on a general 3-round Feistel network is presented to demonstrate the weak bounds of the Feistel construction. For authenticity, we solely rely on a keyed-hash message authentication code (HMAC) of the serial number, where the size of this HMAC determines the probability of successfully guessing a valid AC. This separated design allows a separate analysis of both confidentiality and authenticity. An advantage of this approach is that authenticity is not automatically compromised when confidentiality is broken. Finally, a BEPAC solution fits on a smart card and therefore allows AC generation and clearance to be performed in a controlled environment.

\paragraph{Related Work}
Black and Rogaway~\cite{black2002caf} propose the Generalized Feistel Cipher (GFC) as a solution to small domain encryption. This elegant solution can be used to construct a permutation on any finite domain. In the BEPAC scheme we use their method in a slightly adapted way and solely to provide confidentiality.
Black and Rogaway provide an adapted proof of Luby~\cite{luby1996pac} to prove secrecy of a 3-round Feistel network.
However, in their example configuration, the single DES round function does not give the $3 \times 56$-bit security since single DES can be broken by exhaustive key search~\cite{quisquater2005eks}. Moreover, in this setting it can be broken round by round which actually means that we have 58-bit security. Bellare et al.~\cite{spies2009} propose 128-bit AES as a pseudo-random function which drastically increases the effort needed to break one round of the Feistel network by brute-force. However, the adaptive chosen-plaintext attack (CPA-2) on a 3-round Feistel network presented in this paper shows that the key length of the pseudo-random function used in each round does not have any influence on the attack complexity. Research on Feistel networks~\cite{patarin2004security,patarin91new,naor1999cpp,luby1996pac,knudsen2008security,patarin1998feistel} has resulted in theoretical security bounds. Feistel constructions of six or more rounds are secure against adaptive chosen plaintext and chosen ciphertext attacks (CPCA-2) when the number of queries $m \ll 2^{n}$, see~\cite{patarin2004security,knudsen2008security}.
There is more related literature on the design of ACs, but to the best of our knowledge there are no proposals for the class of AC schemes that we discuss in this paper.
Blundo et al.~\cite{blundo2002lpg,blundo2005secure,cimato-online} introduce an e-coupon which is 420 bytes in size. This scheme uses a message authentication code (MAC) over some characterizing data like the identity of the manufacturer, name of the promoted product, expiry date etc. The resulting e-coupons contain valuable information but are too large to be entered manually by a user. In the work of Kumar et al.~\cite{kumar-sales} and Jakobssen et al.~\cite{jakobsson1999secure} a coupon is basically a digital signature which also means that they describe relatively large e-coupons.
Chang et al.~\cite{chang2006secure} recognize the problem of efficiency and describe a scheme that is more suitable for mobile phones that have less processing power. On the one hand, they circumvent the use of public key cryptography which reduces the computational complexity, but on the other hand, their scheme describes relatively long codes. None of the schemes described previously satisfy the requirement of short codes that can be entered manually.

Matsuyama and Fujimura~\cite{matsuyama1999distributed} describe a digital ticket management scheme that allows users to trade tickets. The authors discuss an account based and a smart card based approach and
try to treat different ticket types that are solely electronically circulated. This in contrast with BEPAC which focuses on codes that can easily be printed on product wrappings. Our intention is not to define a trading system where ACs can be transfered from one person to another. Such contextual requirements are defined in RFC 3506 as Voucher Trading Systems (VTS). Terada et al.~\cite{terada2000copy} come with a copy protection mechanism for a VTS and use public key cryptography. This makes the vouchers only suitable for electronic circulation. Furthermore, RFC 3506 and~\cite{matsuyama1999distributed} do not discuss methods on how to generate these vouchers securely. We propose the BEPAC scheme in order to fill this gap.

\section{AC Scheme Selection}\label{sec:constructions}
This section first discusses some examples of AC systems. Then, two different approaches to set up an AC scheme are discussed and their main drawbacks are visited. After this, the Generalized Feistel Cipher of~\cite{black2002caf} is introduced in Section~\ref{secsmalldom} which has some useful concepts that we use in our scheme. The focus of an AC scheme design lays on scalability, cost-efficiency and off-line use. Finally, forgery of ACs should be hard, an adversary is only able to forge ACs with a very small predefined probability.

\paragraph{Examples of Activation Codes}
First, we discuss some examples of ACs in real life. A good first example is the \emph{scratch prepaid card} that is used in the telecommunication industry. To use a prepaid card, the customer needs to remove some foil and reveals a code that can be used to obtain mobile phone credits.
Then we have the \emph{e-coupon} which is a widely used replacement for the conventional paper coupon. An e-coupon represents value and is used to give financial discount or rebate at the checkout of a web shop.
The last example is a \emph{one-time password} that gives access to on-line content. This content should only be accessible to authenticated people who possess this unique password; think of sneak previews of new material or software distribution.

All the aforementioned examples use unique codes that should be easy to handle, that is, people should be able to manually copy ACs without much effort.
At the same time, it should be impossible for an adversary to use an AC more than once or autonomously generate a new valid AC.
Altogether, ACs are unique codes that have to guarantee authenticity. An AC system provides authenticity when an adversary is not able to forge ACs. It is a misconception that authenticity only is enough for an AC scheme. In the end, most AC systems are used in a competitive environment. When vendor $A$ starts a campaign where ACs are used to promote a product and provide it for free to customers, then it is not desirable that vendor $B$ finds out details about this campaign like the number of released ACs. Other sensitive details might be the value that different ACs represent or the expiry date of ACs. It is for this reason that we need confidentiality, which means that an adversary is not able to recognize patterns or extract any information from a released AC.

Many systems use codes that need to provide the properties discussed above. In this paper we refer to all these codes as ACs. By an AC scheme $\mathcal{S}$ we indicate a tuple $(\mathcal{A},\mathcal{N},\mathcal{P},\lambda)$ where $\mathcal{A}$ is the size of the used alphabet, $\mathcal{N}$ is the number of desired ACs, $\mathcal{P}$ determines the probability $P = \frac{1}{\mathcal{P}}$ of an adversary guessing an AC and $\lambda$ is the length of the ACs.

\subsubsection{Database Approach}
The database approach is very straightforward and consists of a database that contains all the released ACs and their current status. The generation of new AC entries is done by a pseudo-random function. When a customer redeems an AC, its status is set to `used'.
An advantage of the database approach is that the randomness of the ACs is directly related to the randomness of the pseudo-random generator. So, it is important to select a good pseudo-random generator, e.g. a FIPS certified one.
On the other hand, the protection of this valuable data is still a problem. For instance, if an attacker manages to add entries to the database or is able to change the record status to `unused', it will be hard to detect this fraud in time. Also, it is necessary to check any new AC against all existing entries since there might be a collision. As a consequence, access to the complete set of ACs is needed on generation of new ACs.

\subsubsection{Block Cipher Approach}
Another approach is to use a block cipher that gives a random permutation $F:\{0,1\}^{n}\rightarrow\{0,1\}^{n}$ from serial numbers to ACs. The provider maintains a counter $i$ to keep track of the number of generated ACs. This way the authenticity of a serial number can be checked since only ACs that decrypt to a serial $< i$ are valid. A disadvantage of this method is the size of the resulting AC which is 128-bits for AES and 64-bits for 3DES. For AES, this results in a string of about 21 characters when we use numbers, upper- and lowercase characters in our alphabet. For 3DES, this is about 11 characters. Smaller block ciphers do exist, like \textsc{Katan}~\cite{de2009katan} which is 32-bits, but are not very well-studied. Furthermore, block ciphers force ACs to have a length that is a multiple of the block size $b$. An alternative could be the concept of elastic block ciphers~\cite{cook2007elastic} which is an extended scheme where variable message sizes are allowed as input. Moreover, this scheme uses well-studied block ciphers. Still, the minimal size of a plaintext message is the block size $b$ of the incorporated block cipher. So, this does not give any advantage and is still too large for our target, which is roughly 20 to 50-bit codes.

\subsection{Small Domain Ciphers}\label{secsmalldom}
Black and Rogaway introduce the Generalized Feistel Cipher (GFC) in~\cite{black2002caf}. The GFC is designed to allow the construction of arbitrary domain ciphers. Here, arbitrary domain means a domain space that is not necessarily $\{0,1\}^{n}$. For ACs we want to use a small domain cipher where the domain size can be customized to a certain extent, therefore we look into the proposed method in~\cite{black2002caf}. Before we describe the Generalized Feistel Cipher, we briefly visit the basic Feistel construction.

\subsubsection{Feistel Network}\label{secfeistel}
\begin{wrapfigure}{r}{0.17\textwidth}
  \vspace{-20pt}

    \includegraphics[width=0.16\textwidth]{pictures/feistel_0}

  \caption{Feistel}\label{feistel:3rnd}
  \vspace{-40pt}
\end{wrapfigure}

A Feistel network~\cite{luby1988cpp} is a permutation that takes an input $x$ of size $2n$, then performs a number of rounds $r$ with round functions $f_{1},...,f_{r}$, and finally delivers an output $y$ of size $2n$. The input is split into two blocks $\left\langle L,R\right\rangle \in \{0,1\}^{2 \times n}$. As shown in Figure~\ref{feistel:3rnd}, every right block is input to a round function $f_i$. The output of this function is combined with the left block and becomes the new right block, e.g. $L' = f_{1}(R) + L$ for GFC. The original right block becomes the new left block. For the ease of decryption the last output blocks are swapped in case of an odd number of rounds (which is the case in Fig.~\ref{feistel:3rnd}).

\subsubsection{Generalized Feistel Cipher}
The GFC of Black and Rogaway~\cite{black2002caf} was introduced to handle flexible domain sizes. Take for example an encryption $E: 5^{14} \rightarrow 5^{14}$ which is not a domain that is captured by standard block cipher algorithms.
The BEPAC scheme borrows some of the ideas of GFC to be able to construct arbitrarily sized AC configurations.

In GFC the left and right block of the Feistel network are ``similarly sized'' which means that their domain size may deviate a little. For the particular case of ACs we have looser restrictions on the arbitrariness of our domain and we can increase the guessing probability $\mathcal{P}$ to influence the domain size. As a consequence, the system parameters of BEPAC can be chosen such that the left and right block are equally sized.

An obvious way to use the Feistel network is to create a pseudo-random permutation $F: \mathcal{K} \times \mathcal{M} \rightarrow \mathcal{M}$ where $\mathcal{K}$ and $\mathcal{M}$ are the key space and message space respectively. To generate ACs, we take as plaintext an index $i$ and use the resulting ciphertext as AC $\alpha$. In order to check $\alpha$ the provider keeps track of the last index $i$ and considers a given $\alpha$ valid when $F^{-1}(\alpha) \leq i$. This construction guarantees:
\begin{enumerate}
\item Collision-freeness, since $F$ is a permutation.
\item Valid serial numbers, they cannot be predicted since $F$ is a pseudo-random permutation.
\end{enumerate}

As Black and Rogaway already conclude in~\cite{black2002caf} the Generalized Feistel Cipher has weak security bounds when used in applications where the message space is roughly from $k = 2^{30}$ up to $k = 2^{60}$. This suggests that our second argument might not be that strong.

Also, the serial $i$ is kept secret and one might argue that this presumes unforgeability. However, the way $i$ is embedded allows an adversary to make useful assumptions about $i$ since the ACs are generated using consecutive numbers. In the GFC, the left block $L$ and right block $R$ are initiated as follows:
$$L=i\bmod 2^{n}, \qquad R=\lfloor i / 2^{n} \rfloor$$
Here, $L$ represents the least significant bits of $i$, and the successor of every $i$ always causes a change in $L$. On the contrary, when $i$ is sequentially incremented, the value of $R$ changes only once every $2^{n}$ times. This way, the first $2^{n}$ ACs are generated with $R=0$, the second $2^{n}$ ACs with $R=1$, etc.
The problems that this little example already points out are further explained in the next section.

\section{Feistel Permutation Recovery using CPA-2}\label{sec:genfeistelprob}
In this section we present a practical attack on a three-round Feistel construction in order to illustrate the problem of choosing a small number of rounds and using a serial embedding as suggested by Black and Rogaway~\cite{black2002caf}.

\begin{theorem}
Consider a three-round 2n-bit Feistel construction. Then there exists an algorithm that needs at most $2^{n+2}$ adaptive chosen plain-/ciphertext pairs to compute any ciphertext from any plaintext and vice versa without knowledge of the secret round keys and regardless the used key length.
\end{theorem}

\begin{proof}
The two ciphertext blocks are defined in terms of the plaintext blocks as follows:

\begin{equation}\label{eq_rp}
\begin{array}{lll}
R'  & = & f_{2}(f_{1}(R) + L) + R\\
L'' & = & f_{3}(f_{2}(f_{1}(R) + L) + R) + f_{1}(R) + L\\
    & = & f_{3}(R') + f_{1}(R) + L\\
\end{array}
\end{equation}
Note that $L''$ uses $R'$ as input to $f_{3}(\cdot)$.
With $L_{i}$ we denote $L=i$ and similarly $R_{j}$ denotes $R=j$. The notation $R'_{(i,j)}$ means the value of $R'$ when $L_{i}$ and $R_{j}$ are used as input blocks. We first observe that several triples $(f_{1},f_{2},f_{3})$ lead to the same permutation and show that it is always possible to find the triple with $f_{1}(0) = 0$. To this end, if we replace the triple $(f_{1},f_{2},f_{3})$ with the triple $(f'_{1},f'_{2},f'_{3})$ defined by Equation~(\ref{eq:alttriple}), this leads to the same permutation (Equation~(\ref{eq_rp})) with the desired property that $f'_{1}(0) = 0$.
\begin{equation}\label{eq:alttriple}
f'_{1}(x) = f_{1}(x) - f_{1}(0),\qquad f'_{2}(x) = f_{2}(x + f_{1}(0)),\qquad f'_{3}(x) = f_{3}(x) + f_{1}(0)
\end{equation}
So, without loss of generality we may assume that $f_{1}(0) = 0$.

Next, we describe a method to find a triple $(f_{1},f_{2},f_{3})$ with $f_{1}(0) = 0$. First, we determine $f_{2}$, then $f_{1}$ and finally $f_{3}$.

By Equation~(\ref{eq_rp}) we get $f_2$:
\begin{equation}\label{eq:f2_sol}
f_{2}(f_{1}(R_{0}) + L_{i}) = R'_{(i,0)} - R_{0} = R'_{(i,0)} \qquad \Rightarrow \qquad f_{2}(L_{i}) = R'_{(i,0)}
\end{equation}

Now, to find $f_1$ observe that $f_{1}(j)$ is a solution for $x$ in the equation $f_2(x) = R'_{(0,j)} - R_j$. However, this equation does not always have one unique solution since $f_{2}$ is a pseudo-random function. In case of multiple solutions we compare the output of successive (wrt. $x$) function inputs with the values for $f_2(x+i)$ that were found using Equation~(\ref{eq:f2_sol}). Then, the correct $x$ is the unique solution to:
\begin{equation}\label{eq:find_f2}
f_{2}(x+i) = R'_{(i,j)} - R_{j} \qquad \text{for } i = 0, \ldots, m
\end{equation}
Sometimes $m=0$ already gives a unique solution. At the end of this section we show that with very high probability $m=1$ defines a unique solution. We find:
\begin{equation}\label{eq:f1_sol}
	f_{1}(j) = x
\end{equation}

When $f_{1}$ and $f_{2}$ are both determined, $L$ and $R$ can be chosen such that every value for $R' \in \{0,\ldots,2^{n}-1\}$ is visited. Since $R'$ functions as direct input to $f_{3}$ it is possible to find all input-output pairs for $f_{3}$.
To visit every possible input value $z=0,\ldots,2^{n}-1$ find a pair $L_{i},R_{j}$ such that $R'_{(i,j)} = z$. First, find an index $x$ such that $f_{2}(x) = z - R_{j}$. If such an $x$ does not exist choose a different value for $R_{j}$. There is always a solution for $x$ since $R_{j}$ covers the whole domain of $f_{2}$. Second, derive $L_{i}$:
\begin{equation}
	f_{2}(f_{1}(R_{j}) + L_{i}) = f_{2}(x) \qquad \Rightarrow \qquad L_{i} = x - f_{1}(R_{j})
\end{equation}
Note that the determination of $L_{i}$ and $R_{j}$ does not need any intermediate queries since it is completely determined by $f_1$ and $f_2$.
Next, we query the system with $L_{i}$ and $R_{j}$ and use Equation~(\ref{eq:f2_sol}) and~(\ref{eq:f1_sol}) to compute $f_{3}$ as follows:
\begin{equation}\label{eq:detf3}
	f_{3}(x) = L''_{(i,j)} - f_{1}(R_{j}) - L_{i}
\end{equation}
This completes the solution for a triple $(f_1,f_2,f_3)$ that results in the same permutation as the Feistel construction under attack.

\paragraph{Number of Queries}
The determination of $f_{2}$ is given by Equation~(\ref{eq_rp}) and costs $2^{n}$ queries. The determination of $f_{1}$ is given by Equation~(\ref{eq:find_f2}). The probability $p$ that there exists an $x' \neq x$ for a preselected $x$ such that
\begin{equation}\label{eq:nrqueries}
\left(f_2(x) = f_2(x')\right)\;\wedge\;\left(\bigwedge_{i = 1,\ldots,m}{f_2(x+i) = f_2(x'+i)}\right)
\end{equation}
can be split into two parts. First, we have the probability $p_1$ that there is a collision $f_2(x) = f_2(x')$ with $x \neq x'$. Then, the second probability $p_2$ covers cases where a preselected position $f_2(x+i)$ has the same value as some other preselected position $f_2(x'+i)$. We take $k = 2^n$ and the two probabilities are then given by $p_1 = 1-(\frac{k - 1}{k})^{(k-1)}$ and $p_2 = \frac{1}{k}$. Now, $p = p_1 \cdot {p_2}^{m}$ because we need to multiply by $p_2$ for every other successive match. To conclude, the probability that there is an $x' \neq x$ for a Feistel construction of size $2 \cdot k$ and with $m$ successive queries,
i.e. the probability that there is no unique solution $x$ to Equation~(\ref{eq:find_f2}), is the probability
\begin{equation}\label{eq:finalqr}
p = \frac{1}{k^{m}} - \frac{1}{k^{m}} \cdot {\left(\frac{k-1}{k}\right)}^{k-1}
\end{equation}
So, $p < \frac{1}{k^{m}}$ and depending on the size $k$, $m = 1$ already gives $p$ close to zero. In practice one might sometimes need an additional query ($m=2$) or only one query ($m=0$), but on average $m=1$.
This means that the cost for determination of $f_1$ is $2\cdot2^{n}$ queries on average.
Then, the determination of $f_{3}$ is given by Equation~(\ref{eq:detf3}) and costs at most $2^{n}$ queries. As a result, the determination of $(f_1,f_2,f_3)$ has an upper bound of $2^{n+2}$ queries.

\end{proof}

\section{BEPAC Scheme}\label{sec:bepac}
In this section we propose our Activation Code Scheme called BEPAC. Its primary objective is to ensure authenticity and its secondary objective is to provide confidentiality. Confidentiality is satisfied up to the security bounds given by Black and Rogaway in~\cite{black2002caf}. In the BEPAC  scheme, loss of confidentiality does not affect the authenticity property.

The authenticity is achieved in an obvious way by the use of an HMAC which is a keyed hash function. We take the truncated HMAC $h$ of a sequence number $i$ and concatenate it to $i$ itself. For this concatenation we use an embedding $m$ like the one used by Black and Rogaway in~\cite{black2002caf} and Spies in~\cite{spies2009}. We rely on the strength of the underlying hash function which covers the \textit{best practice} part of our solution: ACs are not forgeable. The length of an HMAC is usually too long for the ease of use that is demanded for ACs. Therefore we introduce the probability $P = \frac{1}{\mathcal{P}}$ that puts a lower bound on the success rate of guessing correct ACs. We use this parameter to limit the length of the codes, i.e. $\mathcal{P}$ determines the size of the HMAC. A lower success probability for an adversary is achieved by concatenating a bigger part of the HMAC and thus results in a longer AC.

Our solution differs from encryption schemes for small domains~\cite{black2002caf,morris2009encipher} in the sense that we make a clear separation between the part that provides authenticity and the part that provides confidentiality. The latter is added as an additional operation on the embedding $m$. We use a balanced Feistel construction as proposed in~\cite{black2002caf} to create the necessary confusion and diffusion. This separation between authenticity and confidentiality is really different from an approach where the sequence number $i$ is directly fed into a Feistel construction and when it solely depends on this construction for its authenticity.
The attack in Section~\ref{sec:genfeistelprob} demonstrates that we cannot rely on a Feistel construction for authenticity when it is used on a small domain. These results form the basis of our design decision.

\subsection{AC Scheme Setup}
\begin{wrapfigure}{r}{0.40\textwidth}
  \vspace{-30pt}
  \begin{center}
    \includegraphics[width=0.39\textwidth]{pictures/bepac}
  \end{center}
  \caption{BEPAC Scheme}\label{fig:bepac}
  \vspace{-20pt}
\end{wrapfigure}
The BEPAC scheme setup is a construction (see Fig.~\ref{fig:bepac}) where an embedding $m$ of an index $i$ and a part of $\mathrm{HMAC}(i)$ are fed into a Feistel network. Since this is a balanced Feistel network, $m$ needs to be divided into two equally sized blocks. When this is not possible a small part $h'$ of $\mathrm{HMAC}(i)$ bypasses the Feistel network and is embedded together with the cryptogram $c$ from the Feistel network to form AC $\alpha$.

The BEPAC scheme $\mathcal{S}$ is a tuple $(\mathcal{A},\mathcal{N},\mathcal{P},\lambda,\omega)$ where $\mathcal{A}$ is the size of the alphabet, $\lambda+\omega$ is the length of the ACs where $\lambda$ is always even and $\omega$ is either 0 or 1. Then, $\mathcal{N}$ is the number of ACs and $\mathcal{P}$ determines the probability $P = \frac{1}{\mathcal{P}}$ of obtaining a valid AC by a random guess, e.g. $\mathcal{P}=10.000$. We assume $\mathcal{A} < \mathcal{P}$.

\begin{definition}[Valid AC Scheme]
An AC scheme $\mathcal{S} = (\mathcal{A},\mathcal{N},\mathcal{P},\lambda,\omega)$ is \emph{valid} when $\mathcal{A}^{\lambda} \geqslant \mathcal{N} \times \mathcal{P} \times \mathcal{A}^{-\omega}$ holds and $\lambda$ is even.
\end{definition}

A valid AC scheme $\mathcal{S}$ can be obtained as follows:

\begin{enumerate}[(a)]
	\item\label{it:sone} The user chooses the alphabet size $\mathcal{A}$, desired number of ACs $\mathcal{N}$ and some minimal guess probability $\frac{1}{P}$.
	\item Now the minimal length $\lambda$ is calculated such that $\mathcal{A}^{\lambda} >= \mathcal{N} \times \mathcal{P}$ by taking $\lambda = \left\lceil \lsup{\log(\mathcal{N} \times \mathcal{P})}{\mathcal{A}}\right\rceil$
	\item $|\mathcal{A}^{\lambda} - \mathcal{N} \times \mathcal{P}|$ is minimized by taking $\mathcal{P} = \lfloor \mathcal{A}^{\lambda} / \mathcal{N} \rfloor$
	\item The length $\lambda$ can be either odd or even:
		\begin{itemize}
		\item When $\lambda = 2k + 1$ and $\mathcal{A} < \mathcal{P}$ then we adjust $\mathcal{P}$ such that $\mathcal{A}$ is a divisor of $\mathcal{P}$. As a consequence, we might have a larger number of ACs $\mathcal{N}$.
		$$\mathcal{P} = \mathcal{P} - (\mathcal{P} \bmod \mathcal{A}), \qquad \mathcal{N} = \lfloor \mathcal{A}^{\lambda}/\mathcal{P} \rfloor$$
		After these operations we obtain the system $\mathcal{S} = (\mathcal{A}, \mathcal{N}, \mathcal{P}, \lambda-1, 1)$.
		\item When $\lambda = 2k$ we obtain the system $\mathcal{S} = (\mathcal{A}, \mathcal{N}, \mathcal{P}, \lambda, 0)$.
		\end{itemize}
	\item The process is repeated from step~(\ref{it:sone}) when no valid system $\mathcal{S}$ is found.
\end{enumerate}

\subsection{Generation}
This section describes the generation of new ACs once a valid AC scheme is configured. Algorithm~\ref{alg_ac_enc} contains the pseudo code for AC generation.
The plaintext is an embedding $m$ of a part of $\mathrm{HMAC}(i)$ and $i$ itself. In case of an odd AC length ($\omega=1$) a small part $h'$ of $\mathrm{HMAC}(i)$ is excluded from this embedding. The part of $\mathrm{HMAC}(i)$ that is used in $m$ is determined by $\mathcal{P}$.
$$s = \mathrm{HMAC}(i) \bmod \mathcal{P}, \qquad h = \lfloor s \times \mathcal{A}^{-\omega} \rfloor, \qquad h' = s \bmod \mathcal{A}, \qquad m = h \times \mathcal{N} + i$$
The balanced Feistel construction is defined with:
$$k = \mathcal{A}^{(\lambda / 2)}, \qquad L = m \bmod k, \qquad R = \lfloor m\;/\;k\rfloor$$
$L$ and $R$ are input blocks with size $k$ of a balanced Feistel network. We denote the output blocks after $r$ rounds by $L^\star$ and $R^\star$. When the number of rounds $r$ is even the cryptogram $c$ is given by:
$$c = R^\star \times k + L^\star$$
When $r$ is odd, the left and right block are swapped and the cryptogram $c$ is given by:
$$c = L^\star \times k + R^\star$$
This difference between odd and even is there to allow the same construction for encoding and decoding.
Finally, the activation code $\alpha$ is given by:
$$\alpha = c \times \mathcal{A}^{\omega} + {\omega}h'$$

\subsection{Verification}
This section describes the verification of previously generated ACs for a valid AC scheme. Algorithm~\ref{alg_ac_dec} contains the pseudo code for AC verification.
Given an AC $\alpha$ and an AC scheme $\mathcal{S}$ the validity can be checked as follows. First compute $c$ and $h'$ from $\alpha$:
$$c = \left\lfloor \alpha / \mathcal{A}^{\omega} \right\rfloor, \qquad h' = \alpha \bmod \mathcal{A}^{\omega} $$
The balanced Feistel construction is defined with input block size $k = \mathcal{A}^{(\lambda / 2)}$. Now, the input blocks $L$ and $R$ are obtained from $c$ as follows:
$$L = c \bmod k, \qquad R = \left\lfloor c / k \right\rfloor$$

$L$ and $R$ are input blocks with size $k$ of a balanced Feistel network. We denote the output blocks after $r$ rounds by $L^\star$ and $R^\star$. In this case we want to decrypt and therefore use the round keys in reverse order. When the number of rounds $r$ is even the plaintext $m$ is given by:
$$m = R^\star \times k + L^\star$$
When $r$ is odd, the left and right block are swapped and the plaintext $m$ is given by:
$$m = L^\star \times k + R^\star$$
Now, we are able to obtain the partial HMAC $h$ and index $i$ from $m$ by:
$$h = \left\lfloor m / \mathcal{N} \right\rfloor, \qquad i = m \bmod \mathcal{N}$$
We calculate the partial HMAC $h_t$ and $h'_t$ like in the encoding, but now we use the recovered index $i$. Finally, we say that $\alpha$ is a valid AC iff $h_t = h$ and ${\omega}h'_t = {\omega}h'$.

\vspace{-15pt}
\noindent\begin{minipage}{\textwidth}
  \centering
  \begin{minipage}[t]{.45\textwidth}
    \centering
    \begin{algorithm}[H]

\scriptsize
\caption{\textsc{Generate}($i$)}
\label{alg_ac_enc}
\begin{algorithmic}
\STATE $k \gets \mathcal{A}^{(\lambda / 2)}$
\STATE $s \gets \mathrm{HMAC}(i) \bmod \mathcal{P}$
\STATE $h \gets \lfloor s \times \mathcal{A}^{-\omega} \rfloor$
\STATE $h' \gets s \bmod \mathcal{A}$
\STATE $m \gets h \times \mathcal{N} + i$
\STATE $L \gets m \bmod k; \; R \gets \lfloor m / k \rfloor$
\FOR {$j \gets 1$ \textbf{to} $r$}
\STATE $tmp \gets (L + f_{j}(R)) \bmod k$
\STATE $L \gets R; \; R \gets tmp$
\ENDFOR
\IF{$r$ is odd}
\STATE $c \gets L \times k + R$
\ELSE
\STATE $c \gets R \times k + L$
\ENDIF
\STATE $\alpha \gets c \times \mathcal{A}^{\omega} + {\omega}h'$
\quad\\
\quad\\
\quad\\
\quad\\
\quad\\
\quad
\end{algorithmic}
\end{algorithm}
  \end{minipage}
\quad
  \begin{minipage}[t]{.45\textwidth}
    \centering
\begin{algorithm}[H]
\scriptsize
\caption{\textsc{Verify}($\alpha$)}
\label{alg_ac_dec}
\begin{algorithmic}
\STATE $k \gets \mathcal{A}^{(\lambda / 2)}$
\STATE $c \gets \lfloor \alpha / \mathcal{A}^{\omega}\rfloor;\; h' \gets \alpha \bmod \mathcal{A}^{\omega}$
\STATE $L \gets c \bmod k;\; R = \lfloor c / k \rfloor$
\FOR {$j \gets r$ \textbf{to} $1$}
\STATE $tmp \gets (L + f_{j}(R)) \bmod k$
\STATE $L \gets R; \; R \gets tmp$
\ENDFOR
\IF{$r$ is odd}
\STATE $m \gets L \times k + R$
\ELSE
\STATE $m \gets R \times k + L$
\ENDIF

\STATE $h \gets \lfloor m / \mathcal{N} \rfloor;\;i \gets m \bmod \mathcal{N}$
\STATE $s \gets \mathrm{HMAC}(i) \bmod \mathcal{P}$
\STATE $h_t \gets \lfloor s \times \mathcal{A}^{-\omega} \rfloor$
\STATE $h'_t \gets s \bmod \mathcal{A}$

\IF{$h_t = h$ \textbf{and} ${\omega}h'_t = {\omega}h'$}
\STATE \textsc{Valid}
\ELSE
\STATE \textsc{Invalid}
\ENDIF
\end{algorithmic}
\end{algorithm}
  \end{minipage}

  \label{alg:twoalg}
\end{minipage}

\section{Example Application: Smart Card}\label{sec:smartcard}
In this section we want to give an example of an Activation Code System (ACS). In an ACS there are a few things that need to be managed. The index $i$ of the latest generated AC and the ACs that have been used so far. Since this information is highly valuable and represents financial value it must be well protected. Think of an application where the ACs are printed on prepaid cards covered by some scratch-off material. The production of these cards is a very secured and well-defined process to ensure that activation codes are kept secret during manufacturing. These cards need to have all kinds of physical properties, e.g. the AC should not be readable when the card is partly peeled off from the back. This can be achieved by printing a random pattern on top of the scratch-off foil.

At some point there is a very critical task to be executed when the ACs need to be delivered to the manufacturer. An obvious method to do this is to encrypt the list of ACs with a secret key. Later on in the process, this list of randomly generated codes needs to be maintained by the vendor who sells the scratch cards. This induces a big security threat since leakage of this list or unauthorized modification results in financial loss. Especially when it directly relates to the core business like in the telecommunications industry.

The use of a secure application module (SAM) significantly reduces this risk. A SAM is typically a tamper-resistant device, often a smart card, which is in most cases extensively tested and certified in accordance to a standard, e.g. the Common Criteria\footnote{\url{http://www.commoncriteriaportal.org}}. The elegance of the solution presented in this paper is that it can be implemented using smart cards. The supplier determines the probability $P$, number of codes $\mathcal{N}$, size of character set $\mathcal{A}$ and the key $K$ to be used. An obvious approach is to use two smart cards since the production and clearance of activation codes are very likely to happen at two different locations. Both smart cards are initialized using the same AC scheme $\mathcal{S}$ and the same key $K$. From that moment on the first one only gives out up to $\mathcal{N}$ new activation codes. The second one is used at the clearance house to verify and keep track of traded activation codes. This can be done by a sequence of bits where the $i$-th bit determines whether the $i$-th activation code has been cleared. For 1.000.000 activation codes approximately 122\,kB of storage is needed. This fits on a SmartMX card~\cite{smartmx} which is available with 144\,kB of EEPROM. Of course, multiple cards can be used if more ACs are needed.

\section{Analysis}\label{sec:analysis}
In this section we discuss the system parameters of BEPAC and decide on some minimal bounds and algorithms. We tested a 6-round BEPAC scheme for obvious flaws using the NIST random number test~\cite{rukhin2000statistical}. This test implementation also delivered the numbers in Table~\ref{tab:bepacconf} which give a good indication of the length $l$ of the codes compared to different AC scheme configurations. In the left column the desired values are given for the number of codes $\mathcal{N}$ and the guessing probability $\mathcal{P}$. We tested these different numbers for three different alphabet sizes $\mathcal{A}$.

\setlength{\tabcolsep}{0.3ex}
\begin{table}[t]
\begin{center}
\scriptsize
\begin{tabular}{|r|r||r|r|r|r||r|r|r|r||r|r|r|r|r|}
\hline
\multicolumn{2}{|c|}{\textbf{Desired}} & \multicolumn{4}{|c|}{\textbf{$\mathcal{A}=8$}} & \multicolumn{4}{|c|}{\textbf{$\mathcal{A}=20$}} & \multicolumn{4}{|c|}{\textbf{$\mathcal{A}=31$}}\\\hline
$\mathcal{N}$ 	& $\mathcal{P}$ 	& $\mathcal{N}$ 	& $\mathcal{P} (\times 10^{3})$ 		& $l$	& Bits 		& $\mathcal{N}$ 	& $\mathcal{P} (\times 10^{3})$ 		& $l$	& Bits 		& $\mathcal{N}$ 	& $\mathcal{P} (\times 10^{3})$ 		& $l$	& Bits 		\\\hline
$10^{1}$	& $10^{3}$	& $10^{1}$	  & 26,214 & 6  & 18 & $10^{1}$	& 16    & 4  & 18 & $10^{1}$      & 92,352  & 4	 & 20 \\\hline
$10^{2}$	& $10^{3}$	& $10^{2}$	  & 20,968 & 7  & 21 & $10^{2}$	& 32    & 5  & 22 & $10^{2}$	  & 286,285 & 5	 & 25 \\\hline
$10^{3}$	& $10^{3}$	& $10^{3}$	  & 16,777 & 8  & 24 & $10^{3}$	& 64    & 6  & 26 & $10^{3}$	  & 28,613  & 5	 & 25 \\\hline
$10^{4}$	& $10^{3}$	& 10.004	  & 13,416 & 9  & 27 & $10^{4}$	& 128   & 7  & 31 & $10^{4}$	  & 88,75   & 6	 & 30 \\\hline
$10^{5}$	& $10^{3}$	& 100.003	  & 10,737 & 10 & 30 & $10^{5}$	& 12,8  & 7  & 31 & $10^{5}$	  & 275,125 & 7	 & 35 \\\hline
$10^{6}$	& $10^{3}$	& 1.000.006	  & 68,719 & 12 & 36 & $10^{6}$	& 25,6  & 8  & 35 & 1.000.567	  & 27,497  & 7	 & 35 \\\hline
$10^{7}$	& $10^{3}$	& 10.001.379	  & 54,968 & 13 & 39 & $10^{7}$	& 51,2  & 9  & 39 & 10.000.012	  & 85,289  & 8	 & 40 \\\hline
$10^{8}$	& $10^{3}$	& 100.001.057	  & 43,98  & 14 & 42 & $10^{8}$	& 102,4 & 10 & 44 & 100.010.675	  & 264,368 & 9	 & 45 \\\hline
$10^{9}$	& $10^{3}$	& 1.000.010.575 & 35,184 & 15 & 45 & $10^{9}$	& 10,24 & 10 & 44 & 1.001.045.818 & 26,412  & 9	 & 45 \\\hline
\end{tabular}
\vspace{5pt}
\caption{BEPAC Configurations}\label{tab:bepacconf}
\end{center}
\vspace{-30pt}
\end{table}

\paragraph{Number of Rounds}
We found good arguments to set the minimum number of rounds to six for the BEPAC scheme. The literature shows that Feistel constructions of six or more rounds are secure against adaptive chosen plaintext and chosen ciphertext attacks (CPCA-2) when the number of queries $m \ll 2^{n}$, see~\cite{patarin2004security,knudsen2008security}. Patarin~\cite{patarin1998feistel} shows that an adversary needs at least $2^{3n/4}$ encryptions to distinguish a six-round Feistel construction from a random permutation.
A six round Feistel network sufficiently covers the risk of leaking serial number information, but this is of course a minimum.

\paragraph{Key Derivation}
In the BEPAC scheme we need different round keys for every Feistel round and another different key for the calculation of the HMAC on the serial. We propose to derive these keys from an initial randomly chosen key~\cite{barker2007recommendation} by a key derivation function (KDF). There are several definitions available for KDFs and we propose to use KDF1 which is defined in ISO\,18033-2~\cite{ISO18033-2-2006}. Recommendations for KDFs and their construction can also be found in~\cite{chen2009recommendation}. The first key that is derived is used as the key in the HMAC calculation of $h$ and $h'$ (Section~\ref{sec:bepac}). After this the round keys for the Feistel construction are successively derived.

\paragraph{Pseudo-random Functions}
Furthermore, we need to decide on the pseudo-random functions (PRFs) that are used as round functions of the Feistel network. The pseudo-randomness of the permutation defined by a Feistel network depends on the chosen PRF in each round~\cite{luby1996pac}. It is straightforward to use a cryptographic hash function since we already need a hash function for the HMAC~\cite{pub198198} calculation and it keeps our AC scheme simple.

\paragraph{Hash Function}
In the end, the BEPAC scheme is solely based on a single cryptographic hash function. We follow the secure hash standard FIPS\;180-3~\cite{pub2008180} and propose to use an approved hash function like SHA-256.

\section{Conclusions} \label{conclusions}
In this paper we have introduced activation codes (ACs), short codes of fixed length, that represent value. These ACs should be scalable, cost efficient and forgery resistant. In the literature, several solutions~\cite{blundo2002lpg,blundo2005secure,cimato-online,kumar-sales,jakobsson1999secure,chang2006secure,matsuyama1999distributed,terada2000copy,matsuyama1999distributed} handle digital coupons or tickets that are somehow reminiscent to our notion of ACs. The difference is that most solutions use public key cryptography or other means that result in lengthy codes. In fact, these solutions come closer to some extended notion of digital cash and are not meant to give a solution on the generation of ACs. To the best of our knowledge there is no scheme that focuses on the class of ACs that are described in this paper (roughly think of 20 to 50-bit codes). Our proposed AC scheme for this class satisfies authenticity and confidentiality in a way that when confidentiality is compromised it does not automatically break authenticity and vice versa.

In order to allow a relatively small and arbitrary message space for our AC scheme we use some of the ideas of Black and Rogaway~\cite{black2002caf} in their Generalized Feistel Cipher to satisfy the confidentiality in our scheme. Several studies~\cite{patarin2004security,patarin91new,naor1999cpp,luby1996pac,knudsen2008security,patarin1998feistel} show that the security bounds of Feistel constructions are not strong enough and thus make the use of Feistel constructions in small domains questionable. To illustrate this, we have demonstrated that CPA-2 allows an adversary to recover the complete permutation from only $2^{n+2}$ plaintext-ciphertext pairs. Still, the Feistel construction is suitable for the purpose of confidentiality in our AC scheme. Since confidentiality is a secondary goal, it relaxes the demands on the security bounds. Furthermore, in BEPAC the plaintext cannot be predicted which counters the attacks from the literature. And most important of all, a Feistel construction defines a permutation on the AC domain, which means in practice that we do not have to store any additional data in order to remember which ACs are already published and which are not.

To conclude, we found satisfactory system parameters for the minimum number of Feistel rounds and we defined a method to do the key derivation for the round keys. Furthermore, we suggested a specific pseudo-random function (PRF) and hash function for concrete implementations. Finally, we have implemented the BEPAC scheme\footnote{\url{http://www.cs.ru.nl/~gkoningg/bepac}} and performed some statistical tests using the NIST Random Number Test~\cite{rukhin2000statistical}. This test did not reveal any obvious flaws.

It might be interesting for future work to create a smart card implementation of BEPAC as suggested in Section~\ref{sec:smartcard}.

\bibliographystyle{plain}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


text:
Find Trails > California > Exeter > Exeter Walking Trails
Exeter, CA Walking Trails and Maps
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Find the top rated walking trails in Exeter, whether you're looking for an easy short walking trail or a long walking trail, you'll find what you're looking for. Click on a walking trail below to find trail descriptions, trail maps, photos, and reviews.
Clovis Old Town Trail
Dry Creek Trail (Clovis)
Goshen Avenue Trail
Orange Cove Rails to Trails
Porterville Rails to Trails Parkway
Reedley Rail-Trail
Santa Fe Trail (Tulare)
Santa Fe Trail (Visalia)
St. John's River Trail
Community support has been integral to the creation of the Clovis Old Town Trail and Sugar Pine Trail, two adjoining rail-trails that link the communities of Clovis and Fresno. Joggers, cyclists,...
The Dry Creek Trail is a mostly level, shady trail that follows its namesake creek in Clovis. The western trailhead connects with the Clovis Old Town Trail and has a small parking lot. The trail...
CA 2.5 mi Asphalt, Concrete
The Goshen Avenue Trail follows both W. Goshen Avenue and an active Union Pacific Railroad freight line between Goshen and Visalia, serving as a convenient connection between the two towns. Bordered...
Orange Cove Rails to Trails is a pleasant, albeit short, pathway that runs diagonally through the small city of Orange Cove. The trail passes through James O. Eaton Memorial Park and provides...
CA 1.25 mi Asphalt
The Porterville Rails to Trails Parkway is a short converted right-of-way of the San Joaquin Valley Railroad through the town of Porterville. The arrow-straight trail runs between Walnut and Henderson...
The Reedley Rail-Trail is a multiuse trail built along railbanked right-of-way that provides an alternate route to access some of Reedley's busiest arterial streets. The path largely traverses the...
Tulare's Santa Fe Trail is located in the heart of the Central San Joaquin Valley, one of the most productive agriculture areas in the world. The trail extends east to west across the central portion...
CA 4.5 mi Asphalt, Dirt
Visalia's Santa Fe Trail extends south from the core of the city to its rural agricultural fringes. The northern half of the trail occupies a former railroad corridor, while the southern half shares...
The St. John's River Trail offers a tranquil atmosphere through a tree-dotted river valley to enjoy. Whether riding your bike or walking the paved trail, you are offered the opportunity to relax and...
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March, 2017 by zakath1
Great trail. Good lighting ,safe and clean. Good amenities such as Bike repair areas and tire pumps, bathrooms at the parks, well marked with safety crossings on small streets and the biggest bonus Emergency call boxes on the trail.
Like this trail
Lovely trail. Nice tree and water along the trail. Very peaceful for my ride .
Nice Improvements
June, 2016 by dham
I've been riding this trail periodically for several years. The downside of this trail is the trees. They do provide nice shade, however, their roots cause rough spots on the asphalt. The best improvement is at the north trailhead. There's a parking lot for vehicles and nice covered parking for bicycles.
March, 2016 by cusd
Love this trail
February, 2016 by nursemeg26
I run on this trail before sunrise several days a week. The trails are always clean and well-maintained. The lighting is great and I always feel safe.
Our go-to trail
August, 2015 by vaunamri
We ride this trail pretty much every evening we have a spare hour. It's an easy, pleasant ride. If we want a longer ride, we start in Old Town Clovis on the Old Town Trail, connect to the Dry Creek Trail, and then continue on the Enterprise Trail. The three trails connect nicely for a pleasant hour and a half ride.
July, 2015 by emagallon03
I had a great job and walk here. Very safe and clean.
Great Short Trail
March, 2015 by dham
There is a Park and Ride lot just before W Manning Avenue crosses the railroad tracks. The west end of the trail is about a quarter mile west of here. There is a gazebo where you can look down onto the Kings River. The trail is paved with asphalt. The west half of the trail has benches along the way and has small street lights. There are several places where the trail crosses local streets. Many of these have lights in the pavement to warn the car traffic that someone is in the crosswalk. Most of these trail intersections also have roundabouts to slow trail-users and expedite movement at these crossings.
The west half of the trail (from the college to the east edge of town) has benches and lights. The east half does not have benches or lights. Also, some tree roots are pushing up the pavement. There are distance markers (every tenth of a mile) painted on the trail measured from west to east. There is a restroom located near the midpoint of the trail. There is nice landscaping along the trail. This a great trail for a short ride.
great hidden trasure in the fresno metro area
December, 2014 by soutthiluck.phanthai
nice level paved trail good for jogging or biking mountain or road bike. easy and lots of store and shops along the way, parks, water restroom. There's a parking lot on the north end of the trail from Riverpark shopping center. I started at target parking lot at sierra vista mall in clovis. plenty of parking and safe..it also branches into others trails like the dry creek trail.. slight flooding spots if used in winter time but still easy. Cameras and lights on trails throughout. highly recommend break from the city life...
April, 2014 by robert p
Nice walk
The westerly segment of the trail near the industrial area is not maintained. It is covered with twigs and dirt that has been washed over the trail by rain storms. The areas of the trail near residential areas are maintained probably as a golf cart path. One golfer came toward me in his electric golf cart and took the entire width of the trail. He would not yield to me.
Rails to Trails Porterville
September, 2013 by parks_leisure
Trail now extends from Henderson Ave. to the Heritage Center across Olive Ave. past the South County Justice Center. Now with two drinking fountains and a new bench. Always enjoy including it in my jogging routes. Well paved.


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text:
Study Uses 311 Complaints to Track Where and When Neighborhood Conflict Emerges
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Polygamy and Alcohol Linked to Physical Abuse in African Marriages
African women in polygamous marriages or with alcoholic husbands have a significantly higher risk of being physically abused by their husbands than women in monogamous marriages or women whose husbands don't abuse alcohol, new research shows.
With Racial Segregation Declining Between Neighborhoods, Segregation Now Taking New Form
Recent research has shown that racial segregation in the U.S. is declining between neighborhoods, but a new study indicates that segregation is manifesting itself in other ways — not disappearing.
Veterans Live in More Diverse Neighborhoods Than Their Civilian Counterparts of Same Race
When members of the U.S. military leave the service, they tend to settle in neighborhoods with greater overall diversity than their civilian counterparts of the same race, according to a new study that will be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).
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A new study of young people finds that, with one exception, whites are more optimistic — sometimes drastically so — than their minority peers about their likelihood of living to 35.
The Role of Gender, Class, and Religion in Biracial Americans Racial Labeling Decisions
Racial attachments are understood to be socially constructed and endogenous to gender, socioeconomic, and religious identities. Yet we know surprisingly little about the effect of such identities on the particular racial labels that individuals self-select. In this article, I investigate how social identities shape the racial labels chosen by biracial individuals in the United States, a rapidly growing population who have multiple labeling options.
Stuck in Unhealthy Places: How Entering, Exiting, and Remaining in Poor and Nonpoor Neighborhoods Is Associated with Obesity during the Transition to Adulthood
Adolescents from poor versus nonpoor neighborhoods are more likely to become obese during the transition to adulthood. It is unclear whether this pertains to all adolescents from poor neighborhoods or only those who remain in disadvantaged settings. Further, it is unknown how neighborhood poverty entries and exits are associated with obesity.
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