Zephaniah 3:14-17 (NIV)

“Sing, Daughter Zion;
shout aloud, Israel!
Be glad and rejoice with all your heart,
Daughter Jerusalem!
The Lord has taken away your punishment,
he has turned back your enemy.
The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you;
never again will you fear any harm.
On that day
they will say to Jerusalem,
“Do not fear, Zion;
do not let your hands hang limp.
The Lord your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing.”

“That Almighty God should derive delight from his own creation is significant in itself.  But that the Holy One should experience ecstasy over the sinner is incomprehensible.

God breaking out in singing!

God joyful with delight!

All because of you.

The mutuality of the loving response of Redeemer and redeemed is seen in the fact that some of the same terms used in the admonition to his people now describe the response of God himself to his people (cf. vv. 14 and 17). Zion is exhorted to sing; he rejoices with singing.  Jerusalem shall rejoice; he delights over Jerusalem with joy. The whole scene depicts a grand oratorio as God and his people mutually rejoice in their love for one another.” [Robertson, O. Palmer. The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. NICOT.  Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990, Grand Rapids, MI.]

Today, let us sing the song, “Singing Over Us” in response to the One who sings over us and pray that we will love and bring delight to our God as He loves and delights in us.

Reposting to help spread the word!!

Trans Support Group is a semester-long, emotional support group for UMBC students who identify as trans, genderqueer, gender fluid, non-binary, bigender, and/or those who are questioning their gender identity. This is a student-centered group to explore gender identity as well as gain support from peers on issues that may impact trans college students.  The first group will be held on Friday, October 20th and we are asking for a commitment to attend all groups this semester with the understanding that situations do arise where you may need to be absent.  All sessions are free and confidential.

Trans Support Group is held weekly on Fridays at 2pm-2:50pm. 

Please email Amber Hager, Ph.D. at ahager@umbc.edu or Bailey Tackett, M.S. at btackett@umbc.edu to arrange a pre-group meeting to discuss whether this group matches your needs!

In the wake of black male fetishization, the condemnation of male homoeroticism and the strictures of the societal explanation of masculinity, “Man, Idea, Image: Photographs of Men from the Mark Rice Collection” tries to reclaim the art within male portraiture, specifically in the time period during the HIV/AIDS epidemic and following the Stonewall Rebellion, both of which proved to be tumultuous periods for the concept of masculinity.

The collection challenges viewers to rethink conventional ideas of masculinity and allows men to be displayed in both erotic and deeply emotional states, displaying the body as if male nudity was as common in art exhibits as Monet’s paintings. The “man,” as referenced in the collection’s title, is both gentle and forceful, erotic and intimate, thoughtful and guarded, his multifaceted nature playing out in the preconceived notions set before him, about him.

Western culture primarily has one set idea of masculinity: a strong-minded, able-bodied, capable, heterosexual man who does not demonstrate a particularly wide range of expression. This collection showcases men who fit this stereotype and men who do not, placing them together in an effort to imply coexistence and normalcy; men are more than the image the Western stereotype of maleness that masculinity paints for them.

The images of the collection are broken down into six sections, each tackling a different aspect of the idea of masculinity, ranging from ‘The Allegorical and Metaphorical of the Body’ to ‘Intimacy, Seduction, and Erections.’ Perhaps the most thought-provoking section of the exhibit is ‘The Black & Beautiful Body,’ which asks the viewer to redefine the black male body as beautiful art, without losing the historical and cultural contexts of race and fetishization.

The time period during which these pictures were collected cannot be ignored either. Pre-Stonewall, “coming out” was not generally accepted or normalized, but after Stonewall, coming out became a political act and a declaration of the voice of people on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. As such, posing for these pictures was a political act, a call to be seen completely — both physically and emotionally — as a member of society.

Additionally, gay men living with HIV or AIDS during the late 90s were often further marginalized because of their disease, a disease often associated with drug addicts and those who engaged in immoral (read: homosexual) activities. The Mark Rice collection takes care to explore this isolation and desperation as many of the photographers who took pictures for the collection were personal affected by HIV/AIDS.

Most art galleries do not celebrate the male form and rarely go so far as to dedicate an entire exhibit to an examination of masculinity over the decades most affected by its redefinition. “Man, Idea, Image” is unique in that it provides a perspective not often seen in visual artwork — that of the complex emotional nature of man, in relation to race, sexuality and temperament.

“Man, Idea, Image” can be viewed in the AOK Library Gallery during normal business hours until Dec 12. Dr. James Smalls, the curator of the exhibit and a professor of Visual Arts at UMBC, will be giving a lecture entitled ‘The Mark Rice Collection and the Homoerotics of Photography after Stonewall’ on Dec 7 starting at 4 p.m.

The Magical Experiences Arts Company (MEAC) is seeking an assistant that will act as both official driver and performing artist at the following residencies: The Delrey School, and the Broadmead nursing home. MEAC is a specialized theater organization that provides interactive therapeutic performances for schools serving the needs of students with severe multiple disabilities, and adults in the last stages of Alzheimers.

Penetration Testing a Simulated Automotive Ethernet Environment

Kenneth Truex

11:00am Monday, 9 October 2017, ITE 346

The capabilities of modern day automobiles have far exceeded what Robert Bosch GmbH could have imagined when it proposed the Controller Area Network (CAN) bus back in 1986. Over time, drivers wanted more functionality, comfort, and safety in their automobiles creating a burden for automotive manufacturers. With these driver demands came many innovations to the in-vehicle network core protocol. Modern automobiles that have a video based infotainment system or any type of camera assisted functionality such as an Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) use ethernet as their network backbone. This is because the original CAN specification only allowed for up to eight bytes of data per message on a bus rated at 1 Mbps. This is far less than the requirements of more advanced video-based automotive systems. The ethernet protocol allows for 1500 bytes of data per packet on a network rated for up to 100 Mbps. This led the automotive industry to adopt ethernet as the core protocol, overcoming most of the limitations posed by the CAN protocol. By adopting ethernet as the protocol for automotive networks, certain attack vectors are now available for black hat hackers to exploit in order to put the vehicle in an unsafe condition. This thesis will create a simulated automotive ethernet environment using the CANoe network simulation platform created by Vector. Then, a penetration test will be conducted on the simulated environment in order to discover attacks that pose a threat to automotive ethernet networks. These attacks will be from the perspective of an attacker will full access to the vehicle under test, and will cover all three sides of the Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability (CIA) triad. In conclusion, this thesis will propose several ethernet specific defense mechanisms that can be implemented in an automotive taxonomy to reduce the attack surface and allow for a safer end user experience.