Media Framing of the ‘War on Terror’: The Case of Urdu-Language Elite Press During the Dictatorial Regime in Pakistan

This research is focused on press-government relationship on the issue of ‘War on Terrorism’ (WoT) during the dictatorial regime led by the then military ruler General Pervez Musharraf who remained in power till 2008 in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Global war against terrorism, generally known as ‘war on terror’ was actually started by the United States of America in the aftermath of 9/11 episode in 2001. Pakistan, on US demand, had not only become an important ally of the grand alliance formed under the umbrella of the United States but had also adopted the role of a frontline state just to fight the war against terrorism (WoT) alongside the war allies. Generally mass media have the potential to influence public opinion and help reshape the states’ policies on different issues. Likewise, mass media of Pakistan also took an active part in the war either by going alongside the then dictatorial government or against it. This research is based on examining the way the Urdu language elite press, the most popular mass media of Pakistan, covered the dictatorial regime of President General Pervez Musharraf with regard to its policy on the issue of ‘WoT’. Main purpose of this study is to know the nature of relationship between the Urdu-language elite press and the dictatorial government of Gen Musharraf in Pakistan with regard to their policy positions on ‘WoT’ from 2001 to 2008. Three newspapers including daily Jang, daily Nawa-I-Waqt, and daily Pakistan, considered to be representatives of the Urdu-language elite press of Pakistan, were selected for this study. The method used to measure the phenomenon is called framing where contents of the selected dailies were measured both quantitatively and qualitatively. Data were collected through systematic sampling method, while coding sheet was used as a tool for data collection. Unsigned main editorials of the selected newspapers were analyzed to examine the nature of relationship existed between the two entities i.e. The Urdu-language elite press, and the dictatorial government of Gen Pervez Musharraf, on the issue of ‘WoT’ in Pakistan. The results revealed that the selected elite newspapers, in general, remained critical to the dictatorial regime on the issue of ‘WoT’. The findings also revealed that daily Nawa-I-Waqt remained highly critical to the government as compared to its other contemporaries i.e. Daily Jang, and daily Pakistan. It was also revealed that the Urdu-language elite press while framing the ‘War on Terror’ remained somewhat supportive and rarely neutral to the dictatorial regime on it policy on ‘WoT’.

Real Time Vulnerability Assessment of Wlan and its Digital Forensics

Wireless local area network (WLAN) has changed the paradigm of communication and become ubiquitous. As the number of devices connected on wireless is increasing, it is therefore, essential to find vulnerabilities in the security of wireless networks. In this research, WLAN security vulnerabilities are exposed in real time and digital forensics of WLAN for Windows and Android operating system-based clients are conducted. A real time wardriving was conducted in a residential area to emphasize the fact that WLAN broadcast sensitive information. The results of wardriving showed that 97% of WLAN access points (AP) were using WPA2. According to the data collected it was found that channel 11 and channel 1 were used by 52% WLAN APs and the average number of clients per AP was 1.59. Tenda WiFi wireless access point was set up with MAC filtering, hidden SSID and WPA2 security mechanisms in different combinations in such a way as to add an additional layer of security to previous configuration. The vulnerability assessment of security mechanisms of residential AP was performed with Kali Linux version 2017.1. A practical demonstration of exploiting MAC filtering, Hidden SSID with MAC filtering and WPA2-PSK with hidden SSID and MAC filtering security mechanisms of AP was carried out in real time. It was observed that the existing security mechanisms were vulnerable. Furthermore, the digital traces left behind or stored in 802.11 based devices were also explored in order to investigate wireless network attacks. Researchers have proposed probabilistic models for detecting MAC spoofing attacks of WLAN clients. However, in this research, a live forensic method based on changing position of legitimate client with respect to attack detector and observing received signal strength of wireless packets to detect MAC filtering bypass attack was proposed. De-authentication attacks on wireless networks were also detected. This thesis also explored the methods of finding WLAN artifacts from Windows and Android OS devices to determine whether a particular device was connected to an unauthorized wireless network or not. Researchers have exploited many security mechanisms of WLAN focusing upon a single parameter of WLAN security at a time. However, in this work, three available security mechanisms were cascaded to produce a three-layer security mechanism which was exploited in real-time.