Welcome, everyone. I'm very happy to see so many people in here at 10 a.m. in the morning. That's not a very often thing to see at DEF CON. I'm going to talk about multi-platform malware within the Dartmouth framework. But before I start my speech, I'll have to make a couple of announcements that will probably help you to understand the speech better. First of all, my suitcase got detained at the airport, so basically I was missing a holy lot of virtual machines. I'm going to show you later on. I restored most of them. The only one I couldn't restore is Vista. This stuff I'll show you today will work in Vista. And if you don't believe me and have a Vista box with you, feel free to come up front and sacrifice it. Also, I would like to extend a very special thank you to Chris Padgett of AOI Active, who helped me greatly with those virtual machines without him. This speech today would not be possible. Also, don't try to attack this computer. It's offline. If you want to own me, I'm on the own the box competition. Go back there. This is my P. If you own the box, you get to take it home. I'll sign you a case if you want. So, let's start the main talk. Just what is multi-platform malware? We all heard that. We maybe have an imagination of what it's all about, but there's never been some kind of speech on this before. No one really knows what we're talking about. What's the potential? Multi-platform malware, let's just give it a quick definition. It runs on several different processes or host operating systems. Well, that's basically what the name says, right? So, it should not be bound to, like, Windows or Linux or whatever, so it should be independent of those systems. It does not need to be modified from system to system. That's a very important fact, so it's basically not, you know, you don't have a worm in different versions of it for each system, but it's the same worm on each system. It will be able to jump the systems. That's a very important characteristic, as we'll see later on, because this opens up a lot of new possibilities for hacking in general. And it will maybe anything from Chorion to virus to whatever you kind of come up with, whatever you would consider malware, it could be multi-platform. So, what is it not? Multi-platform malware has nothing to do with attacking common flaws. Like, XSS is a problem with the stateless communication in the internet. It will work on any platform, but it's not what I consider multi-platform malware, and it's not what we're going to talk about here today. And it's also not scripted stuff, because, you know, it's pretty lame to run something through an interpreter and just hope that everyone gets Python installed or whatever you want to use. So, why is this important? People have been talking about multi-platform malware for quite a few months or years now. And it actually never made it to the surface. Like, people are just talking and discussing theoretical stuff, but actually, you know, the malware has a commercial interest, and apparently it has never been important enough to actually build it. So, what changed within the last couple of months or years is, first of all, we got more devices. Like, 10 years back, and I guess someone here remembered that time, there was like one major computer in a corporation that kept all the data safe, where you would just work with it, and people would wire up their workstation to that computer, and that was basically it. Today we got laptops, we got every corporation's old workstation, we got those people sitting around using macOS, Windows, Linux, whatever they want to run, syncing over AFS, FTP, whatever you can imagine, and taking home, taking work home on their laptops and their PDAs. So, the data is pretty much split. We got those devices, and it's becoming worthy to attack them. Then we got more operating systems. 20 years back, 10 years back, there was basically Unix, and that's it. Today we got Windows, Linux, we got like 200 Linux distributions on a major market, and we got more cross-system integration, as I said before, like when this data was still safe kept on a single system, you would not have to interface different operating systems with each other, because it would just be the same, but if you have your cooperation working partially on Mac and partially on Windows, you'll have to find a way to make those computers communicate with each other, or it won't work. You have more mobility, as I said before, basically taking work wherever you want. You can take your laptop, take your work, go to the park, finish it, and you have less security concerns, because the normal people just don't care for security. That's a common fact. So, I'm not the first one to deal with multiple-platform malware. There have been some other proof-of-concept codes before. I just want to thumb through them really quickly.  The first one is like Win32 Linux mildee, which probably is like halfway of an overrider, which just does some basic stuff, and it infects both portable executables and ELF binaries. Also, it's polymorphic and metamorphic, and then we got W32 Linux B, which is also a proof-concept virus infecting your local files. Those two have been pretty much unimpressive, and they've not spread, so no one basically cared for them. But that's about to change, because multiple-platform malware has tremendous potential, and that potential can basically split into two sections. The first one being jumping systems. Now, what does that mean? No idea? Okay. Actually, I thought it would be pretty hard to give you a scientific explanation of what jumping systems could mean, so I made up a little story that should show you the difference between the old common sense of operating system security and what is possible with jumping systems. So this is the old standard. This is like a little dialogue between a Secret Service Guy and a hacker. Secret Service Guy, we need access to that network, and we need it now. Now, don't look down those in the back. You know that sentence, right? Some geek, oh, yeah, right. Look, I'm really sorry, but I was extremely busy tonight. See, when I scanned that employee's firewall, I saw that his son had an Xbox 360 connected to the internet, so I spent all night hacking it just to get a save games.  They have 200 nuclear warheads stationed around the world, and we believe that they cut 26,000, or 72 cents of tax last year. Now come on, it's not all bad, at least we can play games for free. And yes, indeed, that's great. Just wait at your house and keep the doors unlocked. I'll send over a SWAT team to play. So that didn't really work out for the geek, right? Now, let's take a look at what the new possibilities do to the next geek. Secret Service Guy, okay, now this is your first job after you've been hired on since the previous specialist couldn't continue working due to a terrible headache. Also, you'll probably have heard the tales of how we managed to disarm all the nuclear warheads using a piece of paper and bottle cap, but now we need access to that network. Listen to the other guy tell you that employees kid an Xbox 360 wide up to the internet. Again, don't tell me I have to save. But this is where things started to change because actually he had the Xbox 360, but of course I did. He's a really good gamer. However, I also installed a worm on that Xbox that jumped to the Vista box and collected all the credentials from our target employees pocket PC after being synced on there as well. I already mailed to the credentials. And that's actually what you're talking about here. You can basically infect whatever you want and jump anywhere you want. And basically break all the security rules we certainly obey because certainly we don't expect anything to jump from an Xbox to a Vista machine. And then, you know, steal the data from in from your pocket PC. But that's possible. So to finish things up great. You really know a lot about hacking and organization and our plans. Just wait out your home and keep your doors unlocked. I'll send over SWAT team to congratulate you. Now let's take a look at the other great thing about multiple malware. And that's basically the momentum of surprise.  Yeah, quite a few, right? So what is more fun pentesting a Windows box or pentesting a Linux box? I guess many of you will like say, yeah, Windows is more fun because it's easier to own.  If they don't have to take care of it themselves themselves, if there's a sys admin around that just sets the box up, they think, Oh, my, I don't have to worry about anything else. And that's when there's momentum of surprise comes in really handy. Because the outcome and sense of all security was, if it hurts me, that was built for me. If you got struck by a worm or a trojan, then someone designed that worm or trojan to work on your system. But today was multiple malware. If it hurts you, it's just there. You're vulnerable in most cases whatsoever. And that completely changes the outlook. Now let's take a look at what your common non-Windows L user would think about this. Those are a couple of pretty popular misconceptions that I guess most of you have seen before. Like this is very popular for people who run FreeBSD, Mac OS X, whatever you can imagine. They say, Oh, I'm running X, Y, Z, and that's secured by default. Now that's a pretty dumb idea. Next thought is, Yeah, very few people develop malware for why operating system X was that. And that's actually true. Because as you all know, malware usually has some kind of financial interest in the back end. And Microsoft has like a 90% market share on the end user market. So why should I invest money in creating something to attack a system with 3% market share that's probably not even able of infecting enough box to actually redistribute itself? And the next misconception is if an MS friend of mine should be infected with malware, his PC could not infect me anyways. Yeah, that makes sense. You know, if that guy got a trojan on his computer that sends you an email. What's what's going to happen to you it won't run on your system anyway. That's also misconception as you'll see later on. And I don't need to be careful when dealing with downloads attachments in portable media.   Check every single download, get antivirus, get whatever. Have you ever the Mac use in? Yes, anyone ever told you do the same thing for your Mac? Yeah, most most people are actually pre concerned, not not pre concerned about that is thinking, Oh, I'm default. I'm secure by default. I don't need to worry. Okay, so before we hit the demonstration, let's first get a quick look at how you can implement multiple from malware. There are actually various concepts to doing this. And we'll just go to go through them quickly and then take a deeper look at the one I'm going to present here today. They basically first of all carrying various versions as payloads. That's pretty simple. Like you build a worm, you have it attack a network, you have it scan the network for vulnerabilities of various operating systems. And basically it carries Windows and Linux and Mac version for the systems, it cracks the system copies the appropriate version over there and just continues. That's pretty simple.  This can be done if you're running a worm on an internet, but as soon as you start attacking box over the internet, like good luck finding out what they're running. Next one is using cross system complicated assembly instructions. Some guys actually managed to do this. The problem was they had to patch the Linux kernel and order for it to run, which is pretty lame. Like distribute a virus and tell people like patch the kernel and then it will infect you. Cool. Also, this technique would probably only be suitable for about like a 20 total assembler geeks worldwide. So, you know, that's not really going to be a big problem. And third one is using runtime frameworks and intermediate languages. And this is what I'm going to talk to you about today because this actually makes multiple model very real, very easy to implement. So let's take a practical look at it. Pond me and that net darling. Project Akikaze, I created about a year ago. For those of you know Japanese Akikaze basically means autumn wind. I'm not pretty good at naming things. It was autumn and it was windy and I started programming. So that's for the name. So what were the goals of creating this? The first goal was to create actually proof concept worm that works.  So I wanted something to really show the people that they could try it out at home without preparing their boxes and it would actually work and this one does. The second goal was to have it attack Thunderbird and spread from there, which is, yeah, we're going to sum through it later why I chose Thunderbird. And it should also give me a chance to explore possibilities of runtime frameworks because anyone who's ever been working on a larger project before will know this one. You got a good theoretical idea. You're thinking about it. You think, oh, that's going to be no problem and as soon as you start actually programming it, you'll end up having problems coming from nowhere and like racking up the whole system. So I wanted to actually do something before I claim that it's possible. There are a few questions. First of all, why .NET? There are many runtime frameworks out there. There's Java. There's a lot of other smaller stuff. Well, .NET has a couple of advantages. The first one is common intermediate language code is fast. And I mean fast, not like Java fast. It's almost the speed of C++. And for malware, speed is always an issue because the faster it will work, the easier it will be to put in routines, to put in all the stuff you want without the user noticing there's something wrong because their CPU is working at 100% for about five minutes after booting. Then there are several .NET implementations. Most people don't know this. Most people think, oh, the .NET, that's Microsoft, that's evil. It will only work on Microsoft. Well, that's not true. It's a mono project. Mono works almost everywhere. You can get monos around on Solaris, Linux, BSD, even on Windows, wherever you want. On various processing architectures, there's even more. There's .GNU, which is a smaller project, completely open sourced. And there's Microsoft's own rotor implementation that actually works on free BSD. So basically, .NET is everywhere. Next of all, many people run it, even though you might not be aware of this. Go on the internet, download Ubuntu 704, insert the install CD, hit the DAC. After you're finished, you'll have Mono up and running on your system, even though you might not know this. Try it out with your favorite distribution of kind. The .NET is so popular today.  Chances are pretty good that after a couple of days you'll draw Mono in as a dependency. Because there are a lot of libraries that are linking to Mono today. Next one is the language independence, which is a really nice feature. Well, on Java you basically code in, well, Java.  But in the .NET you can actually build a class using Python, compile it, then build another class using C sharp and actually exit a class you build on Python before it, without any complications. And that's a really nice feature because most of you will know that some things are very easy, very much easier to implement in Python than say in C sharp. It does not have any virtual machines. .NET gives you direct X to the computer, which is pretty neat if you're actually developing malware. It has lots of class for platform independence. This basically means in the .NET you can ask a class to give you that user's home folder. And it doesn't care if you're on Linux it will give you slash home slash whatever your name is. If you're on Windows XP it will give you C documents and so on. If you're on Vista it will give you user documents so you don't have to worry about that. It makes it pretty easy to develop code that will actually work. And last but not least, of course, you know it's developed on Microsoft so they quite have the hangout of it for developing stuff that will actually make your malware run. And the other question is why Thunderbird. When I started this a lot of people were asking me, oh you hate Thunderbird? No, actually I'm not. I'm using it, it's really great. And that's mostly why I used it because I did not have to acquire any new client to just write my worm.  You just, you know, get the SMTP service credentials and send out through your mailing list and that's what's going to happen. And of course you know if you want to present multiple to malware the thing you're attacking should probably run on the systems. I could not possibly attack Microsoft Outlook because I could not get that one to run on Linux or 3BC. So Thunderbird was definitely a good choice. Now of course that was not all good and nice. So I don't know how many of you guys are using Thunderbird but if you set up a new account and save your passwords for the first time you get that message. And let me just give you an excerpt of that. This sense of information is stored on your computer in a file that's difficult but not impossible to read. Well that definitely made my heart stop because I thought you know what have they come up to like salted hashes of your passwords and encrypted by some major password I would have to recover from the binary and basically I spent a couple of sleepless nights until I decided to just check the files they were supposed to save the passwords in and it turns out that this incredibly cool and hard to crack encoding what was base 64. So this is how your standard Thunderbird password file looks like this is for an IMAP server it basically gives you the username and the IMAP server and the password and basics for code form it took me I think two lines of code to get that one right. So let's give you a quick look at the code actually the code is available from my home page it's on a GPL version to download it if you're like a C sharp geek look at it I'm not going to bore you with the details if you got questions write me an email develop this further if you don't do something incredibly cool to my code be sure to send it back to me because I'm always interested in what other people are doing this is the address write it down be aware this has a self-signed certificate and it will enforce you to use that certificate you cannot access this page on a plain HTTP so it's pretty easy also if you don't get to write this down I've got like a hundred business cards up here just walk up the stage after I'm finished and I'll give you one of those so as I said previously the most important part is this is 3p out code so do whatever you want do the good stuff I hope there's more white hats in here than black hats but you know Kevin can never be too sure about that and yeah publish stuff this will be big this is just the main class there are basically three classes in there for gathering information gathering the credentials and actually taking the server and what it does is it gathers the information on the system does a few checks and then basically circles through the email addresses it found creates content and sends those out through the user's own sntp servers so it's pretty much impossible to find out this email was sent by a worm because it yeah it uses your own credentials this comes from your legit servers and even though I said you could do almost everything platinum apparently sometimes you'll find those classes checking the operating system version against fingerprints that the dotnet supports and actually building if else classes sometimes you cannot get around this for instance you all know that on the windows box you'll have a line break with slash r slash n while you're on the linux box you'll simply have slash n and you'll have to take that into account when you create your regular regular expressions to have the worm run so this is a pretty easy way to do it okay now for the part you've probably all been waiting for this is a demonstration and what i'm going to do is i got the mware prepared here and i got three virtual machines running one basically a windows a linux and a bsd and what we'll do is i got the worm on the windows version and i'll show you how the firefire thunderbird is configured i'll just start it and we pretty much make a round trip so windows will send this to the linux box linux will send it further on to free bsd free bsd will send it back to windows as i told you earlier this works on vista so if anyone wants to sacrifice this box just step up um actually it works so well that this does not even touch the uac system so basically this worm does not stop there yeah just a few more seconds okay so this is your standard windows xp and cell um i'll give you a look of my address book and thunderbird okay so we'll just have to restart the network connection he sometimes screws that up okay hang in here with me for a second i don't know what he's doing currently but it should be fixed in a couple of seconds okay we got it yeah this is all this is what always happens if you're working with windows you know it always works in your room but as soon as you're standing in front of a few hundred people will just burn out so um i actually got a mail server running locally which is pretty fun uh the important part is right here this is my address book and you see there's only one address in here it's linux at woot i could not come up with a better domain name so let's just try it out i'll just double click on this one and you see this command prompt opening this is pretty lame you could get rid of it but this is proof of concept anyway um actually it out the worm outputs a few information about what messages he created what email addresses it regained so if you're interested in that just you know keep the terminal open and you'll have a lot of fun watching it work so let's just suspend this and check the ubuntu box because i'm pretty sure we got mail over there and one of the things many people are afraid of are that those common immediate language codes would have to be invoked manually basically by saying mono and whatever program you want to run well yeah that's actually true but if you've ever done this before and you're on a desktop manager like kde or gnome it will ask you oh do you want to register that kind of file to any interpreter if you just click yes then you'll pretty much be able to double click the dot that executable and would do a work on a double click so i hope that i've got internet connectivity on this one otherwise it's just going to be one more check just getting a fresh IP around here yeah no we got it so back to full screen and let's start sunday bird over here and two would have expected we got an email from xp and you all saw that this as you can check out this email or as you can check out once i make the date a little larger this email was sent just a few seconds ago what actually it appears it wasn't because my box are off sync but this is the real email i can show you the mailbox will be empty afterwards and it basically tells you hi i've recently started to try programming this is my first code give it a shot and with akikaze attached to it so let's just move on we try to save that one to our desktop and being the normal l user we are we don't know that access don't usually belong on win on linux boxes so what we basically do is we double click this and that's pretty much it you don't see anything happening and that's a great thing you know if you're in a linux box and you tried this out you were probably saying oh well it didn't work it did work the only problem is you did not see anything let's start that from the console so you see what actually happens we're going to have two males in the bsd box but i guess you can live with that so this is the output you get if you try it on the console it says okay this is my username this is my home directory um i've got firefox installed i found that email address and i'm sending him the email i just wrote down so let's leave the linux box and as you saw i did not modify that code one single bit it was the exact same code i used on the windows box and we're going to drop into our third one and do the same thing on bsd now actually this says free bsd it's actually pc bsd which is basically free bsd but it was a lot nicer installer and if you're building like a lot of boxes to be used about one minute each you're going to really appreciate a nice installer okay let's just get that one up to the network once more okay there we go starting shannenberg this is the original version compiled for free bsd this is not something like you do with the compatibility layer to linux this one was actually compiled to run on free on free bsd and um it works so let's check our emails and you see we got two new messages that's exactly what i told you because the first time i just double clicked and the second time i ran from the console so both of them arrived here okay the beamers are back online and you'll see that the message actually adapted because now it says hi i wrote this program using a new approach what happened well the worm simply checks if you got gcc installed and if you do it expects it to be an advanced programmer this is pretty lame but this is just to show that you can actually adapt to the skill level to make it more reasonable to believe that worm so let's download it as well and try the same thing we just did on linux yep okay there we go um this time we're on kde so upon executing it we'll also see uh oh cool this is cut off by the beamer mostly but you see that there's a process working it's definitely done by now but kde tends to keep those running because it expects something to restart up but it doesn't so that's freebsd it's just a double click right i did not do anything extraordinary to this and i did surely not change it so let's suspend that box as well and check back to windows and if i'm not completely out of luck we should have one email by freebsd waiting in the windows box and this should just have done a round trip this is also why you always would want to get yourself something like three gigabytes of ram because when i bought this box i thought oh cool one gigabyte i could never use more than that but vml sure showed me that i could okay well just give him a new connection i guess he screwed up again yeah he got it okay he got his ip let's start thunderbird once more and yeah we got an email from freebsd it met the round trip it's actually that easy and as i said earlier you know i want to show this on vista because oh well everyone's always going crazy for vista and they said they put in that much that much security stuff actually to make this worm comfortable to vista i had to add exactly one line of code so that was not a really tough thing to do okay so back to the main presentation so i guess you're all convinced that this actually works now um let's just take a quick look at the limitations of course this technique rocks but it has flaws of course and both the concept of multi-platform malware has some serious problems as well as using runtime frameworks to doing it and even though those can be avoided you should know about them if you want to try stuff like this out the so let's take a look at multi-platform malware in the first place first and most importantly it still needs to be built for every single system that you wanted to work on um as you saw i use i'm using a lot of if else classes checking out the systems version because it's still not possible at least not for me to build a worm that will actually run any system without any adoption next it will get really nasty once we start jumping processing architectures because runtime frameworks even though they are great and even though they tell you oh this is going to work anywhere they tend to you know have problems if you jump from a spark to a x86 and of course it's just as detectable by antivirus as any other malware so if you want polymorphism in multi-platform malware you'll have to do it yourself and actually some people are doing that i saw some viral exchange groups just the other week who built a worm in c-sharp as well to also attack thunderbird and actually what they did was they made a jump in between various windows versions but you know five more lines of code it would have done linux so in the underground of antivirus of viral exchange this is already building up and they know how to do polymorphism and metamorphism of course at least i hope so and process runtime frameworks are first of all they need to be installed as you've seen you know that's not very a very great issue it's they usually are installed you may need to invoke them manually but that's also not that a big of an issue the real problem is intermediate languages are extremely easy to reverse engineer you can basically get the original code back so it won't take very long to find out what that program does and also if you're running an antivirus scanner on your system that does generic checking and that works with dotnet framework code and community languages it will basically be able to scan through the entire content and just tell you oh you know that's not really nice it's accessing your mail client okay so to sum things up a little and we'll have a discussion afterwards because i think that the real thing we need around here is some common sense because that's not hasn't happened yet but first you know as you've seen this stuff is real this is not just some theoretical idea you can actually create it it actually works and will be here in a couple of months or years but you can be sure that people will not stop missing out attacking linux boxes on the way because you know linux isn't becoming increasingly more popular so also as malware writers for commercial interests start to look at it and start oh well couldn't we grab like all the linux boxes well for just five percent more investments and yeah they can because all they have to do is write multiple platform so this will actually have the potential to change the way we look at computer security because currently consider network secure but as i've showed you before it's absolutely no problem to to just sync that worm or whatever you've written onto a pocket PC pocket PCs support the dotnet framework folks the xbox 360 natively executes common intermediate languages so you can basically jump anywhere you want and expect attack those networks locally or using the wireless network or using your bluetooth connection and actually no one's yet prepared for that we all expect you know oh that network is not online it's not connected to the internet it gotta be secure but as soon as your employees start carrying in their own worms and viruses on their PDAs and those PDAs start attacking your bluetooth clients for some stack overflow you never fixed because you thought oh we got physical controls at the entry yeah that's going to be a serious problem okay so anyone who has any questions remarks even if you want to call me an idiot just grab a mic i guess i got some in here i hope for them or grab mine come up front and ask yeah just one question is wouldn't the the code access security that's built into these you know iL systems actually defeat this if you set up like a machine config that you know would essentially sandbox any non-signed executable yeah you could defeat it that way that's correct actually but that's kind of hard to set up for that for the dotnet framework because you know microsoft always focuses on usability and they don't really care if you can secure it you can definitely do that it's just going to be a lot of work and not many people are going to do it but if you see this like a corporate enterprises they'll just do this by domain policy and you'll probably see that pretty be pretty common yeah you know that's actually what i hope that's going to happen because you know i'm releasing this to everyone and i'm pretty sure that we have people from both sides of the ring in this room we have white hats we have black hats we have security guys we have sys admins so yeah prepare your networks do something like you just said try to defend yourself because otherwise you'll run into a lot of trouble later come on i don't believe you that no one else in here has any other has not got any other questions os10 support i'm going to get that to work it might work already the problem is i don't have a mac at home but as soon as i get my hands on one of those you can be sure that it will run on os10 and basically os10 supports mono or the other way around so there should be no problem whatsoever it's basically unix no no i have never tried doing this on silverlight before i've been asked this a lot of times before but yeah that might actually be done later on or if anyone wants to just get the source code and do that yeah feel free feel free to drop me a lion yeah so actually just one thing i just wanted to actually have a comment on that one i've done a huge amount of research on dotnet framework right and the sandbox stuff actually doesn't work well actually works i've been arguing microsoft for three years that they should put everybody to use codec security by default and about dotnet and java are sleeping on the wheels because the problem you have here right it's not really dotnet and malware right the problem you have here is user land isolation the reality is not there's no one os out there who's able safely to execute malicious code so what you just shown here is i can i can take the advantage of the dotnet framework you know lack standard like you got mono you know and there's all that to write something which might be easier than if i have to write each individual one but the reality is that the problem here user line security and actually we actually have much powerful demos than the one you you know done here and i'm actually i want to help you on that one because you know we can do way much more on that one you know the problem here is full trust the problem is running with full trust with no isolation mono has no support for that right dotnet has support but nobody uses it so the stuff i've been doing with dotnet framework is like patching the clr you know putting you know root kit kind of behavior on dotnet frameworks which takes this to the next level so you know this is pretty cool because it shows you that you know you can actually write malware or examples of malware that will run across multiple platforms and they put all this security into dotnet and then uh pretty much universally everyone just wanted to know how to turn it off it's all right full well yeah but i mean well not entirely like if you were to run any executable off a network resource it would actually get turned back on and most people actually wanted to turn it back off and so it's the same problem that you've got with java right and now java is great because you got java web star which is like do you want me to own you yes and go boo right and microsoft has the click ones which is do you want me to own you and you get his full trust so yeah i definitely think that we you know we need to bring something next here that you know it's really going to take this to the next level but no very very cool stuff yeah feel free to contact me anyone else who wants to participate in this you know i'm i'm up for whatever as long as we can still gpl the code and your company does not stop you from doing though write me a line and we'll put something together yeah i just want to do sorry i just want to do a very cheap plugin for oasp right which is an open way application security project which i run the dotnet part of it if you guys interested in this i actually want to do a lot of this stuff over there right so actually i want to invite you because it's gpl so actually i can bring there and oasp is all open source right so you know we should move this some of this stuff over there okay anyway around as long as we get some common sense because as i said earlier if we don't act now we'll simply be overrun as soon as they actually start deploying those things yeah that worm won't hurt you at all but actually just add one more line saying format c or rm rf slash and your box down for so so um i have a pocket pc phone and this scares the hell out of me um it has wi-fi bluetooth and evdo right now it's only for thunderbird could it be morphed into also doing like outlook and annihilating everything if you got the dotnet running on that pocket pc which i don't know it's dependent on version yes definitely it could it could basically infect you from wherever you are you check your emails on outlook on your pocket pc and yeah there's no problem running one of those things okay okay so there's don't seem to be any further questions or if you got one raise your hand now good okay so then that's pretty much it thanks for coming in here and we've got to keep this one up


to vice-president gudloki bele Jonathan in 2009 during the crisis arising from the ailment of late president Umaru Yadwa. Ironically, his words calling for the handover of power to Mr Jonathan, given the incapacitation of president Yadwa, was deployed by the position in calling on him to hand over power to his deputy Lokia Yadwa in the closing days of his battle with his ailment. Joining us to discuss this is the communications consultant at Kifatu Kaya. How is the pleasure to have you guest on plus politics? Greater pleasure is mine. Gola oba, you first starting yourself into what should I call it?  We must learn from the fact that I will need to leave the studio as an example and I don't want Maya to be too swollen so that the door will not allow. Most heads don't swell. They come in, but I actually meant that. It's a real pleasure and thank you very much for having me. Good evening Nigerians. Thank you very much. Unfortunately, we lost a very, very voluble, eminent, sagacious character in Governor Kredulu, but unfortunately the circumstances of his passage was not very, very edifying. For a man who for many years epitomized integrity, for a man who for many years epitomized a kindle, courage and character is doing more was a bit was a bit dirty and shady. But let me give you the opportunity to start the way you want to start. I don't necessarily want to push you into the concern because we have quite a quite a sizable time to discuss it. How would you want to how would you want to start on the demise of Alakuni Kredulu? Oh, had I am going metaphysical, John Donne was very clear when said the death of a man, any man diminishes me. And your description, I just add, Alakuni Kredulu was exactly the way you described among courageous voluble, is place in the annals of a history. Despite the duplication and the shenanigans that surrounded his death, it's not something that can be wiped off easily. I like to say that Alakuni Kredulu was a man of many parts back then in school. He was the Metushella Sangisto, was a require back in his church days in Jericho where he well would be told that Jericho Ibadon, I guess. Jericho Ibadon, you know and he was very prominent. He was also amongst others somebody who stood from the college slang that he used earlier on. Were you at any time in school together or are you alumni, are you an alumnus of the same armamenta in any circumstance that you attended? Nope, but as a member of the Kegites we were spread all over, you know, jambulay and all that. He could break into singing and he could go into death camps during his lifetime. I know that he was at the University of Ife, I was at Hamadu Beleu University and usually we hold conferences with different universities and colleges of technology. In the glorious days of university education, when school was cool. I dare say that ironically some of the things he stood for in terms of constitutional order were put to the back boner when the shoe got into the other foot because right there in 2020 around December, I don't know about this thing about December that Akiti died this year in 2023, year ago I was also confronted with that and then we had a lot of dancing to the right, dancing to the left by what you called the inner cabinet. In Akiti's decades we had to prove perhaps allegedly were loyal to him which included his beloved wife, Madam Betty, his son, some other commissioners. At the end of the day he was treated, he was behemoth like you said in your intro and said power must change hands. When power must change hands it must not be any other thing other than to go through the constitutional provisions as well spelled out in Chapter 6, Section 189 and Part 2 of the 1999 constitution as amended. I mean where there is ill health and incapacitation there are laid down rules of how this shoe be followed, it wasn't followed and that was not a loon and you remember Dhamma Pasutai, I mean eventually whether you are an effigy whether you are there or not people who run the government for you especially those who are so proximate to the post of the state who could use just about your image, your name or their connection or proximity to you to go gaga and not only go gaga and do it very shamelessly at the end of the day you know you remember Hiragwa's wife and the kitchen cover the Dham Bazaus of this world and they all came strong to say it was not going to happen. As the attorney general was actually telling us that his understanding of the constitution was that the president could be anywhere in the world and be governing us. And then you know we had a very highly respected former president of Asunjo at that time gave us a bit of theatrics and was calling Hiragwa, are you well or you are not well? That was actually that was actually when it was first thing when it was first thing a man that he knew was sick or not. Allegedly new was sick. You know why I am confident he knew he was sick. I was flown in from England I was still domiciled in London England then I was flown in to interview candidate Yara Dua and then you saw a couple of things and when I sat in front of the gentleman I was so impressed that I had to tell him that there was a whispering campaign that it was not going to last for four years. Can you imagine that? Because he was looking very look God bless his soul very courageous very honest man and when I said that he said you know he said opinions were free and he pulled his Babariga and pulled it and he he showed me a lump of a this thing and he said he said he was sick he said there was no and he asked me how old I was and I told him and he said and he asked me if I had ever been sick and I said yes I had been sick and he said look I was sick but I'm getting better now and that there is no man that is you know that is immune to being sick but it was obvious to anybody close enough to the man. However momentary you could see that that was the person that somebody was calling on a sick bed in in Germany. I was telling us umaru you are dead or you are not dead and the same of us much later was the one who push became a show who now was granted you know the opportunity to see him in Saudi Arabia and then also made a pronouncement you know to him sometimes is like that this this this this man was very similar to what we had with arakuni aketi himself and then of course he was shielded if you remember this the old thing started in 2019 there about he was ill okay he took ill and I remember at that time he did something that was not very common unlike the aradwa and the and the keba and the turaya and the kabai and he transmitted then to loki aidati wa but everything now started walking in funny tools by 2023 we now so that he had to formally go to germany again spent three months at that time power was not you know transit and people started wondering is the same aketi is the same arakuni that will do this or was he within his ambit what you saw in aradwa by showing you that lump and he had ideas he was a lecturer at abadubela university he was in the chemistry department he had a way of you know not this time on with him had a way each time he wanted to I studied economics but I had people who studied chemistry and he was forthright to the guilt and I would tell you exactly what's what the problem problem is the only family that I see that come out and say it exactly as it sits by themselves with the arasongkuti family and when fella was going to pass on so liqori arasongkuti self complications and you know arising yes and all that so but this time around because we lack the structure lack the process to maintain constitutional order we were not going to follow it don't forget again comparing and contrasting so it wasn't in 2012 when uh they were not going to allow yaratua to go and and rest of the opposition party took him to court and um I know bham dili aturu also blessed memory died when I think july 9 2014 came out they won the case and the supreme excuse me the high court at that time made the pronouncement let's the constitutional provision of section 189 be followed if after 14 days you are not able to come out and say mr president was okay or not okay uh and then he sees this to be to be president uh later to now they say no constitutional order is now in place but what then happened the cabinet members who yaratua appointed the cabinet members who akere dulu appointed say no they will not be able to they will not be able to do they will not be able to do that unfortunately there are clearly then a gradually now then said when you make a mistake what do you do put your leg to the break raise your hands and say yes let us do the right thing ladies and gentlemen we're talking to members of his cabinet I know that was also a voice in akete's position it was the president of the mba then at at that time and he said look what are we what are we talking about it is only we can't continue to want to play god I think um akete akere dulu's place in history is not only a shock I mean you saw him in in in his colors the amotecum colors and what have you capable of speaking through to power but I think people surrounded him allegedly or not members of his family members of the inner coco started playing palungu and despite the fact that akete himself during his lifetime when he chose loki and said if you are a lucky man and wherever I stop you you continue from wherever I stop and in any case I get it you are this now you start your tone and people started dancing right left and center and as we speak today voila the jury maybe not yet out but it's out to say that the intervention of mr president whether they are river states elsewhere is not constitutional is still something that we need to see because at the end of the day peace reigned even if you are going to say it's peace of the graveyard I pray not at the end of the day are you are you going to reverse now are you starting reverse we don't because on those the peace is settled now well because the order has taken over okay by the circumstance of the passage of akete god bless you so I really want to try my best possible to take this discourse away from his person but speak to the constitutional the constitutional the unfortunately constitutional scenario that was triggered by his by sickness and the fact that some characters could have the temerity to literally literally and metaphorically abuse the collective psyche of the people of gondost state and it is very likely that they will walk away with that voila are here you very loudly and it's true we don't speak ill of the debt here we shouldn't more especially within the whole of 2023 in and out was mort virtually when it came back in september of 2023 that is jerry kohom was not seen was not hard the signatures were you know who are flying around allegedly and even to the extent that the the the peace and I agree with you that debt is the is the end of it all I want to pray that it should be the end of it all I am not particularly happy at the few things I saw okay after the death of akete I think it's like overreaching by some people I cannot for the life of being understand why it's and the commissioners of akete will come out and say well they will always continue to be want to be loyal to him even in debt I think that makes a bit of a nonsense I am not too sure that some of the some of the some of the optics that I see some of the some of the optics that I see with you know you know apology  dagegen if AUR We all should be. It behooves like history should not repeat itself in the adekunle adjacent yomaboriyo wo that understood virtually, you know, about Bolton. I think people should now calm down. What is not making that scenario different is what you call greed. What you call lack of a sense of shame. You may be surprised that at the end of the day, I pray like I will always said in 1983 that I'm wrong. I hope we will put our noses on the grind and make sure that now that death has given the right legacy that is going to be indelible. All parties should now just calm down. There should not be any viciousness. It should be forward ever to the sunshine state of Odo. It should be very unfortunate if there is any thing of vindictiveness in the conduct over you. It is a very fortunate man. His name just practically is leaving the fullness of the prophetic majesty of his name. Of that name. Lucky. He is lucky. Ori Mison is very fortunate. It seems to carry a head that takes him in the direction of good fortune. Ori Mison, that's the best translation I can give it in my Kwasa Yoruba. Ori Mison, my head is standing for me. And no matter what you do, my head is standing for me. And the family name that he has ultimately hand the world. I haven't said that I wouldn't suppose if he is a smart player that he should be vindictive or be seen to be a loggerhead with a father, the wife, the children or the followers of... Because he himself was, was a very solid... He said it when he picked him. He said it was consistently standing by him through the first time that he lost the gubernatorial election to the time he won. And that it was only right for him, apart from the goodness of his name to... You see, the two of us cannot discuss this issue like youngsters in journalism would do. The salacious part of it, the personality called side of it, I am not particularly interested. I'm sitting there, I'm thinking... And that's one of the reasons why I really want to engage somebody like you to speak to it. I'm thinking and I'm having a panoramic look at the constitutional order that has made it so, so fluid. That any time be it Maman Belwali in Yobbe, be it Dambaba Sunta'i in Taraba, now the immediate past incident of Arakuni Akredo Lu and inevitably, it is just inevitable, that at some point again President Umariya was very deplorable, exasperating, that the whole of the country was taken to and it's inevitable. It's not that one is being sadistic that at some point a gubernatorial character will be sick. He or she may not be able to function like we obviously saw in the case of Arakuni Akredo Lu, Dambaba Sunta'i, Maman of Yobbe Yadwa and yet some characters so close to him would want to make us believe that even when it is obvious to the old nation, they have the prerogative to be functioning in his name. What does that say? The problem is not as rubbed as the constitution that we are talking about which I have always said that needs to be really overhauled anyway. As rubbed as it is, the constitutional order is there. It has precedent, I just told you about the High Court judge sometime in 2012 that ladies has a precedent. Yes, people can get ill and naturally wish them well, but people can get critically ill and the wheels of governance must continue. But what is not there is the character. Of the people first to interpret that constitution exactly the way it is and follow it. During Yadwa's time, they all knew that within 14 days call a medical doctor and then that 3189, the part 4 of that section clearly stated why the National Assembly call the position to Mr. President, position to Mr. Governor set up 5 of them additional for medical doctors to examine, do it very quickly within 40 days and then to talk to vote. But they will never want to do it because position precedent is such that the beneficiaries of his grace those that he most have appointed as members of the cabinet are the ones that are constitutionally lagging to trigger the call for the medical examination. Not today, that you have battle of non-gnives, that you have people doing things In fact, the people that you appoint, the people that are supposed to be your right hand or left hand men or women will be the ones that will do you in. In case of outside Nigeria, in case of Sankara and Kampare in case of Anwar Sadat and his bodyguards in case of Murita Lam, Muhammad who did all those kind of people in? There are people who knew and could have been in other than the people who know who have first hand information that the way I am looking at things.  Constitutional order is clear. What is not there is the greed and the sense of shame. I will do it and nothing is going to happen. The people that Arakwone appointed, they were supposed to be his hands men were not going to be interested in his legacy and what did they start to do? That one must go and order and it nearly manifested it got as bad as getting to the chief judge of the state and they were going to look for one way or the other to try and pull her down point is there are areas of her world as you always say in your program and your teaching they don't have a written constitution but they have written ethos they have some kind of ethos and ethics and morality that bind them, that makes them say like we used to have in the old or your empire if you do something that is Greek you are kind of gone so that is lack of sense of shame is out the same presidents that happened during Arakwone the same presidents happened during Arakwone and why corruption why the fact that yes I will not be there but I will be the king maker it is a known fact if you are the wife of the president or the wife of the governor wife of the local government chairman you begin to wield some kind of funny influence if you are the son or the daughter of the president whether it is this president or the former president some people allegedly go to pay to those people so that they can have the heirs of the president it means therefore we are not practicing democracy we can't say we are practicing democracy we can't be practicing democracy and then at the end of the day things will be going the way they have gone I think fundamentally there cannot be a robust democracy where the rule of law is anemic if the rule of law is lean because many of us don't even understand that the full the full a mouthing of the terminology democracy is democracy and the rule of law of course and wherever people know that you can run rough short of the law and get away with it democracy will never will never be robustly planted who am I saying that let's leave the political side of it the members of the House of Assembly at some point I thought the speaker of the House of Assembly in on those days got a bit narcissistic like any politician and I won't blame him for that like any politician he felt he had an opening that if you could muster the powers inherent in the House through his colleagues and get the deputy governor defenestrated he could be the acting governor and that will position him well for as an aspirant and an aspiring candidate of the party in the general elections that will be holding very correct now I won't blame him for that that's politics the disturbing part of it was when it became obvious that even some members of the cabinet were openly saying that the signature of the principal were being forced and some people were coming out with two were coming out with explanations that he had two signatures I was even confounded I don't know signatures may change over time but at any point in time we must have one signature and I was thinking where were the where were the major place operatives where were the so-called AFCC operatives what was the ICPC leadership doing and in that circumstance hundreds of millions of NERA were leaving the treasury to very suspicious in very suspicious circumstances I just felt we can never have a robust democracy I can feel your angst I can feel your pains but beyond angst and pains you said it's politics what is politics? politics is who gets what we are and when you take and beat for your chance even if you have to ride a rough shot even if you have to go to Okinawa to try even if you have to kill for that don't take me back those in my opinion will not be positive politics and I hear you loud and clear the concept of Ali Baba and the 40 tips is that true Ali Baba is the head of the tips but you see those other 40 tips you may eventually get one that will even be an emperor and above because he will be looking at what the ogre is doing and then he too will finding a way to cut corners and then what then happen I I think over reaching ambition over vaulting ambition is such that can make you said we should not go there I just wanted to draw influence from magbets lady magbets, pushing magbets and then so many started seeing a lot of sorcerers you wait and beat your time you cannot and you should not and I repeat you should not try and begin to dance at the negative okay is it negative the unfortunate happen to your fellow man here was a man that made sure he supported you to be the speaker and all that I know the speaker was not acting alone it was a groundswell opinion because everybody knew that luckier he that he was was going to be another lucky good luck Jonathan was going to be a good luck Jonathan without raising a finger was just going to go in straight there oh no it's not going to happen so people started walking behind the scene you talk about two signatures in 2023 how will you explain situations where something that is so glaring and we must also know that you know there are boundaries the ICPC, the EFCC will not just come and pounce they may see certain things and they may be walking on a lead but if the national assembly is in Kahoot with maybe some party elements who are saying go for it it's not going to matter but I want to say to you that if Aketi did not die if Aketi did not die on the 27th year about of this month it will still be a kind of phiric victory and the whole world will now come on President Ballatino you have no constitutional right or duty to now be saying you want to do whatever it is and then the whole place will go into flames but where you have the morality and the ethics in you whatever is going to be yours is going to be yours without you necessarily trying to obtain the apocat if Aketi did not die because I think nature wanted to preserve his legacy that's the way I look at it I guess will be shocked if Gerardua did not die I am very very sure there's my professor Akiri and the eventual senate talking about Doctrine of Necessity who have had constitutional crisis in this country and for that matter if Sunthai that the whole world saw was not capable for ruling they would try and make sure that they put it there so it is us those who surround those who don't have that kind of sense of shame I also think that as we move in the trajectory to try and help develop our democracy we should give rewards we should give punishments look it's just not enough for us to say okay now everything is over there were dramatis personae I don't know who they are even though I can get well I am guessing shortly after letters of resignation if the point is they know that we know cause a number of people know the arrow heads that were behind trying to set a place like on those tapes on fire we should fish them out I am not going to be asking for being vicious for them to be fished out and touched on punishment likewise there will be a couple of people it will be the cook or the gardener who did one thing or the other to know then say hey wait a minute I see something that I want to word they will not try to shot him but in any rule of law respecting society agencies of state especially agencies leading with the consular responsibilities of enforcing the law I am making sure that the law is not is not flippantly abused ought to go into action look you cannot go to on those tapes now to go and tell anybody to bring out the books that you want to be the consular signatures we did this morning come out where was this sign you can do it I can do it but there are agencies of state you have the major police force recognized by the constitution you have Bola maybe sounding a bit no no you are not sounding you are not naive you are sounding like somebody who has his head properly screwed up on the neck yes how come how that yes you see the intelligence community about 5 or 6 agencies in the intelligence community the devil is in the details so let's take okay let's take Arakon they said Arakon is ill so you want the police to go into the house and go and look for him and then somebody now says no you can't do that you can't disturb his peace you can't do this what is dead now no before he died so many things will spread to the reality I see people say look what exactly is going on here I do not think okay I heard certain things here I heard certain things there you have to go to some kind of court to prove that your fears are real and that you have a local standing I said that is Mr.president that is the governor's signature during Yeraduwa's time when according to what we read it will be to come in all lies were put off and then it was put there in the room believing that look let's continue to just lie up on lie up on lie until oba sanjo it was that they eventually said he went to Saudi Arabia and said I have seen that gave a bit of a feeling the points I am making may we all not be confronted we think that we not only destroy our legacy destroy our character whether there are people who are close to us or people who are not too close to us or people who always even go ahead the sorcerers and the babalavos and the debias will come out and tell you and then the susayas the people who would make predictions and say look even though you are you are not feeling fine I see a situation where you continue to rule you saw what happened during Arakoon you saw somehow a dirty thing came out we don't want to talk about all that but when it came out he was accused that she was a friend to Mr. Governor and she was smuggling some things in there and before you could say Jack and Robinson is there for the reason why whether ICPs was able to do what needs to be done or not, whether EFCC, whether the police and everybody would not be saying it's your duty, it's your duty Mr. President has that look indirect let me ask let me ask and he can try and influence he can try and influence gentlemen, gentlemen ladies please let's make sure we have a common sense to breathe I think it's imperative at this juncture to split to the fact that it is indeed a travesty for us to expect to grow this democracy to robustness if ordinarily you took the lord of the president to let institutions and agencies of state do their work do what they need to do that is my fear now that is your fear but that is the reality it therefore means and I come back to the ground rules here my ground rule is democracy you know whether Cosmo is such that we can practice democracy is somehow alien to us we are much more attuned with the theory of strongman then the question is we had military rule we did not develop that much unlike in other parts of the world if I want to be living in China today I know if I want to be living in China today and I don't have all the liberty to speak in Nigeria at least I would be psychologically emotionally and financially compensated with the fact that my nation is globally respected we are eating the markers the big markers developmentally wise physical infrastructure and otherwise and the economy for the longest period in human history took out 800 million people out of poverty and put them in the middle class 800 the biggest number of people to have been taken out of poverty in the history of humanity because we had a totalitarianism that also which will compensate for the development and the positive to compensate that also has a human heart in Africa we had we had all absolute powers our neighbor here Paul Bea he has to now continue to genuflect you must stay there now there you go die and all that so again I may be sounding no the truth of the matter is that we have to redefine our democracy in a way that it will surely work for us we go every four years to do elections we go every four years we fight at the end of it all the supreme court will now decide who is going to replace we are here and there and then we continue to do that I think at the end of the day back to the subject death ultimate death has rewarded Arakon that chapter is not closed yet too no I know it can happen again somewhere it happens here as well not necessarily again somewhere even in the case of Arakon that chapter is not closed yet it is dead but as we speak the dramatis personae apart from the dramatis personae there will be opportunities for people to review the circumstances of his death and the complicity or not of his role in the obvious madness that ravaged the state for weeks if not months before his final demise as much as I think I will I understand what you are saying I was not there and all that kind of stuff but I'm able to say something Akete is not likely I'm parcel of all those serenigans that happened after him that much I have a feeling is difficult because you are not going to ask me I mean if I caught now you say what is my evidence and stuff like that and I could the truth of the matter is that we had a man of character we had a man who when he was ill and hearty made it point blank who his deputy should be he made it point blank and openly prayed all the other thing that happened that Aida Tewa was being overreaching and all that kind of stuff was trumped up is obvious that he was trumped up at the point I saw a picture of Arakunyakredulu with the governors of Oyo Ogun and he seemed to be a man that was about himself he may not be fully healthy but at least he was obnobbing with them my brother the jury is out I give you the opportunity to wrap it up Adamitin that you mentioned was also the governor of Pikete State and if you because I saw the picture he was just just tearing prostate cancer that we eventually had was the cause of death in a matter of days it can go terribly bad Yanaduwa was prodded I understood Yanaduwa was prodded in such a way that he could even say yes Sanu and all that kind of stuff Suntai was being made on this this age of AI after that in a matter of days high level prostate cancer would just take you out they would predict that they will give you 10 days within 10 or 15 days will be same signatures coming out may the law god help us my final word on this is that Nigeria is going to thrive we are going to get some of these things behind us we used to have a country we used to have people and leaders and those who are being led who understood the tenets of the rule of law and ethics I am very sure it is going to come back I hope we are not over romanticizing our past to be honest with you I see some signals that are very disturbing but we have to wrap it up


The digital revolution, in particular the computer and the Internet, have had an enormous impact on all academic disciplines. Of these disciplines, linguistics may be considered as one that has been affected most. Teaching, learning and assessment, as well as research, have undergone dramatic changes in recent years. This presentation points out the challenges and consequences for our subject as a consequence of the use of the new media. Let us look at the challenges we have been facing first. Now, linguistics is not taught at school. Students of linguistics thus have little or no prior knowledge about the field. So as teachers, we have to introduce more fundamentals than many of us would like to do. Well, the Internet has completely changed the field of research. Now all linguistic data is on the web, in many cases freely accessible at any time from anywhere. And like any other science, linguistics has developed a large number of models and theories. These have to be presented and, as it seems, digital representations have a higher explanatory value than traditional presentations in print. Well, and modern linguists use a variety of tools, of programs, of software in order to do their research. These tools have to be introduced, they have to be explained and mastered, another challenge for teachers and students. And the last point concerns assessment. Traditionally, testing in linguistics has been static in many ways. Using digital scenarios, however, new assessment types that increase the quality of traditional assessment are possible yet another challenge. Let me exemplify these challenges in detail. Let's start with the lack of foundations. As I already said, linguistics is not taught at school, so we have to start from scratch. Let us take the main branches of linguistics as an example. Students who start linguistics have little or no idea about consonants or vowels about articulatory phonetics. They do not know what a phoneme is, two fundamental concepts in phonetics and phonology.  Well, and in syntax, there are so many new concepts that have to be explained among them thematic roles. And even if you continue with the field of meaning in semantics, well, students might know what a synonym is, but the meaning of sentences here illustrated by some symbols taken from predicate logic never heard before. Well, and in pragmatics, you have to explain such basic concepts like conversational principles, speech acts, dikesis, and so on and so forth. In other words, we are faced with beginners and the introduction of even the most fundamental concepts constitutes an essential part of teaching and learning in linguistics. The primary data in linguistics comes from the languages of the world, either in written or in spoken form. Whereas in the past, the data was either presented in written form only with no audio verification possible. Today, the data is on the web. It exists in huge written or spoken corpora and can be analyzed and used freely. Here is an example from our language index. This is a huge database which contains audio files from more than a thousand languages of the world. I chose this example because I need it later on. Here is what Dalia says about herself. Welcome all on our Confuser linguistics website here. My name is Dalia. I'm a chat path. Now, such data is now freely accessible. Using the data, however, has brought about a new challenge. As modern linguists, we are now confronted with a variety of linguistic software tools and data repositories that we have to understand and use. In other words, linguistic software training has become an essential part of modern linguistic education. In linguistics, the modeling of hypotheses and theories have always played an essential role in education and research. Let me illustrate this with three examples. The first comes from our language index again. Now, let me look at Dalia's diphthongs. If you want to present the diphthongs of a language and you want to show the transitional paths of their glides in a traditional format, you are confronted with enormous presentational problems. But if you use a multimedia format, these problems disappear and we can easily enhance the explanatory value of our presentation. Now, here you see in a multimedia format, we cannot only listen to the diphthong, but we can also see the transition of that particular diphthong. Or take these two examples. To illustrate the phenomenon of feature association in non-linear phonology, an interactive model is much more appropriate than a written model or a diagram in a book, because here you see the dynamicness of feature association in a multimedia format. And have you ever seen Chomsky's rule of affix hopping in action? Well, here it is. Select the verb group and let the affixes hop. Again. And if you want another one, here you are. Well, compare that with the written explanation. I don't think I have to add anything. As I already mentioned, linguistic software is now an important issue. Today, a variety of software tools can be used to handle linguistic data or to construct linguistic models. There are audio analysis tools such as PRAT, Audacity, or several wave editors. We have graphic tools such as Urban View or GIMP. There are several corpus interfaces and data repositories around. And last but not least, modern web technologies that allow us to integrate language maps, speaker locations, and many more now constitute a major part of linguistic web technologies. Well, in assessment, pen and paper tests have been used in linguistics for a long time. But now with the new technologies available, we can enhance these tests enormously. We can use virtual keyboards, for example, and sound support in transcription tasks like the one that is displayed over here, a typical task in our phonetics classes on the virtual linguistics campus. Or we can confront our students with listening tasks where they have to identify pulmonic consonants via mouse click after having heard them. And these tests can be used in a diagnostic fashion, in a formative fashion, and even as summative assessments like we displayed it over here. Now, these are our e-exams at the University of Marburg in linguistics, where first of all our students have to register and then almost 100 students write their e-exam together in the computer pool of the computing department. Well, and this of course not only enhances the quality of testing, but also minimizes our effort of grading and correction. All these new challenges have changed our discipline, most obviously as far as teaching and learning is concerned. So we obviously need a new teaching concept. Now, with the availability of digital learning materials, many linguistics classes can now be organized in such a way that content delivery takes place online and serves as a prerequisite for subsequent in-class meetings. The in-class meetings now serve a different purpose with the emphasis on practicing. This approach that flips or inverts the phases of content delivery and practicing is referred to as the inverted classroom model. Alternative terms for this model are flip classroom, a term which is especially used in the context of the North American high schools. But how does this model really work? To understand it, let's first of all look at traditional teaching. In traditional teaching, content delivery and content acquisition are realized in class, where several dozens of students have to gather at the same time to be entertained by their teacher. Many of them fall asleep after 10 minutes, isn't it? In a second phase, students practice on their own, on the basis of additional exercise material, homework tasks, data analysis and so on. Now the inverted classroom flips or inverts these two activities. Content acquisition is now self-guided, takes place first and is done online. The additional in-class phase is now dedicated to practicing, rehearsing, discussion analysis, etc. This means that prior to each in-class meeting, students must have worked through the online content of the respective e-learning unit. And how does this work on the virtual linguistics campus? Well, in phase one, students are now autonomous learners. They are given the content by means of what we call an e-learning unit. This contains the content they have to go through prior, emphasis on prior to each in-class meeting. The content of an e-learning unit is multimodal. It involves all sorts of channels. In all our classes, we supply our students with highly interactive multimedia content, the so-called virtual sessions. In addition to this, students can watch our e-lectures on YouTube. These are never longer than 20 minutes and they are closely interconnected with the virtual sessions. Furthermore, we have our optional workbooks. They supply our students with the text material of each unit, but not with any other media, and give them the opportunity to supplement the text with the online content. This combination of multimedia, video and text is unparalleled in the world of e-education. In short, mastering the content of a unit means go through the virtual session first, use the guiding questions for help, watch the corresponding e-lecture video, and use the tests in the interactive tutor and optionally supplement the workbook with the missing information. And the important point is there is no pressure. Students now have access to the content as often as they like and from wherever they like. They can examine the virtual sessions with almost no limit. They can rewind their teacher in the e-lectures and they have numerous options to test themselves using the interactive tutor. Actually, this is what they really do. They take their workbooks, they use their computers, or their mobile devices such as iPads, tablet computers, or their smartphones, wherever and whenever possible. And once they're ready and once they've mastered it all, they attend the subsequent in-class meeting. Now, the in-class meeting is no longer any sort of frontal teaching, so this scenario is clearly out. Instead, the central, you might still want to call it teaching method, is that of a cooperative interaction between instructor and students. Honestly, for us, it doesn't make sense to teach in the traditional format anymore. Why should we repeat what's in an e-learning unit? So what we do in class instead is practicing, discussing problems, the analysis of data, all those things that students would have done on their own at home without any assistant. Now we do the homework, it's not really any homework anymore, in class. We discuss problems with our students and collaborate.  And this is what happens in class. The instructor walks around and provides help or gives advice. And the students work on specific tasks on their own with guidance by their teacher. So this is a typical in-class scenario in the inverted classroom, where frontal teaching is no longer a central option. And how do we make sure that students do everything we want them to do in phase one? That is, that they master the e-learning unit prior to the in-class meeting? Well, for this purpose we have our formative electronic assessments, the e-tests that are mentioned earlier on. Each e-learning unit is connected with an electronic test, that is, an electronic formative assessment in the true sense. Their results shape the organization of the in-class phase. And what about the role of the instructor? Well, we have changed our role completely. We do not deliver content in the traditional way anymore. We do not have to explain term by term what a phoneme is or how the subject of a sentence can be identified. Rather, instead of teaching, we supervise our students' activities. We try to motivate them to do their tasks in time, and we make sure that everyone is served as well as possible. As class instructors, we now have time to do more efficient things with our students beyond mere content delivery. So in accordance with Alison King, who as early as 1993 predicted a radical change of education in the 21st century, we can now clearly claim we are no longer sage on stage but guide on the side. And what about linguistic research? Well, today, no serious linguists dispenses with digital data, corpus analysis, whether spoken or written, special software for text editing or audio analysis support our research. And last but not least, we perform experiments using the computer in many ways. Here is an example from psycholinguistics. Now lexical decision tasks, tasks where you have to decide whether something is a word or a non-word, can easily be implemented on a computer. On the Virtual Linguistics Campus, you have a large number of such experiments. This is just one of them which I can only show how it works. You will be presented a word in the center of the screen and then you have to decide whether it's a non-word or a word. This is how it works. And now you would have to click, I don't have a keyboard so I can't do it so I leave that to you. You can use the linguistic laboratory on the Virtual Linguistics Campus to find out how these experiments work in detail. So, there have been dramatic changes in linguistic education and research in recent years. But there's no reason to be desperate. Rather, we should face the new challenge. We should make use of the wealth of material that is available on the web. We should use the superb digital tools that enhance teaching, learning and research. So, the material is there. It's up for grabs. And new ideas about modern education exist too. The rest is up to you. Thanks for listening.