Abstract

HIV counseling and testing are the first steps to diagnosing and managing HIV infection. This article describes factors associated with HIV testing and counseling in prisons with different policies for HIV testing (voluntary, during medical evaluation; voluntary, during peer-led class; mandatory) and counseling (all counseled, or pretest counseling not required and posttest for positive only). Prisoner testing rates were 46% “voluntary, peer-led”, 78% “mandatory”, and 86% “voluntary, medical.” Less than 50% received any counseling. Results suggest the potential value of coordinating HIV and STD/hepatitis services across all policies. Risk behaviors or demographic factors were only associated with one testing or one counseling policy. Prisons can achieve high rates of HIV testing by routinely offering voluntary HIV testing during the medical intake process, and this may result in increased diagnosis of HIV infection.

This article provides support to flipped classroom pedagogy in the preparation of graduate-level public health practitioners. We describe the participatory, interactive, collaborative, and liberating process of teaching and learning in the Program Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation course, and we provide the results of a cross-sectional study into students’ perceptions of this process. Our investigation found a significant positive correlation between students’ participation in class discussion and classroom learning experiences (Pearson r[49] = .40, p = .004). Study results confirm the students’ appreciation for the flipped classroom pedagogy. However, the results indicate no significant correlation between the students’ learning style preferences and participation in class discussion ( t[46] = −0.94, p = .34) or classroom learning experiences ( t[46] = 1.64, p = .11); likewise, there were no significant correlations between students’ academic achievement (i.e., GPA) and participation in class discussion (Spearman’s rho correlation: ρ sp[49] = .07, p = .60) or classroom learning experiences (Spearman’s rho correlation: ρ sp[49] = .17, p = .25). No significant association was found between both participation in class discussion and learning experiences, with demographic variables such as gender, age, semester in school, and type of employment. The current flipped classroom pedagogy allows for participation, growth, and development of all students enrolled in the course. We recommend more studies to further strengthen current evidence of the effectiveness of the flipped classroom pedagogical approach on both teaching and learning in public health courses.

No abstract

The goal of this covert channel is to prove the feasibility of using encrypted HTTPS traffic to carry a covert channel. The encryption key is not needed because the original HTTPS payload is not decrypted. The covert message will be appended to the HTTPS data field. The receiver will extract the covert channel and restore the original HTTPS traffic for forwarding. Only legitimate HTTPS connections will be used as the overt channel. A Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attack at the sending and receiving ends will give access to modify the traffic streams. The HTTPS return traffic from the server can carry a covert channel. Without the original HTTPS traffic for comparison or the original encryption keys, this covert channel is undetectable.

Many covert channels take advantages of weaknesses, flaws, or unused data fields in network protocols. In this paper, a behavior-based covert channel, that takes advantages of behavior of an application, is presented along with a formal definition in the framework of finite state machines. The behavior-based covert channel is application specific and lies at the application layer of the network OSI model, which makes the detection of this type of covert channel much more difficult. A detailed sample implementation demonstrates an example of this type of covert channel in the form of a simple online two-person game.The potential of this type of covert channel is also discussed.

No abstract

This paper presents a new covert channel based on Google Analytic web cookies in HTTP protocol. The new covert channel is difficult to disrupt and is capable of reasonably high bandwidths. The Google Analytic framework is used by over half of the most popular web sites currently on the Internet; its ubiquitousness across the web implies a great impact of this covert channel.