Measuring Developers' Software Security Skills, Usage, and Training Needs

Software security does not emerge fully formed by divine intervention in deserving software development organizations; it requires that developers have the required theoretical background and practical skills to enable them to write secure software, and that the software security activities are actually performed, not just documented procedures that sit gathering dust on a shelf. In this chapter, the authors present a survey instrument that can be used to investigate software security usage, competence, and training needs in agile organizations. They present results of using this instrument in two organizations. They find that regardless of cost or benefit, skill drives the kind of activities that are performed, and secure design may be the most important training need.

Bloodguilt, Curse, and 2 Sam 21

The dynamics of retribution and divine characterisation in 2 Samuel 11–20 are compared and contrasted with the formulation of divine violence in 2 Samuel 21. The famine that breaks out in the land and the expiation of the land through the deaths of Saul’s sons are attributed to natural consequences of breaking an oath and incurring bloodguilt on the land. The famine is not a divine punishment, but a consequence for unatoned bloodguilt. The oath is sworn in God’s name, the land is a ‘possession of the LORD’ and the slaughter takes place ‘before the LORD.’ Yet overall there is little divine characterisation, and the famine takes place because of a lack of divine intervention, rather than a result of divine punishment.

Wars and Foreign Interventions in Greece in the 1820s

In Greece, the 1820s is a well-remembered decade. Many things happened which future Greek generations can study and learn. In the beginning of the decade (1821), some Greeks rebelled against the Ottomans, but, parallel with this War of Independence, they, as did so many times in their heroic past, started fighting between themselves (1823-1825). The Olympians intervened, as in Homer’s masterpieces, and “independence” came as a result of a direct foreign (divine) intervention by Britain (Poseidon), France (Athena) and Russia (Hera). This began first in the battlefields in 1827, and then at the negotiation table in 1832. This paper looks at the reasons of all of these three types of events (the Greek War of Independence, its civil wars and the foreign interventions), as well as their results. The reasons are traced by applying the rule: “follow the money.” Of course, the obvious result was the official creation of an “independent” Greek state. However, other concurrent events have had long-lasting effects on the Greek political and military developments, which lasted until the end of the third quarter of the 20th century. These developments are only briefly discussed in this paper.

El rigor y la gloria: el Juicio Final y su repercusión en la modernidad

This work presents a historical journey on the doctrine of the Last Judgment, starting from its antecedents in ancient Judaism, its rise in the millennial ideology of the Middle Ages, until reaching certain perspectives of its repercussion in Modernity. The Final Judgment forms a doctrine that combines the image of God as a rigorous judge who executes the Law, applying the punishments or prizes related to the works carried out in life, with the vision of a glorious king who will manifest his messianic kingdom in which the human beings will be saved by grace of divine intervention.

Flowers of evil: Constructing the wicked in Wisdom of Solomon

The distinction between the good and the wicked is common in wisdom literature. Although the distinction can be viewed as ubiquitous, I would like to problematize it by considering the literary device deployed in constructing the archetypes of the good and the wicked. Specifically, I analyze the depiction of the wicked in chapters 1–6 in Wisdom of Solomon and argue that the construction of the wicked in Wisdom is indispensable in understanding how the righteous obtain wisdom through divine protection and acceptance of divine provision. First, I offer a close reading of the text, mainly Chapters 1–6, and parse out the ways of depicting the wicked in Wisdom of Solomon. In particular, I highlight the “collectivity” of the crowd, as opposed to a “single” righteous individual or group. Social theories of the crowd are critical to my formulation of the characteristics of the wicked. Second, I examine the relationship between the wicked and the righteous, and propose the idea of “a mirror effect” in these antithetical depictions. The mirror effect exhibits didactic values, as it instructs one to pursue righteousness and shun from evil. Third, I focus on the interaction between God, the righteous, and the wicked and suggest that divine intervention in helping the righteous stand firm among the wicked manifests both divine justice and divine mercy.

Loyalty

This chapter analyzes the Scriptures in several hymns prescribed for Holy Tuesday, whose theme is faithfulness (loyalty), as shown by the three Jewish youths thrown by Nebuchadnezzar into a fiery furnace but saved by divine intervention, of an angel/son of God (Dan 3). The Theodotion version, which replaces the Septuagint of Daniel in Eastern Orthodox tradition, underscores the three youths’ unconditioned faithfulness (Dan 3:17–18), compared to the seven Maccabee brothers’ martyrdom (2 Macc 7). Thus, the three youths prefigure Christ’s perfect faithfulness tested through suffering up to the cross. Moreover, the lection Job 1:13–22 prescribed for this day points to Job as another type of the faithful Christ. The lection Matt 25:1–13 (parable of the ten bridesmaids) reminds one again of watchfulness, this time as prerequisite to faithfulness. The hymnographers interconnect the fiery furnace episode with the burning bush story (Exod 3).

All Production Is Reproduction

The aim of this article is to probe the connections between two key fields of knowledge of the French Enlightenment: political economy and natural history. It does so by analyzing the uses of reproduction, a term that eighteenth-century political economists imported from natural history. While historians of knowledge have demonstrated the crucial role played by political and economic concerns in the practices of naturalists, intent on improving their nation, the significance of natural history for the development of political economy has not been sufficiently analyzed. Studying side-by-side the works of the period’s most famous school of political economy, the physiocrats, and one of its most influential naturalists, the Comte de Buffon, the paper demonstrates that the physiocrats adopted not only the term from natural historians, but also the conceptual baggage that accompanied it. Buffon radically reconceptualized the reproduction of living beings as a process governed by natural laws and not divine intervention. As the paper argues, the physiocrats’ political-economic system was based on precisely such a conception of the natural laws of reproduction, which they extended from the world of the living to the entire economy of the nation.

Our Lady of the Rosary La Naval in the Making of the Spanish Pacific

This chapter studies the history of Our Lady of the Rosary La Naval from her foundational miracles in Japan, Ternate, and Mindoro to her divine intervention in the Dutch war of 1646, the event that gave her the name of “La Naval.” It shows that Manila was “the gate” through which one entered the other provinces and kingdoms of Asia, and Our Lady of the Rosary became the saint who stood loyally by her Spanish soldiers, regardless of their ranks or criminal histories. More specifically, it reveals that Spanish devotees embraced her cult because her miracles reinforced what they believed to be Spain’s predestined role in the Pacific as the cross-bearer against all heathens and heretics.