DOCSLIB.ORG

Build It, Break It, Fix It: Contesting Secure Development

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Build It, Break It, Fix It: Contesting Secure Development Build It, Break It, Fix It: Contesting Secure Development Andrew Ruef Michael Hicks James Parker Dave Levin Michelle L. Mazurek Piotr Mardziely University of Maryland yCarnegie Mellon University experts have long advocated that achieving security in a computer system requires treating security as a first-order ABSTRACT design goal [32], and is not something that can be added after the fact. As such, we should not assume that good Typical security contests focus on breaking or mitigating the breakers will necessarily be good builders [23], nor that top impact of buggy systems. We present the Build-it, Break-it, coders necessarily produce secure systems. Fix-it (BIBIFI) contest, which aims to assess the ability to This paper presents Build-it, Break-it, Fix-it (BIBIFI), securely build software, not just break it. In BIBIFI, teams a new security contest with a focus on building secure sys- build specified software with the goal of maximizing correct- tems. A BIBIFI contest has three phases. The first phase, ness, performance, and security. The latter is tested when Build-it, asks small development teams to build software ac- teams attempt to break other teams' submissions. Win- cording to a provided specification that includes security ners are chosen from among the best builders and the best goals. The software is scored for being correct, efficient, and breakers. BIBIFI was designed to be open-ended|teams feature-ful. The second phase, Break-it, asks teams to find can use any language, tool, process, etc. that they like. As defects in other teams' build-it submissions. Reported de- such, contest outcomes shed light on factors that correlate fects, proved via test cases vetted by an oracle implementa- with successfully building secure software and breaking inse- tion, benefit a break-it team's score and penalize the build-it cure software. During 2015, we ran three contests involving team's score; more points are assigned to security-relevant a total of 116 teams and two different programming prob- problems. (A team's break-it and build-it scores are inde- lems. Quantitative analysis from these contests found that pendent, with prizes for top scorers in each category.) The the most efficient build-it submissions used C/C++, but final phase, Fix-it, asks builders to fix bugs and thereby get submissions coded in other statically-typed languages were points back if the process discovers that distinct break-it less likely to have a security flaw; build-it teams with di- test cases identify the same defect. verse programming-language knowledge also produced more BIBIFI's design aims to minimize the manual effort of secure code. Shorter programs correlated with better scores. running a contest, helping it scale. BIBIFI's structure and Break-it teams that were also successful build-it teams were scoring system also aim to encourage meaningful outcomes, significantly better at finding security bugs. e.g., to ensure that the top-scoring build-it teams really pro- duce secure and efficient software. Behaviors that would thwart such outcomes are discouraged. For example, break- it teams may submit a limited number of bug reports per 1. INTRODUCTION build-it submission, and will lose points during fix-it for test Cybersecurity contests [24, 25, 11, 27, 13] are popular cases that expose the same underlying defect or a defect also proving grounds for cybersecurity talent. Existing contests identified by other teams. As such, they are encouraged to largely focus on breaking (e.g., exploiting vulnerabilities or look for bugs broadly (in many submissions) and deeply (to misconfigurations) and mitigation (e.g., rapid patching or uncover hard-to-find bugs). reconfiguration). They do not, however, test contestants' In addition to providing a novel educational experience, ability to build (i.e., design and implement) systems that are BIBIFI presents an opportunity to study the building and secure in the first place. Typical programming contests [35, breaking process scientifically. In particular, BIBIFI con- 2, 21] do focus on design and implementation, but generally tests may serve as a quasi-controlled experiment that cor- ignore security. This state of affairs is unfortunate because relates participation data with final outcome. By exam- ining artifacts and participant surveys, we can study how Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or the choice of build-it programming language, team size and classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation experience, code size, testing technique, etc. can influence a on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the team's (non)success in the build-it or break-it phases. To the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or extent that contest problems are realistic and contest partic- republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]. ipants represent the professional developer community, the CCS’16, October 24 – 28, 2016, Vienna, Austria results of this study may provide useful empirical evidence c 2016 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. for practices that help or harm real-world security. Indeed, ISBN 978-1-4503-4139-4/16/10. $15.00 the contest environment could be used to incubate ideas to DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2976749.2978382 improve development security, with the best ideas making a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the results. We their way to practice. will be making the BIBIFI code and infrastructure publicly This paper studies the outcomes of three BIBIFI contests available so that others may run their own competitions; we that we held during 2015, involving two different program- hope that this opens up a line of research built on empir- ming problems. The first contest asked participants to build ical experiments with secure programming methodologies.1 a secure, append-only log for adding and querying events More information, data, and opportunities to participate are generated by a hypothetical art gallery security system. At- available at https://builditbreakit.org. tackers with direct access to the log, but lacking an \authen- The rest of this paper is organized as follows. We present tication token," should not be able to steal or corrupt the the design of BIBIFI in x2 and describe specifics of the con- data it contains. The second and third contests were run tests we ran in x3. We present the quantitative analysis of simultaneously. They asked participants to build a pair of the data we collected from these contests in x4, and qual- secure, communicating programs, one representing an ATM itative analysis in x5. We review related work in x6 and and the other representing a bank. Attackers acting as a conclude in x7. man in the middle (MITM) should neither be able to steal information (e.g., bank account names or balances) nor cor- 2. BUILD-IT, BREAK-IT, FIX-IT rupt it (e.g., stealing from or adding money to accounts). Two of the three contests drew participants from a MOOC This section describes the goals, design, and implementa- (Massive Online Open Courseware) course on cybersecurity. tion of the BIBIFI competition. At the highest level, our These participants (278 total, comprising 109 teams) had an aim is to create an environment that closely reflects real- average of 10 years of programming experience and had just world development goals and constraints, and to encourage completed a four-course sequence including courses on se- build-it teams to write the most secure code they can, and cure software and cryptography. The third contest involved break-it teams to perform the most thorough, creative anal- U.S.-based graduate and undergraduate students (23 total, ysis of others' code they can. We achieve this through a comprising 6 teams) with less experience and training. careful design of how the competition is run and how vari- BIBIFI's design permitted it to scale reasonably well. For ous acts are scored (or penalized). We also aim to minimize example, one full-time person and two part-time judges ran the manual work required of the organizers|to allow the the first 2015 contest in its entirety. This contest involved contest to scale|by employing automation and proper par- 156 participants comprising 68 teams, which submitted more ticipant incentives. than 20,000 test cases. And yet, organizer effort was lim- 2.1 Competition phases ited to judging whether the few hundred submitted fixes addressed only a single conceptual defect; other work was We begin by describing the high-level mechanics of what handled automatically or by the participants themselves. occurs during a BIBIFI competition. BIBIFI may be ad- Rigorous quantitative analysis of the contests' outcomes ministered on-line, rather than on-site, so teams may be geo- revealed several interesting, statistically significant effects. graphically distributed. The contest comprises three phases, Considering build-it scores: Writing code in C/C++ in- each of which last about two weeks for the contests we de- creased build-it scores initially, but also increased chances scribe in this paper. of a security bug found later. Interestingly, the increased BIBIFI begins with the build-it phase. Registered build- insecurity for C/C++ programs appears to be almost en- it teams aim to implement the target software system ac- tirely attributable to memory-safety bugs. Teams that had cording to a published specification created by the contest broader programming language knowledge or that wrote less organizers.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Revolutionary Betrayal: the Fall of King George III in the Experience Of
    LIBERTY UNIVERSITY REVOLUTIONARY BETRAYAL: THE FALL OF KING GEORGE III IN THE EXPERIENCE OF POLITICIANS, PLANTERS, AND PREACHERS A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE HISTORY DEPARTMENT IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF HISTORY BY BENJAMIN J. BARLOWE LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA APRIL 2013 Table of Contents Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: “Great Britain May Thank Herself:” King George III, Congressional Delegates, and American Independence, 1774-1776 .................................... 11 Chapter 2: Master and Slave, King and Subject: Southern Planters and the Fall of King George III ....................................................................................... 41 Chapter 3: “No Trace of Papal Bondage:” American Patriot Ministers and the Fall of King George III ................................................................................ 62 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 89 Bibliography ...................................................................................................... 94 1 Introduction When describing the imperial crisis of 1763-1776 between the British government and the American colonists, historians often refer to Great Britain as a united entity unto itself, a single character in the imperial conflict. While this offers rhetorical benefits, it oversimplifies the complex constitutional relationship between the American
    [Show full text]
  • SEINFELD Revision #1 (Pink) 34. “The Contest” Oct 26 1992 (2/P)
    SEINFELD Revision #1 (pink) 34. “The Contest” Oct 26 1992 (2/P) (Jerry, George, Elaine) ACT TWO SCENE P INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY (3) JERRY AND GEORGE JERRY So the nurse gave her a sponge bath? GEORGE Yeah. Everynight at 6:30. The nurse is gorgeous. Then I got a glimpse of the patient. I was going nuts. JERRY So, I guess you’ll be back in that hospital. GEORGE Well, my mother... JERRY But you’re still master of your domain. SEINFELD Revision #1 (pink) 35. “The Contest” Oct 26 1992 (2/P) GEORGE I’m king of the county. What about you? JERRY Lord of the manor. ELAINE ENTERS, SITS. ELAINE ...John F. Kennedy Jr. JERRY What? ELAINE He was in the aerobics class. He was exercising in front of me. JERRY Really? Did you talk to him? ELAINE You don’t understand. He worked out in front of me. When the class was over I timed my walk to the door so we’d get there at the same moment. So he says to me, “Quite a workout.” GEORGE “Quite a workout?” What did you say? ELAINE I said, “yeah.” SEINFELD Revision #1 (pink) 36. “The Contest” Oct 26 1992 (2/P) JERRY Good one. ELAINE Then I showered and dressed and I saw him again on the way out. So he holds the door open for me and he says, “Which way are you walking?” and I said, “Which way are you walking?” And he said, “That way.” And I said, “Well, isn’t that a coincidence?” Of course I was going in the opposite direction..
    [Show full text]
  • Universi^ Micrcxilms Liitemational 300 N
    INFORMATION TO USERS This reproduction was made from a copy of a document sent to us for microfilming. While the most advanced technology has been used to photograph and reproduce this document, the quality of the reproduction is heavily dependent upon the quality of the material submitted. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help clarify markings or notations which may appear on this reproduction. 1. The sign or “target” for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is “Missing Page(s)”. If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting through an image and duplicating adjacent pages to assure complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a round black mark, it is an indication of either blurred copy because of movement during exposure, duplicate copy, or copyrighted materials that should not have been filmed. For blurred pages, a good image of the page can be found in the adjacent frame. If copyrighted materials were deleted, a target note will appear listing the pages in the adjacent frame. 3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., is part of the material being photographed, a definite method of “sectioning” the material has been followed. It is customary to begin filming at the upper left hand comer of a large sheet and to continue from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. If necessary, sectioning is continued again—beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete.
    [Show full text]
  • The Contest for Innovation: Strengthening America’S National Security Innovation Base in an Era of Strategic Competition
    The Contest for Innovation: Strengthening America’s National Security Innovation Base in an Era of Strategic Competition Report of the Task Force on 21st-Century National Security Technology and Workforce “As surely as America’s pioneer spirit made us the industrial giant of the 20th century, the same pioneer spirit today is opening up on another vast front of opportunities – the frontier of high technology.” - President Ronald Reagan Mission Statement The Ronald Reagan Institute, the Washington, DC, office of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, promotes our 40th President’s ideals, vision, and leadership example through substantive, issue-driven forums, academic and young professional programming, and scholarly work. Table of Contents • Task Force Members 4 • Task Force Senior Advisors 5 • Task Force Briefers 6 • Introduction 7 • What Is at Stake 9 • Defining the National Security Innovation Base 10 • Measuring and Assessing the Competition 11 • Developing a Proactive Strategy to Gain a Competitive 13 Advantage in National Technological Innovation • Directing, Coordinating, and Incentivizing the NSIB 13 • Optimizing and Harnessing Private-Sector Innovation 17 • Winning the War for Talent 22 • Mobilizing Allies and Partners 25 • Conclusion 28 3 Task Force Co-Chairs The Honorable Jim Talent The Honorable Robert O. Work Senior Fellow, Bipartisan Policy Center Distinguished Senior Fellow, Center Former U.S. Senator (R-MO) for a New American Security Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Task Force Members Ms. Lisa Atherton Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) President and CEO, Textron Systems Former National Security Specialist, Department of Defense Congressman Jim Banks (R-IN) Lieutenant, U.S. Navy Reserve Mr. Donald J.
    [Show full text]
  • Applying Insights from Cultural Studies to Adult Education: What Seinfeld Says About the AERC
    Kansas State University Libraries New Prairie Press Adult Education Research Conference 1999 Conference Proceedings (DeKalb, IL) Applying Insights from Cultural Studies to Adult Education: What Seinfeld Says About the AERC Nod Miller University of East London, UK Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/aerc Part of the Adult and Continuing Education Administration Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License Recommended Citation Miller, Nod (1999). "Applying Insights from Cultural Studies to Adult Education: What Seinfeld Says About the AERC," Adult Education Research Conference. https://newprairiepress.org/aerc/1999/papers/30 This is brought to you for free and open access by the Conferences at New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Adult Education Research Conference by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Applying Insights from Cultural Studies to Adult Education: What Seinfeld Says About the AERC Nod Miller University of East London, UK Abstract: The zany adventures of a glamorous British professor who goes to an important international conference but spends most of her time searching for a TV in order to watch her favourite sitcom. Despite her commitment to "no hugging, no learning", she gains some profound insights into mass culture, adult education, friendship and postmodernity as a result. Parental guidance suggested. Prologue: The Convergence This paper has grown out of a critical incident in my own learning biography, where a convergence of two cultural events brought together several discrete elements of my personal and professional identity and led me to reflect on aspects of relationships between the mass media and adult education.
    [Show full text]
  • The Schlemiel and the Schlimazl in Seinfeld
    Journal of Popular Film and Television ISSN: 0195-6051 (Print) 1930-6458 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjpf20 The Schlemiel and the Schlimazl in Seinfeld Carla Johnson To cite this article: Carla Johnson (1994) The Schlemiel and the Schlimazl in Seinfeld, Journal of Popular Film and Television, 22:3, 116-124, DOI: 10.1080/01956051.1994.9943676 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01956051.1994.9943676 Published online: 14 Jul 2010. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 44 Citing articles: 7 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vjpf20 ~~ ~ ~~ ~~ ~ Over five seasons, America has witnessed the schlemiel-and-schlimazlstyle idiocies of sidekicks Elaine, Jerry Seinfeld, and George. 116 The Schlemiel and the Schlimazl in Seinfeld By CARLA JOHNSON omeone has stolen George’s whose ‘accident’ spills the soup ... onto glasses, or so he thinks. He others” (Pinkster 6). In the above has actually left them on top episode (aired 2 December 1993), Jerry of his locker at the health plays the schlimazl to George’s club. He steps out from the optical schlemiel. Over five seasons, in episode shop, where he is trying on new after well-watched episode, America frames, squints down the street, and has witnessed the schlemiel-and- “sees” Jerry’s girlfriend Amy kissing schlimazl style idiocies of sidekicks Jerry’s cousin. Never mind that the Jerry, George, and Elaine.2 Whereas frames he is wearing have no lenses. George Costanza, Elaine Benes, and He reports the siting to Jerry.
    [Show full text]
  • Masaryk University Faculty of Arts
    Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Šárka Tripesová The Anatomy of Humour in the Situation Comedy Seinfeld Bachelor‟s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. Pavel Drábek, Ph.D. 2010 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Šárka Tripesová ii Acknowledgement I would like to thank Mgr. Pavel Drábek, Ph.D. for the invaluable guidance he provided me as a supervisor. Also, my special thanks go to my boyfriend and friends for their helpful discussions and to my family for their support. iii Table of Contents 1 INTRODUCTION 1 2 SEINFELD AS A SITUATION COMEDY 3 2.1 SEINFELD SERIES: THE REALITY AND THE SHOW 3 2.2 SITUATION COMEDY 6 2.3 THE PROCESS OF CREATING A SEINFELD EPISODE 8 2.4 METATHEATRICAL APPROACH 9 2.5 THE DEPICTION OF CHARACTERS 10 3 THE TECHNIQUES OF HUMOUR DELIVERY 12 3.1 VERBAL TECHNIQUES 12 3.1.1 DIALOGUES 12 3.1.2 MONOLOGUES 17 3.2 NON-VERBAL TECHNIQUES 20 3.2.1 PHYSICAL COMEDY AND PANTOMIMIC FEATURES 20 3.2.2 MONTAGE 24 3.3 COMBINED TECHNIQUES 27 3.3.1 GAG 27 4 THE METHODS CAUSING COMICAL EFFECT 30 4.1 SEINFELD LANGUAGE 30 4.2 METAPHORICAL EXPRESSION 32 4.3 THE TWIST OF PERSPECTIVE 35 4.4 CONTRAST 40 iv 4.5 EXAGGERATION AND CARICATURE 43 4.6 STAND-UP 47 4.7 RUNNING GAG 49 4.8 RIDICULE AND SELF-RIDICULE 50 5 CONCLUSION 59 6 SUMMARY 60 7 SHRNUTÍ 61 8 PRIMARY SOURCES 62 9 REFERENCES 70 v 1 Introduction Everyone as a member of society experiences everyday routine and recurring events.
    [Show full text]
  • Archival Body/Archival Space: Queer Remains of the Chicano Art Movement, Los Angeles, 1969-2009
    ABSTRACT Title of Document: ARCHIVAL BODY/ARCHIVAL SPACE: QUEER REMAINS OF THE CHICANO ART MOVEMENT, LOS ANGELES, 1969-2009. Robert Lyle Hernandez, III, Ph.D., 2011 Directed By: Associate Professor Mary Corbin Sies, American Studies This dissertation proposes an interdisciplinary queer archive methodology I term ―archival body/archival space,‖ which recovers, interprets, and assesses the alternative archives and preservation practices of homosexual men in the Chicano Art Movement, the cultural arm of the Mexican American civil rights struggle in the U.S. Without access to systemic modes of preservation, these men generated other archival practices to resist their erasure, omission, and obscurity. The study conducts a series of archive excavations mining ―archival bodies‖ of homosexual artists from buried and unseen ―archival spaces,‖ such as: domestic interiors, home furnishings, barrio neighborhoods, and museum installations. This allows us to reconstruct the artist archive and, thus, challenge how we see, know, and comprehend ―Chicano art‖ as an aesthetic and cultural category. As such, I evidence the critical role of sexual difference within this visual vocabulary and illuminate networks of homosexual Chicano artists taking place in gay bars, alternative art spaces, salons, and barrios throughout East Los Angeles. My queer archive study model consists of five interpretative strategies: sexual agency of Chicano art, queer archival afterlife, containers of desire, archival chiaroscuro, and archive elicitation. I posit that by speaking through these artifact formations, the ―archival body‖ performs the allegorical bones and flesh of the artist, an artifactual surrogacy articulated through things. My methodological innovation has direct bearing on how sexual difference shapes the material record and the places from which these ―queer remains‖ are kept, sheltered, and displayed.
    [Show full text]
  • Build It Break It: Measuring and Comparing Development Security
    Build It Break It: Measuring and Comparing Development Security Andrew Ruef, Michael Hicks, James Parker, Dave Levin, Atif Memon, Jandelyn Plane, and Piotr Mardziel University of Maryland, College Park Abstract and activities, such as code reviews and penetra- tion testing, can improve software’s security. The There is currently little evidence about what tools, question is how effective these (and other) things methods, processes, and languages lead to secure are, in terms of their costs vs. benefits. Companies software. We present the experimental design of the would like to know: Which technologies or pro- Build it Break it secure programming contest as an cesses shake out the most (critical) bugs? Which aim to provide such evidence. The contest also pro- are the easiest to use? Which have the least impact vides education value to participants where they on other metrics of software quality, such as perfor- gain experience developing programs in an adver- mance and maintainability? It is currently difficult sarial settings. We show preliminary results from to answer these questions because we lack the em- previous runs of the contest that demonstrate the pirical evidence needed to do so. contest works as designed, and provides the data desired. We are in the process of scaling the contest In this paper we present Build-it, Break-it, Fix- to collect larger data sets with the goal of making it (BiBiFi), a new software security contest that is statistically significant correlations between vari- a fun experience for contestants, as well as an ex- ous factors of development and software security. perimental testbed by which researchers can gather empirical evidence about secure development.
    [Show full text]
  • Yada Yada Yada
    Robinson !1 Joshua Robinson Yada Yada Yada I had volunteered to submit my essay on the earliest available day for my Advanced Creative Nonfiction class. This was my chance to write for a new, captive audience, and I wanted to transcend the “typical sports fan meathead” cliche that followed sports journalists everywhere. I had one chance to make a lasting first impression that would last through the Fall semester and beyond. So I wrote a story about my experience watching the Kings win a Stanley Cup Finals game with my brother. But before I submitted the essay, I passed it along to my mentor; he had devoted a substantial part of his college education to creative writing, so I assumed that he would lend me a tremendously valuable and profound criticism. I was somewhat surprised by his first impression. Because yes, he promptly returned my call. And yes, he gave me some positive reception. And yes, he gave me some negative criticism. And yes, he voiced his hesitations about the content. And yes, he offered some suggestions on tweaks within the story. And yada yada yada. But of course I finally asked him the question: “So what did you think?” His initial reply: “I like it. Your voice is very… Seinfeldian.” Of all the ideas and critiques and themes I’d imagined to possibly describe my essay, referencing a 90s sitcom was not one of them. My confusion didn’t come from a lack of familiarity with the show itself; as a matter of fact, I love Seinfeld. I have all nine seasons on DVD; I’m virtually unbeatable at “Seinfeld Robinson !2 SceneIt”; I even have a strange collectors package comprised of Seinfeld-themed playing cards, salt and pepper shakers, and a napkin dispenser.
    [Show full text]
  • A Content Analysis of Health-Related Themes
    Journal of Health Education Teaching, 2011; 2(1):1-7 Copyright: www.jhetonline.com All rights reserved The Use of a Situation-Comedy in the Delivery of Media Messages: A Content Analysis of Health-Related Themes Tony N. Trunfio, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Health SUNY Cortland 208-A Moffett Center Cortland, NY 13045 [email protected] Telephone: 607-753-2976 ABSTRACT A quantitative-qualitative historical content analysis of selected Seinfeld television comedy episodes was conducted for this study. Episodes were analyzed for the presence of health-related messages pertaining to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention‟s health priority areas, which include the most harmful risk behaviors affecting today‟s youth. A random selection of 88 of 176 Seinfeld episodes aired from July 5, 1989 until its finale on May 14, 1998, resulted in 787 health-related messages for the study. Over the course of nine seasons, more health-related messages were found in later years. INTRODUCTION Purpose Television is an entertainment and The need exists to make learning and educational media present in 99% of all instruction not only more interesting to the households4. Success has been found using student, but more relevant. Instead of trying to television to analyze cultures3, enhance confine students’ minds for long periods of time, vocabulary development5, study organizational more success can be found with quicker, behavior6 and teach physics7. Situation visually stimulating techniques1 and sensory comedies should not be omitted
    [Show full text]
  • “Not That There's Anything Wrong with That”: A
    GRAAT issue # 2 – June 2007 “Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That”: A Queer Reading of Seinfeld Charlotte Gould Université Rennes 2 – Haute Bretagne One particular expression seems to spring to mind whenever one evokes the reference to homosexuality in a television series or serial: “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” The phrase appears in an episode of the 1990s American-sitcom- turned-cultural-phenomenon Seinfeld. In “The Outing” (4.57) a young journalist believes Jerry and George to be a gay couple—they bicker in front of her over an unwashed piece of fruit and George reproaches Jerry with not liking his shirt. She writes an article about it which is then taken up by the rest of the national press, and this to the dismay of both characters. Jerry comments thus upon the misunderstanding: “I’ve been outed, I wasn’t even in!” “Not that there’s anything wrong with that” is the leitmotiv of the episode, uttered every time a character denies they are gay or shows amazement at Jerry and George’s outing—though the fact that Jerry is admittedly thin, single, neat and in his late thirties makes the revelation less surprising to his neighbour Kramer. The sentence was introduced in the dialogue after the episode was almost cancelled when the executives at NBC thought it might offend the gay and lesbian communities and was not politically correct enough. Larry Charles, one of the writers of this specific show and a regular contributor to the programme, kept repeating the frightened mantra, which Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld eventually picked up on as a running joke rather than a warning, to great success what’s more, since “The Outing” went on to become a favourite, especially with the gay and lesbian communities, its catchphrase making its way into everyday talk.
    [Show full text]