The Engineering Projects

Introduction to Quantum Cryptography

Hello friends, I hope you all are doing great. Today I am going to discuss and explain to you, Quantum Cryptography, in this article, you will learn what Quantum cryptography is and how the data was stored and transmitted by the first generation computers from one device to another. It's going to be a long series and today, I am posting its first lecture, so I'll only cover the basics. I will briefly give you an overview of its history & we will understand How it has evolved in the past and now became an important part of digital world. So, let's get started:

Quantum Cryptography

We know that digital data is always stored in bit format i.e. 0's and 1's but first generation computers stored the data using the method of Punch Tape (you can find the illustration below): As you can see in above image, we have a pattern of punch holes. Here, holes are representing 0s and the plain surfaces are representing 1s. This type of data was authentic & reliable and there was almost zero percent chance of the data to get destroyed. Then we entered the evolution of Hard Disk, which stores the data to bits in the electromagnetic form, which actually stores in the form of 1s and 0s. If you look at the picture carefully, you will see they have opposite polarity. In the hard disk, data is not as secured as in punch tape as you may get In this 21st century, we are using Quantum Computer which is known as Q-bit. It exists in the form of superposition with the algorithms. So the data will be stored and transmitted through supercomputers.

Cryptography

As the means of communication are getting smarter, the security of sensitive or private data and information has become the highest risk. Therefore, the goal is to transmit the data and information safely from one server to another, this method is known as Cryptography. In this method, the data and information are hidden between two servers, in a way that any third party/hacker unables to access them in an unauthorized way. (As we can see nowadays in our Whatsapp, the chats are end-to-end encrypted). We click it to disable the access of any third party to our data and to ensure that our chats are safe. The cryptography can function through various methods to secure the data. The easiest philosophy is that both the sender and receiver have a codebook. So the sender, let's name it Bob and the receiver is Alice:

• Bob wants to send some information "A" to the receiver. ( Let's suppose, "A" is equal to 18) .
• We pick a code from our codebook which is 93, we will add this code in our data i.e. 18+93 = 111 and then we will subtract 100 from this product and we will get 11.
• We send this 11 to the receiver, so we have done the data encoding.
• The receiver should know the same pattern as he has the codebook and it must know that it should perform the reverse action.
• It has to subtract the code 93 from 11, i.e. 11-93= -82, then will need to add 100 to it i.e. -82+100=18 and 18 is our data "A".

Now suppose, if any third party, lets name it Eve, gets the information 11, it is unable to reproduce the data unless it has the codebook and the same number. Let me inform you if we start transmitting the data and information in mass quantity, it will become easy for Eve to start predicting the codebook and how the data is being ciphered and it will be able to collect the data and make its codebook. The same method is used by hackers who try to access the data. They have supercomputers to operate such tasks and they try to reproduce the codebook through reverse engineering.

History

We will learn the historical background that how in the early generation the cryptography was functioned and ciphered.

• It's about 400 BC when a human sent data from one point to another, using the method of scytale which was called Permutations.

      so if I have a message "ABC", I can write it in a few forms such as BAC, CAB, ACB, and our receiver must know the method of our permutation, so if you want to send a message " SEND HELP" (Illustration below), You can find how the message will appear after permutation and the receiver will know how to decipher it, this pattern was known as scytale.

Ceaser Cipher Substitution

Here I interpret about Greeks, Julius Ceaser produced a cipher called substitution method. In this method, we have A to Z characters and we will stimulate a circular cycle through it. As the AB and C will be shifted at the end. So we shifted the ABCD to three places. Now we get the new encryption scheme that A is represented by D, B by E, C by F and respectively (find the pattern in the illustration). Now the receiver must know how many places A, B, C, and D have to be shifted, then he will be able to retrieve the data. This code of data was easily deciphered by a Muslim scientist, AL Kindi, however, if you look at the data, it is almost impossible to break the code of this data, but Al Kindi deciphered it with a single trick. According to him, he described that if we have a book, see how many times the character E is placed. He finds that in every hundred alphabets E holds twelve places and the T keeps 9 places then A and O and so on. If you see any book of English, you will find the same probability distribution. Suppose you have replaced E from J and you have sent the data.so the C which has the data will determine which word has been included numerous times and the probability of the letter J will be defined. The probability of the letter J will be 0.12 which makes the fraction of 12/100 then it will be able to detect that the letter E has been replaced by letter J. The same pattern will be followed by the next letter i.e. T. the C can easily decipher all the letters replacements through reverse engineering method, so Al-Kindi was the code breaker he deciphered the codes of Julius Ceaser. To break any code you are required a massive amount of encrypted data, the more you have the encrypted data the easier it will be for you to reproduce the codebook. The Eve is capable of accessing the data based on encryption it contains.

Alberti encryption disc

Let us have a look at another cipher technique which is known as Alberti encryption disc. It was founded by Leon Battista Alberti. The alphabets were placed against another disc which has different characters as well. ( illustration below), but if we rotate the upper disc and shift the Letters, all the characters will be facing different letters, for example, A will be facing e, B will be facing g, C will face k and all the alphabets face their characters respectively. The receiver should know how many times it has been shifted, whether it is shifted to three points, four points or ten points. Therefore the receiver will use the reverse engineering method and will be able to decipher your code. Suppose, if I want to send “SELL” then I need to:

• rotated the disc seven times then S will be replaced by Z,
• same as for E, I will rotate it till fourteen points, then E will be replaced by S,
• the third rotation will occur nineteen in steps for the letter L and L will be replaced by the character E,
• then again I will have to rotate it in seven steps, but this time we will have the character S in replacement of L.

Now you can view, as L wasn't represented by code A, the first L is coded by E and the second L is coded by S, which is much difficult to decipher or to reproduce, on the other hand, I need to tell the decoder or the receiver, 7, 14, 19, that you have to decode it, with this pattern. This code was broken by Charles Babbage, he pioneered that we can decode an Enigma Rotary Machine.

Enigma Rotary

Enigma Rotary encryption machine is a generator that was used in World War II, the data was encrypted in a massive quantity. You can see in the image below that the disc is used multiple times. So we use this disc multiple times and change it with our texts. Hence one side is being coded and the other side is being informed about the steps. This was decoded by Marian Rejewski. The evolution of ciphering and deciphering has been taking place equally.

One-time pad

In this era, we need a cipher technique which is indecipherable. Let me show you a simple technique which is called a one-time pad. In this technique, I have a plain text, I will convert the text into numbers through Pulaski code then I will perform a linear operation and add a random/secret key with it, the encrypted message will become a random or secret one due to this operation, and this text will be transmitted then. When this transmitted message will be received by the decoder he will already know the key, and he will perform a reverse operation to decipher the text, but wait: How the key itself will be sent to the receiver? Because it may be possible that the sender is in the USA and Receiver is in Japan, therefore the security of the key itself becomes a matter of ultimate concern. Because if the third party gets access to the key it will be able to reach all the data we are transmitting.

 How do we secure the key?

An algorithm is designed to secure the key which is called RSA, we use two keys in this pattern one key is locked by us, which is called a public key and that locked data is sent to the receiver. So we lock and encrypt the data with the public key and sent it. You will find two keys in the figure below one key is public and the other one is private. The receiver already has the private key so it can decipher the data, for example, Bob has to send the data to Alice, therefore, Alice would have two keys, one is public which everyone knows and the other one will be the private one, which is only known by Alice. Bob will attain the public key from Alice and encrypt the data through it and that encrypted data will be sent to Alice. Alice will decrypt the data through its private key, Eve cannot decrypt this data from her public key now. That is only for encryption. So once you encrypt the data you will be unable to reverse the data into its original state. Here we have two keys first one is for encryption and the other one is for decryption. Quantum Computers can find the relation between both keys The great minds presumed that the relation between the public key and the private key shouldn't be detected by third parties. So that they cannot estimate or predict the keys by getting one of them because the public key is known to everyone. Therefore it designed an irrelevant and uncorrelated pattern so our system is more secured with it, but still, there is some relation exist among the keys because we cannot produce the pure random numbers using the computer algorithms. The hackers or third parties try to find the relation between the keys and once they can access that they will easily decipher our codes, for this purpose they are required fast computers. To sum up with the idea that in upcoming computer generations the supercomputers will be performing the task of trillion years within hours. It will be a matter of minutes to decode and encodings and for this purpose, numerous agencies are storing the data which they are unable to decipher today. so that after 20 or 30 years when the Quantum computers will functioning, they will easily decode the data and find out what conversation was taking place or what data were being transmitted.

Introduction to Cyber Security

Hello friends, I hope you all are doing great. In today's tutorial, I am going to give you a detailed Introduction to Cyber Security. You must have noticed that whenever you are registering on any site or using any online service, you need to tap on "agree" and normally we do that without reading their privacy policy and security agreement. We have also synced our photos and contacts online and these websites keep the user data, they know about us more than we know ourselves. All our data, location, information & search history can be monitored. So in this technological era, we must be aware of our online security so that we don't get hacked. In order to do so, we need to learn Cyber Security. So, let's get started with it:

Introduction to Cyber Security

• Cyber security is the task of shielding networks and computer systems from cyber theft or attack, related to hardware, software or electronic data.

Recently, a gadget that seemed like a hand watch was introduced and it was used to notify the pulse rate, heartbeat and location to the user. That data is being synced to the websites, whether we book a hotel room, a cab or order a pizza through the apps we constantly and inherently generating the data, this data is being stored in the cloud which is a huge server that can be accessed online. Now for a hacker, it is a golden prospect to obtain the data, with the public IP addresses, access points, constant traffic of repeated data, they can produce malicious software to exploit vulnerabilities. Hackers are becoming smarter and more inventive with their malware. They can bypass a virus scan.

What is meant by Malware?

Malware stands for Malicious Software, It is a program devised to invade and attack the systems outwardly the owner's permission, It is the broad term for comprising of all distinct sorts of warnings to your systems such as spyware, Trojans horses, viruses, worms, rootkits, adware, scare ware. On the contrary, software which causes accidental damage is called a bug. 

Types of Cyber Attacks

• As you can see in the image below, some enlisted malware existed since the beginning of internet.
• Let's have a look at them one by one:

1. Phishing

They are the attack which is sent as a link to the user through the email posing a genuine party asking for the data. The users have to click on the link and enter the personal data. Over the years the phishing emails have become more sophisticated and often settle in the section of spam.

2. Password attack

A password attack can be defined as the attacker requests for the password from the user and try to crack it to gather the sensitive data and access the computer system.

3. DDoS

DDoS stands for Distributive Denial of Service, in this process, the attacker transmits a huge amount of data to the network that is making several connection requests unto the network gets trafficked and unable to function.

4. Man In the middle

There are possibilities of this type of attack when user exchanges the data online, your smartphone is connected to the website the MITM attack can obtain the data from the end-users and the entity you are communicating with. For example, a middle man can communicate with you portraying your bank and contact the bank impersonating you. Then would receive the data from both the sides and transfer it to the third parties, which can include sensitive information such as your account number, your credit or debit card number or your IBAN

5. Drive-by Downloads

A program is downloaded by the website by just visiting them through malware on that specific website. It doesn't ask for the permission of the user or to take any action.

6. Malware Advertising (Malvertising)

A malicious code threatens your computer system downloaded when you click on the bogus add.

7. Rogue software

Security software that keeps your system safe.

History of cyber attacks

Not only we as individuals are vulnerable to the attacks but the organizations or companies aren't safe either. For instance a well-known graphic software company, Adobe Photoshop was hacked despite the high-security systems and they had to go through major cyber breaches where all the sensitive data and confidentiality was compromised, eBay, AOL, Ever note were also affected by the cyber breaches. So not only individuals but the bigger organization are spontaneously being attacked by the hackers.

Protection from Cyber attacks

By reading about cyber breaches and threats to the security one must be questioning that is there any mechanisms or protocols that can provide full-proof security to the computer systems? And the answer is "Yes" and that is called cyber security. In the context of information technology, the physical and cyber security comprised of the security, the enterprises used them to protect them against the access of unauthorized companies or data centers. Information security is created to sustain the confidentiality and availability of data in a subset of cyber security. So cyber security can help counter the cyber breaches, identity theft, and aid and risk management. So when an organization has a strong function of network security and an efficient disturbance response plan then it is capable of defending and protecting the data against the attack.

What are we exactly trying to protect?

We protect ourselves against three activities and they are,

• Unauthorized Modification
• Unauthorized Access
• Unauthorized Deletion

These three terminologies are known to CIA TRAID, It is also known as the three main dependencies of security. CIA Triad is responsible for transferring confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The security policies of bigger organizations or smaller companies are based on these three sources. We will find them out respectively.

CONFIDENTIALITY

confidentiality is commensurate to privacy actions engaged to assure confidentiality are created to counter sensitive information from reaching the spies while making certain that the right people can access it. Access must be restricted to those allowed to view the data in question is as regular as well for data to be classified according to the volume and type of destruction that could be done shouldn't slip into the unintended hands. More or less stringed measures can then be implemented to those categories. Sometimes safeguarding data confidentiality may include special training for those privies to such documents, such training would typically include security jeopardies that could threaten this information, training can benefit familiarize authorized people with risk factors and how to shield against them. Further phases of training can include password and password related best practices and information above human communications methods to prevent them from twisting data handling rules with good intentions and potentially unfavorable outcomes.

INTEGRITY

Integrity includes sustaining consistency, efficiency, and trustworthiness over its intact lifecycle. Data must not be changed or altered by third parties and authorized individuals and the actions must be used to ensure this. For example in a data infringement of confidentiality, these measures include file permissions and user access controls accounts. Accounts may be used to prevent false changes and accidental deletion by authorized users becoming an obstacle. Furthermore, some means must be in place to detect any fluctuations in data that might transpire as a result of non-human generated issues, such as, electromagnetic vibrations or silver crash. Some data might involve checksums, even cryptographic checksum for verification of the integrity backup or redundancies must be prepared to reestablish affected data to its correct state.

AVAILABILITY

Availability is best guarded by austere maintaining of all hardware operating best instantly when required and maintaining an accurately functional operating system that is free of software frictions. It is also necessary to keep all the operating system upgrades producing enough transmission bandwidth and preventing the occurrence of bottlenecks are equally significant. Redundancy failover and even high availability clump can lessen severe consequences when hardware issues do occur fast. As an adaptive failure restoration is imperative for the worst-case scenario that the capacity is reliant on the existence of a comprehensive disaster recovery plan shields against data loss or interference in the connection must include. Unpredictable events such as natural disasters and files to prevent data loss from such incidents, a backup copy must be stored in a geographically secluded area, perhaps in a fire-resistant liquid safe place. Extra security equipment or software such as firewalls and proxy servers can secure us against downtimes and unreachable data due to malicious actions, such as a denial of service attacks and network intrusions. So now that we have seen what we are trying to protect, implement when trying to protect ourselves on the other hand, we should also know the ways that we protect ourselves when we are attacked by cyber systems. So the first action that we mitigate any type of intervention is to detect the malware or the cyber threat that is being currently going on in your organization. Next, we have to analyze and evaluate all the affected parties and the file systems that have been compromised and, in the end, we have to repair the whole procedure so that our organization can come back to its whole streaming state without any cyber breaches. So how it is exactly done? This can be done by considering three factors. Vulnerability, Threat and, Risk. So let me explain all of them precisely.

Vulnerability

It can be defined as a known weakness of an asset that can be misused by one or more attackers, in other words, a hidden issue that enables an intervention to be successful. For example, when an employee or a member of an organization is fired and you forget to disable the access of external accounts, change logins and remove their names from the company credit cards, this will jeopardies your business willingly or unwillingly. However, most of the vulnerabilities are exploited by the authorized attackers on a human typing on the other side of the system. Next testing for vulnerabilities is critical to assuring the flow of your systems by knowing exposed points and developing strategies to counter immediately. Here you may have some questions regarding your security vulnerabilities, for instance, Is your data backed-up and stored in a secure off-site location? Is your data is stored in the cloud? How the cloud is shielding my data from its vulnerabilities? What kind of security do you have to determine? Who can access, modify or delete information from within your organization? And the next question can pop up like what kind of antivirus protection is in use? What are the licenses current and are they running as often as needed? Also, do you have a data recovery plan in the event of vulnerability, being exploited? So these are the normal questions one asks when checking their vulnerability.

THREAT

A threat can be described as a newly created disturbance with the potential to harm a system or your whole company. There are three types of threats.

• National Threats like Earthquakes tornados, hurricanes, tsunami and floods.
• Unintentional Threat i.e. an employee mistakenly obtaining the sensitive data.
• Intentional Threats, there are many examples of intentional threats such as Malware, adware, spyware companies are the actions of disgruntled employees. To add up, worm and viruses are characterized as threats because they could potentially cause harm to your organization through exposure to a programmed intervention as opposed to executed by human beings. Although these threats are commonly outside of one's control and difficult to predict before it happens. It is requisite to take legit measures to assess intimidations systematically.

Here are some ways, make sure that your team members are informed with current drifts in cyber security so they can immediately identify new threats. They should attend IT courses and join professional associations so they can benefit from the breaking news feed, conferences, and webinars. You should also conduct a general threat estimation to determine the best approaches and protecting the systems against specific threats along with assessing different types of tech besides, forcing testing includes illustrating real-world threats to discover bollen abilities.

RISK

Risk refers to the potential to the loss and damage when a threat exploits a vulnerability. Examples including financial damage as a result of business agitation, loss of privacy, damage to reputation, legal associations and even the destruction of career or life. Risk can also be defined as the product of threat and vulnerability. You can reduce the potential for risk by engineering and executing a risk management plan, the following are the key aspects for developing your risk management strategy. First, we are required to evaluate risk and circumscribe needs, when engineering and implementing a risk assessment framework, it is crucial to prioritize the most related breaches that need to be discussed. All the frequency may differ in each organization. This level of assessment must be done regularly. Next, we also have to include a stakeholder perspective that includes the business owners as well as employees, consumers, and even merchants. All of these professionals have the potential to negatively impact the organization but they can be an asset in helping to mitigate risks at the same time. Since risk management is the key to cyber security.

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence

Hello friends, I hope you all are doing great. In today's tutorial, I am going to give you a detailed Introduction to Artificial Intelligence. Today I am talking about the origin of Artificial Intelligence, you will learn how it was invented and how it is getting emerged gradually in the field of science and technology. We will also discuss few AI tests and will understand its relation with neural networks. As it's my first post on AI, so I will only cover it's basics in today's lecture but in coming lectures, we will not only discuss its complex concepts but will also design different algorithms to understand its practical approach. So, let's get started with Introduction to Artificial Intelligence:

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence

• John McCarthy is known as the father of Artificial Intelligence. According to him:

"Artificial Intelligence is the science and engineering of designing intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs."

I have been teaching Artificial Intelligence to engineering students for five years and I normally assign them projects at the end of their course and the one, I really enjoyed was "virtual psychiatrist", designed by a group of 5 students. You can tell that robot your symptoms/condition and it will tell you the cure and measures. During it's evaluation, the virtual Psychiatrist asked "What's your problem?" I replied, "I am fine" but still it suggested numerous cures and several therapies. I laughed and told the students that this software will not qualify for the Turing test. Now, you must be thinking, what's a Turing Test, so let's have a look at it:

What is the Turing Test?

In 1950, a great computer scientist, Alan Turning, wrote a research paper and provide a mechanism to determine, whether machines actually think or not. To examine it, he gave an experiment, which is called the Turing Test. Below is the illustration of this experiment followed by the details:

• As you can see in above figure, we have:
  • A as an artificially intelligent software/hardware,
  • C as an invigilator,
  •  and B as a human.
• C is supposed to ask different questions from both the agents i.e. A & B, and determine which one is AI software and which one is human.
• A is supposed to deceive the Human Questioner i.e. C and make it believe that it's a human.
• If C is failed to detect that which one is an AI software among A & B, then this software will be called as an "intelligent software" because it answered those questions, to which only a human is supposed to answer.
• This test is called the Turing test.

The 90's kids are very well aware of the software known as ELIZA, which was created by Joseph Weizenbaum (from 1964 to 1966) at MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. This was a psychological software and could give us the therapy, when we would ask for it (I remember being in grade eighth and asking her how to propose a boy, who was my crush back then, poor me) because it was fed by MIT, but if I would ask her the recipe of cookies, she definitely wouldn't tell me.

• SHAKEY was the first artificial intelligent robot, whose job was to pick the product and then drop it on a specific spot, but again if I ask the recipe of the cookies, it won't tell me. :D

Coming to the era of 1980s, when Garry Kasparov was the world champion in chess and was defeated by a software called DEEP BLUE, this software is designed by IBM and you will be amazed by knowing that it was the first time that a human was defeated in chess by a software. But again if you ask Deep Blue how to make cookies, you know what the answer would be! The reason is that those robots which were created in the past centuries were Rule-based bots or Software, they were given rules, statements and logic but if we ask questions from other domains, they won't be able to answer them, hence although those software were highly intellectual but they don't belong to AI category.

How Human Brain works ?

At an early age or the very beginning, shape of the human brain was different, but as this specie started evolving, it developed the learning capacity, got smarter and intelligent. We have a very complicated connection network (bellow is the image) in our brain which is built by trillions of cells, the smallest cell of the brain is called "Neuron" and it also contains trillions of connections, so if we would able to utilize the processing of brain in software, the would become intelligent too, Artificially Intelligent. For example, if you look closely at the figure above, this is the basic unit of cell where dendrites, which provide connections, then a cell in the center (nucleus) where decisions are being made and then there is an axon cell, which is responsible to give the decision as an output. Same as we make a flowchart where we have inputs, decision-making centers, and we have an output based on that decision. So, if we connect those intelligent unit cells many times, we can design a Neural Network, which is also the hot topic of the research, nowadays. The Neural Network

• Now, you must have the basic idea of what neurons are, so now, let's have a look at a simple neural network, as shown in below figure:

• The first layer of the neural network is the input layer.
• The second layer is the hidden layer.
• And finally, we have the third layer, the output layer.

Single input of a neural network can be connected to multiple stages.

Examples of AI software

Let's understand neural network with the help of a simple project.

• Once I have designed a project in MATLAB, where I need to detect Horse in different images.
• So, I have added a lot of horse pictures in different postures & angles in database.
• Then using those images, I have trained my software to differentiate between horse and other animals.
• Finally, once I have completed my horse recognition algorithm, then I tested it with around 100 new images of animals.
• It has recognized horse in 80 images but was unable to detect in remaining 20 images.

So my point here is, efficiency of an AI software depends on its algorithm. You can achieve 100% results as well as we human get from our brain, we can quite easily recognize the horse in any image. But again, let's say if the image is taken from a distance, then may be you can also get confused. Nowadays, we have so much data, also known as big data, so if we provide such data to our software, then it will be able to learn and hence its intelligence will be increased, so there's a 99 percent chance that it will tell us how to make a COOKIE! :D So, when we reached to neural network or deep learning, our software will behave smartly.

• I will take you to the software IBM WATSON, which is designed by IBM and this software stood first in America's largest quiz show, Jeopardy, which was being played with the top two champions. A software won $100000mn, whoa!
• Let’s talk about Alpha Go, this software beaten the champion of that time.
• It will be an injustice, if we don't talk about Eugene Goostman, he has designed the first-ever software, which depicts a 13-year-old boy and it has qualified the Turing test. Though there are controversies about it, this is the only software that managed to convince 33 invigilators out of hundred that IT’S A HUMAN.

Author's Remarks

IQ Level of a human lies between 70 to 130, but imagine a software having the IQ level of 100,000, then will human intelligence be able to counter it?. In an Interview, the well renowned AI robot Sophia tells the host while countering a question about a bad future with robots that you have been reading too much Elon Musk and watching so many Hollywood movies about the robots but if you are nice to me I am nice to you, treat me as a smart input-output system. But let me tell you, many scientists (especially Elon musk and Stephen hawking) in the world have predicted that AI will take over the human race and that will be catastrophic. The question is how we are preparing ourselves to counter it. Are we writing the death of our generations with our own hands? Or we think that they will live peacefully with us like our friends, neighbors or relatives? Are there any chances that they won't dominate us & will only obey us? Or we need to find a way that technological advancement keeps on progressing but stays under control. So, that was all for today. I hope you have enjoyed today's tutorial. We have discussed the basics of Artificial Intelligence today. In coming lecture, we will cover more complex topics on AI. Till then take care & have fun !!! :)

Majority Cloud Users Have Suffered a Data Breach

Hello friends, I hope you all are doing great. Organizations are increasingly adopting cloud computing. It provides a number of benefits, including decreased cost and overhead and increased scalability and flexibility. However, the cloud is not an ideal solution for every organization and use case. As companies continue to store sensitive data in the cloud, data security is becoming a significant concern. For many organizations who have moved to the cloud without implementing proper security controls, sensitive data is being leaked or stolen from their cloud environments.

Challenges of Cloud Security

While many organizations are moving to cloud deployments, they often struggle with securing their new investment. Each cloud represents a new environment to operate and secure, and the organization’s security responsibilities are determined by the cloud shared responsibility model. Since many organizations operate multiple clouds, securing an entire cloud deployment becomes an even more complex challenge.

A New Operating Environment

Many organizations, when they move to a cloud environment, treat it as similar to their existing on-premises deployment. Applications “lifted” to the cloud are often identical to the versions running on-premises, which can create inefficiencies when optimizations and workflows that worked on-premises do not translate well to the cloud. Moving to the cloud without adapting to the cloud can also create security issues for an organization. In most on-premises environments, internal applications are not accessible from the public Internet except through the organization’s firewall and other cybersecurity defenses. In the cloud, which is not located behind these same defenses, a vulnerability in an application could be potentially exploited by an external attacker when it may not have been accessible before.

The Cloud Shared Responsibility Model

A common challenge among security teams is a lack of understanding of the cloud shared responsibility model. In an on-premises deployment, an organization owns their entire infrastructure stack, giving them full visibility into it and control over its configuration. In cloud environments, an organization is leasing infrastructure from their cloud service provider (CSP), meaning that they share security responsibility with their provider. For the 73% of security professionals who struggle to understand the cloud shared responsibility model, securing data in their organizations’ cloud deployments can be a challenge. This model defines which security responsibilities belong to the CSP, customer, or are shared between them. A lack of understanding of these responsibilities and the tools that a CSP provides to secure a cloud deployment can leave an organization open to attack.

A Multitude of Cloud Services

For security professionals struggling to secure a single cloud deployment, the fact that most organizations have a multi-cloud deployment only complicates the issue. For each cloud environment, the security team needs to learn how to properly configure the security controls provided by the CSP. Since these security controls vary from CSP to CSP, the learning curve for securing an organization’s entire range of cloud resources can be extremely steep. And this only covers the cloud-based resources that the organization’s security team has authorized and has visibility and control over. In many organizations, employees trying to more efficiently perform their job responsibilities may move sensitive data to the cloud without authorization. These cloud resources make it easy to share data with other authorized parties through sharing links, but these same links (which make the data accessible to anyone with the URL) also make the data much more vulnerable to being breached.

The Cloud and Data Protection

One of the clearest indicators of the challenges of securing the cloud is the number of cloud users who have been the victim of a data breach. Over half of companies with a cloud deployment have breached sensitive data through their cloud services. However, this high rate of data breaches is not surprising considering how organizations use their cloud deployments:

• 26% of companies store sensitive data in the cloud.
• 49% of data in the cloud is eventually shared.
• 10% of data shared in the cloud uses a public link.
• 91% of cloud users do not encrypt data in the cloud.

The cloud provides a great deal of valuable functionality to its users. However, it also represents a significant threat to an organization’s data security. A platform located outside of the organization’s network that is accessible via the public Internet and has built-in collaboration capabilities that easily enable insecure data sharing make it extremely easy for sensitive data stored there to be breached.

Securing Your Cloud Deployment

When securing a cloud deployment, especially one spanning multiple different CSPs’ platforms, it is important to design and deploy a cloud-focused security strategy. While CSPs commonly offer configuration settings to secure data and applications stored on their infrastructure, the available settings vary from provider to provider, making it difficult to enforce consistent security policies and controls across an organization’s entire network environment. Securing the cloud requires cloud-focused and cloud-native solutions. As many organizations use the cloud to host web applications, a cloud-native web application firewall (WAF) is essential for protecting these cloud-based resources. Organizations also require data security solutions to ensure that data is properly encrypted in the cloud and monitored to ensure that it is not being inappropriately uploaded to the cloud or shared using cloud collaboration tools. With over half of cloud users experiencing a data breach, protecting data in the cloud is a serious problem. Any organization using cloud computing must evaluate how they are currently securing their cloud resources and deploy defenses to close any gaps endangering their sensitive and valuable data.

IR Proximity Sensor Library for Proteus

Hello friends, I hope you all are doing great. In today's tutorial, I am going to share a new IR Proximity Sensor Library for Proteus. Proximity Sensors are not available in Proteus and we are sharing its Proteus library for the first time. So far, I have only shared Proteus Libraries of digital sensors but today I am sharing an analog sensor, so too excited about it. In the next few days, I will keep on sharing Proteus Libraries of different analog sensors, so if you want any sensor in Proteus, then let me know in the comments. IR Proximity Sensors are used to detect hurdles/obstacles placed in their path. They are normally used on robots for path navigation and obstacle avoidance. So, let's have a look at How to download and simulate IR Proximity Sensor Library for Proteus: Note:

• You should also have a look at:
  • Infrared Sensor Library for Proteus.
  • Infrared Tracker Sensor Library for Proteus.

IR Proximity Sensor Library for Proteus

• First of all, download this IR Proximity Sensor Library for Proteus, by clicking the below button:

IR Proximity Sensor Library for Proteus

• It's a .zip file, which will have two folders in it i.e. Proteus Library & Proteus Simulation.
• Open Proteus Library Folder, it will have 3 files, named as:
  • IRProximitySensorTEP.IDX
  • IRProximitySensorTEP.LIB
  • IRProximitySensorTEP.HEX
• Place these three files in the Library folder of your Proteus software.

Note:

• If you are unable to add a Library in Proteus 7 or 8 Professional, then you should have a look at How to add a new Library in Proteus 8.

• After adding these library files, open your Proteus ISIS software, or restart it if it's already open.
• In the component's search box, make a search for IR Proximity.
• If you have installed the Library successfully, then you will get similar results, as shown in the below figure:

• As you can see in the above figure that we have two IR Proximity sensors.
• When it comes to functionality, both sensors are exactly the same, they just have different colors.
• Now simply place these IR Proximity Sensors in your Proteus workspace, as shown in the below figure:

• As you can see in the above figure, I have placed both of these IR Proximity sensors in my Proteus workspace.
• This sensor has 4 pins in total, which are:
  • V ( Vcc ): We need to provide +5V here.
  • G ( Gnd ): We need to provide Ground here.
  • O ( Out ): It's an analog output signal from the sensor.
  • TestPin: It's solely for simulation purposes, we don't have this pin in a real IR sensor.
• As we can't actually place an obstacle in front of this sensor in Proteus simulation, that's why I have used this TestPin.
• If we change the value of TestPin from 0V to 5V then that means the obstacle is coming close.

Adding Sensor's Hex File

• Lastly, we need to add the Sensor's Hex File, which we have downloaded and placed in the Library folder.
• So, in order to do that, right-click on your IR sensor and then click on Edit Properties.
• You can also open the Properties Panel by double-clicking on the sensor.
• Here, in the Properties Panel, you will find Sensor's Hex File Section.
• Click on the Browse button and add IRProximitySensorTEP.HEX file here, as shown in the below figure:

• After adding the Sensor's Hex File, click on the OK button to close the Properties Panel.
• Our IR Proximity Sensor is now ready to simulate in Proteus ISIS.
• Let's design a small circuit, in order to understand the working of this IR Proximity Sensor.

Proteus Simulation of IR Proximity Sensor

• First of all, let's design a simple circuit, where I am attaching a variable resistor with the Test Pin & I am adding a Voltmeter at the Output pin, as shown in the below figure:

• Using this variable resistance, we can change the voltage on Test Pin.
  • If TestPin has 0V, means we don't have any obstacle in front of the sensor.
  • If TestPin has 5V, implies that something's placed right in front of the sensor.
• So, let's have a look at How the output value will change when we change the voltage on TestPin.
• At the Output Pin, I have placed an LC filter, which is also not required in real hardware implementation.
• But I have to use this filter in Proteus Simulation, as Proteus provides the Peak to Peak value and we need to convert that value into Vrms.
• So, if you are working on a real sensor then you don't need to add this inductor or capacitor.
• Now, let's run this Proteus Simulation and if you have done everything correctly, then you will get similar results:

• I have shown three different scenarios in the above figure:
  • In the first image, the variable resistor is at 100%, thus providing 0V at TestPin. That's why we got 0V at Output and hence no obstacle detected.
  • In the second image, the variable resistor is around 50%, thus providing around 2.5V at TestPin. So, we are getting around 2.5V at Output and hence obstacle detected in close range.
  • In the third image, the variable resistor is around 0%, thus providing around 5V at TestPin. So, we are getting around 5V at Output and hence obstacle's just in front of the sensor.
• I have placed this simulation in the above zip file, so play with it and don't forget to add the Sensor's Hex File.

So, that was all for today. I hope this IR Proximity Sensor Library will help engineering students in simulating their course projects. I will interface this IR sensor with Arduino and other Microcontrollers and will share their simulations. If you have any issues, then ask in the comments and I will help you out.

How Does Bandwidth Affect Website Performance?

Hello friends, I hope you all are doing great. In today's tutorial, we will have a look at How Does Bandwidth Affect Website Performance? Today we're going to discuss something that everyday users and new website owners sometimes find confusing i.e. bandwidth. How much bandwidth is enough, and what happens when you have too little. Is it possible to squeeze data through if it's insufficient? Can you get more? Before we get into those questions, it helps to explain what bandwidth is and how it works.

What is Bandwidth?

Simply put, bandwidth is the maximum amount of data that can travel through your internet connection at any given time. For example, a standard gigabit Ethernet connection has a bandwidth of 1000 Mpbs (megabits per second), which means that about 125 megabytes of data can travel through your connection per second. You should note that a megabit and a megabyte are not the same thing. Megabits are the speed data travels within your connection, where magabytes refers to the size of a file. However, having high bandwidth doesn't necessarily equal speed, just capacity. The type and size of files is what determines how fast and efficient your pages load and how well the site functions overall.

How Does Bandwidth Affect Website Performance?

Inadequate bandwidth affects website performance in several ways, including:

• Download speed, which is the amount of time it takes to download a page or file
• Latency, which is the amount of time it rakes a query to travel from the browser to the server
• Bounce rates, which is the rate at which people visit your site and leave immediately
• User experience (UX), or the amount of enjoyment or usefulness guests experience when visiting your website

All of these things tie together to determine your position in the search engine results (SERPs) and inline reputation. Google and your potential customers take these metrics very seriously, and so should you.

How Much Bandwidth Do You Need?

When determining your internet requirements, you want to have enough space to create new projects without affecting core function or draining resources. Text-only websites require very little bandwidth. You can usually get away with about 25 Mbps. The more bells and whistles you add, the more you’re going to need to depend upon the allotted resources of your hosting service and ISP. However, content on your website isn't the only thing that affects site speed. Ads and other external content play their part in slowing you down. In order to calculate the amount of bandwidth to keep your traffic happy and pages fast and efficient, measure the average size of your web pages in kilobytes, multiply that figure by the average number of visitors per month, and multiply the result by the average number of page views per visitor. That equation should give you a pretty good estimate, but bandwidth can be eaten up by other factors that you will need to control in order to get the level of data transfer you're paying for.

How to Optimize Your Bandwidth

Changes in layout, such as adding a new theme or features, content type, traffic flow, and scalability also affect bandwidth, speed, and latency. Even bad neighbors can affect your website performance if you're on a shared hosting plan. When you're building a website, it's essential to test it to determine what components, if any, are affecting speed and latency. A decent hosting service should include speed tests as a feature in your plan, If not, there are various plugins for web builders like WordPress as well as some standalone testing tools. One of the best is Pingdom, and it's free. Outside of buying enough bandwidth to cover your requirements, there are several ways that you can tweak your website and improve performance.

• Enable caching: When you enable caching, the user-side browser won't have to keep loading your page every time someone visits your page.
• Optimize images: Bigger images eat up bandwidth. Reduce file sizes, convert files to Jpeg, or consider using only one featured image rather than a gallery.
• Move some media offsite: Consider linking video thumbnails to Your YouTube channel and create a gallery that's accessible from your Instagram. Get rid of any gifs or other cute but unnecessary animations, and don't use flash.
• Optimize HTML and other coding: Minify JS and CSS code, get rid of HTML that isn't needed, remove comments, and eliminate any unnecessary tags or white space.

With the above tips and information, you should be able to create a website that's functional, fast, and aesthetically pleasing.

Final Thoughts

The bandwidth requirements for website hosting are not the same as what you would need from an internet service provider for routine browsing or even gaming and steaming at home. While it's inconvenient to have your browser freeze or system crash at the critical part of a movie, having this happen while customers are trying to place an order will adversely affect your whole business. In addition to speed and reliability, your website should be secure. Using plugins and antivirus/anti-malware apps is a start, but you can further harden your website by installing a VPN on your router and any device you use to access your website. This is an especially good practice for developers, who often require stricter privacy during app production and may have multiple clients or team members accessing works in progress. Just remember to use security best practices like setting permissions according to role, use two factor authentication to limit access, remove the default login, and set parameters to lock the login after a small number of failed attempts and you should be fine. Bandwidth determines how fast your website performs and can affect reliability. In order to make the best hosting and design decisions, you need to know how much bandwidth is adequate for optimal performance with room to scale or handle unexpected traffic spikes without crashing or freezing.

Engineering Risk Management: How Professionals Approach Potential Pitfalls

Hello friends, I hope you all are doing great. In today's tutorial, we will have a look at Engineering Risk Management in detail. Risk management is a process used by companies to identify and avoid potential costs, schedule as well as technical/performance risks to a system. Once that is done, a proactive and structured approach is taken to be able to manage the number of negative impacts it may have to a company, respond immediately upon their occurrence and identify potential causes as to why such a thing happened. In other words, risk management involves minimizing potential risks before they occur throughout the life of a project or a product. And it’s not a one-time process, it involves a continuous approach to anticipating and averting an engineering risk so that a project isn’t adversely affected. The definitions, goals, and methods of risk management vary in the context of security, engineering, project management, Financial portfolios, public health, and safety, or industrial processes. To make things less complicated, let’s go over exactly how a risk management process works:

Risk? ?Management? ?Process?

The process of risk management involves the following steps:

• Risk identification
• Risk analysis
• Risk mitigation
• Making a plan
• Risk monitoring

Risk Identification

The first step in the engineering risk management process is risk identification. The aim of this process is to obviously identify potential and or possible risks to a product or project. This is done by examining the projects, processes as well as requirements to identify and document those risks. Some Industries end companies established risk checklists based on experience from previous projects. These checklists are very useful to the project team and project manager in determining the risks on the checklist and expanding the team’s thinking. Past experiences can be very valuable resources and identifying possible risks on projects. Another method in identifying potential risks involves identifying the sources of the risks by category. Some potential risk categories include:

• Cost
• Technical
• Client
• Schedule
• Weather
• Contractual
• Political
• Financial
• People
• Environmental

Risk Analysis

Once the risks have been identified, the next step in the process is engineering risk analysis. This involves systematically evaluating each of the risks that have been identified and approved in order to estimate the chances of occurrence and consequences of the occurrence. Measuring the risks can either be simple like when it concerns the value of a lost building, or even difficult or impossible like when it comes to the probability of an unlikely event that would occur in the future. There is no best approach for a certain risk category. Risk analysis approaches are sometimes lumped into quantitative and qualitative methods. There are some risk events that are more likely to occur than others, and the cost of each risk varies greatly. That’s why it’s important to make the best-educated guess as possible so that proper implementation of the risk management plan can be prioritized. To learn more about how you can make a proper plan to avoid injuries and other adverse impacts, click here.

Risk Mitigation

Now that the risk has been identified and analyzed, the company constructs a risk mitigation strategy, which falls into four of the following main categories:

Risk Avoidance

This means making another type of strategy with a high chance of success but I don’t much deeper cost. This process usually involves using existing technologies other than new ones, even if the new methods may prove to have better results and lower costs. Avoiding might also me preventing risks, but it also means missing out on possible gains as well, such as more profits and low cost.

Risk-Sharing

This is when organizations partner with others to share the responsibility of any risk that may occur. Most companies that work on International projects, reduce legal, labor, political, and other types of risks by making a joint venture with a company within that nation.

Risk Reduction

This is when a company invests funds to reduce a project’s risks. A project manager could hire an expert to review a project’s technical plans or cost estimate to boost confidence in the plan as well as reduce the likelihood of the risk occurring.

Risk Transfer

This means that the risks involved with a project are shifted to another party. One example of a risk-transferring method is by purchasing insurance on particular items.

Making? ?A? ?Plan?

Now comes the part where you make a plan and choose the most suitable countermeasures or controls to reduce the severity of each risk. This includes having plans developed for high, medium, and low-level risks. In other words, you and your team need to develop a contingency plan when a potential risk is likely to occur and could very well impede the chances of success for that particular project or goal. For example, the risk of being struck by truck drivers can be averted by taking the train to transport essential equipment for the project.

Risk Monitoring?

Lastly, there is risk monitoring which can also be known as engineering risk assessment. This helps us evaluate a risk handling activity’s effectiveness against established metrics and provide us with feedback on other risk management process steps. Monitoring may also provide us with the means to update our risk-mitigating plans, where we can develop additional mitigating strategies and preventive measures.

Factors To Assess While Looking For Software Outsourcing

Hello friends, I hope you all are doing great. In today's tutorial, we will have a look at Factors To Assess While Looking For Software Outsourcing. When you decide to outsource the software development of your company, there's a lot of factors you need to consider before making a decision. There should be a thorough research of options available, and shortlisted names should be the best for you. You need to look for the desired features that you can get in the decided budget. It's essential to not be in haste while taking a decision and understanding each factor as it determines your company's future and efficiency. Here's a list of critical factors you need to assess while looking for software outsourcing -

Experience in the industry

Looking for experts with innate expertise in a specific sector increases the chance of the final product being flawless. Be proactive and look for companies that list down the industries they specialize in. For example, a company dealing with healthcare software will be your best choice when looking for designing specific health-related software. Getting along with a highly customized and specialized company like BairesDev is your chance to get an excellent service.

Required technical skills and expertise

A crucial factor in determining what company is best for you is going through the technical skills and knowledge they offer. When looking for a perfect choice first, it's essential to survey what you need and what each candidate's portfolio provides. The technical skills can be designing the logistics of software, speed-related issues, or creating specific functions. This factor is crucial as you need to go to someone who will deliver your desired results.

Quality provided 

If there's one thing that cannot be compromised is on is the variety offered. You have to be extremely sure and cross-check from reviews and other customers regarding the quality provided. Software outsourcing is tedious, and you need to be sure that your efforts to select someone don't go to waste. The selected candidates should conduct frequent checks that ensure quality is not compromised. Sometimes the right quality product can cost you a higher amount, but it is always worth it.

Cost 

The most significant factor that needs to be considered while outsourcing software development for your company is the cost. You should determine a specific budget and stick to it. It's also essential to remember that the cheapest product is not always the best and the highest paid product can cause problems too. Cost is a function of all the other factors, and it's dependent on what type of skills, expertise level, and quality you seek. Decide the cost based on the fact that all your requirements are met.

Geography of the provider

The market today is flooded with thousands of options for software outsourcing. It's important to remember the geography and where your work will be done. Effective communication is essential and selecting a company that has the same time zone as you can be the right choice. Other factors that are determined by geography are low inflation rates, political stability, and how compatible both cultures are.

Learn more about the providers 

It's crucial to put each of your candidates to the test. Learn more about their strengths and weaknesses. You also need to take into consideration what is their approach towards software development, their experience in this industry, the last projects, risks involved, and how they stand apart from their competitors. Before finalizing someone, ask them to walk you through how they work and what it is that they value the most. Before you brief them on the project, be sure not to give them complete details of your project. Don't get too technical until cultural and methodological compatibilities are met.

Engagement models

Software outsourcing is an important decision, and understanding the business strategy of the company is crucial. You also need to decide on single sourcing or multiple sourcing. In complete outsourcing, you save a lot of money, and the supplier bears the risk.

Flexibility and scalability 

When outsourcing, you need to ensure that flexibility and scalability parameters are met. You can assess the flexibility by examining ease of work done, deadlines meeting capacity, ease of exit, and robustness.

Change management and handling 

Many times there might be frequent changes from your side, and the supplier must ensure all the desired changes are made. Your decision and changes required should be the most valued, and you should be delighted with the end product.

Intellectual property protection

Software outsourcing is a huge decision, and you need to be very sure of the company's privacy policy. Intellectual property protection of any company is essential, and the company must respect the sanctity of your data. From a business perspective, you need to ensure all standards are met.

Partnership contract

Your software outsourcing partner should ensure that a legal partnership contract is signed. Since your requirements may change, it is essential to put down everything in your agreement about how you will function and what you need.

Team interaction

Excellent communication is crucial for team interaction between the supplier. Multiple time zones, numerous locations, and frequent changes may hamper team interaction, and your candidate must provide ways to bridge the gap. There should be a collaborative approach to make sure everything works out well, and the entire process is seamless.

Effective design 

You need to answer some critical questions like - Do the design elements of the system address your goals?  Is your mission aligned with that of the provider? Misalignment of design and business objectives can cause disruptions in the outsourcing process.

Choosing the developers

It is always recommended to select a team and not a freelancer to make sure everyone works from one space, and all issues are resolved. The team leader should be responsible for carrying out all the coordination between different levels. Thus, when looking for outsourcing software development, be sure to analyze each of the following factors, and make effective decisions. Do not outsource to third-party providers without verifying their credibility. Outsourcing can save you a lot of time and money and give you the best product you desire.

What Can We Expect from the Future of CNC Machining?

Hello friends, I hope you all are doing great. In today's tutorial, we will have a look at What Can We Expect from the Future of CNC Machining? Computer Numerical Control (CNC) has changed how companies manufacture their products. These changes have been amplified even further with the integration of technology into CNC machining. Even though CNC machining services have largely worked the same way for decades, that is going to change as more and more industries accept automation as the future of manufacturing. The future of CNC machining is a very exciting one and below, we will look at a few exciting things that we can expect in future.

Internet of Things

We live in automated homes with most of the planning and organization of our lives done on devices. Why can't the same be done in a factory? Turns out, the Internet of Things (IoT) is enabling automation in ways not seen before. IoT allows machines to “talk” to each other over a network so they can work in tandem to produce a final product. Because these machines are also connected to mobile devices or computers, some CNC machining companies are offering online CNC Machining services. You no longer have to go to a factory or arrange a meeting to have a project completed; most of these companies offer their CNC services online where you just need to send a CAD file with everything you need to be done, then wait for a quote from a company. This is not only happening in CNC prototyping and machining; you can also send in your designs for injection molding services, rapid machining and more.

Cheaper CNC Services

CNC machines are getting cheaper. That is why it is becoming cheaper to commission a company that offers CNC services China to do any type of machining for you. It is not only cheaper for customers, but it is also cheaper for companies too. Companies can buy these machines at a fraction of the cost they used to, meaning that the barrier of entry into this industry has been lowered even further. Because the cost of entry is so low, companies can offer a diverse range of services including prototype manufacturing and prototype machining. Companies also get to save money on labor because they do not have to hire as many people to handle their CNC services. These include manufacturing and online CNC services. These savings can then be passed on to consumers in the form of cheaper services.

Smaller Devices, Some in Our Homes

In the past, companies had huge CNC machines that were dangerous to work with, expensive and immobile. As the technology in this space has matured, so has the manufacturing process of these machines. It is not difficult to now find prototype molding machines that can fit in a room. Machines have become smaller, and since they now can interact with each other, companies are favoring many smaller portable devices instead of larger, immobile machines. A lot of people do not consider 3D printers part of the CNC machining family, but they are. 3D machines can help businesses and entrepreneurs offer some simple services like injection molding services and therefore can themselves open up new industry segments for those who invest in them.

Fears of Unemployment

One of the biggest fears of automation is that a huge segment of the working population could lose its jobs. This fear stems from the fact that a single machine can handle tasks previously handled by ten people. This is a problem that business people and stakeholders have to think about. On the other hand, automation can help create new jobs. The way it will do this is the machines that allow companies to offer online CNC machining services will need maintenance, updates, and upgrades. Because of this, technicians will be needed to troubleshoot and take care of them. Further, the software used in these machines will have to be coded by a programmer. Programmers who have machine learning skills could be in higher demand than they are now if processes like sheet metal prototyping and sheet metal fabrication become fully automated.

The Rise in the Prominence of Robots

Robots can do two things that humans cannot:

• lift extremely heavy loads
• work indefinitely with little to no downtime

As CNC machining changes, the role of robots will change. Robots can transfer large, heavy loads between other machines. They can also “talk” to these other machines to feed them materials and move products that are done or that need to go to the next stage. Robots will also become part of CNC machines instead of add-ons. Because of this, processes like rapid machining will take an even shorter amount of time.

Increase in Machine Reliability and User Satisfaction

When the merger between IoT and CNC machining is complete, machines will be able to work indefinitely.  A company that offers rapid machining cannot afford to have any downtime. This is why engineers are working hard to improve the reliability of these machines. As the demand for products that pass through the CNC process increases, so will the need for faster turn-around times, with these deadlines only met if the CNC machines perform at optimum levels. Also, as more and more companies turn to automated systems, developers and programmers will have to make the control systems a lot more intuitive. This means that they will have to simplify their user interfaces and make them more user-friendly. This will have the added benefit of lowering the entry qualification requirements for those looking to work with this software and machines.

Increase in Product Quality

CNC machines will only get better as companies strive to produce the best products possible. Companies that carry out CNC machining are already tightening their tolerances and quality control systems. A company like RapidDirect has already streamlined its processes to complete orders of any quality, using a wide selection of materials, at affordable costs and at the highest quality possible. The firm offers additional efficiencies such as automated DfM assessments, reliable real-time order tracking and online quotes, which can be managed easily thanks to an integrated quote management system. These solutions make it quick and easy for customers to use RapidDirect to produce quality products to their exact specifications.

Better Tech Support

There is no doubt that the world of CNC machining will change in the future as more companies adopt different technologies. Before this change is complete though, and companies can offer better rapid tooling services, there will be a learning curve to get over. The best way to get over this curve is to extensively engage tech support representatives. That is why companies that offer these technologies will have to improve their tech support offerings.

Further Investments in CNC Machining

To stay competitive, companies will have no choice but to invest in CNC machining. If they do not, companies that offer CNC machining China, for example, could decimate their market shares. In doing so, these companies will effectively be tripling their work hours because machines and robots work 24 hours a day while humans can work just 8.

The Future is Already Here

Companies have to start thinking of the future of CNC machining if they are not already. Rapid prototyping services, as well as other services in the CNC machining industry, are already being automated and companies that do not embrace this automation risk being left behind. There are so many reasons to automate, with some of them being to stay competitive and cut manufacturing costs. Staying competitive means delivering better-quality products at a higher quantity to customers faster than your competition can. CNC machining automation will help reduce waste and therefore help companies cut costs. The changes to an automated industry might cost a lot of money, but the upside is so huge that companies would be losing out if they do not take this path. There is so much to look forward to in the world of CNC machining with so much more to come that we cannot even envision today. All we can do is wait and hope the future is even brighter than a lot of people are predicting it will be.

What is a Thermal Flow Meter and How Does It Work?

Hello friends, I hope you all are doing well. In today's tutorial, I am going to discuss What is a Thermal Flow Meter and How Does It Work? Let's begin! Thermal flow meters' main principle is to use the heat conductivity of both gases and liquids to determine its mass flow. Unlike flow meters that determine the volumetric flow rate like turbine flow meters or purge flow meters, thermal flow meters are resistant to temperature fluctuations and pressure of the substance’s pressure. This type of flow meter can also be used for measuring gas and airflow. Thermal flow meters have varying designs that are made specifically for different situations. A few of these designs have high-pressure and high-temperature features that are more capable of dealing with these specific cases.

How Does a Thermal Flow Meter Work?

Thermal flow meters, using the thermal properties of the substance, measure the flow of a fluid flowing inside a duct or a pipe. Typically, a thermal flow meter introduces a specific amount of heat to its sensor. Some of the heat dissipates, and as the flow increases, the more heat will be lost, which will then be picked up by the sensor. With this data, the measurement of the fluid flow will then be determined. The amount of heat that is lost in the fluid depends entirely on the design of the sensor used in the flow meter and the fluid’s properties, especially its heat conductivity. In most applications, the thermal properties of the liquid measured can vary in temperature and pressure. These varying factors are too small to make any changes in the overall measurement. In most cases, the temperature and pressure have a fixed value. Thus, thermal flow meters can easily measure the mass flow as it is not dependent on these factors. However, there are also times when the thermal properties of a substance can solely be dependent on the substance’s composition. This can change the outcome of the result, which, in turn, can affect the measurement of the flow rate. With that said, the flow meter supplier needs to know the composition of the fluid so that the calibration factor will be efficient in measuring the liquid. Because of this reason, thermal flow meters are mostly used to measure pure gases. The flow meter must have the calibration appropriate for a specific substance. But, if the material has a different composition, the accuracy of the measurement will be significantly affected. But where can we find flow meters for sale? Flow meters for commercial and industrial purposes are commonly available on hardware centres or shops that sell hydraulic products. These meters can be bought online too as there are online retailers that sell such products.

Principles Used in Thermal Flow Meters

When fluid enters the pipe and comes in contact with a heated object, the fluid takes away some of the heat, which will then make the fluid more heated in turn. This is the main principle that the thermal flow meter uses to determine the mass flow. Thermal flow meters can be divided into two groups:

• Temperature difference measurement method: A heater will be introduced in the stream and will be measured at two points, both upstream and downstream. The difference in their results will be used to determine the flow. This is more applicable when dealing with low flow pressure.
• Power consumption measurement method: Just like the other method, it introduces a heater that will put two points in the stream, both upstream and downstream. However, the heater will maintain a fixed difference in temperature, and the amount of power that is needed to do that will be the main variable in determining the flow rate.

Applications of Thermal Flow Meters

To avoid damaging the sensor of the flow meter, it shouldn’t be used to measure abrasive and corrosive fluids. Also, avoid introducing a substance that can coat the sensor of the flow meter as it can affect the relationship of the thermal properties of a liquid and the flow meter, thus harming its measurement. When the sensor gets coated too much, it can be rendered as inoperable. Therefore, you should thoroughly clean it first before going on another operation. Having a different percentage of the individual components in the fluid’s composition that varies from the calibrated values can cause inefficiency and inaccuracy in the flow meter’s measurement. That said, thermal flow meters aren’t applicable in measuring substance that has a varying composition. Mostly, thermal flow meters are used to measure clean or pure gases like nitrogen, air, hydrogen, ammonia, and other industrial substances. Other fluids with a mixed composition like biogas flow and flue stack flow can still be measured, as long as their structure has been known beforehand. One advantage of thermal flow meters is that it measures the fluid using its thermal properties independent from its gas density. Also, when dealing with corrosive or abrasive fluids, it must be emphasized that the composition of the said fluids should be known beforehand to avoid damaging the sensor, which can lead to inaccurate measurements. They are also used in petrochemical and chemical plants, to the condition that the gases that will be measured have information of the composition beforehand.

Advantages and Disadvantages

• The advantages of thermal flow meters include its ability to detect and measure different gases, not having any pressure loss, and its ability to measure gas flow with known variables.
• Its disadvantages are difficulty in calibrating to match the composition of the fluid that will be measured, errors that might manifest when the temperature of the fluid changes drastically and being inoperable when a composition buildup occurs in the sensor.

Takeaway

Thermal flow meters are one of the most preferred metering systems by many industries. It represents more or less 2 percent of the sales in flow meters in the global market. Unlike other types of flow meters that calculate the volumetric flow that requires the mass density, pressure, and other factors to measure, thermal flow meters can directly provide mass flow measurements. Usually, thermal mass flow meters can measure and control the mass flow at a molecular level and offers a reliable and accurate analysis that is required in industrial plants. I hope you understand all the points of thermal flow meter and how its work if you have any question related to this you can comment below and ask us. We will answer your queries. Thank you for reading it.