Implications of anInformation Society

Computers in our day-to-day lives

• Communication– Email, Instant Messaging

• Our identity, a virtual face– Facebook, Blogs, Wikis

• Security– Bad guys who want your data, money, and tocontrol of your computer

• Privacy– Is your important personal information out there for everyone to see?

Email and IM

• Advantages– Immediate (Faster

than traditional mail)– Free– Efficient broadcast to

multiple recipients– Email: Asynchronous– IM: Nearly instant

Downsides of E-Communication

• Problems with email and IM:– Fast may not be a good thing…• less thinking before acting• Replying slowly or not at all– Conveying emotions accurately:) ;) :D– Emphasis, ***This*** or THAT?– Ambiguity– Flame-a-thons– SPAM

Conveying Emotion

• Difficult to convey subtle emotions using email– Medium is too informal, impersonal,

and casually written– Conversational cues are missing

• Emoticons are popular,but are they effective?– Universal agreement?– Does the email reader or

IM program interpret them?

Emphasis

• Typing for emphasis can convey the wrongmeaning– Text in all caps can be interpreted as yelling

• Email is still largely ASCII based and may notallow italics or underlining– Asterisks for underscores can replace underlining

Conversational Pace

• Asynchronous mediums, like email, make dialogdifficult– For interactive purposes (like negotiation)synchronous mediums like telephone may be best

Ambiguity• Text can be interpreted in ways we don't intend

– People often don't proofread what they write inemail to avoid ambiguity

Flames

• Flame is slang for inflammatory email• Flame-a-thon is ongoing exchange of angry

emails• When angered by email, it's best to delay

answering until you cool down

SPAM• Unsolicited or undesired bulk electronic messages• Many types of electronic spam, including

– E-mail spam, unsolicited e-mail– Mobile phone spam, unsolicited

text messages– Spam in blogs, posting random

comments or promotingcommercial services to blogs,wikis, guestbooks

– Newsgroup spam, advertisement and forgery on newsgroups– Messaging spam ("SPIM"), use of instant messengerservices for advertisement or even extortion

Netiquette

• Rules to promote civilized email usage– Ask about one topic at a time– Include context (include the questionwith your answer)– Use an automated reply if unable toanswer mail for a period of time;an “away message”– Ask the sender's permission before forwarding email– Use targeted distribution lists (don't send the latestjoke to every person you've ever exchanged mail with)

Email Quagmires

• Are you responsible for what you say on email?– Accidentally forwarding a message to anunintended recipient– Reply to All

Computer Security

• Protecting information from theft or corruption• Approaches for improving computer security

– Limited access• Passwords, permissions

– Hardware mechanisms (biometrics)• Fingerprints, retinal readers

– Authentication Challenges• Moms maiden name, etc

Creating Good Passwords

• The Role of Passwords– To limit computer or system access to only those

who know a sequence of keyboard characters• Breaking into a Computer without a Password

– Trying all possible passwords algorithmically wouldeventually find correct password, but softwareusually limits the number of tries

• Forgetting a Password– Passwords are scrambled or encrypted and

stored, so system administrator usually can't tellyou your password if you forget it

Guidelines for Selecting a Password

• It's not a good idea to choose something easily guessed• Should have at least 6 characters• Mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers,

punctuation characters• Sequence not found in dictionaries• No personal association (like your name)• Use

– Substitutions: 1 for I, 5 for s, @ for at, 2 for to, etc– Punctuation: ! ? , .

Heuristics for picking a password

• Select a personally interesting topic– Always select passwords related to topic

• Develop a password from a phrase rather than asingle word

• Encode the password phrase– Make it short by abbreviating, replace letters

and syllables with alternate characters or spellings

Changing Passwords

• Should be changed periodically• Managing Passwords

– Using a single password for everything is risky;using a different password for everything is

hard to remember– Passwords can be recycled

• Make slight changes to good passwords or• Rotate passwords

Viruses and Worms• It's a Zoo Out There

– Virus a program that "infects" anothers by embeddinga copy of itself. When the infected program runs, thevirus copies itself and infects other programs

– Worm is an independent program that copies itselfacross network connections

– Trojan horse is a program that hides inside anotheruseful program, and performs secret operations. Mayrecord keystrokes or other sensitive data, or loadmalicious software

– Exploit is a program that takes advantage of securityholes. Backdoor access enters computer andreconfigures it for remote control

How to "Catch" a Virus

• Email attachments. Do not open attachments beforechecking– Is this email from someone I know?– Is the message a sensible follow-up to the last message from the sender?– Is the content of the message something the sender would say to me?– Is there a reason for the sender to include an attachment?

• When in doubt, be cautious

How to "Catch" a Virus (cont'd)

• Copying software from infected computer• Peer-to-Peer Exchange

– Downloading files from unreliable sources• New Software

– Any software is a potential source of infected code– Most software distributors are careful to

avoid infection

Virus-Checking Software

• Three companies are McAfee, Norton, and Sophos, Inc.

• Programs check for known viruses, worms, etc.• New viruses are created all the time, so

update often• Better solution- Virtualization

– VMWare, Parallels

Phishing

• Password harvesting exploits• Users are sent SPAM emails asking for credit card or

banking information• Message is disguised to appear to be from

a bank, or other legitimate source– Often reports a security problem the user needs

to address– When the user clicks legitimate looking link, they are linked to bogus sites set up to steal the information entered

What Can Be Done About Phishing?

• Never respond to requests for personal information likepasswords via email; legitimate businesses do not requestinformation this way

• Examine links or pre-typed addresses because they can bespoofed; type the URL yourself. Be weary of numeric IPaddresses in URLs.

• Check to make sure the website is using encryption(https: rather than http:)

• Routinely review credit card and bank statements forunusual activity

• Report suspected abuses to proper authorities

Protecting Intellectual Property

• Intellectual property is any human creation likephotograph, music, textbooks, cartoons, etc.

• Licensing of software– You don't own software; you lease it– License gives you the right to use personally, but not

to resell or give it away• Try before you buy

– Shareware allows you to download and try software for free, then pay the person who built it if you like it (honor system)

Copyright on the Web

• A person automatically owns copyright of what hecreates in the U.S. and most nations

• Copyright protects owner's right to– Make a copy of the work– Use a work as the basis for a new work

(derivative work)– Distribute or publish the work, including

electronically– Publicly perform the work– Publicly display the work

Copyright on the Web (cont'd)

• Free Personal Use– You are free to read, view or listen to protected

work• When is permission needed?

– Information placed in public domain is free foranyone to use

– Otherwise you must get permissionfrom owner

Copyright on the Web (cont'd)

• The Concept of “Fair Use”– Allows use of copyrighted material for educational or scholarlypurposes, to allow limited quotation for review or criticism, topermit parody

• When Is It Fair Use?– What is the planned use?– What is the nature of the work in which the material is to

be used?– How much of the work will be used?– What effect would this use have on the market for the work, if the

use were widespread?

Copyright on the Web (cont'd)

• Violating the Copyright Law– You break the law whether you give away

copyrighted material or sell it– Commercial use usually results in higher fines

Your E-Persona

• Good News, on the internet we are all– Equals– Free– Fools– Stooges

• In addition to your Resume, potential employersare reading your facebook pages

• “I broke up with my Ex posting a dear john letteron his wall”

• On-line predators

An E-Voice!

• Blogs– A website, usually maintained by an individual, with

regular entries of commentary, descriptions ofevents, or other material such as graphics orvideo..

• Wikis– A collection of web pages designed to enable

anyone who accesses it to contribute or modifycontent, using a simplified markup language. Wikisare often used to create collaborative websitesand to power community websites.

Wrap up: Two Big IT Ideas

• Computers are merely machines that process information– Information is measured in bits– Bits are stored in a computer’s memory– Computer instructions process bits

• Many layers of the abstraction onion– Machine Languages - 0010010001– Assembly languages - addi $2,$3,$4– Interpreters - for i in range(10):– Spreadsheets– Visual Programming– Web browsers

Lifelong IT Learning• Pursuing New Uses:

– Be confident that you can learn new applications, and take thetime to do so

– Apply IT only if it can help• Asking for Help

– After applying all reasonable efforts to solve problems,ask for help

• Noticing New Technology– Be attentive, and skeptical– Be willing to learn about fundamental advancements– Adopt new technology as soon as there is a high probability that

it will assist you, but expect it to continue to improve!• Be Fearless!

Be Fearless!

• Fluency gives us the ability– to control IT– to extract its full power– to be in command– to achieve our goals

The IT FutureDon’t prognosticate… invent!(Then you too can make predictions ;-)

'I think there is a world market for maybe five computers'-Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943

'I have travelled the length and breadth of this countryand talked with the best people, and I can assure youthat data processing is a fad that won't last out the year’- Editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

'There is no reason why anyone would want a computer in the home’- Ken Olson, Present, Chairman and founder ofDigital Equipment Corporation, 1977

'640K should be enough for anybody'- Bill Gates, 1981