Learning Module 2 has actually been fairly useful for me. We learned a lot about Internet Security and the risks people put themselves in when they don''t know the facts of safe online shopping and safe internet usage. We learned about different types of viruses your computer can get without you knowing. You can get worms, trojans, viruses, spyware and malware on your computer. You should always keep your internet browsers up to date. It'll keep the chances of getting a viruses pretty low because most internet browsers keep up to date on their internet protection.
When using the internet, one of the first things you should look for is that the web address has https at the beginning, it means it's a secure connection. When receiving emails from major places like discover card or anything where you have to provide personal information such as your social security number or a bank account number, always check the email address it is being sent from. Most places would never require you to email you back the personal information. If their asking for that type of information in a email, it probably is a hacker trying to get your information.
Here's a little video about Internet Security:
I also learned about Internet Protocol or IP. It figures out how each data packet is to be sent form one point to another. It makes sure it travels in the most efficient path. Another interesting thing about IP address is that it's the number form of a domain name. They created domain names so you don't have to remember a bunch of random numbers. But you can look up a IP address by just supplying a domain name and vice versa.
I actually enjoyed doing the discussion on Facebook about the vision of students today. It showed a lot about how students see the schooling system today. About how we take classes we don't need to be taking, also about how students think that schools should upgrade to using electronics and social media for classes. Students seem to want to work harder when they're using things they are familiar with and like. When I was doing D4 discussion I came across a article saying Microsoft is hiring hackers to help protect their programs from being hacked. It makes sense because the hackers would know exactly what they are looking for to fix a program.
I really do feel like I put the time needed in for this lesson. I learned so much about Internet Security that I didn't know before. I will be using that knowledge in my future with anything that I do online and I will be watching for suspicious things to see if my computer is being hacked. I look forward to our next topic!
Terminology:
Cookies- info sent form a web server to a browser. It gets stored in a text file on a person's computer and is retrieved by a web server at a later time
Malware- a malicious software that get's into a computer and files without a user's consent
Spyware- a type of malware that installs itself on a user's computer without consent or knowledge
Worm- software that replicates itself through a computer network in order to spread
Virus- a program that can replicate itself by attaching itself to other programs
