We recorded our voices in the recorder and Ms Lindsay showed us how we use different files to save the recording and then to open the recording in Audacity. In audacity we can edit the wave-like lenghts and change the pitches of the voice.

Task-Podcasting on software fundamentals-FOSS-Free and Open Source Software on arts and education

For my task i will talk to Mr Lavy who is the IT teacher in the Primary school building and i will talk to her bout Open Source Software and education and what shes using for the primary students in terms of OSS. I could even have a talk with Mr Franzois since he is very keen on Open Source Software.

How euiqvilaent is OSS in ISD?

Choose a couple of OSS programs, audacity, firefox, do you use firefox, how is it different from internet?

 I need to work on researching on Podcasting and difference between microphones and recorders.

Today we were introduced to a new task which is 'Software Fundamentals' where we need to discuss about the social and ehtical issues in the use of software as well as the knowledge of the technology.

The task i will need to be working on this week to be due in this time next week is:

1.Research software facts and explore issues to do with the use of software. Store useful web resources in your del.icio.us account. Blog your findings in terms of developments and trends with softwares.

2.News Task:all students to complete

Find a news artcile that deals with a software issue. Prepare a 5 minute class presentation covering the following:

• Describe the scenario and the main stakeholders.
• Discuss two and/or ethical issues.
• Define what the main problem is  with an issue.
• Suggest 1 possible solution to the problem.

3.Specific  study to complete a wiki page

Choose a software-related topic that interests you and completes a page on the ITGS wiki. Minimum requirement:

• 1 paragraph of description of the topic
• 1 paragraph of discussion-social and ethical issue
• At least 2 external  resources(hyperlink)
• A real-life interview(podcast) about one particular issue at ISD.

flickshow.com

pageflakes.com

rockme.com

flock

google video

slip.tv

youtube.com

Today in ITGS we were told to have alook at these following websites where you can post pictures and download songs, news clips and videos. I got the merit for itgs mainly for my consistent practice in blogging for both community and personal blogs.

Today in class i mainly worked on a specific webiste-flickr.com. It is pretty much like hi5 where you can upload photos and the most interesting bit is that we can upload photos directly from the cellphone to  flickr.

Talking about integrity, I learned that data has integrity, even data regarding our personal and medical information. Database programs are designed to maintain databases, which are collections of information stored on computer disks. Just about any collection of information can be turned into a database like al electronic version of a phone book or names and address of business contacts. We have no control over the databases once they are collected this it is out of sight but we must not forget that lives of thousands have been changed because of these databases.

There are many ways that databases are mistreated and not used properly and thus this invades personal privacy which now reflects back to the social and ethical issue that being privacy. There are many people who are held captive from the misuse of databases and this justifies that the database technology can be a powerful criminal too other than an essential tool for everyday lives and a life savior from all the manual work that would have been otherwise done if there were no database programs.Although databases are the most efficient amongst other information storage methods for their storage capacity, their ways of distributing information, retrieval speed, the flexibility of its organization, they are still a threat to our privacy since they can take away personal privacy from people, companies, institutions and banks.

We, as a class, discussued about how we would use barcode scanncers in the cafeteria,t hs we would be charged for whenever we take school lunch instead of having it paid beforehand and not eating everyday thus resulting in loss for students. A bad point for this is that if anyone leaves their card lying around anyone can use it to take lunch wthout geting caught and thus adding up amounts to the owner of the card. We also discussed about alternative ways other than using barcode scanners which was not such a good idea since a card could be used by anyone. Fingerprint readers is the best option and essential way to idenify the owner and with the research i did based on authenticity, in order to go through the fingerprnt process, you need to have your fingers cleaned which is exactly what we do before lunch. We wash our hands and so it is easier if we have finergprint readers.

Well today I will try to read the pages related to privacy and answer the questions in the task and find a news item about data integrity or a data error problem and then answer to the posting in the community blog , 'Apple Macintosh or Others?. I learned about databases and its advantages and disadvantages and its relation to privacy but now I am confused as to how it related to integrity. Well I guess that will be part of my homework.  

Validation and verification ensure the data of its integrity. Verification is when the data needs to be retyped and if there are differences between the data then the computer will be alerted and will notify the user thus verifying that tha data is incorrect. When we check and correct data on disk, which we typa from documents, it is known as verification. For example if i want to save my word document making sure it is private and cannot be accessed by other users i provide a password system. I need to retype the password so that the computer makes sure it is correct and the same goes with whenever i open up the document.

Tasks:

-Find a news item about data integrity or a data error problem. Briefly describe the scenario and discuss possible solutions.

-Find the 1998 Data Protection Act. What duties does it impose on those who hole personal data?Save a copy of the main principles of the act for your notes.

We were told to study chapter 7 of our new itgs textbook as a resource and reference to the questions.

-The scrambling of data so that only an authorized user has access to it is known as encryption and the unscrambling of data so that only a registered user has access to it is known as decryption. Basically encryption is the scrambling of data into weird characters and decryption turns them back to the original data. It makes the data seem obscure, unreadable and meaningless to an unauthorized user.

 -Encryption is usually done when a file is transferred from 1 location to another across a network. Data is first encoded at source and sent or transmitted to the destination where it is decoded both the sender and the receiver must use the same program to encrypt or decrypt. The data has to pass a mathematical formula, which is called an algorithm, which helps to convert the data to encrypted data called ciphertext. The original information/piece of data is called the ‘plaintext’ and the hidden information in other words the information only accessible to authorized users and block for the rest is called the ‘ciphertext’ . Encryption is the process used to convert the plain text to the cipher text. Decryption, however, converts the cipher text to the plain text so it performs the reverse action. However this process, encryption will require 1 variable from the user that being the key which makes it nearly impossible for anyone to break the encryption. 

There are 2 types on encryption called symmetric and asymmetric (public key).

Symmetric encryption is when you run a file through th program and then cxreate a key which scrambles the file. Firstly the algorithm divides the data into small chunks which ware called blocks. The letters are misplaced and the information in each block is converted to numbers. It compresses and expands the data and it runs those numbers through the mathematical formulas that thus include thew key. The encrypted file is then mailed to the recipient as well as the decoding key which is mailed separately. The decoding key could be a password or another data file. The recipient then uses the decoding key to unscramble the message, decrypting it in order to make the data readable but his/her computer must run the same encryption application. Both the recipient and the sender must run on the same software that encrypts date in order for this type of encryption to work out. This type of encryption is not safe since anyone could seize the key and decode and unscramble the data/messages. It is for its high speed that it is used for e-commerce transactions.

Asymmetric encryption requires 2 keys, a pulic and a private key. The algorithm for as asymentric ecryption is totally different compared to the symmetric encrption’s algorithm. The text is converted to a large number and then raised to another large number and the remainder is obtained when it is divided by the third largest number. The public key is made avaible to anyone who sends you encrypted data/messages but the key can only encode the data, not decode it. When people send encrypted infromatiuon they encyrp it using the public key and as soon as I receive the encrypted information which is called the ciphertext,  I use my private key to decode/decrypt it. This type of encrptiions is more complex yet much more secure.

Different encryption programs still use the same algorithms but in a different way but it doesn’t make any difference since the recipient uses the same way to decode the message that was used to encode it thus it avoids hassles.

-Encryption is used to keep a document confidential especially when it has to bypass unsafe paths to reach its destination that being the inbox of the recipient. It is used when creating the digital signature to verify the origin of the message or data. Encryption is used in electronic cash where there are tokens which have a serial number that can be decrypted by the bank when it accepts the token. If the token is used again then the employees will know since the user can be identified by the serial number with help from previous transactions.

It can be used in digital signatures since it is important to identify the sender. The secret decryption key is used to encrypt the message and the non-secret encryption key is used to decrypt it. Anyone can use the non=secret key to check the digital signature but the secret messages that are signed can only be obtained by digitally signing with the secret key and then using then encrypt it using the recipients non-secret key.

Works Cited 

Encryption (open literature only). 7 Feb. 1997.  8 Sept. 2006 <http://www.objs.com/‌survey/‌encrypt.htm>.

 “How It Works: Encryption.” PcWorld.  8 Sept. 2006 <http://www.pcworld.com/‌article/‌id,15230-page,1/&zw>.

Meyer, Peter. An Introduction to the Use of Encryption.  8 Sept. 2006 <http://www.hermetic.ch/‌crypto/‌intro.htm>.         

Digital certificates-A digital certificate is an attached which the sender uses in order to justify that she is whoever she claims herself to me. It helps to identify the personal recording personal information. It also helps to help encode a reply to the encrypted message. In order to use a digital certificate, the user needs to send an encrypted message and then apply for the certificate from the Certificate Authority (CA). The user’s public key and identification information in required in the encrypted digital certificate which is given by the CA. The recipient uses the public key of the CA which is available on the internet to decode the digital certificate which is the attachment in the message. The recipient has to verify that it is issued by the CA and obtains the identification information and the sender’s public key in the certificate and using this, the recipient can send an encrypted reply. The process looks big but when it actually comes to reality when we are he users it seems like a piece of cake since we don’t actually know what’s being done. We just click a few buttons any then we are done with. It is basically an ID card with the public key of the user/sender. The CA plays a big role since it issues the certificate and it is important since it helps to justify that the sender is the person he/he claims to be and also that the public key belongs to the sender. The CA does not require a third party in order to be authenticated. X.509 is the widely used digital certificate. A digital certificate includes the public key, the ID, a validity time and lastly the URL of a revocation centre although revocation happens rarely, it is still important to make precautions and check the validity of the certificate before actually using it. 

Digital signatures-

Digital signatures are not the same as digital certificates. A digital signature can be able to help authenticate the senders ID and other identification information and to ensure the recipient that the original text has been sent and not altered during the process. The advantages of a digital signature, is that it is unique for different users and is almost impossible to copy and they are transportable.  The digital signature is issued by the Certificate Authority (CA) which is in the digital certificate and it is used to justify that the certificate is real. Firstly the sender sends a message or a contract (to a lawyer) and it is necessary to provide assurance to the recipient that the message/contract sent has been unchanged and has been sent by the person the user claims to be. Using a special software you hash the message which breaks down the data to a few lines. The product obtained from the breakdown of the data is called the message digest and the original message cannot be retrieved when the data is crashed to the message digest. Then using the private key, the message digest in encrypted and that becomes the digital signature of the message. The recipient uses the pubic key to decrypt the signature and decode the encrypted message hash. It this works it proves that the sender has signed the message since only the sender had his private key. The recipient the hashes the document into a message digest and if the message digest matches with the one that was previously created by the sender when the signature was decrypted, only then does the recipient knows that the signed  data has been unchanged and the received message is valid. However it is possible to deceive the recipient into thinking the sender actually was who he claims to be by creating a public key making it look like it appears to belong to the sender. This can only be done if we are connected to someone who works at the company’s certificate authority centre.

 By defining these two above we can assure that the digital certificate and the digital signature is not the same thing. The difference is that the digital signature verifies that the data has not been altered since when it was made, the date and time it was issued along with ways as to identify who created the signature. However in short, a digital certificate basically is a digitally based record which verifies the certification authority that are issuing it, identifies the person who subscribers for the signature along with the certificate,  has the subscribers public key and is digitally signed by the certification authority issuing it. In relation to ITGS and its social and ethical issues, it covers authenticity, integrity, privacy/confidentiality as well as the inability to repudiate. The inability to repudiate bit means that he sender cannot disagree to sending or receiving an encrypted message since both digital certificate and signatures help assure that the person is who he claims to be by obtaining his personal information and his public key which too can be applied to the meaning of non-repudiation.    

   Works Cited

“Digital certificate .” Webopedia. 14 July 2005.  8 Sept. 2006 <http://www.webopedia.com/‌TERM/‌D/‌digital_certif>.

“Digital Signature.” SearchSecurity.com Definitions  . 10 July 2006.  8 Sept. 2006 <http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/‌sDefinition/‌0,,sid14_gci211>.

“Digital Signatures.” WindowSecurity.com.  8 Sept. 2006 <http://www.windowsecurity.com/‌articles/‌Digital_Signatures>.

“ReadNotify Digital Certificate Signature Display & Verification.” ReadNotify.  8 Sept. 2006 <http://www.readnotify.com/‌readnotify/‌postcert.asp#wha>.

Youd, David. What is a Digital Signature?  8 Sept. 2006 <http://www.youdzone.com/‌signature.html>.  

I opened the wiki page for encryption and then with Ms Lindsays help i linked important key words as well as the websites, the work cited bit. It was a hassle but at the end of the day it looked better. I worked on spaces between each paragraph because from my experience and perception it is boring to read long texts. I didnt quite finish on linking the important key words to web deifinations. I will do them soon when i get home and get them done before sundays class.