Luca Winterton's ICT BTEC Blog: 2012

Wednesday 20 June 2012

Threats: Cyber Bullying

What is Cyber Bullying

Cyber bullying is when either the internet or mobile phones are used to delibrately upset someone.

How can Social Networking Sites be Used for Cyber Bullying

An example of how social networking sites can be used for cyber bullying is someone posting a message up on one of these sites which is aimed at someone to make them feel sad and upset.

Risks of Using these Sites

One risk of using these sites is that it is literally impossible for you to stop someone from posting something hurtful about you. You cannot physically take the thing down which is hurtful towards you, as the person who posted it owns the right to do so.

Another risk is the fact that people can use identity theft. Someone can create an account which has your name and your picture on it. The person who has created this account can post whatever they want without it being taken down, and people may think that this is the person who's name and picture is on the account. This could get you into different amounts of trouble, depending on what the person decides to post.

Monday 18 June 2012

Threats: Denial of Service

Introduction

Hi, I'm Luca and I am a student in year 10 at St. Francis Xavier's College in Woolton, Liverpool. One of the subjects I am currently studying at school is ICT, and I am going to share my knowledge and understanding of this subject with everyone in a series of blogs. In this particular blog, I will be discussing cyber bullying. I hope that you enjoy this blog, and come away learning something new which you can hopefully pass on to someone else.

What is Denial of Service

Denial of Service is an illegal act, which has the intent of disabling a server.

Every server responds to external requests from its network. An example of this is when a web server responds to an internet browser calling for a web page to be delivered from its hard drive.

Each request takes a small period of time and some of the CPU resources on a server. With a DoS attack, the server is overwhelmed by millions of rogue requests being sent to it. This means that it is using up all of its resources and denying normal service for the legitimate users.

Why Would these Types of Attack be Made

A reason why these types of attacks would be made is because if one person has access to the wire that someone else is using, they then have access to that person's computer. This means that the person who is being granted access can find out all different types of information, such as bank details, passwords, internet history and a lot more.

Wednesday 13 June 2012

Threats: Phishing

What is Phishing

Phishing is a type of spam and a form of internet fraud where criminals try to trick people into giving out their important information such as credit card details, user IDs and social security numbers.

How it Occurs

Criminals set up a fake website which looks exactly the same to a genuine one, such as a bank or insurance company, and then they try to trick people into giving away their security codes and account details.

What are the Risks Associated with it

If your PC is not protected, then there is a huge risk of phishing occuring. There are many problems with phishing. For example, you could click onto a phishing website which looks like your typical bank website. You could then click onto something which requires you to type in your credit card details or any other personal and important information, which means that the people who set up the phishing website will have all of your details at their finger tips. This could lead to further problems such as huge amounts of money being stolen from your bank account.

Threats: Viruses

A virus is a piece of program code that makes copies of itself by attaching itself to another program. The virus can sometimes destroy and change files.

While viruses are commonly malicious, by either destroying data or crashing network services, many just do nothing and are usually very annoying. For example, displaying a data message to the user. A majority of viruses are made to be delayed before they actually do anything, commonly destroying data on a certain day or week, such as a holiday.

Viruses are spread in many ways, usually by either a computer network, by e-mail, or by removable media such as a memory stick or a floppy disk.

How to Avoid Them

The best way to avoid them is by purchasing a good, well known anti-virus software such as Norton or Mcafee, and then install it onto your computer. Make sure that you update your particular anti-virus software regularly too.

You should also perform regular security scans on your PC to see whether any unwanted software or anything else has got onto your PC. If you are about to download something or open an attachment, then you should scan these aswell, in case either of them contain viruses.

Another way to avoid viruses is to only use trusted websites on the internet, and not websites which you have never heard of before. If you do want to go on a website which you have never heard of, make sure you do your research on it to check whether it is a potentially dangerous website, and one which could cause all sorts of harm to your PC.

Finally, you should never download anything from untrusted websites, and websites which are genuine. For example, if you wanted to download Microsoft Office and you thought it was too expensive, you may try to download either a free, or much cheaper version of it. However, this may contain viruses, and you should therefore not download it.

Monday 11 June 2012

Threats: Spam

Spam is when a company tries to sell people their products by sending lots of emails or texts to them when they do not want the company to do so.

Many ISP email packages offer services to users such as 'spam filters' that try to prevent these emails from getting through to your inbox, however it is a difficult process trying to separate spam from your wanted mail. Your email service may have a mailbox called either 'junk' or 'bulk' which will contain all of your spam mail. You will then have to check it to see whether some of your real mail has been accidently caught by the filters.

It is estimated that 80%-90% of the emails on the internet are spam.

How to Avoid it

To avoid spam, you should try to avoid giving people your email or mobile number, as when you give either of these pieces of information to companies, you are now part of their automatic system which means that they will keep sending you emails or texts as they know that these pieces of information are genuine and do exist.

Also, if you get an unwanted email or text off a company, do not reply to it as this lets that company know that your email or phone number exists, which means they will keep on sending you emails or texts.

Sunday 10 June 2012

The Ethical Impacts of ICT: Privacy of Information

The Ethical Impacts of ICT: Global Implications

Not everyone has the equal amount of access to the internet. This is called the 'Digital Divide'.

People in less developed countries are affected by the digital divide for many reasons, such as:

Money - technology and access to it is not free

Language - the majority (or at least a large part) of the internet is written in English

Literacy - most of the internet includes text

Age - older people find it harder to use new technology

Physical - many people have physical disabilities which makes using the internet a lot harder for them than it should be, and is for most people.

How Does it Affect People in Developing Countries

People who live in developing countries are undoubtedly affected by the digital divide.

One of the ways how these people are affected by the digital divide is their education. ICT is a huge part of education nowadays, as a lot of people who study various subjects at school, university or college use ICT to complete different pieces of homework, research, coursework and a lot more. Therefore, if people in less developed countries don't have access to the internet and ICT, then they will fall behind a lot in terms of their education.

The Ethical Imapcts of ICT: Unequal Access

Introduction:

Hi, I'm Luca and I am a student in year 10 at St. Francis Xavier's College in Woolton, Liverpool. One of the subjects I am currently studying at school is ICT, and I am going to share my knowledge and understanding of this subject with everyone in a series of blogs. In this particular blog, I will be discussing the ethical impacts of ICT: unequal access. I hope that you enjoy this blog, and come away learning something new which you can hopefully pass on to someone else.

Older People

Firstly, I will talk about how older people are affected by unequal access. Many more older people these days are working in jobs which involve ICT, whether it would be at home or in an office. If an older person has a job which involves ICT, then they may need to have access to things such as fast internet speed and computer's with a high memory. However, these things may cost a lot of money which a lot of people may not have, and this means that the people who need certain things will not be able to have them. This leads to them not being able to do their jobs properly and as quickly as they would like to.

Students

Next, students. Almost every student nowadays requires access to software such as Microsoft Word and Power Point to complete various pieces of work. Students usually have access to these different pieces of software in school or university etc, but this may not be the case at home, and this is because of the cost of the software. To have access to the software, you need to buy Microsoft Office which isn't cheap. Because of the cost of it, students may not be able to purchase this software, and therefore will not be able to complete their work anywhere other than school, which may be bad for them if they have a large assignment to do which has been for homework.

Less Affluent Families

Finally, less affluent families. Nowadays, ICT equipment and software etc. costs a lot of money, especially the more advanced pieces of technology and software. Therefore, if a member of the family needs a computer to do work or research for either work or school, then they will need to purchase one, which may cost a lot of money which the less affluent family doesn't have. Therefore, this means that they cannot do their work or research for work or school, which could lead to further problems such as lack of education and being sacked from work.

The Legal Impacts of ICT: Copyright Designs and Patent Act

The Copyright designs and Patent Act was introduced in 1988 to protect the time, effort and money by the people who create original pieces of work.

This can apply to people such as composers of music, authors of books, the makers of a film, a computer game designer or a company who create applications such as word processing software.

All of these people put a lot of time, money and effort into all of the work in which they produce, and luckily and quite rightly for them, their work belongs to them.

Copyright and ICT

The act protects a lot of work, no matter whether it is computer based or written work.

Some examples of how someone can breach copyright in ICT are:

Copying software

Copying or illegally downloading music

Copying photographs or images from the internet

Copying pieces of writing from the internet and using them in your own pieces of work or posting it onto your own website and pretending that it is all your own work.

Wednesday 6 June 2012

The Legal Impacts of ICT: Data Protection Act

Introduction

Hi, I'm Luca and I am a student in year 10 at St. Francis Xavier's College in Woolton, Liverpool. One of the subjects I am currently studying at school is ICT, and I am going to share my knowledge and understanding of this subject with everyone in a series of blogs. In this particular blog, I will be discussing the legal impacts of ICT: Data Protection Act. I hope that you enjoy this blog, and come away learning something new which you can hopefully pass on to someone else.

The 8 Principles of the DPA

There are 8 principles in total of the Data Protection Act.

1. Principal: Personal data should be obtained and processed fairly and lawfully.

Meaning: This means that you should be told about data that is being collected about you and should be asked for your permission to collect it.

You should also be made aware of the reason why the data will be collected and what it will be used for.

2. Principle: Personal data can be held only for specified and lawful purposes.

Meaning: The Data Controller has to state why they want to collect and store information when they apply for permission to be able to do so. If they are using the data they have collected for other purposes, they are breaking the law.

3. Principle: Personal data should be adequate, relevant and excessive for the required purpose.

Meaning: Organisations should only collect the data that they need and no more. Your school only needs to know your parent's phone number in case they need to contact them in case of an emergency. However, they do not need to know what your Grandmother's name is, as is the same in terms of them not needing to know your eye colour. They should not ask, and they should not store these details as this would be excessive and would not be required to help you with your education.

4. Principle: Personal data should be kept accurate and up-to-date.

Meaning: Companies should do their best to make sure that they do not record the wrong facts about a data subject. Your school probably asks your parents to check a form once a year to make sure that the phone and address on the school system is still correct. If a person asks for the information to be changed, the company should comply if it can be proved that the information is indeed incorrect.

5. Principle: Personal data should not be kept for longer than is necessary.

Meaning: Organisations should keep data for a reasonable length of time. Hospitals may need to keep patient information for 25 years or more, that is acceptable as they may need the information to treat a particular illness later on. However, there is no need to keep a personnel department to keep the application forms of unsuccessful job applicants.

6. Principal: Data must be processed in accordance with the rights of the data subject.

Meaning: People have a right to inspect the information help on them. If the data being held on them is incorrect, they have the right to have it changed.

7. Principal: Appropriate security measures must be taken against unauthorised access.

Meaning: This means information has to be kept safe from hackers and employees who don't have rights to see it. Data must also be safeguarded against accidental loss.

8. Principal: Personal data cannot be transferred to countries outside the E.U. unless the country has similar legislation to the D.P.A.

Meaning: This means that if a company wishes to share data with an organisation with a different country, that country must have similar laws to our Data Protection Act in place.

The Economic Impacts of ICT: Sustainability

The use of electricity in ICT has had a huge economical impact on modern society over the years. The sheer amount of electricity that is needed to power up the millions of computers around the world is ridiculous.

When electricity is used, it produces greenhouse gases because of the way it is generated. Therefore, the less electricity used, the better it will be for the environment. It is also cheaper for all of the companies and houses who are paying for all of that energy.

To help out at home, you can use the 'sleep mode' option on your computer which pretty much shuts it down when it is not currently in use. An alternative to this is to just switch it off.

Recycling

Over a million tonnes of ICT equipment are supposedly thrown away each year, and this is growing by around 80,000 tonnes each year.

The best way possible to recycle an old mobile phone, computer or any other piece of technological equipment is to simply give it to someone else for them to use it.

Over the years, a number of schemes have been made that will re-distribute the items that you wish to donate for other people to use instead of you. Some of these are commercial companies, where as others are charities.

Climate Change

As time has gone by, many more people have became increasingly concerned over our environment and climate change.

An example of this is the fact that we have scientific satellites orbiting the earth, looking down and measuring many different things, such as the state of polar ice over time, the flow of ocean currents, the alarming growth of deserts and a lot more.

The reason why all of this monitoring is taking place is because it may make the nations agree on the best way forward.

WEEE Directive

To encourage further recycling around the world, there is an EU directive called WEEE - Waste Electrical and Economical Equipment. It places an obligation on and stresses to an organisation such as a school or a hospital to recycle their old equipment.

The Social Impacts of ICT: Affects of ICT on Local Communities

Positive Affects on Local Communities

A positive impact ICT has had on local communities is that the communities have access to a lot more local information that is likely to be up-to-date then they originally did and they may also be a lot more likely to become more involved in local issues. Therefore, the communities will be able to keep on top of everything that they need to in and around the community.

Another example of a positive affect on local communities is the fact that social networking sites can put advertisements for local companies on their websites. This would make people a lot more aware of who that company are and what they stand for etc.

Negative Affects on Local Communities

Local businesses such as printed publications and newsletters etc may go out of business because computers and other various technology will do this job instead.

Local businesses such as shops will also suffer because most of the retail nowadays is online. This means that the people who run the stores will become out of business which could lead to worse things such as that person having no money or job etc. This may also affect the people who like to have a walk round and look in these shops such as elderly people. If the shops go, the fun which they have looking in these shops will be over.

Wednesday 30 May 2012

The Economic Impacts of ICT: Employment Structure and Working Practices

ICT has affected jobs in many ways. It has became a lot more common for jobs to involve ICT nowadays, where as in the past hardly any jobs involved ICT. For example, some jobs have been revolutionised like administrators who used to keep paper based records will now keep them as documents on a computer, or typists who used to use a type writer to do their work will use a computer to do so. This has been the case with many other jobs too.

Another example of how jobs have changed because of ICT is in banking and retail. In the past, a person would have to physically go to a bank or shop to either take their money out or buy something. Nowadays, the banks have employed a lot more people to work on computers for customers to be able to take their money out, check their account balance etc, and shops have designed their own websites which allow customers to purchase products online instead of going into the shop itself.

Also, robots are now being used a lot more to do jobs, and have replaced human workers in a lot of cases. IT has also created many new jobs, such as call centre workers and teleworking. This also shows that IT skills are needed in a lot of jobs in our modern society, such as the ability to programs such as Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel.

Finally, the Internet is obviously available to people world wide, which means people can now work from home instead of going into work. This can also be easier for customers sometimes who are buying online.

Monday 28 May 2012

How ICT Has Impacted on Education

Introduction

Hi, I'm Luca and I am a student in year 10 at St. Francis Xavier's College in Woolton, Liverpool. One of the subjects I am currently studying at school is ICT, and I am going to share my knowledge and understanding of this subject with everyone in a series of blogs. In this particular blog, I will be discussing how ICT has had an impact on education over time. I hope that you enjoy this blog, and come away learning something new which you can hopefully pass on to someone else.

The Internet

Firstly, I will talk about how ICT has had an impact on education.

The Internet has helped education massively over the years.

Some good points about using the Internet for education are: the fact that the information is up to date, it is accurate and you are able to use multi – media for different things.

However, there are also some bad points about using the Internet for education, such as: websites such as Facebook and Twitter can distract you from doing your work, the information isn't always accurate and you sometimes have to double check your information to see whether it is correct.

The Internet has helped me with my homework many times in the past, as it has helped me to find information for various subjects.

Software

Next, software.

Software is another thing which has played a massive role in education.

Some good points about using software are: it makes your work look professional and neat, various software uses things such as spell checker which means your work would be spelt correctly and also you can do many different things on software such as making spreadsheets and PowerPoints etc.

Some bad points about software are: it can be expensive, it can be hard to use and some software may not have the particular kind of capabilities you need to make whatever you need to.

Software such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint have helped me in the past because they have allowed me to produce different pieces of homework on which looks professional, and they have helped me to produce PowerPoint presentations too.

Interactive Whiteboard

I will now go on to talk about two particular pieces of hardware which have had an impact on education over time. Firstly, the interactive white board.

Interactive whiteboards have became more and more popular over the past few years. They have been used in schools, universities and business places a lot in recent years.

Some good points about using an interactive whiteboard are: they are large, and can therefore be used to present something to a large audience, they can be used for fun activities with a large class and they allow more interaction between different students which could contribute to a better learning environment for everyone.

Some bad points about using an interactive whiteboard are: they are expensive, the pens which are used on them are usually very un-responsive which could cause frustration for either the teacher or the student and also when there is a bright light in the room, this will mean both the teacher and the students will not be able to see the board which would mean that it would create a worse learning environment for the class.

The interactive whiteboard has helped me with my education in the past because the teacher has displayed things on it to help me learn more about the particular subject I was learning about. It has also helped many of the other people in a particular class I have been in too.

Mobile Devices

The other piece of hardware which I am going to talk about is the mobile device.

Interactive white boards have became more and more popular over the past few years. They have been used in schools, universities and business places a lot in recent years.

Some good points about using an interactive white board are: they are large, and can therefore be used to present something to a large audience, they can be used for fun activities with a large class and they allow more interaction between different students which could contribute to a better learning environment for everyone.

Some bad points about using an interactive white board are: they are expensive, the pens which are used on them are usually very un-responsive which could cause frustration for either the teacher or the student and also when there is a bright light in the room, this will mean both the teacher and the students will not be able to see the board which would mean that it would create a worse learning environment for the class.

The interactive white board has helped me with my education in the past because the teacher has displayed things on it to help me learn more about the particular subject I was learning about. It has also helped many of the other people in a particular class I have been in too.

My Maths

Finally, I will talk about a particular educational website which specialises in helping students with their maths. I am talking about My Maths.

My Maths is a maths website online which has lessons on it to help your ability at maths.

Some good points about My Maths are: it is very good for revision if you are either struggling at a certain topic in maths or you have a test coming up, there are many different lessons to choose from and it has everything set out well and all the information is well explained.

Some bad points about My Maths are: you need to have access to the Internet to use it, you require a personal log in username and password (which your school may not have given to you) to use it and also it is not guaranteed that you will come away from lessons on My Maths with the knowledge that you need.

My Maths has helped me in the past because when I have been unsure on a certain maths topic, I have went online to it and revised that topic until I gained the knowledge that was necessary. It has also helped me when I have had a maths test coming up, because it has allowed me to revise for it.

Conclusion

In conclusion, ICT has had a major impact on education over the years. In my opinion, ICT has allowed students to fulfil their potential in terms of producing different pieces of homework and classwork. I believe this because ICT has allowed students to do many more things than they originally could, such as producing PowerPoint's and Word documents, and also doing more in depth and all round better, research. If it wasn't for ICT, education wouldn't be what it is like today.

ICT in Retail

Over time, ICT has introduced a lot of devices into the retail industry. One of these devices is the till. The till is what is used to pay for the products which you want to buy in the shop. It works by scanning the barcode which most products have, and then both the product and its cost appears on the monitor. If the products which you are purchasing do not have a barcode on them (which are things such as fruit) then the till will weigh the product, and it will automatically detect which product it is weighing, and the cost of it.

The monitors on tills have became a lot more advanced over the years too, with many nowadays having touch screen and colour capabilities, where as in the past they never.

The ways in which you can pay for your items on a till are by credit/debit card, by coins/notes or by something which some shops have called a "clubcard". If you want to pay by debit/credit card, the till uses a "chip and pin" system. The chip and pin system basically allows the till to communicate with the bank from the shop which the customer is purchasing something from. If you want to use coins or notes to pay for something, the money will be inserted into the till, and then the change will be taken out and given to the customer.

Self service checkouts have been introduced over the years as well. These basically allow the customer to go scan/weigh and pay for their products by themselves, which is an advantage to the customer if they only have a few items.

Security

Security is another thing in ICT which has became a lot more advanced in retail over the years. In the past, it would be easy for people to just pick up an item and walk out of the shop without paying for it. Nowadays, it isn't easy at all, because of the introductions to shops such as security cameras and more staff security.

An example of security in retail is the security cameras located in many different areas in shops. They basically watch over different areas in the shop to see whether anyone tries to steal any items or to see whether there is any other trouble going on.

There are also security sensors which are located by the shop doors. They are able to detect whether anyone has stolen something because they are magnetic. The magnetic force which they are provided with is able to sense, and then scan the barcode on a product to see whether it has been payed for.

However, the bad thing about these are the fact that they cannot detect typical groceries such as loose fruit or vegetables. This means that any random person could just walk into a shop, put something like an apple into his pocket, and walk out with it without even paying.

Conclusion

In conclusion, ICT has had a major impact in the retail industry. The till - the ordinary piece of equipment which is required to run a shop, is a major example of how far retail has came because of ICT. It was once just an ordinary box with a button to open and close it, and with a draw to put the money in and take it out of. However, they now have very modernised monitors, they can weigh items, they allow you to pay by credit/debit card and more.

Furthermore, ICT has introduced, and also enhanced the security used in retail. Gadgets such as the security camera and the magnetic motion and barcode scanner have made it a lot harder for thieves to steal items which belong to a certain store.