Wireless Networking Precautions

A wireless internet is beneficial in many ways. It allows one to work anywhere they please so long as they are in the proximity of the wireless transmission. However, there is a negative side to all this. If you are able to pick up a wireless signal, so will everyone else in the area. An unsecure wireless network is open to anyone besides you. What makes this bad is because of the information that people can observe and take from your wireless internet. Anyone can spy on your online activity. Some can even gain access to your computer’s hard drive through an unsecured wireless network.

                With that in mind, there are ways to help prevent all this from happening. One way is to have a strong and up to date anti virus program. Anti virus programs allow for the protection of your computer and will scan for any issues or possible threats. Your routers should have a fire wall which will lessen the chance of a hacker hack into your computer. Most routers these days can be only accessed through passwords. This relates back to the “Strong password” section. Creating a strong password that can only be accessed by you and anyone you want will allow for a greater protection against outsiders.

http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Wireless-Network-Security-Home.html

http://www.itlist.com/security-precautions-for-wireless-internet-users/

Strong Password (How to create and use them)

The key to a strong password is it’s length and complexity. This would involve letters, punctuations, symbols, and numbers as well. Using 14 characters or more, varying the characters, as well as using the entire keyboard rather than the letters you usually see all helps in creating a strong password.

          Adding special characters such as !,@,#,$,%,^,&, and * allows for a strong password that is hard to crack. To add on to this, making certain letters in your password capital and lowercase also helps with its complexity. Passwords containing common knowledge such as birth dates or your name in any way or form is not recommended in creating a strong password. Even with all this though, a password should always be unique only to you and that is what makes it a strong password.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-create-strong-password-that-you-can-remember-easily/

Internet Parental Control Software

      This is similar to internet filters. It gives the parent the ability to control and monitor the children’s use of the internet. These software’s can be set and left alone and it would still do it’s job even when the parent is away at work or on vacation. This software is in comparison to a parent who is virtually watching and prohibiting what the children does on the internet constantly.

      However, these software’s are not only for parents. They are known to be used in businesses as well as schools in order to prevent unwanted material to be viewed to protect their workers or students respectively.

http://www.netnanny.com/

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/terms/internetfilters.aspx

Internet Filters

An internet filter is a way for parents to help monitor and control the web content that can be viewed on the computer to protect their family. It is a software that is essential for responsible parents to help watch their children’s activity online. Internet filters give us a fighting chance to push away unwanted material to protect their families from internet predators.

          These kinds of software allows a parent to block websites, safe search, set time restrictions to block web access during designated times, and so on. Internet filters is just one way of protecting children from the internet. 

http://www.netnanny.com/

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/terms/internetfilters.aspx

Internet Parental Guidance

          Internet Parental Guidance is mainly a way for parents to protect their children from online predators roaming around the internet. A good parent would monitor how long their children are involved on the internet, stop things such as pornography along with any other objectionable material, as well as limiting their children’s activity online.

          Medias such as films and television have been forced to restrict minors from observing such adult materials. This has worked for that specific area, however, the it has not been fully accomplished with the internet. The internet is an expansive space where people are constantly being drawn in by internet predators. Since no such law was passed in order to prevent children from viewing such material, parents should always observe and be aware of their children’s activity on the internet.

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/the-internet-parental-guidance-preferred/

http://www.theteachersguide.com/Internetsafety.html

Digital Image Steganography

Steganography in general is known as the art or science of writing hidden messages in a way where others beside the sender and the receiver will know of its existence. There are different types of seganography. For example, there is Physical steganography, digital steganography, Network steganography, printed steganography, and steganography using Sudoku puzzles.

          Digital Steganography is concealing messages digitally. These can be messages in sound files/ noisy images, concealing data within encrypted or random data, pictures, videos, and even in blogs. Digital Image Steganography is strictly speaking of digital pictures containing a hidden message. Something like this can be done by combining two files together. For example, one can take a picture of a bird which would be the target picture and combine it with the key image (message) and create an digital image steganography. The key image has to be extracted from the original image in order to observe the message.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography

https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~eberdahl/Projects/Paranoia/index.html

Computer Forensics

        Computer forensics is the collection, preservation, analysis, and presentation of computer-related evidence. The goal of computer forensics is to explain the current state of a digital artifact; such as a computer system, storage medium ( hard disk or CD-ROM), an electronic document (e.g. an email message or JPEG image). The scope of a forensic analysis can vary from simple information retrieval to reconstructing a series of events.

        Computer foresnics is important because it will help ensure the overall integrity and survivability of your network infrastructure. Computer evidence can be useful in criminal cases, civil disputes, and human resources/employment proceedings.  Computer forensics can often find evidence of, or even completely recover, lost or deleted information, even if it was intentionally deleted. 

      

                 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_forensics

http://www.computerforensicsworld.com/