Virus sources

http://www.virusbtn.com/resources/glossary/index

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/reference/simile.pdf

I'm also going to cover what anti-virus software does

Day 23- viruses

What makes a virus successful?

Keeping the "last updated" section the same

Overwriting parts of a file so the file size is the same "cavity viruses"

Don't infect the virus check software since it often checks its own code first and the virus will be detected easily and early on

Don't infect "bait files"; be able to ID bait files

Intercept requests from the anti-virus program and send them to the virus, not the OS, then send an uninfected copy of the file

Modify code for each infection so it can't be infected

polymorphic code- re-encrypts itself differently in each file it infects so that it can't be detected by its identical parts

metamorphic code- re-write themselves entirely each time they infect something new

Not doing something really cool right away because then it will get caught and won't live long enough to infect other peoples' computers

Day 22: how stuff works

E-MAIL

Every e-mail has two different components in the address. There is a name like "LAnderson13" and then a place like "elon.edu" separated by "@". The @ symbol explains which machine should receive the message. So, the "elon.edu" part would have a folder specifically for "LAnderson13". This is how the "sender" and "receiver" are identified- that way my internets won't get lost in tubes and sent to somebody else's internet because it's very important that I receive all my internets.

So, for e-mail that is application based rather than web based, the e-mails are sort of downloaded to the computer so that I as a user have all my old e-mails on my computer until I delete them. However, I can only access my e-mail from the computer with the application. In contract, web-based e-mail means I can connect to my e-mail account from any computer with internet, but if I don't have internet... I can't access anything. (The exception to this is that gmail offers Gears for offline access)

So, what happens is my computer would request to access my file in a remote server that contains my messages. There are two options- one allows me to download my messages from the server and once they are safely saved in my e-mail application, they are deleted from the server. Or, I can "have my cake and eat it to" that is I leave a copy of all the messages on the server even after I download a copy so that other users may also download it. Sending e-mails is a little different since I can technically "send" an e-mail and nothing happens until my computer connects to the internet. So, I am on the internet and I receive my e-mails. Then I take my laptop to Auntie Sue's house who has no internet. There I read and respond to all of my e-mails. My sent e-mails are placed in a folder and so basically my job is done BUT nobody will receive my sent e-mails until I go back home and connect to the internet at which point my sent e-mails go out and I receive my new messages. Which is why outlook has the "send/ receive" button- this tells the computer to connect to the internet and essentially synch your mailboxes.

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_client

http://communication.howstuffworks.com/email2.htm

Day 18- Net Neutrality

Net Neutrality: the principle that Internet users should be able to access any web content they want, post their own content, and use any applications they choose, without restrictions or limitations imposed by their Internet service providers (ISPs).
http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=4773657
This is socialist, sort of.

Quality of Service: provide guarantees on the ability of a network to deliver predictable results
http://compnetworking.about.com/od/networkdesign/g/bldef_qos.htm

Data discrimination: the Internet Service Provider (ISP) assigns a priority level to data frames
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_discrimination
Because they can, because this is a free country

Tiered Service: theoretical framework for reasoning about and pricing Internet tiered services, and develops a practical algorithmic toolset for network providers to develop customized menus of service offerings
http://www.springer.com/engineering/signals/book/978-0-387-09737-4
Why would we let the government regulate this??

FCC & role in government: government agency charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable
http://www.fcc.gov/aboutus.html


John McCain-A senator who ran for president in the last election and was a major contender. First joined Congress in 1982 also famous for his time in the armed services and his experience as a POW http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/m000303/ Introduced the Internet Freedom Act to the Senate "that would effectively allow Internet service providers to slow down or block Internet content or applications of their choosing" "McCain "called the proposed Net neutrality rules a 'government takeover' of the Internet that will stifle innovation and depress an 'already anemic' job market in the US."
But supporters of Net neutrality argue that the rule is needed to ensure that Internet providers don't censor content, or slow down traffic to Web sites that are in competition with their business allies.
FCC chairman Julius Genachowski argued that "reasonable and enforceable rules of the road" were needed "to preserve a free and open Internet.""
"His bill "will keep the Internet free from government control and regulation," McCain said, as quoted by Phil Goldstein at Fierce Wireless. "It will allow for continued innovation that will in turn create more high-paying jobs for the millions of Americans who are out of work or seeking new employment. Keeping businesses free from oppressive regulations is the best stimulus for the current economy."" http://rawstory.com/2009/10/mccain-net-neutrality/

McCain wouldn't exactly be poor were he on his own. As a senator he earns $165,200 a year, and he has a $54,000 Navy pension. And then there's publishing. http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/moneymag/0712/gallery.candidates.moneymag/4.html

Day 17- IP Addresses

My IP address is 152.33.62.5

I looked up twitter and found this:

Record expires on 21-Jan-2018

Record created on 24-May-2009

Database last updated on 27-May-2009

I assume this means it only started in May of this year which I find surprising- I thought it was much older than that.

http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/twitter.com

Day 16- messages in networks

The word I recieved was "quassias" which are small shrubs.
I was trying to send the word "bauhinia" which is a subtropical shrub in the pea family.

It takes a LONG time to send the message using this method since there were many collisions and it takes a long time to actually code and decode the message and read off all the bits of information. I found it a lot easier to recieve messages using this method. Once I had sent mine, I just had to sit there and wait for somebody to say my name then write what they said. When sending, I was strategically trying to figure out when to send out and listening for collisions and then trying to quickly figure out which was my next byte to send and to read it loudly and clearly but also quickly.

I think the main "bottleneck" was that nobody really waited a random amount of time. everybody would try to speak right after somebody finished or right after there was a collision. I think if everybody had to pick a random number of seconds to wait after they decided to send a message, then it would have gone more quickly. For example if I had to say okay, after this person, I want to send a message but I must wait 3 seconds. Then, of the three or four people who had chosen to send a message at that time, it is highly unlikely that they would all have to go at the same time. Also, what would make it faster would be if people actually stopped when somebody was talking so there wouldn't be such a long pause. Everybody tried to sort of claim the airwaves by shouting their name as quickly as possible but then they'd have to wait and make sure nobody else had done the same. If people just decided to say their name and then their number, there wouldn't be that waiting time. Also, if everybody was actually always ready to send/ recieve. It seemed a lot of times people had to wait a long time to say a number or they took too long to write it down and therefore missed the last few bits of information.

Day 15- Bus Typology

I think the best way to solve the communication issue in a bus typology could work similarly to how I think e-mail works with sort of mini servers. For example, your message could get sent to whatever server is at the end of your bus and then ask the question is Aunt Mary's computer on the same bus and then if not, which is hers. E-mail (I think) does this where I send an e-mail to gmail and it passes it on to yahoo mail which delivers it to auntmary@yahoo.com. Or, it could use something like the IP address of a computer so that when I say to send it to Aunt Mary, my computer puts the IP address of Aunt Mary's computer coded into there somewhere. So then, it follows around the bus (linearly?) until it gets to Aunt Mary's computer or back to mine with an error.

To solve the issue of communication, the bus could have several wires to handle different types of information. So, for the 30 computers in this room, each funciton of the computers is broken down and uses a different wire. Or, it could work like a CPU- instead of "multitasking" it just shifts really quickly between all the different tasks. The first would mean the bus would need to be physically large, containing many wires, but it would probably be faster than the second since it would only depend on say 30 instant messaging conversations per wire rather than 30 conversations, emails, radios, and online purchases all at once.

Day 9- Operating Systems

1 and 3. When Steve Jobs quoted Picasso, he meant that anybody can just sort of copy and immitate something, but if you can manage to steal it so that what you have IS the "original", then you've done something more successful. He meant that Apple STOLE the GUI from Xerox which made Apple better than Microsoft- Microsoft only managed to half-heartedly COPY the idea from Apple. In a way, Jobs was right since Apple is credited with creating GUI by most people. However, the courts didn't agree with Jobs- courts ruled that both Apple and Microsoft had copied and therefore neither were very great... : (

2. Basically, Apple sued Microsoft for copyright infrigement when Microsoft copied their main chance at staying in the computer "race", GUI. What the courts found, however, was that Apple couldn't sue since they had actually taken the idea of Xerox. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microsoft_Corporation)

4. Windows currently dominates the market with 93%, and Mac is lagging behind with about 6% according to http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=8 in August of 2009.

This is the very fuzzy version of the pie chart on the website.

Day 7: Decoding Binary

01000010011001010010000001110011011101010111001001100101001000000
11101000110111100100000011001000111001001101001011011100110101100
10000001111001011011110111010101110010001000000100111101110110011
00001011011000111010001101001011011100110010100101110

This says "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine"

To decode this you would have to figure out that each segment of 8 numbers (one byte) represents a letter. Then, you'd have to find out that each byte is actually a binary representation of a decimal number. And, these decimal numbers have sequential correlations with letters. So, A is 65, B is 66, and the pattern continues.

If B is 66, its binary equivalent is 01000010, the first letter in this segment.
Once the capital alphabet has been complete, there are 7 characters and then the lower case alphabet follows. That is why the second letter in this string of code, e, i s 01100101 which equals 101 in decimal numbers.

Below is a link to a website that has a chart explaining the decimal equivalents for each coded letter, word, or symbol. When these decimal numbers are converted to binary, it is called ASCII

http://www.asciitable.com/

Day 7: Improved punch card

To improve the punch card, we decided to divide the punch card in half length ways. Since we only need to store letters A-Z and some punctuation, we figured that would total about 36 characters (including space). So, we could store all 36 characters with different combinations of six. Basically, we're using an idea more similar to bytes, but with 6 instead of 8. What were originally called rows 12-3 and rows 4-9 will each now be rows 1-6. This way, our punch card would store twice as much data on the same space. So, for example we'll use 0 and 1 as not punched and punched.

000000= SPACE
000001= A
000010= B
000100= C
etc
000011= G
000110= H
etc
Finally, the last 9 combinations would be used for basic punctuation
. , ( ) - ? ! / *

For example:
111100= !
011111= /
111110= ?
111111= *

So, if the first and second columns read like this vertically:
001000000001 001000000000 it would say DAD

Day 6- Punch cards

So, these crazy little punch card guys- not that complicated IF you have a chart to decode them with. So, basically the card has columns of the digits 0-9. And there are also two places to punch above those two that count as "11" and "12". Eleven is the lower one, and twelve is the top-most punch area.

So, here is sot of the basic code for how to form letters and numbers on the punch card:

To type the number 0, punch out 0

To type the number 1, punch out 1

etc.

0-9 stand only for numbers.

If 11 is punched, it is -

If 12 is punched, it is *

If 0, 11 or 12 are punched in combination with one of the other digits, it is a letter.

For example, the letter A is formed by punching out 12 and 1 in the same column

B is formed by 12 and 2

C= 12 and 3

D= 12 and 4

etc

I= 12 and 9

J= 11 and 1

K=11 and 2

etc

R= 11 and 9

Here's a wierd one- 0 and 1 punched together means /

Then, S= 0 and 2

all the way to the end, Z= 0 and 9

Some other special characters are formed by combining punches. For example, when 12, 3, and 8 are all punched on the same column, that is a period. When 11, 4, and 8 are all punched on the same column that means *.

This is a good picture of a punch card where the answer to the punches is written at the top, so you can see if you got it right once you decode it.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d9/Punch-card-5081.jpg

If you want to read a really confusing explanation go here! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch_card#IBM_80_column_punch_card_format

Day 5- Reverse Engineering

Reverse engineering is a process to copy something without actually copying it, therefore avoiding the legal implications and copyright laws. What Compaq did when they reverse engineered Rom-Bios is, they had somebody (or a team of people?) figure out exactly what it was the Rom-Bios did and write that all down. Then, a team of people who knew nothing about Rom-Bios came in, were given a computer without Rom-Bios and a list of all the things that needed to happen once they had developed their own Rom-Bios. So, basically reverse engineering is taking a finished product and back-tracking- figuring out how it was made- then making your own. Since there is only knowledge of the end result, and not of the making process, the new engineers couldn't "copy" Rom-Bios they could technically only create a new one that worked exactly the same way. In many ways, reverse engineering could just lead to a new way of making the same old thing- perhaps cheaper or faster or more environmentally friendly etc. But, is reverse engineering legal???

Yes, reverse engineering is technically legal since it doesn't break copyright laws. However, it does break patent laws, frequently. So, reverse engineering is legal... IF you can argue against the patent protection. For example, NCSU says you can do one of three things 1.) negotiate a license to use the idea 2.) Claim that the idea is not novel and is an obvious step for anyone experienced in the particular field or 3.) Make a subtle change and claim that the changed product is not protected by patent.


http://ethics.csc.ncsu.edu/intellectual/reverse/study.php

Day 4- Answering questions

Here is my explanation of the difference between an external and a "regular" hard drive:

http://compscience111.blogspot.com/2009/09/day-two-hardware.html?showComment=1252953582750#c5904329947667210305

Day 2- Hardware

The main question I have about hardware is how do USB drives work? I know that a floppy or a CD are physically altered to store the information and they wear out because of it. Do USB drives have that same problem? Also, why is it that certain USB drives can hold so much more information than others while remaining about the same size?

Stereotypes of Computer "Nerds"

The movie depicted computer enthusiasts as Caucasian (or Asian) men with glasses who had a sort of obsession with electronics. They showed young kids alluding to the idea that these men had always been this way and were sort of born with an obsession to tinker with electronics and try to figure these things out. They are shown as not really having friends (or at least friends that aren't just like they are) or girlfriends. They seem to value the computers more than social lives, eating, sleeping, grooming, even going to school. In terms of eating they ate basically when they had to, or when they remembered, they ate junk food like pizza and thrived off of caffeine and soda. The movie explains them as using computers to escape the confusing world of women and personality etc. They appreciated electronics because of the simplistic idea of math and programs that led to the same results if done properly every time.
I think that quite a few of these stereotypes are still true. I know that the electronics nerds do tend to be so wrapped up in what they're doing that they forget to eat or they eat what is convenient and keeps them going. But they are not all men anymore. Neither are they single. Though I think often the electronic obsessed males frequently are attracted to girls with the same obsession. I think the lifestyle is kind of stayed pretty similar but what has changed the most is the demographic. Anybody can become one of the "obsessive nerds" and in fact magazines frequently write about how parents can keep their children from becoming obsessed with electronics (including watching TV, or playing video games, but also programming or writing games or tinkering with programs).

Introduction

Hi! My name is Laura Anderson. I'm a sophomore human services major. To be honest, I am in this class because it fulfills the science requirement and then I don't have to take something like biology or calculus. But I use computers everyday so I suppose it will be beneficial to actually understand why they work.

Hmm... Interesting things about me? I turned 19 yesterday. I have a basset hound puppy named Beau (he's not potty trained... its messy).

That's all I can think of for now.