02 IS26317 - Lesson 6: Trust, Safety, and Reliability

Hardware Errors

hardware might malfunction, causing erroneous results

Software Errors

mistakes in either the programming or the design of the software.

Mark II

an early known computer where the term bug supposedly go back to a moth that was found in 1947 in the computer’s circuitry.

Grace Hopper

who as a young naval lieutenant, was instrumental in implementing the programming language COBOL on the Mark I.

Misuse

involves attempting to use a computer for the wrong purpose or using one incorrectly for the right purpose.

Communication Failure

sometimes the person who is prompted for some action misunderstands what is being asked.

Malice

a form of vandalism, often the product of a full blown vendetta, for profit, crime, terrorism, or warfare.

Safety-critical software

software that may affect someone’s safety if it fails to work properly.

Decision Point

a place in computer code where the next instruction executed depends on input data.

Control Programs

programs that control some sort of machinery.

Real time

a program must do something within a specific amount of time.

Multiprocess

programs that execute at the same time as one or more other programs

Brooks’ Law

adding people to a late project makes it later.

Requirements

what is required of the software, for larger projects, specialist called “requirements engineers” interview clients to determine exactly what the system needs to do to best serve the clients

Specification and Design

once the requirements of a system are established, designers develop the particular set of component program modules or subprograms of the software system.

Implementation

programmers then use the design to create code in an appropriate programming language.

Douglas Birsch

applied ethicist who argues that both the programmer who designed Therac’s software and the company’s quality assurance officer bear significant moral responsibility for the accidents.

Malware

short for “malicious software”

Hackers

people who write and deploy malware.

Hacking

the activity of writing and deploying malware.

Worm

program that makes copies of itself and propagates those copies through a network to infect other computers.

Virus

similar to a worm, but resides in another program that must execute in order for the virus to propagate.

Spyware

program that is secretly installed for the purpose of collecting information about the computer’s user or users

Trojan Horse

software that masquerades as an innocent or useful program, but that is actually designed for a malicious purpose.

Rootkit

program that embeds itself into a computer’s operating system and acquires special privileges that would normally be available to the operating system.

White Hat Hackers

their goal is to seek out vulnerabilities so they can be removed before a malicious intruder discovers them and launches an attack

Tiger Team/ Red Team

the team involved in doing ethical hacking

Zero Attack/ Zero Day Attack

an attack that exploits a previously unidentified vulnerability

Phishing

most common way of exploiting human weaknesses, which attempts to fool or frighten a person into revealing key information.

Stuxnet

a computer worm that has significantly set back the Iranian nuclear development program

Darlington Nuclear Generating Stations

first Canadian nuclear station to use computers to run the emergency shutdown systems for its reactor.