Cybersecurity and Digital Access: Key Concepts in Computing and Data Privacy

digital divide

The idea that some communities or populations have less access to computing than others, typically due to limitations of Internet speed or computer hardware access.

crowdsourcing

A model in which many online users combine efforts to help fund projects, generate ideas, or create goods or services (like Wikipedia).

citizen science

Crowdsourcing for science! The participation of volunteers from the public in a scientific research project (like collecting rain samples or counting butterflies).

Creative Commons

An alternative to copyright that allows people to declare how they want their artistic creations to be shared, remixed, used in noncommercial contexts, and how the policy should propagate with remixed versions.

open access

A policy that allows people to have access to documents (like research papers) for reading or data (like government datasets) for analysis.

PII (Personally identifiable information)

Information about an individual that can be used to uniquely identify them (directly or indirectly).

multifactor authentication (MFA)

A method of user authentication which requires the user to present multiple pieces of evidence in multiple categories (such as knowledge and possession).

encryption

The process of scrambling data to prevent unauthorized access.

symmetric encryption

A technique for encrypting data where the same key is used to both encrypt and decrypt data.

public key encryption

An asymmetric encryption technique that uses different keys for encrypting versus decrypting data.

cookie

A small amount of text that tracks information about a user visiting a website.

virus

A type of computer malware that can make copies of itself.

phishing

An attack where a user is tricked into revealing private information, often via a deceptive email.

rogue access point

A wireless access point that provides an attacker with unauthorized access to the traffic going over the network.