professional practices ta review
Class 8 (Chapter 4):
Intellectual Property
Digital Rights Management (DRM): A collection of techniques used to control the use of intellectual property in digital formats.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA): A 1998 law that prohibits circumventing technological access controls (like DRM) and provides a "safe harbor" for websites, protecting them from lawsuits for copyright infringement by their users.
Creative Commons: A licensing framework that enables authors to specify what permissions they grant to the public for the use of their work.
Free Software: Software that allows people to copy, use, and modify it. It emphasizes freedom of use, not necessarily lack of cost.
Copyleft: A concept where software can be freely used, modified, and shared, but all derivative works must be distributed under the same (or equivalent) free terms.
Patent Troll: A company that acquires patents not to create products, but to profit by licensing them or suing other companies for infringement.
Class 9 (Chapter 5):
Crime and Security
Hacking: The intentional, unauthorized access to computer systems.
Hacktivism: The use of hacking to promote a political cause, such as a Denial-of-Service attack to shut down a website in protest.
Denial-of-Service (DoS) Attack: An attack designed to shut down a website or service by overwhelming it with traffic, focusing on disruption rather than theft.
Gray Hat Hacker: A hacker who finds vulnerabilities in a system and publishes their findings before (or without) notifying the system's owners.
Stunet: A sophisticated worm that targeted and damaged physical industrial equipment (specifically, a uranium enrichment plant in Iran).
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA): A law that criminalizes unauthorized access to computer systems.
Honey Pot: A website, system, or decoy server set up by security professionals to attract and record hackers, diverting them from real systems and allowing their methods to be studied.
Phishing: Using fraudulent e-mails disguised as legitimate communications to "fish" for personal and financial information.
Pharming: A more dangerous technique that redirects users from a legitimate website to a fake one without their awareness, often by poisoning the Domain Name Server (DNS).
Vishing: Voice phishing; using fraudulent phone calls (voice or text) to steal information.
Class 10 (Chapter 6): Work
Telecommuting: Working from home using a computer that is electronically linked to one's place of employment.
Offshoring: The practice of moving business processes or services to another country, usually to reduce costs.
Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA): This act prohibits the interception of email but includes a major exception for business systems, legally allowing employers to monitor communications on company-owned systems.
GPS Tracking: Using GPS to track an employee's location, which can be seen as an invasion of personal boundaries and may erode trust.
Class 11 (Chapter 7):
Evaluating Technology
Wisdom of the Crowd: The idea that information from millions of participants (like web ratings) can be useful. A key limitation is that these systems can be easily manipulated.
Filter Bubble: The result of algorithms that "narrow the information stream" and filter content based on a user's past behavior, which can reinforce existing beliefs and prevent users from seeing opposing viewpoints.
Abdicating Responsibility: A "mental laziness" where people and institutions become willing to let computers make decisions, rather than exercising their own human judgment.
Computer Models: Simulations that allow companies to play out "what if" scenarios, test products, and explore hypothetical outcomes before implementation.
Digital Divide: The gap in technology access. The presentation notes this has shifted from just "haves vs. have-nots" to being defined by the quality and level of service available.
Neo-Luddites: Critics of technology who argue that computers cause social disintegration, dehumanization, and isolation.
Technological Singularity: A theoretical point in time when artificial intelligence advances so far that humans can no longer comprehend it.
Decentralized Decision-Making: A noncoercive approach to technology decisions, intended to reduce the impact of mistakes and prevent manipulation by large, entrenched companies.