Internet Securities

For my post this week, I have read over the article Information systems security and safety measures: the dichotomy between students' familiarity and practice  from Academy of Information and Management Sciences Journal  by Ewuuk Lomo-David and Li-Jen Shannon at and the blog of www.safetyweb.com and have noticed several similarities in the blogs. They both go over simple security for computer users (to try to avoid viruses, malware, etc.) and also how to make your documents more secure.

The article goes over many questionnaires and research done over the years on the subject of computer safety. It goes into farther detail on passwords and security problems. I know many things on these two subjects and am extremely glad that I do know what I do, or else I would probably have encountered over 500 viruses and hackers by now. It shows what the studies have shown and what the researchers expected to find while researching. I believe that this article is for the more advanced computer user, but many of the statistics shocked me, so maybe some of you may want to go and read it.

The blog is targeted for the common computer users. It is actually oriented towards parents and teachers and ways to ensure that their child or student is using a computer securely and not letting out information that may haunt them. They have posted many different articles on the subject, but this allows for the blog to appeal to a more diverse amount of people.

Both of these articles are not intended for business purposes, but I think basic computer security is essential for most people to know (regardless of job occupation). Most workplaces will hire a tech person (so someone like me) to make sure that all of the computers have a firewall, antivirus, etc to make sure that the computer is safe, but if the user is not aware of how to avoid viruses, malware, etc then it would make my job  SO MUCH EASIER. I am not kidding, the most common problem and reason for viruses is the user giving a program or download permission to change firewall (or privacy) changes on a computer. If a company allowed for a seminar on computer safety, it would honestly make a computer technician’s job much easier. I do not think I can emphasize this enough.

I believe that the blog is more effective because it uses much less science and common words within the articles. This article goes over how a parent or teacher can learn to practice computer safety and how you can show other people about it.

Wi-Fi For All?

I am subscribed to Popular Science. Last month’s issue had an article by Stewart Wulpin titled Stringer Signals. The article is about the predictions of where Wi-Fi will be in the future. I think this article effects us all, but I will have to learn how this entire works as a computer student. 

The article starts out talking about cell phones and how the speeds have increased (3G to 4G is one example). It then goes on to expect that cellular traffic will increase 26 fold in the next 3 years, making cellular tower technology inefficient. They predict that phones will start using an internet signal for everything, which this will end up being Wi-Fi (cause someone is going to attach a cord to their cell phone and only be able to go a limited distance from their house). Wi-Fi is approximately 15 times faster than 4G LTE.

The problem that many of you might think now is “People put passwords on their Wi-Fi and I would have to continually connect to new signals.” Using the IEEE 802.11u protocol, the Wi-Fi Alliance is going to release a passport, allowing a person to automatically connect to a preferred hotspot, connect to them, enter passwords and authenticate security credentials, all without user input or notification. It will do all of this automatically.

When I continue to read this article, it says that they are going to convert Wi-Fi to Super Wi-Fi (about 4 times stronger than normal Wi-Fi, and also has about 4 times more range). A town in Virginia uses Super Wi-Fi, and allows the whole town to receive the signal (the town mentioned is about 25 square miles, the average Wi-Fi signal is about 100 feet).

It is predicted that people will get a dual Wi-Fi/Super Wi-Fi router in 2014 and cell phone manufacturers may start putting Super Wi-Fi chips into cell phones and other products. A person could then use Skype to make all of their calls and their Facebook or IM service to text their friends and stay on top of things, without any lag (slow speed of internet).

This information will change a lot of the things I have to study and know, but I am familiar with Super Wi-Fi, so it shouldn’t be too dramatic. With all of these super routers installed, most workplaces will not need to have their own internet connection (one less thing I will have to worry about) and allow for phones to have much more speed.

I think this article is much more professional than the two blogs I have read, and this article uses many terms that most common users will understand. All of these blogs have pretty decent credibility (first one used to be a hands on experience with computer problems, second blog is from Microsoft, and Popular Science has been a very good source in many of my research papers, and seems to be pretty unbiased). I personally liked this article more because it was a much easier read, and made many things much clearer for readers.

Intune Blog Response

I found a blog at http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsintune/archive/2011/05/09/firewall-and-proxy-server-settings-for-client-computers.aspx under the name of The Windows Intune Team Blog. As a computer major, learning about firewalls and other forms of security are essential (this link goes to a post about windows firewall). If you click on the name of the blog, it will take you to the main blog page. When I overlooked this blog, the whole blog appeared to be steps and changes to Windows Intune (a feature Microsoft offers to help the common user with technical difficulties). This blog is written for whoever wants to read it (not full of confusing acronyms), but there is a few minor things that I personally think that the common user would not know how to do. I personally really like the content of the blog, but i wish that they would have used a different layout than the Microsoft website, it looks a little bland with all the lighter blues. I personally would use this blog over the one that I previously mentioned in the last blog post. Both of the blogs deal with computers, but yet are completely unrelated. This blog is about one program that Microsoft now offers and the other is about general computer stuff and using it in the real world (business settings, repair, etc.).

As a tech student, I am overall impressed with the content of this blog, but I wish they would have changed the layout of the webpage. It makes me think that Microsoft is sponsoring or using this blog page. I did not pull very much information to relate to my future blog posts, but I have also been blogging for quite a while now.