Wireless Network Precautions

he best way to protect our computer when you have Wi-Fi is to make sure that you have an up-to-date antivirus program installed on your computer. Most anti-virus software will automatically scan your computer to check for any possible threats or viruses. By enabling a WEP or WPA (encryptions on your computer) you can help prevent any intruders from accessing your computer and installing a virus or worm on it. This is very important for wireless internet users as any half-way decent hacker can use your Wi-Fi connection to get into your computer.

When you look for a router for your wireless internet, make sure to get one that has a firewall installed on it. This will greatly reduce the chances that someone will be able to hack into your computer. If you find that your router does not have a firewall installed on it, there are firewall software programs that you can add to your existing router.

HTML LINKS: http://www.itlist.com/security-precautions-for-wireless-internet-users/

Strong Password (How to Create and Use Them)

Lets assume that you have a 4 character password. Each character can be A-Z, 0-9, or an underscore ("_"). That means you have 37 possible keys for each character. That means that your password has 1874161 possibilities. This may sound like a lot, but modern computers can easily go through thousands of passwords per second if the login program isn't correctly secured. Adding just one more letter (or number) to your password increases the number of possible combinations by nearly 40 times.


These are difficult to guess, and impractical to guess since many computer systems make you wait for a period of time after an incorrect password before you can try again. A computer trying to guess would have more than three trillion passwords to go through.

HTML LINKS: http://www.microsoft.com/protect/fraud/passwords/create.aspx

Internet Parental Control Software

Internet filtering and parental control software program, gives you the ability to control and monitor your child's use of the Internet, irrespective of where you are: in the neighboring room, at work, or even on vacation, thus enabling you to protect your child from the dangers of the Internet. In addition, this program enables businesses to limit and control their employees access to the Internet and to any programs.

A parental control software program, Chronager gives you complete control over your child’s use of the computer: when he or she can use it for entertainment, and when for doing homework. It enables you to restrict the times when the computer can be used, and to set the times that your child may surf the Internet, play games, use particular programs, and watch movies.
HTML LINKS:http://www.softforyou.com/

Internet Filters

An "Internet Filter" is a hardware or software solution that prevents access to certain undesirable areas of the internet. They filter by various methods - some by comparing site requests with a list of previously known bad URLs and preventing viewing if they are listed, others by scanning incoming data and blocking it if it contains undesirable keywords, file types or other parameters. Sometimes the parent can control or create the list of keywords or sites filtered, sometimes not.

A children's browser is a special parent controlled browser like Internet Explorer or Netscape which allows access only to sites that are known to be suitable for children. Usually the browser operates with its own list of known good sites, and will not allow access to any others. They also frequently have email \ chat filtering ability or dedicated email\chat facilities that do not allow 'rude words' etc. They often have some parent-defined password facility or access control that prevents the child from exiting and using a normal browser, or reaching the desktop or other software.

HTML LINKS http://www.microsoft.com/protect/terms/internetfilters.aspx

Internet Parental Guidance

Since the advent of the Web, parents have worried about children visiting pornographic and violent Web sites. Then filters like NetNanny came along to block them. Now parents worry about instant messaging, e-mail, and peer-to-peer file sharing. Whether kids are looking for trouble or it's looking for them, the latest parental-controlsoftware can help monitor them online.

This year's packages are smarter, stronger, and simpler. While overblocking can be a problem, developers constantly tune their lists and filters. And since kids are often more computer-savvy than parents, developers have hardened security. Yet ease of use is still a prerequisite; many parents will set up complicated apps wrong or not at all.
childrenhtml links:
HTML LINKShttp://www.parentalguidance.org/

Digital Image Steganography

Steganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one, apart from the sender and intended recipient, suspects the existence of the message, a form of security through obscurity. The word steganography is of Greek origin and means "concealed writing" from the Greek words steganos (στεγανός) meaning "covered or protected", and graphein (γράφειν) meaning "to write". The first recorded use of the term was in 1499 by Johannes Trithemius in his Steganographia, a treatise on cryptography and steganography disguised as a book on magic. Generally, messages will appear to be something else: images, articles, shopping lists, or some other covertext and, classically, the hidden message may be in invisible ink between the visible lines of a private letter.

Steganography includes the concealment of information within computer files. In digital steganography, electronic communications may include steganographic coding inside of a transport layer, such as a document file, image file, program or protocol. Media files are ideal for steganographic transmission because of their large size. As a simple example, a sender might start with an innocuous image file and adjust the color of every 100th pixel to correspond to a letter in the alphabet, a change so subtle that someone not specifically looking for it is unlikely to notice it.

HTML LINKS: https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~eberdahl/Projects/Paranoia/index.html

Computer Forensics

 Computer Forensics (sometimes computer forensic science) is a branch of digital forensic science pertaining to legal evidence found in computers and digital storage media.The goal of computer forensics is to explain the current state of a digital artifact such as a computer system, storage medium (e.g. hard disk or CD ROM), an electronic document (e.g. an email message or JPEG image). The scope of a forensic analysis can vary from simple information retrieval to reconstructing a series of events.
     Technicians may gather or process evidence at crime scenes, in the field of digital forensics training is needed on the correct handling of technology (for example to preserve the evidence). Technicians may be required to carry out "Live analysis" of evidence - various tools to simplify this procedure have been produced, most notably Microsoft's COFFEE . Sometimes technicians also conduct the acquisition/imaging stage of the process.

HTTP LINKShttp://www.us-cert.gov/reading_room/forensics.pdf