Internet Monitoring

Internet Monitoring is a software that is used to track the internet history of a certain computer.  This software is very beneficial for businesses to determine whether there is illegal activity going on.  It will also reveal if workers are wasting company time socializing on social networks or surfing the web. 

Internet Monitoring is also helpful in the home.  With this software, parents can see what their children are up to.  This software will keep track of all the sites that were visited.  It may also capture screen shot and keep records of instant messaging chats. 

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Wireless Networking Precautions

It is vital to take wireless networking precautions in order to achieve a secure connection.  Without security, neighbors can use your wireless connection free of charge.  If these free-riders were to do anything illegal using your wireless connection, it would be traced to your wireless connection. If precautions are not taken, many people are capable of hacking int the hard drive of your computer, stealing important, personal information. 

 
One useful precaution to take is to encrypt your connection.  Another security measure is to limit the access of users to just your access point. This allows you to tell the connection which computers can and cannot use your Internet connection. The final precaution that should be taken is to not announce yourself. Another, and maybe obvious, precaution is to limit the amount of people you share your network password with.

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Strong Password

A strong password is one that is secure to a human guess and computer programs.  Having a strong password is an important way to prevent hackers.  A strong password includes letters, numbers and some symbols.  Including uppercase and lowercase letters increases the strength of the password.  While choosing a password, the creator should not include their name or a word that can be found in the dictionary. 

A good way to formulate a strong password is to create a sentence.  Use the first letter of each word to create a password.  Fore example: The Brown Cat Runs Fast, turns into... TBCRF.  To make the password more secure, add numbers and use lower and upper case letters. 

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Internet Parental Control Software

Internet Parental Control is a software that blocks, filters, monitors, and track that servers to keep your computer safe.  The main purpose is for parents to shield their children. They are able to choose which websites to block and place passwords on them so they are accessible if desired.  One of the most common parental control software is “Safe Eyes."

Safe Eyes blocker blocks websites and has the ability to put a time limit on the use of a computer.If the limit is exceeded, the Safe Eyes software logs the user off. This parental blocker will notify the parent who put the block up when the block is down or unlocked.

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Internet Filters

Internet Filters is a software uploaded to a computer and acts to protect children, limit public access to certain sites or material, and to restrict when and how employees can use the Internet at work.  The filters work by either including or excluding content; also known as "white listing" or "black listing".  Another method is to restricting "keywords".  This filter will block the internet if a certain keyword is entered by the internet user. 

Social networking sites can be completely blocked or monitored for inappropriate context using filters.  Internet filters can stop viruses, spyware and other threats before the enter your network. They serve to protect children from visiting inappropriate sites and force students and workers to stay focused at the task at hand. 

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Digital Image Steganography

Digital Steganography is the art of hiding messages within the lowest bits of noisy images or sound files. More that 800 digital steganography applicatiosn have been found by the Steganography Analysis and Research Center.   In many file formats, some data is unimportant, therefore the hidden messages do not cause notable variation within the file.  Digital Steganography is used in sound, graphic, HTML, video, and text files.  Image files are the most popular form of Digital Steganography and are referred to as stego-image.  

Digital Steganography can be used by people who are being censored by government agencies and can also be used by criminals.  It has been said that Digital Steganography was used by al-Qaeda in their planning of the September 11th attacks. Legal ways to use Digital Steganography are called watermarks used for copyright protection.  

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Computer Forensics

Computer forensics is a branch of science that focuses on finding legal evidence in computers and digital storage media.  Computer forensics seeks to uncover, gather, and preserve evidence and information that is magnetically stored.  Computer forensics is often used in criminal investigations or civil court cases.  It can also help recover data that has been lost.  Computer forensics includes the following phases: securing the subject system, taking a copy of the hard drive, identifying and recovering all files, accessing hidden/protected/temporary file, and investigating installed applications or programs.

Computer forensics is commonly used to track employee internet abuse, unauthorized recovery of corporate info.date, industrial espionage, criminal fraud, damage assessment and many other criminal cases.   In many of these criminal cases, information is collected that is not usually obtainable by an average computer user.  Computer forensic investigator and gather deleted files found in the space allocated for existing files, known as slack space. 

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