Adon+Nicholls

__Notes on viruses - Theory__

A computer virus is a software program. It is designed to reproduce itself over and over again like a real virus. viruses used to be relitively harmless and were made for a joke. Now they are created to destroy work, waste time and finances. Viruses spread through corrupted data stored in things like emails, C.D's, and floppy disks. viruses are generally removed by anti-virus software. To prevent a virus getting into your computer system you can take care with emails and block attachments that you are not sure of, or do not use memory sticks if you dont know whats on them. Other pests such as Trojans are annoying as they claim they do something good for your computer system but actually destroy the hard-drive. Worms spread through their own computer networks and use up the internet bandwidth. Adware checks for spyware coming into your computer system. Making a virus is not illegal but distribution of the virus with the intent to steal or destroy work is. This comes under the Computer Misuse Act (1990).

__The Computer Missuse Act__ The computer missuse act is an act made by the U.K government which was introduced to make criminals out of the people who access unauthorised documents and programmes and/or use the information gathered to take advantage of the company such as blackmailing them. The act was critisised as being badly executed and critics said it gives everyone the same punishment despite the amount of criminal activity done by the purportrator. The maximum punishment for hacking is £2000 and six months in prison but usually this is accompanied by other charges because of the hacker taking advantage of delicate information e.g. blackmailing the source. The act has been amended over the years the last time was in 2004 when the maximum imprisonment was increases from 6 months to two years. The computer missuse act covers anything that creates malicious damage to private data such as viruses and the damage that hackers can create.

__Society and Ict__

ICT has changed alot over the years and has gone along with how society has developed. New technologies have developed to meet the needs of the consumer such as DVD players and fast computers. 50 years ago playing outside was entertainment for most and reading a newspaper was more common and not just for the sport pages. Instead of sitting infront of the t.v all day you sat around the "wireless" all day for the news and radio plays. In modern society ICT is pushed in our face at every moment. ICT has created digital television which has a conglomurate of specialised channels. This creates good and bad advantages but the choice of multichannels generally outways the quality of the programmes that are viewed. As ICT has developed so has entertainment such as computer games which used to be made out of a few pixels have been remodeled to create a high resolution image, now because they are heavily played they are said to waste time and mutate a persons view on life seeing real as fantasy. Music has been influenced by ICT as the internety took off downloading music was cheap fast and sometimes illegal. Ict even has a type of music devoted to robotics etc. "Techno". ICT has left a gap between generations and the older people of the world as they cant comprehend a world run by machines.

__How can Photo-editing be used to distort reality__

Photo-editing can be used by people to distort reality by using special software designed to improve qualities in a picture. in recent years the software has become sophisticated and people have used this in crimes such as stealing credit card numbers and forging fake licenses.

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__Difference between validation and verication

Validation:__ Validation is the process where data meets specific criteria set out by the operator of the software. If the data is correct it is generally accepted as being securte and incorrupt. Validation can resrict data that is set with perameters making data going out of these perameters incorrect and these can corrupt data.

__Verification:__ Verification is a process by which a product or piece of data is checked that it meets specifications usually during an evaluation of the project. which is done usually over an batch of software.

__How I used Validation and Verication in Project 1B:__ I used Verification in my Project 1B by cross referencing the data capture form and my data sheet which helped create my data table. I used validation in my Project 1B by setting perameters in the data such as having a price of a house included being no more than £600,000. If it went over this than i got an error message and had to change the data.