Here’s a link to test your firewall

This link to Gibson Research Corporation allows you to run a free Shields Up test to determine how secure your home computer’s firewall is.

If you want to run this test (You do not have to)…

Do NOT run this test from school! Run this test at home  at your own risk- I do not accept responsibility for any unintended result, nor can I guarantee the legitimacy or intentions of the linked website.

However, I have listened to their Security Now podcasts on iTunes and I personally felt like it was reasonably safe to run the test on my computer at home. The results were quite interesting.

TODAY’S CLASS: How Firewalls Work

Tuesday, September 23

In class today, read the follow-up Palin email article posted below this post, then read how firewalls work on Howstuff.com and define the following IT terms. Many of the definitions can be found in the article. You may need to use your textbook, or other web sources for some. Hand write your answers- You will keep them in your notebook glossary. There may be a firewall quiz or note check tomorrow. 

 

FTP

HTTP

Packet (or packet filtering)

IP address (What is it?)

Denial of service (also known as denial of service attack, DOS ,DDOS)

Proxy server (What does it do?)

DMZ

Remote login

Application back door

Here’s a follow up Computer World article on the Palin Email newsC

Computer World article: Palin Email follow up.

Palin’s Email Hacked

Read the BBC article, “Hackers infiltrate Palin’s e-mail“, and use your ITGS guide to answer the following questions:
1) Identify the stake holders?
2) In which specific area (s) of impact is this article based?
3) Describe the IT systems in a social context (Hardware, Software, Networks, Communication Technologies).
4) Describe the social and ethical issues that are raised in the article
5) Develop solutions to the issues

Type your answers in MS Word