Abstract
Before we can begin to discuss security, we really have to define some key computer terms and concepts. You do not have to memorize this stuff, and it’s okay if you don’t follow everything here. There’s a glossary at the end of this book that you can refer to for quick help, or you can return here if you want to refresh your memory. But for the rest of this book to make sense, I need to get you up to speed on the basics of how computers and the Internet work. I’m trying to cover all the bases here, so if you see a topic you already understand, feel free to skip it or just skim it. I’ve also taken the liberty of throwing in some fun little tidbits that will help to keep things interesting. There will be a wide range of people reading this book, and I just can’t take the time to fully explain everything. But in this chapter, I give you a solid base to work from.
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Notes
- 1.
Almost. Because computers are so tied to binary counting, they count things based on the powers of two. You frankly will probably never need to know this, but if some smart-ass tells you that 1KB is not really a thousand bytes, they’re right… it’s technically 1024 bytes. Why? Because. Just trust me. For most purposes, you can just call it a thousand and be done with it. The same is true for the others (MB, GB, TB)—just go with thousand, million, billion, and trillion. It’s close enough.
- 2.
The term Wi-Fi is just a marketing term someone made up. It was meant to sound like Hi-Fi but doesn’t really stand for “wireless fidelity.” It’s just a lot catchier than 802.11, which is the technical name.
- 3.
Image source: Histoire des jouets by Henry René d’Allemagne (1902).
- 4.
An acronym for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart. A Turing test, named for Alan Turing, is a test that attempts to verify that you are communicating with a real human and not a computer.
- 5.
The “World Wide Web” is a subset of the broader internet—but it’s the part we’re most familiar with.
- 6.
Britain’s version of the NSA, which is called Government Communications Headquarters.
- 7.
This is my personal decoder pin, obtained from the A Christmas Story House and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio. If you’re a fan of the movie, it’s a must-see (www.achristmasstoryhouse.com)!
- 8.
As you can see in the figure, the actual decoder pin wasn’t a true rotational cipher. But I’ve simplified it here for the purposes of our example.
- 9.
Turing’s work has been wonderfully captured in the Academy Award–winning movie The Imitation Game. And if you find the history of cryptanalysis as fascinating as I do, I highly recommend you read The Code Book by Simon Singh.
- 10.
Benjamin Franklin famously said: three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
- 11.
Alice and Bob are well known in the cryptographic world. These are the names used when describing communication scenarios in lieu of saying “Party A” and “Party B.”
- 12.
Note that HTTPS, by itself, does not say anything about the identity of the service you’re communicating with—only that the communications are private.
- 13.
This provides something called nonrepudiation. That’s a fancy legal term that basically means Alice can’t plausibly deny that something digitally “signed” with her private key came from someone else.
- 14.
Here’s a fun workaround to giving your personal info. If your store allows you to find your loyalty card using your phone number, try your local area code plus 867-5309. If you were a 1980s teenager, you’ll recognize this as the telephone number for “Jenny” from the one-hit-wonder song by Tommy Tutone. This number is often in the system already.
- 15.
You can try this yourself. Go to www.iplocation.net.
- 16.
- 17.
The term opt out refers to a situation where a company signs you up for something but gives you the option to back out if you make some effort. An opt in program is the opposite: you have to explicitly ask to be in and are out by default.
- 18.
There’s a great documentary on the topic of these EULAs and the data being collected on all of us called Terms and Conditions May Apply.
- 19.
https://benton.org/initiatives/obligations/charting_the_digital_broadcasting_future/sec2, reference 32. Amendments to Delegations of Authority, 59 FCC 2d 491, 493 (1976).
- 20.
At the time of this writing, Big Sur is being called version 11. But it may end up being version 10.16.
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© 2020 Carey Parker
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Parker, C. (2020). Cybersecurity 101. In: Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons. Apress, Berkeley, CA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-6189-7_2
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