Chapter 9
CH 9 : Computer “Errors”
Human Errors – Humans allowed
anywhere near anything important
Procedural Errors – Procedures not
followed correctly
Software Errors – What most people
consider “bugs”
Hardware Errors – Faulty construction or
overload
Data Errors – Often caused by humans
Computer Crimes
Hardware Theft – Actually stealing hardware
Software Theft – Piracy or stealing actual copies
of software
Resource Theft – Illegally using services or
DDoS attacks
Information Theft – Classified info, industrial
espionage, or CC #s
Destruction – Destroying data or physical
systems maliciously
Computer Crimes
Q: Who is most likely to lead to a security
compromise?
A. Internal users
B. External users (clients)
C. External users (intruders)
A: Internal users, by far, either by
accident or on purpose
Identification Methods
What you have


Badges
Keys
What you know


Passwords
Signatures
Who you are

Biometrics – the science of measuring body
characteristics
Identification Methods - Problems
What you have

Easy to Steal
What you know

Easy to Break / Guess
Who you are

Harder to fake, but impossible for you to
change
Encryption
Encryption is the process of altering data,
in order to conceal its true meaning for
anyone who does not know how to decrypt
it
Plaintext- The unencrypted document
Cyphertext – Plain text that has been
encrypted
The only 100 % secure method of
encryption is a one-time pad used properly
Encryption
Unfortunately, one-time pads are not
practical for most computer encryption
purposes
Most encryption uses long keys (long in
terms of bits)
1024-bit + encryption becoming common
Not unbreakable, it just takes prohibitive
amounts of time
Mental Health and Computers
Book: Making friends online keeps you from
making friends offline, and the online friends you
do make are “likely to be trivial, short-lived, and
disposable”
Me: I have friends I made online, most of whom
I’ve eventually met, even though some of them
live in other countries. Doing so has not
impeded me from making friends offline, either.
Conclusion: The book is full of it here. (Or it
depends on the individual)
Mental Health and Computers
Book: Online gambling will suck out your
soul and make you wind up in huge
amounts of debt.
Me: … if you are weak minded and
already had a problem with gambling.
Conclusion: If you can’t eat this week
because you blew all your money betting
on online blackjack, get some help.
Mental Health and Computers
Book: Using computers is stressful – 59% of
users say the get angry at their PCs & 83% of
sys admins report violence towards PCs
Me: The computer is not animate. It cannot hate
you or deliberately seek to frustrate you. And if
you think you’re mad now, wait until you see how
much it costs to replace the thing you just threw
out the window.
Conclusion: Count to 10, or go do something
productive, but don’t beat up your PC.