The Internet

ISP stands for 'Internet Service Provider'. An ISP is a company that provides Internet

access. For a monthly fee they will offer you a broadband connection to the Internet. Without this service, most businesses and individuals would not be able to use the Internet.

Often, they provide other services as well such as email, web site building and web site hosting.

Examples of ISPs are Etisalat, AOL, etc.

WEB 2.0

The original World-Wide Web ('The Web', WWW, or 'Web 1.0') was a collection of mostly static websites that published information. You could visit the sites, read the webpages, look at the pictures, but you couldn't really interact with the site: you couldn't login, leave comments, tag images, discuss things, etc. The original Web was a mostly one-way experience where information was delivered to you.

'Web 2.0' is the name given to the the recent development of interactive websites that are quite different to the old, static websites.

Many websites on the Web today allow users to:share information (e.g. notes and photos on Facebook)

interact (add comments, chat, etc.)

collaborate on content (e.g. creating pages on Wikipedia)

create their own content (e.g. videos on YouTube)

Web 2.0 is often called the 'Social Web' because of the way that users can interact and share. It's also been called the 'Read-Write Web' because much of the content is now written by users (they're not just reading)

The word 'blog' is an abbreviation of 'web log'.

A 'log' is a place where a list of information is written down, so a 'web log' is a place where people write a list of things on the Web.

Each entry on a blog is called a post. A blog is a website where someone (usually a normal person - not a professional writer) writes about a topic.

Blogs can be personal (someone writing about their own life, or their personal views), based on an interest (e.g. football), or some businesses also use blogs to write about new products, etc.

A blog allows someone to be a writer and publisher on the Web with very little effort or cost. A blog can be setup with just a few clicks, whereas a few years ago you'd need a lot of technical knowledge to create your own website.

Blogs allow people to publish their views and opinions very easily, without anyone else checking what they are writing. For this reason, it is very important that you do not take the viewpoints expressed on blogs as facts - they are just one person's opinion and maybe factually very wrong.

A wiki is a website that allows users to collaborate (work together) to create the content. The pages of a wiki can be edited by everyone (or those who have the password) so that different people can add to the page, edit things, fix errors, etc

Wikis are used for websites such as:Encyclopaedia (e.g. Wikipedia)

Help sites (e.g. Ubuntu Linux)

Because many people can edit pages on a wiki, you have to be aware that the information you read may not be entirely accurate - sometimes people edit pages and write things that are wrong. Usually the errors are noticed and fixed by other wiki users, but not always.

There are many websites that allow users to create, upload and share their own media such as photos, music or video. Usually other users can rate or comment on the media that is uploaded leading to these sites often being referred to as 'Social Media' sites.

All media upload sites have rules about the type of media that you can upload - you have to either own the copyright to the image / music / video yourself, or have permission from the copyright owner

A social network website is a site that allows user to connect with other users who are friends / relatives, or who share similar interests.

Connected users can then shareinformation / pictures / files with each other, send messages, chat, etc.

A blog post goes public, in other words, it can be accessed and read by almost everyone who have an access to internet.

The usage of blogs are very convenient, hence people tend to use them more frequently.

Students tend to improve their writing skills as blog articles should be reasonably good enough and free grammatical mistakes.

Blog sites used as online class forums enables students with various personalities to participate in a discussion far more effectively than they can otherwise.

Individuals learn to express their opinions and exchange their views on topics of common interest, which not only keeps them updated but also effective contributor’s of new ideas.

It involves a lot of time to update and post an entry on the blog site

Regular writing may give rise to slangs and sloppy way of writing spoiling the quality of proper usage of language.

One major drawback is that not all information can be shared on blog sites. Hence may not be useful for everyone.

The need to have a computer may not be feasible for everyone.

There is no confidentiality as it is a public forum. It can no way be related to conversation, as there is always

a time gap in the replies received. It is not suited for issues requiring immediate solution.

Anyone can edit the information on wiki It is easy to use and learn or get information

from a wiki Wikis are instantaneous so there is no need to

wait for a publisher to create a new edition or update information

people located in different parts of the world can work on the same document

the wiki has no predetermined structure -consequently it is a flexible tool which can be used for a wide range of applications

Anyone can edit so this may be too open for some applications, for example confidential documentation.

Wikis are open to SPAM and Vandalism if not managed properly. There are easy ways to restore a page however, and on WikiEducator you must be logged in to edit pages so this reduces vandalism by automated spam bots.

Incorrect information: As information can be posted by anyone therefore the information may not be factual or accurate.

Requires Internet connectivity to collaborate, but technologies to produce print versions of articles are improving

The flexibility of a wiki's structure can mean that information becomes disorganised. As a wiki grows, the community plans and administers the structure collaboratively.

Internet Use

Always available

The Internet is aways available for you to use, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. You don't have to wait for it to open or wait for someone to make it available. It is just there, when you need it and for whatever you need.

Vast range of information

Think of any search term and type it into a search engine. We can pretty much guarantee that you will find web sites with information on that term.

It doesn't matter what you want to know about, you will find something on the Internet that can provide the information you need.

Easy to contact people

The Internet provides many ways to enable you to keep in contact with people at all hours of the day and night. From email, forums, chatrooms, telephone calls and video conferencing. You are almost spoilt for choice.

This ability has helped many companies grow from a small local company into a large, multi-national organsiation.

Access to other cultures The Internet enables you to look at sites about or written by people in other countries. You can look at photographs of where they live and read about their way of life.

This enables you to get a unique insight into their culture, something that just wouldnt' be possible without actually visiting them in person.

Up-to-date

One of the main advantages of the Internet is how fast things can be updated. When a news story breaks, the BBC website can have that news on its pages within a couple of minutes. They can keep adding more information as it becomes available.

If that were a newspaper, you would have to wait up to a day to read about the news. Even news on the television takes longer to get to you than the Internet.

Information overload

There is almost too much information on the Internet. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the amount of information that is out there.

When you type a search term into a search engine, you won't just get a few results, you will get millions!

Search engines do a good job at prioritising which are the most relevant sites for your search term. However that one piece of information that you are after might be on page 345 of results. There is very little chance that you are going to find it.

Information can be biased No one owns the Internet and there is nothing to stop people posting their opinions and points of view on web pages, forums, blogs.

Many people believe what they read on the Internet. You need to be careful and think about what you are reading. An awful lot of material and web sites are biased and only give you one point of view.

Information can be inaccurate With a book or encyclopedia, you can be pretty confident that what you are reading has been checked, cross referenced and is correct. But with the Internet, no one checks what has been written. The website that looks like it has all of the answers to your history homework might just be incorrect. You need to double check things out for yourself - don't just believe what you read.

Offensive material No matter how careful you are when using the

Internet, there is always the possibility that you will come across some sites that contain offensive or even illegal material.

The police spend a lot of time trying to track down and shut sites which have unsuitable images of children on them. But as soon as they close one, another one pops up.

There are also some pretty scary sites which promote things like anorexia. People post images of how thin they are and they get encouragement from others on the site to continue losing weight.

Cyberbullying With the growth of the Internet and new technology,

bullying has been moving from the traditional playground to emails, chatrooms, texts and social websites.

This type of bullying is every bit as harmful and hurtful as if done in person but it is much harder to tackle and stop.

Addiction There has been a worrying increase in the number of

people who are becoming 'addicted' to the internet. Every spare moment they have is spent online, some even go without proper sleep so that they don't have to log off. There have been reports of families breaking up and people losing their jobs because of this problem.

Ecommerce means the sale and purchase of goods and services over electronic systems such as the internet.

This can mean businesses selling to customers or businesses selling to other businesses or a new trend with the growth of sites like ebay, ordinary people selling to other people.

The Internet and World Wide Web are a fantastic resource for finding and sharing information. The Web contains literally billions of web pages containing information about every topic imaginable.

However we need to take care when using the Internet to look for information, or to send information...

The Internet and Web are not regulated - there is no organisation that controls who can create web pages or what those pages can contain. Anyone can create web pages and say anything they want to.

In many ways this is a good thing. It means that corrupt organisations or governments, who have always been able to hide details of their activities, are no longer able to do so. When bad things happen, people write about it on the Web and the world gets to know, and hopefully do something about it.

But it’s also a bad thing. It means that people or organisations can easily spread lies and hatred. There are thousands of websites containing bigoted (intolerant) viewpoints, and thousands more that are full of information that is biased, inaccurate, or just plain wrong.

Check several sources of information (go to lots of different websites). If they all say them same thing, it is likely to be true

Stick to websites that belong to trusted organisations. If the website address ends in .gov.uk (the UK government site) it is more likely to be reliable than one like www.tomiscool.net

Look at the spelling and grammar used. Reliable websites are usually checked for errors. Too many spelling errors mean it’s probably not to be trusted.

In addition to the Web being full of websites with inaccurate information, there are also a huge number of websites that contain highly offensive, or illegal material.

Avoiding this type of material can be tricky. Many organisations such as schools, some governments (e.g. for religious reasons), and also many parents, make use of web page filtering software. This software attempts to prevent offensive and illegal material being accessed.

Even if filtering software is not installed on a computer, you can still take steps to help you avoid these types of sites:

Use the 'safe search' feature on search engines such as Google.

Don’t click the links that are shown in junk email (spam)

Think carefully about the keywords that you use to search with.

For reliability you must check the source of the data.

Check the publisher of the data or the author’s credentials (qualifications)

Check if the source is a trusted source. Users can compare information from reliable sites to see if it is reliable and users can compare with information from reliable/authenticated/text books

Check if other reliable sites have links to it. Check if the site contains lots of advertising

(sites supported wholly by advertising are less likely to be reliable than those funded in other ways) and is the advertising related only to its own products

Look at the URL (uniform resource locator) for the website to check what sort of organization hosts the site.

Sites with a URL containing .ed, .ac, .org, .ukor .gov are more likely to be more reliable than a commercial organization.

Another measure of reliability is how up to date the website is. The most recent update of a site can usually be found in the site information or from clues in the text, such as news items which contain dates.

Another clue can be the number of hyperlinks that no longer work-websites with current information usually check to make sure that the links to the other sites work.

Some websites are very similar to genuine sites but give biased, false or inaccurate information. Look at the content not the features of the website.

Check the date when the site was last updated.

Data theft, phishing & pharming

What is a hacker?A hacker is a person who breaks

codes and passwords to gain unauthorised entry to computer systems.

Who is at risk?Computers which form part of

networks or those with external links, such as attached modems, are in danger from hackers. Stand-alone computers are usually safe as there is no connection for the hackers to break into.

curiosity challenge - can they get through the system’s

defences? to access data, usually because the data has

value to steal financial information such as your

credit card number, or the password to your bank account, in order to use that information to make purchases.

Use strong passwords to protect your user login account

Never reveal your login password to anyone else

Place a firewall between your computer and any network

Disconnect from networks (eg the internet)when you are not using them

Encrypt any sensitive information (just in case they get in)

This is where a user is tricked into entering their user name & password to a fake website.

The website looks like their bank/ebay/paypalwebsite, but belongs to a hacker.

In brief, a 'phishing' email is one that pretends to be from a company or bank like eBay, PayPal, your bank etc

It usually asks you to enter your account data, such as login details.

These scams are often supported by fake spoof websites, and victims are tricked into thinking they are logging to a real website.

•Phishing is a form of identity theft, where fraudsters steal your identity and personal information to gain access to your accounts or commit other crimes using your persona.

What is it?"Pharming" is the term for when criminal hackers redirect Internet traffic from one Web site to a different, identical-looking site in order to trick you into entering your user name and password into the database on their fake site.

Why do they do it?Criminals try to acquire your personal information in order to access your bank account, steal your identity, or commit other kinds of fraud in your name, so banking and similar financial sites are often the targets of these attacks.

Pharming might sound similar to e-mail phishingscams, but pharming is more insidious, because you can be redirected to a false site without any participation or knowledge on your part.

A hacker attacks a DNS server

The hacker redirects traffic from the real website to his own fraudulent site

The user types in the web address of the real site

They are instead taken to the fake site –usually a bank or other ecommerce site.

Pharming is a highly sophisticated extension of phishing that can direct you to fake websites that look identical to the real ones, and then steal your identity, infest your computer with annoying adware, and attack your computer with damaging viruses.

COMMUNICATIONS & EMAIL

'Spam' is the name given to unsolicited e-mails (ones sent without being asked for).

Spam e-mails usually contain adverts for products...

You might wonder who actually responds to spam e-mails, and why the spammers would bother to send them.

The answer is all to do with the massive numbers of spam messages that are sent...

Spammers send billions of messages every day. Even if only 0.01% of people click on the link in a spam message, that still means thousands of links are being clicked. And spammers are paid for every click.

Spam is a huge problem. It is estimated that 97% of all e-mail messages sent is spam. That's several hundred billion spam e-mails every day!

If it wasn't for e-mail spam filters(which separate out spam messages from genuine messages) our e-mail systems would be unusable.