Computer Ethics and Internet and World Wide Web Research- Assignment # 1

Ethical Behaviour

Ethics refers to the rules and standards governing the conduct of an individual with others. With this in mind computer ethics can be viewed a branch of practical philosophy which deals with how computing professionals should make decisions regarding professional and social conduct. These ethics seek to maintain order in the technological field as various problems and unethical behaviours perpetuate themselves.

Some examples of ethical misbehaviour may include:

· Plagiarism
· Hacking
· The use of computers to harm persons
· Interference with others files
· Use of computers to steal
· Violation of laws stipulated by software producers, manufactures etc.
· Use of others computer without authorization

Viruses

A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without the permission or knowledge of the owner. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, adware, and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability. A true virus can only spread from one computer to another (in some form of executable code) when its host is taken to the target computer; for instance because a user sent it over a network or the Internet, or carried it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB drive. Viruses can increase their chances of spreading to other computers by infecting files on a network file system or a file system that is accessed by another computer

Some examples of recent viruses are:

· Generic.dx!dbd!3f6e059f436f
· Generic.dx!chx!7b2c2d6df7a9
· Generic.dx!bip!1762d702c619
· Generic.dx!cpp!6f18f4ee3f39
· Generic.dx!cjv!03ca81ef0d02
· Adware-TryMedia!cf0bf2b0f16b
· Generic Dropper.bw!6a3d6857dcc5

How To Avoid viruses?

· Avoid downloading files without scanning them
· Install and anti-virus software on your computer
· Get a quality anti-spyware program
· Set up a software firewall.
· Set up a hardware firewall. It's called a router and it's easy to set up and maintain.
· Take the time and make the effort to understand how viruses and worms get onto your computer and you can virtually stop them all in their tracks.



The Internet and the World Wide Web

The Internet is a global system that connects the various computer networks of the world while the World Wide Web (WWW) is a system of hypertext documents that have been interlinked.
Softwares and Hardwares Necessary To connect to the Internet

· Hardwares necessary to connect to the internet are a computer and a Modem/Wireless Router/LAN cable(networking).
· Softwares necessary to connect to the internet are web browser applications (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome) and email software

The History of the Internet

· The USSR's launch of Sputnik spurred the United States to create the Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as ARPA, in February 1958.
· ARPA created the Information Processing Technology Office (IPTO) to further the research of the Semi Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) program, which had networked country-wide radar systems together for the first time. J. C. R. Licklider was selected to head the IPTO.
· At the IPTO, Licklider got Lawrence Roberts make a network, and Roberts based the technology on the work of Paul Baran, who had written a study for the U.S. Air Force that recommended packet switching to make a network highly robust and survivable.
· With the demonstration that packet switching worked on the ARPANET collaboration occurred to create the first international packet-switched network service.
· The X.25-based networks grew from Europe and US to cover Canada, Hong Kong and Australia by 1981.
· The term "Internet" to describe a single global TCP/IP network originated in December 1974 with the publication of RFC 675, a full specification of TCP.
· In the next nine years, work proceeded to refine the protocols and to implement them on a wide range of operating systems.
· The opening of the network to commercial interests began in 1988.
· Important, separate networks, then later merged with, the Internet include Usenet and BITNET. Various other commercial and educational networks were interconnected with the growing Internet.
· This network was eventually interconnected with the others in the 1980s as the TCP/IP protocol became increasingly popular.

The History of the World Wide Web

· In 1980 Tim Berners-Lee built ENQUIRE, as a personal database of people and software models, but also as a way to play with hypertext.
· Berners-Lee wrote a proposal in March 1989 for "a large hypertext database with typed links". Mike Sendall, encouraged Berners-Lee to begin implementing his system on a newly acquired NeXT workstation.
· He found an enthusiastic collaborator in Robert Cailliau, who rewrote the proposal and sought resources within CERN.
· By Christmas 1990, Berners-Lee had built all the tools necessary for a working Web :the HTTP 0.9, the HTML and the first Web browser.
· On August 6, 1991, Berners-Lee posted a summary of the World Wide Web project on the alt.hypertext newsgroup. This date also marked the debut of the Web as a publicly available service on the Internet.
· Early websites intermingled links for both the HTTP web protocol and the then-popular Gopher protocol.
· In April 1992 Erwise was released, developed at Helsinki University of Technology, and ViolaWWW, created by Pei-Yuan Wei, which included new features such as embedded graphics, scripting, and animation.
· University of Kansas students adapted an existing text-only hypertext browser, Lynx, to access the web.