Digital Wild West

Anti-virus Software - A program to detect other programs designed or intended to disrupt your PC’s operation and performance, or enlist it for covert remote use.

Black list / White list - Access Control List (ACL) refers to any security list but in popular context always means people you don’t want to be emailed by (black) and those you do (white). Your email program usually keeps those  lists - and YOU maintain them.

Browser - Software by which you browse/surf the Internet. Typically Internet Explorer, FireFox,  Opera, and historically Mozilla and Netscape.

Chat / Chat room - A website on the Internet where you talk via keyboard (turn-based) - or by webcam and microphone if you dare - with other people in ‘real time.’ Chat rooms are either incredibly useful as special-interest support groups, educational as specialist discussion groups, or totally banal and often malevolent as social groups, especially if the members are strangers.

Cyber stalking/bullying - Terms that have little real-world significance and do not belong here due  to their insignificance. However, as a pale shadow of their real-world counterparts they are of interest and you should be aware of such activity.

Firewall - Named after real walls between buildings or the metal between you and your vehicle’s engine, firewalls block or slow the spread of fire during catastrophe. Similarly, computer firewalls try to insulate you from the perils of unwanted visibility from other computers. As either hardware or software the firewall might, for example, only allow into your PC answers to enquiries it (you) initiated. It can also function as a guard that converts your network (Internet) enquiries by translating them to another network ‘moniker,’ the intent being to block covert access to your computer, one of the oldest and most dangerous methods computers can be attacked.

Identity Theft - Exactly what it says. The more you put out there on the chat groups, Facebooks or MySpaces the higher the risk. ID theft risk heightens when databases containing personal, financial, confidential details are broken into. Finally such information is used by criminals to masquerade as you and obtain passports, banking credentials, or access to physical locales, employing ’social engineering’ to further manipulate and extract data, or obtain deeper access.

Instant Messaging / IM - Using a computer when a 20 cent phone call would suffice.

Internet - The phone network you probably understand. Since phones by definition can call any other phone in the world, they are considered networked. Same with computers. The two technologies are merging, and lots of other smart devices are joining the network - houses, vehicles, robots ..

Keywords - Looking for anything in Google, MSN, or Yahoo, involves keywords. Even doing an image search begins by entering a word to specify what you’re looking for. That’s a keyword (or key phrase).

Online grooming - Significant only in the context of hysteria being generated by governments seeking electoral advantage by scaring the horses (that’s you, dummy). Nothing new here, except the technology. A predator insinuates into a victim’s life, gaining their confidence. Again, of course, a threat, but only a shadow of real-world malevolence.

Operating System / OS or O/S - Just software, but software dedicated to running the lump of plastic and silicon that is your computer. Its job is to talk to the screen, speaker, network, mouse, speaker, USB devices, and manage all those other programs you use. Microsoft Windows - aka XP and Vista - are operating systems, as is MAC O/S and Linux.

Peer to peer / P2P - Programs that talk directly to instances of themselves running on other computers anywhere on the Internet. Typically intended for sharing music, videos, or games, and commonly illegally offering copies free to others. Your interest here is beware the summons from the music or film industry’s lawyers who offer bait for download and record your IP address. Beware also the download pretending to be music or film but contains malicious code (program within a program) that attacks your PC. Finally, beware the P2P software itself. You can very easily download a compromised version that does nasties to your PC while merrily also P2Ping.

Program - Software. Also called ‘an application.’

Social Networking - Doing online what we have done in the real world since time began. If you have a website or blog this interests you as a method of promoting them.

Social Engineering - Very interesting concept but predates the Internet, which offers opportunities to enhance deceptive practices that employ it. The term is best illustrated by an example from the offline world. Phone a company, pretend to be a relative of Miss X and say you’ve lost her phone number and have an urgent message about her father’s health, then ask for her phone number. The online example is a scam email purporting to be from your bank telling you to login in at this website to reactivate your account. The website looks like the bank but is a fake site created to capture your login. By the time you find our your bank account is empty! Happens to a thousand people in the world every day.

Software - What your computer does, aka ‘Programs.’ An abstract concept commonly described as ‘other than hardware’ which then requires ‘hardware’ be defined. Since the hardware is no more than a container, and energy source, and a mass of miniature electronic switches (’junctions’) the software might be defined as that which controls the state of switching.

Spam / Spam filter - SPAM is a weird mix of finely minced animal parts sold in a tin and a famous brand name. Probably the most colorful example of  online issues borrowing from the physical world, spam now refers to unwanted email AND the activity of overly-forceful self-promotion.

Spyware - I could write a book on this. When antivirus software bit into the success of computer viruses (virii) inhabitants of the dark side became more creative, devising new ways to attack the humble home or corporate PC. Since then it’s been a technology arms race between security vendors and crims. Consider spyware malicious activity on the fringe of mainstream viral assault, typically delivered by from a website you are visiting. Spyware’s origins were cookies that simply wanted to track a computer to gather sales demographics.

Trojan - An evocative term analogously applied to any activity duplicating method or intent of a legendary wooden horse by which Greeks overcame a city of Troy during the Trojan wars. Hence, beware Greeks bearing gifts - hence, beware geeks …  So, a ‘Trojan’ is malicious software that enters your PC with your blessing (download and run!) for any purpose (because any software can be so compromised) but contains code that does something else - typically malicious. It might do both, just to fool you good and proper.

URL - A website address, like http://digitalwildwest.com  An acronym for Universal Resource Locator.

Virus - Software, nearly always malicious and damaging, that works like real world virii, infecting computers and spreading. If to virulent it disables the host before that host can infect another. If too feeble .. well, lucky you.

Voice over IP / VOIP - That Internet telephone you plugged into your PC, or that microphone and the PC’s speaker using Yahoo or Google talk, that’s ‘voice over IP’ aka telephone conversations over the Internet using computers in each home to avoid international phone charges by the phone network - which ironically, did you know, uses the same technology. IP is Internet Protocol, the language computers talk.