Post #7 - Final Assignment

            In my Week 3 paper, when I chose the "tech topic" that I was going to use, I chose the topic of "Web and Mobile apps" since I've always been interested in learning about mobile apps and, especially, how to make one.

            I once tried to when I was younger, but I didn't know how to get it started. I thought I had to download a specific app and because I couldn't find any app, at the time, to do it, I gave up right then and there and haven't went back to it since. I no longer wish to make a mobile app, but I still think it would maybe be something cool to do.

            This week, we went over many things. Between how a virus gets into an electronic device, how to protect yourself online, and even how virus attack your devices. I hope that how I explain it is easy to understand.

            Applications, such as Youtube or Instagram, require knowing nothing about how the internet works. All you need to know how to do is post and look at information that is at your fingertips. However, knowing anything about information technology might help make sure you are not subjected to things you don't want to see.

            You should always look at the "privacy" and "setting" tabs under any website or device you use. This way, you at least get a good idea of what the website or app is using that you do to cater to your needs online. Most of these websites allow you to know when and where a device logged into your account, and if you are able to identify that you were not the one logging in then it'll help you secure your account again.

            Over the years, technology has expanded and become easier to use. In 2004 the social media website called Facebook was founded and released to college students to communicate with each other online. Soon we became able to use it on flipphones - though not very good and was hard to post on - and then eventually we all got smart phones and it moved to our phones. Now I don't think anyone uses Facebook on their computers anymore because it's right on our phones in easy access. It's also able to stay logged in and you never have to worry about your family member using your account because your family member most likely has their own account. This only became possible because we went from a phone that was only able to make calls and texts, to a phone that is everything you'll ever need in one hand.

            Computers have always been able to access websites, and over the years phones have been programmed to do pretty much exactly the same as the computer is able to do. All of this is because of 'pinging' which I went over in a previous blog post. To sum it up, pinging is the way your computer sends you to wherever on the internet you want to go to. However, one thing that you can do now, with both mobile devices and your computer, is send stuff to another device without a cord.

            Back when Apple iPods and iPhones started coming out, the only way that you could get your pictures and videos from that device to a computer to store was to connect a cord into a USB-A. Now, all you have to do is download an application called Google Drive and you can upload any files that you want to that drive. After that, you can login to your drive from either device and download them onto that device. While it might take a few minutes to upload, it's a lot faster and a lot more securer than the old cord method.

            Just like anything online, everything is done by a programming language. A simple thing that you can do is download an application onto your computer or smart phone, then open it up and use it. Already you've used multiple codes to not only save the application to the device but it also had to send a code to the devices main system saying that you wanted to open the application up. From in there, the application has it's own program codes to do different things.

            As for application software and how it plays out for my chosen topic, I'm not exactly sure how to answer this because I chose the general topic of the application itself. You have to have the software to run it or you won't be able to use it.

            Most websites and applications that you use these days have an option where you can sign up for an account with them and save your data so that you can return back to it on a different device or at a different time without losing any of it. Using, once again, Google Drive, you use your google account to upload pictures and videos into a program that is secure, then you can share those files with other users. Once you upload these files you can then logout, and you can return at anytime to find them again. The software saves it for you and only you and whoever has access to the databse of all of your pictures and videos will be able to see them, which you control entirely if anyone else can see then or not.

            I've talked a lot, in this blog post, about security. Anyone that has access to the database of all users can, potentially, find any of your information if they truly wanted to, and steal or delete any of it. All websites and applications have some kind of rules that you must follow, and if you don't follow those rules the creators have the right to restrict you from using their programs. If they didn't, the internet would become a scarier place than it already is and there would be no control over who could do what with anything.

While I didn't cite anything specific, these are my references that I feel can back me up.

D. Wetherall , D. Choffnes , B. Greenstein , S. Han , P. Hornyack , J. Jung , S. Schechter , and X. Wang. (N.D.).Privacy Revelations for Web and Mobile Apps. https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/hotos/tech/final_files/Wetherall.pdf

Raymond, V. J., & Sushmitha, E. (2017). Google drive based secured anti-theft android application. 2017 International Conference on IoT and Application (ICIOT), IoT and Application (ICIOT), 2017 International Conference On, 1–8. https://doi-org.proxy-library.ashford.edu/10.1109/ICIOTA.2017.8073623

Vahid, F., & Lysecky, S. (2017). Computing technology for all. Retrieved from zybooks.zyante.com/

Post #6 - Network Security

There are many viruses that your computer can get when browsing the internet. One of most popular types is the Ping of Death - "a type of Denial Service attack in which an attacker attempts to crash, destabilize or freeze the targeted computer or service by sending malformed or oversized packets using a single command,” ("Ping of Death (POD)," n.d, para. 1). 

Under this category, there is the Ping Flood. This is when a computer is spammed with many pings at once, and before each ping can go through there are more added to it. This way, the computer has to then catch up and can receive a very large ping that actually violates the Internet Protocol.

There are many types of ways that a virus can get into your computer, but of all of the ways I had decided that I was going to use Email Spam and Password Cracking.

Email Spam:

An email spam is a very known way of getting a virus into your computer. It is, usually, just a regular email with an attachment in it that, when clicked, inserts a virus into your computer. Just like all viruses, the person who went the virus now has access to anything that specific computer does. 

These types have been around ever since you were able to start emailing each other. However, they aren't always bad either. Other spams can be the emails you get when you buy clothes online - which I am currently experiencing because I did just that a couple days ago - or when you sign up for a website. They are literally just emails that fill your inbox up.

Most mail services online now have a "Spam" folder, which is where emails that you routingly get in excess are hosted. This can be things such as with dating websites when they tell you that you have likes on the website.

This type is the one that the older generations fall for, and that is always good for a hacker who just wants your grandma or grandpa's debit or credit card details so they can go on a shopping spree.

Password Cracking:

Password cracking is just what it sounds like. It's when a hacker somehow gets hold of one your passwords and is able to login to your account with it. While I'm not sure, and was unable to find, how to hack into a website, I know that it's not very hard for someone who knows exactly what they're doing.

Everyone has had moments where they lost access to their accounts. We all hate getting that notification from Facebook or Google saying that someone has logged into your account from a new device, mostly because we know it's usually us, but also because when we know that we didn't do it we have to then change our passwords.

The biggest thing that happens is someone will use the exact same password for all websites, so once a hacker has hold of that information, they have the password to all other websites

What can you do?

The best things that you can do is never give anyone your password, and never click links from people you don't know. Also, be suspicious when someone says that they found you on a website. If they send a link, attempt to google the exact page name so that the person can't get your information at all.

As for password cracking, a good way to prevent that is to use authentication applications like Authy, that provide you with codes so that you are able to access your accounts and know exactly that it is you. I use it for my Discord app on my phone, due to previous problems with hackers. What they do is they provide a new code that you can use every 30 seconds, and once you insert that code it allows you to login to the website. Then, even if a hacker gets into your account, they also have to be able to get past that blocker!

References

Imperva. (N.D). Ping of Death. https://www.imperva.com/learn/application-security/ping-of-death/

P. G. Kelley et al., "Guess Again (and Again and Again): Measuring Password Strength by Simulating Password-Cracking Algorithms," 2012 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, San Francisco, CA, 2012, pp. 523-537.

Authy. (N.D). What is Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)? https://authy.com/what-is-2fa/

Post #5 - Computers in the Work Place

When I did the post for my view on computers in the work place, I had mentioned that I didn't have job that required that I use a computer, but my company does have a main office that all of the people there do have to use computers. I focused on the person that I can never remember her title, but she does homevisits for our clients and adds new clients into the system while also working with information collected from the homes of old clients.

This job is important because it keeps my job running, as the state knows exactly what is happening in each house thanks to her computer work. Without that specific job, we would lose clients instead of gaining clients because we wouldn't be considered trustworthy since there would be no documents that the company could access.

I did, however, say that I fear that this job might not be around for long, because workers like myself could easily learn how to do it. If my job decided to cut out that worker, they could require that we upload all information to a program through our phone - not that I know if there is a program other than straight up email - or they could combine it with the regular job of the boss. Because it is easily able to be done from within the home of any client by any worker, if given the resources to do it, I fear that our company will end up replacing that specific person with just a program that'll collect all data given in by workers.

Post #4 - Ping

Due to specific circumstances, I never actually got to make my post for Ping or Traceroute. I have decided that I'm going to focus on Ping for this post because I was unable to do the Traceroute.

It was requested that we "ping" websites to see what would happen when we did so. This is what came up on my screen when I did the pinging.

I had decided to use Google, Facebook, and a random Australian website that I had found on google because it was requested that we use a website from a different country.

I never made my post, however, because my Pings took a lot longer than it did for other people. While other posts were getting somewhere within 14 seconds, I was getting almost minutes to get the pings to go all the way through. For lack of looking like an idiot, I couldn't even do the replies because I didn't understand what was happening on my end.

Thankfully, once I got a bit of help understanding these, I was able to see that it was just my computer being slow. I was fully able to connect to the websites and it was successfully going sending a receiving signals between the website and my computer. I was able to learn how my computer knows what website to go to because it was able to bring up the specific IP address used for each website on it's own.

Post #3 - Different applications

This assignment we were told to mess with Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access which most people only have played around, previously, with Word. While these are all made by the same company and do pretty similar things, they are completely different.

We were described to write about 10 things we do during the day. I have trouble doing this because my life is, quite literally, done in less than 10 things a day. I had to add eating and other things that we all do that makes our lives uninteresting to the entire thing, and by the time I got done I had extended by day by ~12 hours more than a normal day consists of.

Using Microsoft Word, I described the basics of my day in a journal like entry. I had explained about my night at work, what all I did during the night, and then about each thing that I had to do after work. I made it look like that of which an 11-year-old would do when starting their own personal diary or journal.

Using Microsoft Excel I had to label how long each individual activity took. Due to my very boring life, as I already said, I had to add things like browsing social media and eating/drinking, and even driving to and from work. This, in total, meant that I had about ~36 hours of day time because I usually write stories and browse social media at the exact same time. I'm usually always on my phone which means that all of my social media time happens at the exact same time as everything else.

Using Microsoft PowerPoint I had to make a slide for each activity. I was able to group some items together to make a decent and not completely boring presentation, and I got to use the transitions and animations provided to make it looks a little more interesting. My favorite thing to do the entire thing was making the Facebook and Instagram logos switch places on the slide that I used for social media, which I have never done before but wanted to just for the fun of it.

Using Microsoft Access, I had to label which things were high priority. Most people would see excercise as high priority, but I used my writing and school work as high priority because those are the important things to me. I also believe I added Family Time as high priority, but as an loner I don't usually hang out with anybody in my life and prefer to be alone.

While each program did something completely different than the last, they were all important in their own way. I was able to use the different programs so that I could list the same activities in different ways so that I could see how I view the entire day. I usually see myself as a boring person and this actually reinforced that idea because I couldn't even get the entire 10 activities, I think I toppled out with between 7 and 9.

Post #2 - Moble App

In week 2 we were required to review a mobile app. I always talk about a website that I use literally all of the time when I have free time - which is usually every single night while I'm at work. The app that I chose to talk about was Episode Interactive. This app is accompanied by a website that you can find here, and is very easy to use once you practice around with it for a little bit!

The app at first can be very hard to write with. There are animations and codes you have to learn to be able to use the application. As an example, one of the codes is "@CHARACTER enters from left to screen left in 5". This is how you get the character to enter in the screen. Each code can be paired with an "AND" code to make the characters to specific things. As another example, I will pair the code up with a full animation. @CHARACTER enters from left to screen left in 5 AND CHARACTER faces left AND CHARACTER is walk_neutral. This makes the character walk backwards, but depending on the style of animation you use there is no animation for walking backwards so it's just a bit funky to do.

Once you get the coding down, at least to the basics of it, the rest is just a learning curve. Some of the features that are given to authors are the "Directing helpers" as well as the "Guidebox". To keep it short, I will briefly explain these features.

Directing Helpers:

The directing helpers are listed as followed:

• Spot Placement
• This is so that characters can be different heights or stand in the background of the story. It's also used for when you need all characters to be in one specific area of the screen and need to be able to shrink them down so you can fit more characters onto the screen at once.
• Zoom Helper
• This is self explanatory. If you want to zoom in on background areas or different parts of the screen, it will show you the code so that you can  zoom in on the scene.
• Speechbubbles
• Yes, I mean for that to be mispelled. It's the way that the app uses it.
• Basically put, this is so you can rearrange the speechbubbles on screen so that the speechbubble is facing the correct character. This is important, not only for just being correct, but because a lot of animations that people use as reaction animations that are actually talking animations and you have to be able to determine who is actually talking.
• As an example, a lot of people will use the animation code talk_startled instead of the animation code startled_surprised because it looks a lot better.
• HSL Filters
• This one is an extra thing. You don't have to play with them but if you can figure out how to use them correctly they are fun to look at in the story. Basically it lets you play with the lighting in the story or the overall color aspect so that you can use it to make the story better

All of these directing helpers make the story, and you have to use at least the first three of them to make a semi-decent story, though some people don't mind the speechbubbles being all out of place.

My story My Alpha 2: Worlds Collide. The right panel, under Show Helpers, is where the directing commands are found.

Guidebox:

This part I stress about so much when it comes to writing. It was added about a year ago and helps authors when they're writing so that all screens can see what's happening in the story. Episode decided that, instead of adjusting their resolutions per device, they would just make a one size fits all version and allow the authors to work with it. Because of this, what my Apple iPad sees is only 2/3 of what my Apple iPhone sees, as the cell phone is the way that most people read stories so it's primarily made exactly for that type of reader.

Sometimes a character can look like they're floating if you edit the story on a tablet and then read it on a phone, and sometimes speechbubbles or characters are unvisible if you edit on a phone and read it on a tablet. Using the Guidebox, you can make sure that all readers are able to read what happens on screen no matter what device they read your story with.

Ever since our assignment that we did, a couple things changed. I had said that my recommendations to continue the app growth would be different body types - such as children bodies -, more non-binary character outfits, and less guildeines.

Recetly, they added a Plus Size female option, and they added new face shapes suitable for children in the last update of character details. The male body type has also gotten some new dresses and skirts, and the female body type has the more tom boyish looks so that they can make transgender or cross-dressing characters! Overall, the app has gotten just that little bit better within the last few weeks!

Post #1 - Scratch

In week 1 we were assigned to work with Scratch - a programming website originally designed for kids to teach them all about programming and, if it interests them, to get them started on a pathway to learning about programming. I used this website once when I was younger, and in middle school, and have always enjoyed actually using it. It later led me to wanting to write on an interactive story website that I have used for the past 3+ years.

One of the difficulties that you may or may not have with Scratch is to get the animations to start at the exact same time. This, of course, is very easy to learn if you are the type that likes to look at the instructions for any kind of project you're working on. Since I am not the type of person that looks at the instructions, I spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get them to start together - then I obviously found the right program key and inserted it into the coding!

Scratch is, obviously, just a learning website. There are other ways that programmers and coders use more frequently to do actual jobs that require coding and programming. One such way is Machine Language, which is the way that you've seen before that requires you to use 01111000000 as a code to make the machine do what it is supposed to do. It requires that you memorize how to do these codes, or at least have them written down so you can reference them every single time you need to use them.

One major thing that I learned is that, even though these websites exist to make it easier to learn about coding, it takes a lot of coding to do simple things such as moving one character across the screen to the opposite side. One single number misplaced could cause an entire system to mess up and that is not a good thing when you're working with programming language. It would be even harder to find your mistake, which makes me think that programming is one of the harder jobs in the world.

If you'd like to see what my Scratch project looks like, click here.