IGCSE ICT (0417)

UNIT #10 COMMUNICATION

 EMAIL

Electronic mail is a way of sending messages

through a website from one computer to another
computer .
EMAIL - CHARACTERISTICS, USES & CONSTRAINTS
 Legislation
 Acceptable language
 Guidelines set by an employer
 Copyright and security of emails
 Security and password protection
 Netiquette
 Email groups
 Carbon copy(Cc), Blind carbon copy (Bcc)
 Forwarding of emails
EMAIL - CHARACTERISTICS, USES & CONSTRAINTS
 Forwarding emails
 Attachments
EMAIL - LEGISLATION
 EMAIL – ACCEPTABLE LANGUAGE
Avoid unacceptable language like:
 Obscene images
 Abusive language
 Profane language – vulgar or cursing
 Inflammatory language – arousing or rebellion
 Coercive – to cause to do through pressure tactics
 Defamatory – tending to discredit or malign or
speak unfavorably
 Blasphemous – disrespect or desecrate religious
believes
 EMAIL – ACCEPTABLE LANGUAGE
Avoid unacceptable language like:
 Racist – Prejudice belief of superior and inferior
races
 Exploitative – use to one’s advantage
 Bullying – uncultured, aggressive, rude, noisy
trouble making
 Violent messages - threatening
 Use of illegal materials or messages
 EMAIL – GUIDELINES SET BY EMPLOYER
 Avoid using companies email system for
personal emails unless otherwise permitted by
the employer
 Employer may specify devices to send or
receive emails
 Acceptable style and tone of emails should be
made clear (acceptable language and netiquette)
 Clarity on acceptable and unacceptable content
 Avoid others’ accounts to send emails
 Accounts must be password protected
 EMAIL – GUIDELINES SET BY EMPLOYER
 Clear policy on confidentiality of information
 Clear policy on method and duration of storing
emails
 Only recipient/nominee should read the incoming
emails
 Policy on how to deal with and prevent viruses and
other security threats)
 Filtering of incoming and outgoing email traffic
 Use of auto-responders when staff are not in work
 EMAIL – GUIDELINES SET BY EMPLOYER

 Monitoring of emails may be carried out and staff

must be aware that the company has the right to
read all emails
 Suitable ongoing training will take place to ensure
staff follow company policy at all times and that
the company policy on emails will be enforced at
all times
 EMAIL – COPYRIGHT PROTECTION

It is the content (text and attachments) of the

emails that defines the copyright status of the
emails. Any email must contain that this email is
copyright protected.
EMAIL – SECURITY AND PASSWORD PROTECTION
 Use strong passwords to log on to email account
 Avoid weak password like pet’s name
 Strong passwords contain a combination of letters,
numbers and other symbols like Sy12@#TT90kj=0
 Change passwords on a regular basis (every 3
months)
 Use spam filters to remove suspicious emails to a
‘junk folder’ or to block
 Use anti-virus and anti-spam software to protect
against emails from unknown or malicious sources.
 EMAIL – PASSIVE ATTACKS

Emails are vulnerable to passive and active attacks:

 Release of email material to others without
consent
 EMAIL – ACTIVE ATTACKS
 Phishing - Phishing is a form of fraud
 Vishing - Vishing is phishing using voice.
 Smishing - Smishing is phishing using text
messaging on mobile phones.
 Viruses attacks
 Pharming - The luring of an internet user to
reveal personal details (like passwords and
credit card information) on a fake web page
pretending to come from a legitimate company
(like their bank)
 EMAIL – ACTIVE ATTACKS

 Whaling - whaling is a phishing attack that targets

high profile targets within an organization such as
senior executives.
 Modification of your messages
 Denial of service
[overloading your system by sending thousands of
emails, which ‘clogs up’ computer and makes
internet access almost impossible]
 NETIQUETTES
1. Do not be abusive
2. Do not send spam
3. Be clear and succinct (brief) with your message -
do not waffle(vague and lengthy writing).
4. Remember that posts are public in most cases
and can be read by anyone.
5. Always check your spelling and grammar
6. Respect people's privacy and do not discuss or
publish information that might embarrass
somebody.
 NETIQUETTES
6. Respect people's privacy and do not discuss or
publish information that might embarrass
somebody.
7. Forgive people’s mistakes
8. Do not use CAPITAL LETTERS to highlight
comments – this is seen as ‘shouting’.
9. Do not plagiarize - always acknowledge quotes
used in any messages you write.
10. Do not use too many emoticons.
 EMAIL GROUPS - PURPOSE
 Easier for a user to send out multiple emails
 Companies and organisations can group people
together for marketing purposes, for example
according to age, hobbies, favourite music.
 Spammers can create email groups by buying
addresses of people from certain
 companies or from software that ‘raids’ address
books on email companies
 Companies use email groups to set up meetings
for example, for a video conference
EMAIL – To, Cc, Bcc, Forward, Attachments
 SPAM EMAIL

Spam are unsolicited emails which are often sent

to multiple recipients and can range from being
simply annoying to dangerous.
 SPAM EMAIL - CHARACTERISTICS

 Spam can contain viruses

 Can be part of a phishing scam
 Spam can affect many online operations for
example, YouTube where links called
‘spambots’ are posted within videos which
send users to another website.
 Spam are cheap way of advertising
 Spam are considered a big nuisance.
 SPAM EMAIL - CHARACTERISTICS

 It uses up people’s time.

 It uses up valuable bandwidth on the internet,
slowing it down.
 BLOGS

Web logs (blogs) are personal internet journals

where the writer (blogger) will type in their
observations on a topic and perhaps provide links to
some relevant websites.
 BLOG - CHARACTERISTICS

 The content are NOT immune from the law.

 Content is regularly updated
 Organized in reverse chronological order
 Anyone can read (public)
 Content is updated from a single author
 Other internet users cannot update blogs
 MICROBLOG AND B-BLOG
Short and frequent posts on social networking sites.
 instant messaging
 emails
 Tweets
 Microblogs to allow members to update their
personal profiles.

B-blog is short for business blog which is used by

businesses to promote themselves on the internet.
 WIKIS

Wikis are web applications/websites that allow any user

to create and edit their web pages using any web
browser.
For example - Wikipedia
 WIKIS - CHARACTERISTICS

 Wiki supports hyperlinks

 Uses wiki markup (syntax) to create pages
 Anyone can edit, delete or modify the content
 Many authors can create and update wiki
 Pages can be organized in any way
 Keeps track of all entries - stores document history
 can be easily edited using a web browser
 Allows large documents to be seen by many people
 SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES - CHARACTERISTICS

 Social networking sites focus on building online

communities of users who share the same
interests and activities.

 They enable people to share photos, videos and

music, hobbies, favourite eating places etc.

 The members create their public profiles and

form relationships with other users.
 SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES - CHARACTERISTICS
 Members are provided free web space
 Members can build their own private and public
profiles
 can upload content such as text messages,
photos and videos
 Can write on each other’s walls
 Members get free instant messaging and video
chatting
 Members can email other members
 Members can create pages to post photos,
articles etc.
 SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES - CHARACTERISTICS

 Members can control over who can access their

private or personal data.
 MODERATED FORUM-CHARACTERISTICS

A moderated forum refers to an online discussion

forum in which all the posts are checked by an
administrator before they are allowed to be posted.
 MODERATED FORUM

A moderated forum refers to an online discussion forum

where posts are checked/screened by an administrator
before they are posted.
 UNMODERATED FORUM

 An online site where members have freedom to

share any type of content.
 The moderator can not prevent spam.
 The moderator can’t filter out any posts that are
inappropriate, rude or offensive
 The members can wander off the main topic.
 The internet is a huge unmoderated forum as it is
not policed.
 INTERNET PROTOCOL ADDRESS

 ISP provides an IP address to connect a

computer/network to the internet.
[IP = Internet Protocol]
[ISP = Internet Service Provider]
 An IP address identifies the location of the device
on a network.
 The IP address is unique for a particular internet
session.
 The only IP addresses that remain unchanged are
the web servers.
 INTERNET PROTOCOL ADDRESS

 A 32-bit IP address or IPV4 comprises four groups

of 8-bits each like:
109.108.158.1

 A dot(.) is used as separator in IPV4.

 INTERNET PROTOCOL ADDRESS
 A 128-bit IP address or IPV6 comprises 8 groups
of hexadecimal digits like:
A8FB:7A88:FFF0:0FFF:3D21:2085:66FB:FOFA

 A colon(:) is used as separator in IPV6.

 IPV6 can provide unique addresses to more
number of computers as IPV4 failed to provide
unique IP addresses to the computers with
increasing internet users day by day.
 IP ADDRESS OF WEB SERVER

An IP address can be used instead of typing in the

full URL; for example, http://109.108.158.1 would
take us to the device containing the web page
corresponding to this IP address.
 IP ADDRESS OF WEB SERVER

 A browser uses a URL to access websites and

retrieve files etc.
 These URLs are actually mask of the IP addresses
of the web servers which comprise a set of four
numbers for example 109.108.158.1

(http:// 109.108.158.1 )

[URL = Uniform Resource Locator]

 IP ADDRESS OF WEB SERVER
 However this is not very user friendly so a mask
of alphanumeric format is used instead, for
example:
http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk
 The above URL can be broken in four segments
like:
 IP ADDRESS OF WEB SERVER

 The web browser translates the web server name

into an IP address.
 The html is returned and shows correctly
formatted page.
 INTERNET

The internet is a world wide collection of networks

that allows users to communicate.
The internet is a concept rather than an intangible
thing.
It relies on the infrastructure that allows networks
to connect other networks.
INTERNET
 INTERNET

World wide web(www) is part of the internet.

World wide web comprises massive collection of
web pages globally which can be accessed using a
software called a web/internet browser. It uses
hypertext transfer protocol(http) protocols to
request web pages and access them on our
computer.
 USES OF INTERNET

 Send and receive emails

Some 20 million e-mail messages cross the
Internet every week.
 Online chat
using text, voice, or video
 Transfer data using file transfer protocols (ftp)
 Download files
 Browse the world wide web for research and
information
 USES OF INTERNET
 Social networking and forums
It includes Facebook, twitter, messenger etc.
 Interactive games
 Education and self-improvement
On-line courses and workshops have found yet
another outlet.
 Electronic newspapers and magazines
This category includes late-breaking news,
weather, and sports.
 Job-hunting - Classified ads are in abundance.
 Online shopping
 INTRANET

An intranet is a network which uses internet

technology for sharing data and information locally
within an organization to meet the organizational
needs only.
 Access to the intranet is controlled by encryption,
user names and passwords.
 Communication from and to external users is
completely restricted
 Access to intranet is restricted by installing a
hardware firewall.
INTRANET
 USES OF INTRANET
 Intranet is safer as access from outside(hackers
and viruses) is restricted
 It is possible to restrict external web links like
Facebook, YouTube which may distract the
attention of the employees from work to waste
time
 Organizations ensure that the information
available is specific to employees’ need
 Organizations can keep their data confidential and
can’t be disclosed to outside channels
 Provides better bandwidth than internet
 EXTRANET

When specific users from outside are allowed to

access data and information from an intranet
provides data and information on the intranet it is
known as the extranet. External users can access
extranet by using user names and passwords. This
enables for example trading partners to share
commercially sensitive information using controlled
access.
EXTRANET
 ISP – INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER

ISP is an abbreviation for Internet Service Provider. It

is an organization that provides Internet access to
businesses, families, and mobile users. ISPs use
fiber-optics, satellite, copper wire, and other forms
to provide Internet access to its customers for
example Zong, WiTribe, Nayatel, PTCL etc.