Issues and Impact

Question 1

What are the environmental issues in the manufacture of digital devices?

Answer 1

1. Large quantities of raw materials used to make digital devices
2. Mining for raw materials scars the landscape with waste and damages wildlife habitats
3. Energy used in the manufacturing process comes from non-renewable fossil fuels contributing to global warming

Question 2

What are the environmental issues with energy consumption of digital devices?

Answer 2

Lots of energy used in:
1. Production of computer equipment
2. Functioning of equipment
3. Online data storage
4. Recycling of equipment

Question 3

What are the environmental issues with disposal of digital devices

Answer 3

1. Many discarded devices end up in e-waste which may be illegally dumped on landfill sites
2. Substances such as lead can get into the land and water
3. Severe health issues are caused by people living near, or trying to salvage saleable items from e-waste dumps

Question 4

What can responsible recycling of e-waste address?

Answer 4

1. Reduce the potential for chemical leakage
2. Enable the recovery of valuable metals
3. Reduce the need for mining

Question 5

What are the environmental issues of short replacement cycles?

Answer 5

1. Adds to the problem of e-waste
2. More devices must be manufactured

Question 6

What does responsible ownership involve?

Answer 6

1. Keeping devices for longer
2. Buying pre-owned rather than new
3. Using energy-effcient measures to reduce power consumption

Question 7

What is a digital footprint?

Answer 7

A trail of personal data left behind each time someone uses the internet

Question 8

What are the benefits of collecting personal data?

Answer 8

1, Personalisation - offers can be tailored to an individual’s preferences and location
2. Convenience - personal details only need to be entered once

Question 9

What are the drawbacks of collecting personal data?

Answer 9

1. Privacy - it is not always obvious who is collecting and analysing personal data and who they are passing it onto
2. Security - data breaches occur frequently. If it falls into the wrong hands it might be misused

Question 9

What is the Data Protection Act (2018)?

Answer 9

An act that defines a set of principles that organisations must adhere to

Question 10

What is the Computer Misuse Act (1990)?

Answer 10

An act used to prosecute cybercriminals on three offenses:
1. Unauthorised access to computer material
2. Unauthorised access with intent to commit further offenses
3. Unauthorised access with intent to impair the running of a computer or to damage or destroy data

Question 11

What is artificial intelligence?

Answer 11

The general term for computer systems that are capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as pattern recognition, decision making and problem solving

Question 12

What is machine learning?

Answer 12

Machine-learning algorithms learn by looking for rules and patterns in real-time data and get progressively better at carrying out tasks

Question 13

What is narrow AI?

Answer 13

When the AI fails outside the ‘problem space’ they were designed to work in such as email spam filters and self-driving cars

Question 14

What is algorithmic bias?

Answer 14

When the Ai algorithm makes prejudiced decisions that discriminate against certain individuals

Question 15

What are some causes of algorithmic bias?

Answer 15

1. Dataset used to train the AI system is biased
2. The developers unintentionally incorporate their own prejudices into them

Question 16

Why might some AI systems go wrong?

Answer 16

1. The creator includes an error in the algorithm
2. The supplier of the data - the data used to train the algorithm has an error
3. The user of the algorithm

Question 17

What is copyright?

Answer 17

It covers the way an idea is expressed, such as novels and music recordings. Copyright is automatic and lasts for 70 years after the death of the holder

Question 18

What are patents?

Answer 18

Patents protect new inventions and has to be applied for. A patent holder has the exclusive right to make, use and sell the invention for 20 years

Question 19

What are trademarks?

Answer 19

Unique company logos and colours can be registered as trademarks which protects the brand and can distinguish their gods and services from those of their competitors. Registration of a trademark lasts for 10 years

Question 20

What is licensing?

Answer 20

Where the copyright holder of a work can grant a license that permits a third party to use it

Question 21

What are the reasons hackers use malware?

Answer 21

1. To infect a computer with a virus or a worm causing it to run slowly or crash or delete/damage data
2. To gain backdoor access into a computer or network and then launch a ransomware attack or harvest sensitive data
3. To spy on what a user is doing
4. To carry out a distributed denial of service (DDS)

Question 22

How do hackers use viruses and worms?

Answer 22

1. A virus inserts itself into another program and lies hidden until its host runs. It then makes copies of itself once activated and attaches to other programs.
2. A worm infects systems by moving from one device to another. They can infect an entire network quickly but don’t embed itself within other programs

Question 23

How do hackers use Trojans?

Answer 23

A Trojan acts as a legitimate software which users are tricked into downloading and gives the hacker access to the files and a backdoor into devices on the same network

Question 24

How do hackers use keyloggers?

Answer 24

A keylogger secretly records the keystrokes a user makes, enabling the hacker to extract vulnerable information such as passwords

Question 25

How do hackers carry out a distributed denial of service attack?

Answer 25

A DDS floods a network or website with huge volumes of traffic causing it to crash

Question 26

What technical vulnerabilities do hackers exploit?

Answer 26

1. Unpatched software 2. Out-of-date anti-malware 3. Open ports 4. Default admin passwords

Question 27

How do hackers exploit unpatched software?

Answer 27

Hackers exchange information with another about known security vulnerabilities in software applications. These are targeted in cyber attacks

Question 28

How do hackers exploit out-of-date malware?

Answer 28

Recent malware signatures might not be in anti-malware databases which won't be detected

Question 29

How do hackers exploit open ports?

Answer 29

They do port scanning which finds out which software and services are running on a computer and helps them to identify possible attack targets

Question 30

How do hackers exploit default admin passwords?

Answer 30

Some hardware devices are shipped with factory-set admin passwords which can be searched upon the web and cracked easily

Question 31

What are the social engineering techniques used by hackers?

Answer 31

1. Phishing 2. Pretexting 3. Baiting

Question 32

What is a firewall?

Answer 32

A barrier between the internal network and the internet, monitoring incoming and outgoing traffic. It also detect suspicious activity within the network, such as users visiting harmful websites

Question 33

What is anti-malware software?

Answer 33

Where files are scanned and compared to a known database of malware signature patterns

Question 34

What is encryption?

Answer 34

When data is converted into a scrambled format that is not understandable. Symmetric encryption uses the same key to both encrypt and decrypt the key and asymmetric encryption uses a public key to encrypt and a private to decrypt the information

Question 35

What is data backup?

Answer 35

When a copy of data is stored on a different device in a different location offsite or in the cloud

Question 36

What is data recovery?

Answer 36

The process of restoring data and system states from the backup copy

Question 37

What is the acceptable use policy?

Answer 37

A collection of rules and procedures users are required to follow such as using a secure password. It also states the actions taken if a user disregards the policy