Secure Email Project Summary

*Snapshot of the laptop, Mozilla Thunderbird taken by myself



http://luxsci.com/blog/the-case-for-email-security.html

The article focusing on how a company can position themselves to be less vulnerable to email security breaches. The main points of the article focus around the route an email takes, security threats to your email, encryption and its importance, and how to stay as secure as possible. It became apparent after reading this article, as well as others, that email is far from private.

The threats associated with emails that are problem points to email messages are the following: eavesdropping, identity theft, invasion of privacy, message modification, false messages, message replay, unprotected backups, and repudiation. The eavesdropping can occur as the email is in transit and is copied and read if others are close to the path the email takes. The invasion of privacy occurs mostly with the unprotected backups, which are usually saved on back up servers at text data. The modification of a message can be done by anyone with access as a system administrator. False messages are great ways for viruses to breach into your computer and take form of a known sender and ask for unneeded information.

In regards to the above problems the article holds high consideration of encryption. Encryption creates a secret key that only you and the receiver have access too. The key turns a jumbled message sent by you back into original readable form. This is done by cyphertext, which is a random sequence of characters that makes anyone without a secret key unable to read it. This is a simple way to keep your emails harder to invade. It can still be gone, but it’s less likely to happen if a simple encryption were placed in effect.  The encryption used in this project was called asymmetric encryption. Asymmetric encryption involves creating a public key, each person; the sender and receiver get two keys. The keys have two differences one serves as a cyphertext and the other takes the message and decrypts it.   The asymmetric encryption does three very special things. First it sends an encrypted message, only viewable by a receiver having the other key to decrypt it. Second it proves you sent the message, which solves the false message factor. Third, it signs the message and shows if the message was altered during transit.

There are multiple ways of keeping information as safe as possible; another way is using a message authentication code. The code passing a message through an algorithm and turns the message into a completely difference sequence of characters. The output of the code is called a fingerprint and is virtually impossible to solve. An example given in the article stated that a fingerprint is so rare it would be like finding two strangers with the same fingerprint. The analogy seems pretty good on the side of those trying to protect themselves.

The last instrument used to better stay protected against privacy falters is using an email provider that is SSL. SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer, which using a combination of asymmetric and symmetric keys. The benefits that the SSL provides is it determines you are connecting to the right server the email address is on and that you and the server can communicate securely. The above devices are ways to decrease the chance of being vulnerable towards privacy issues. It is important to stress that this ways to help secure your email does not completely protect you and can easily be seen if it was a high priority to someone.    



Project 3

My third project focused on Microsoft Access and all the ways it can import data and generate a wide variety of document types. The types of activities I created were a table, query, form, and report. The activities take data from a database and manipulate the data in whichever way the user desires. I learned how to import data into Access by a text file, and be able to identify characters that symbolize breaks or new characters in a text file. This is an easy way to identify the layout of the document. There are 2 types of data entry, and I learned the delimited way, which is when a character separates a field, usually by semi-colon, colon, or a vertical bar. The query activity held the greatest challenge for me. I had to learn how to filter using criteria. Criteria would weed out unwanted data by using a formula type expression in the design layout.  It was difficult finding out how to only include the last 6 months of members who had left the gym. I discovered the problem was stemming from the field being a text field instead of a numerical field, and after fixing that minor detail it worked like a charm. The form activity created a form based off fields I needed and I learned how to delete fields off forms, as well as, turn a field into a read only field. The report activity was created off a query I made earlier in the project. It had certain guidelines that wanted the report first, grouped by city in ascending order, and second grouped by recently departed in descending order. The final challenge involved adding a footer to the report. I added my name and it after reviewing it kept getting a parameter value error.  It wasn’t as easy as adding a Microsoft office footer, that are for sure!

One enhancement available through Microsoft Access that I found to be very interesting and useful was the Report Activity and how quickly you could minimize thousands of fields into a report that has just what you want on it in a matter of seconds. The enhancement makes this process fast and less frustrating by taking the criteria you set and developing a report. An example could be an excel database with thousands of entrees of people who attending a weekend workshop. A questionnaire was filled out by everyone who attended and put into a database that included name, address, if they had a current job, Education, and if they owned a laptop.  On Monday, the boss wants you to bring a report of the people who attended the workshop that live within the city and have a master’s degree in Business. In Microsoft Access that report could be created and printed in seconds. I have never used Microsoft Access it is the only Office application I have no experience in at all, but after this project it seems beneficial on my behalf to start learning this application. It has more function ability then the other suites since I love statistics. It creates very cool and designer friendly activities, once you learn the basics.  

Presentation Critique

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/jstevens32605-872941-cff/

Cystic Fibrosis Foundation

I choose to do my presentation on the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. The main focus I had for the first few slides was to draw a curiosity and interest in what I was presenting without letting them know the main reason for the presentation. I believe it was a great attention grabber and kept the viewers watching. The flow of the presentation focused on Cystic Fibrosis and about the disease and how there are treatments that have greatly increased the life expectancy and abilities of a person with Cystic Fibrosis. The attention was then turned from the disease to how a person could help people with this disease. I choose the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation because of the websites user friendly and very organized attributes, which makes browsing the site for information and ways to donate easy. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation also had several ways a person could help; not just using the money approach but several other means to help.

I used many visuals to help radiate the presentation and give the viewers a harsh reality of what it’s really like having Cystic Fibrosis and what one goes through on a daily basis. I chose to avoid the cartoonish photo art and chose to use real photographs I took while I was hospitalized. I didn’t show the relationship between myself and having Cystic Fibrosis yet. I did not want to incorporate myself into the presentation until I could show how the people of donating, by whatever means, actually meant to people with Cystic Fibrosis.

After watching other presentations I noticed those to have a non-personal effect on myself as a viewer. I decided to make the presentation a little more personal by showing photographs of myself and events I had accomplished, even though at birth I was not suppose to live a normal and long life. I think by added this personal approach it made the presentation more memorable by adding a face to the disease. The ending slide closes the presentation very well. I think by stating not only to focus on Cystic Fibrosis, but helping any foundation is a great feeling and very appreciative at the receiving end.

My evaluation was done on a presentation about pit bull rescue and the background of the pit bull. I found the presentation very interesting and enjoyed the background of how the pit bull got its name and the unfair marks society has on pit bulls. I know many people with pit bulls as pets and none of them display the characteristics labeled on all pit bulls. I think society as unfairly used a couple cases of unfortunate pit bull cases to slap such a horrible predetermined attribute of all pit bulls. If this were the case all types of animals should have the same label and looked upon as violent and killing machines.

During the creation of my Cystic Fibrosis presentation I discovered many tools the web has to offer. There were so many ways to present and make a presentation that will keep the audience a live and interested. I used the Takahaski Method in my presentation, which is using big text as a visual and I think it worked perfectly. I also discovered a website called authorstream that has developed a central point for PowerPoint presentation users to upload their presentations, get constructive criticism, and communicate with other PowerPoint lovers to get new ideas and excellent ways to add extra spunk to a presentation to give it the X factor needed to effectively present a presentation.    

Excel Project

The Excel project puts you in the shoes of a large fitness center's employee who has to do analyses on data from 500 clients.  The employee must determine the effectiveness of a particular workout.  The data ranges from age and gender, to maximum heart rate, and targeted heart rate.  The owner of the fitness center wants the spreadsheet returned promptly.  After I completed this project I would be able to deal with a situation similar to this, in a very efficient and timely manner. My proficiency in Excel and this project allowed me to present data in an effective manner without displaying all the raw data.

If some people are not familiar with Excel; the formula bar creates a time saving function. The function allows you to enter a formula for one problem, and Excel has the ability to perform the same formula to additional cells/rows you want included. So instead of finding the answer for all 500 clients, a simple formula inserted in the formula bar inputs a set equation, and plugs in the different numbers for each cell/row to create its own unique answer. One of the formulas asked was Maximum Heart rate, which would be written as (220 - the age of the subject).  Another formula was the percent increase heart rate formula which was written (Highest heart rate - Start heart rate)/start heart rate.  If not for the formula input ability it would have taken hours to find the maximum and increased heart rate for every client.

An interesting feature in Excel that I was unaware of, is the Pivot Table function. This function allows you to aggregate your data and display in a table a number of options.  Such as the percent of people above 25 or how many reached their target heart rate. The Pivot Table then allows the user to format the analysis in an attractive table for easy presenting and understanding. I will certainly be using the Pivot Table function in future projects with Excel, as it is very simple and easy to understand. The Below screen shot is of my Pivot Table I did for my project. It was for finding the demographic group that most benefited from the exercise workout by looking at the percent of each demographic that reached their target heart rate.