week 7b:Database OpenOffice Base

In week 7b, we have to learn to use open office base by doing assignment 9. in this assignment 9, there are a 4 phase of base object that we have to learnt to use-which is TABLE, FORMS, QUERIES, REPORT. i follows the guidelines show by our subject lecturer while doing this assignment. it is not that hard to use this software, but  I still find it is hard because I don't really understand how it works at first. but after seen the end product by using this software, I found that this will be very helpful if we got a large number of information that we need to tabulate and process.
In this task, i have to create 4 types of forms which is the student form, parent form, curriculum form and co-curriculum form. after i filled up the information. with the forms completed, i proceed by doing the query which I transferred the data and everything is done within a blink of an eye. its the same process with report, everything is done by the time i realize it. this task will be very easy if we learnt to use this open office base more often.

week 7a:Spreadsheet

For week 7a, we have to do spreadsheet using Calc and microsoft excel. in the task of assignment 8a, we have o plan a one year personal finalcial management which have consist of our income and our spending which inlucdes electricity bill, food, house rental and etc. in this financial management spreadsheet, i have to learn to use the formula in calc which we have have to calculate the balance for each month and the balanced will bring forward to the next month. after i done with this spreadsheet, i uploaded the file to Google doc as instructed by Dr Siti.
As for assignment 8b, I created a spreadsheet with 15 students and along with 5 subjects which are English, bahasa melayu, mathematics, science and history. for this spreadsheet, i learnt to use:
o Define name
o Fill Series
o VLOOKUP
o STDEV
o AVERAGE
o COUNTIF
o Graph
o Sort
o Filter
in microsoft excel. it is very comvenient and easy to do with all the data with microsoft excel because i can do everything very fast.

week 6:Creative effective multimedia Production

At first, i open the link provided by Dr Siti about presentation skills. those link shows characteristic of a good presentation should looks like. It is kind of similar with what our lecturer, Mr Abdulah taught us in another subject. after that, i open some other links about impress on how to make our own theme for presentation. the impress works similar to microsoft power point, but it is slightly different. when I am doing the presentation using the impress, i felt that i am doing my work at a slower pace. this is due to I am not familiar with the positions of the buttons in impress because I usually use Microsoft power point for preparing my presentations. i just browse through the links provided for the microsoft powerpoint because i am quite used to Microsoft power point. for assignment 7a, we are told to do a presentation using impress for our previous assignment which is about the mini journal. it took me some time to done the presentation. after i done with the presentation, i uploaded the file to google doc as in the course profoma.

For the assignment 7b, me and my partner do it together. this is because compared to assignment 7a. assignment 7b is a bit harder in the sense of complexity of the presentation. first, we do a presentation for the topic internet and computer security in microsoft power point. we insert video which we do it using movie maker and a layer image which we did it using GIMP and also insert few audio that we record using audacity. in assignment 7b, i learnt a lot of new things such as recording sound in various of formats, edit videos and image. this surely benefits me.

week 5: Multimedia in education

In week 5, I browse through all the links provided by Dr Siti about  types 2D graphic and the file format of there graphic images. I never know that there are so many types of format for graphic images. i aso learn to use some graphic editing software such as paint and adobe photoshop.The RGB and CMK is introduced by Dr Siti but i'm not familiar with these 2 types of software. therefore i took a longer time to explore these software.

Designing a brochure using microsoft publisher and also microsoft word is also part of this week's task. me and my partner do this task together. We design the brochure using microsoft publisher before we start doing it using microsoft word. it is very easy to do a brochure using microsoft publisher because all we need to do is just to select which type of pattern that we want and then we just fill it with relevant information. after we done the brochure using microsoft publisher, we do it using microsoft word. my partner and I have a hard time to do the brochure using microsoft word as we don't even know where to choose the bookfold format for this task. at the end, we search on how and where to select select bookfold layout. after awhile, we understand how it works and then only we start doing the brochure smoothly.

To compare microsoft word and microsoft publisher in completing this brochure task, microsoft publisher will be my 1st choice because it is easier to use and the design of the brochure is better compared to microsoft word where we have to do everything by our self.

week 4:Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) journal report

The Awareness of Teacher’s Trainees in Computer and Internet Security especially in Virus, Spam and Phishing

By: Goh Jun Wei and Al Arimi bin Mohd

Abstract

In this 21^st century computer is affordable and has become part and parcel of life in Malaysia. Almost all the family has at least one computer in their house. The function of computer in Malaysia basically is for the education, business, and communication and also for managing system and files. However, the awareness in computer and internet security is still in an unsatisfied level in Malaysia. Therefore the purpose of this research is to study the awareness of teacher’s trainees in IPGKDRI against computer and internet security especially in virus, spam and phishing.

Introduction

According to buzz.com, computer virus is a kind of malicious software written intentionally to enter a computer without the user’s permission or knowledge, with an ability to replicate itself, thus continuing to spread. Some viruses do little but replicate others can cause severe harm or adversely affect program and performance of the system. A virus should never be assumed harmless and left on a system. While a spam is the receiving advertising material, through the Internet to a large number of people, who have not asked for it. These two are the two major problems that most internet user faced today. Phishing is a crime where spam is sent randomly to retrieve the user’s personal banking account or to cheat money from the user. Phishing case is rising at an alarming rate because spammers are able to earn and “rob” without being traced easily. Therefore the user of internet and computer should equip themselves by having more awareness against these types of internet problems.

Literature review

Internet security is a very common topic in this modern and high technological area in the age of World Wide Web and Internet. Internet connection in Malaysia has been improving by multiple times after year 2000 as cybercafe, wireless hotspot and broadband have become more common in the public. Rolf Oppliger(1997) mentioned since its opening and commercialization in the early 1990s, the Internet has become a popular target to attack because there are a lot of personal and important information in the Web. Therefore I will like to say that whenever we surf the internet, we will face some risk of internet virus, spam or even phishing because there are people to are waiting some naive victim to fall over their trick.

In my point of view, the awareness of internet security in Malaysia is still very low. For instance, most Malaysians do not understand how a virus and their anti-virus of firewall work. All they know is that they are secure after they installed an anti virus. This is a common wrong perception from the public because there are still virus that anti-virus can't resolve. Besides that, there are also lots of types of package in anti-virus such as Kaspersky internet security, AVG free version, Avira and etc. each anti-virus and their different packages provide different types of protection to the computer.

Another major problem that we faced is that our country does not have enough expertise in this ICT field especially in internet security. For an example, this year, the Malaysia government official website was hacked several times and the recent report is that a total of 91 government websites were hacked by an unknown hacker as reported by Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC). As mentioned by Kemmerer, R. A., (2003) that network based attack is very dangerous and produce devastating side-effect to the system which being the victims.

Phishing victims are arising in an alarming rate especially those scams in the form of internet banking and lottery rewards. In my opinion, this is due to greediness and naive of the locals because they are not thinking wisely when they received the spam message. Besides that, some of the spam and phishing seems to be very real and official. Therefore there are more victims who fall for this trick.

Spam is getting common in Malaysia because there are more victims in phishing. The culprits earn a fortune and they keep on improving their skills to spam more victims in order to earn more money. This situation is getting from bad to worse as there are no laws and enforcement to control this problem as the sender can go anonymous simply by changing their email account or IP address.

There are many ways to prevent such problems in Malaysia and the most important thing to be done before taking any precaution and prevention is the awareness in internet security. The first and foremost step is raise awareness towards internet security. So, it is essential to provide knowledge about internet security from the early age of the internet users because internet is widely use nowadays. For instance, the schools are the most suitable places to train young internet users in internet security. For other stages like the authorities in internet security in Malaysia, they should cooperate and learn with the other countries which involve in Computer Emergency Response Teams.

Then, we have to encourage and support students in ICT field to pursue their studies in computers and internet and gain knowledge globally so that we can produce many expertises in ICT. This generation of ICT expertise is important in determining our country level of internet security and prevents hacker threat either from local hackers or foreign hackers. Most likely the hackers are young and sometimes there might be teenager, William R. Cheswick, S. M. (2003).

The problem with phishing and spam is that people are more likely to fall with the phishing tricks. It is merely about the level of awareness of the internet users on phishing and spam. The education and awareness on phishing and spam should be encouraged by the internet users themselves. Spam are created by the irresponsible person who wants to obtain easy money through scams. However, there are many sites and blogs that promote awareness on phishing and spam. So, internet users can visit these sites and blogs to obtain guidelines to prevent phishing and spam and how to identify them.

In a nutshell, Malaysia should improve the techniques and ways in preventing any threats in the internet and should educate and raise awareness to the internet users in Malaysia. The laws itself cannot protected people from being abuse in the network (Dierks, 1993)

Research approach

The research approach was conducted by creating survey on the issue and Google Docs are use to create the survey forms and 10 questions were created. The survey forms were distributed to the students in IPG KDRI and IPGKS by giving the link for them to fill in the survey forms online in the Facebook, Gmail and Yahoo Mail and the survey forms are also available in their e-mails inbox.  At least 20 students must fill in the survey forms to obtain the result more accurately.

Findings and discussions

sex
		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	male	11	50.0	50.0	50.0
	female	11	50.0	50.0	100.0
	Total	22	100.0	100.0

Table 1

In table 1, it clearly shown that in the survey, there are 11 of males and females respondent from IPGKS and IPGKDRI. The statistic for male and female are even in this survey.

Type of antivirus used
		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	-	4	18.2	18.2	18.2
	Avast	5	22.7	22.7	40.9
	Kaspersky	5	22.7	22.7	63.6
	Avira	4	18.2	18.2	81.8
	AVG	1	4.5	4.5	86.4
	Trend Micro	2	9.1	9.1	95.5
	Mc Afee	1	4.5	4.5	100.0
	Total	22	100.0	100.0

Table 2

In table 2, it shown that there are a total of 18.2% respondent that don’t know their antivirus or they didn’t even have an antivirus for their computer or laptop. This shows that quite a large number of people who are not aware of internet and computer security.

Version of antivirus
		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	-	1	4.5	4.5	4.5
	Free Version	8	36.4	36.4	40.9
	Trial Version	1	4.5	4.5	45.5
	Cracked Version	4	18.2	18.2	63.6
	Original Full Version	8	36.4	36.4	100.0
	Total	22	100.0	100.0

Table 3

In table 3, it shows that only 36.4% or 8 out of 22 person that have an original full version of antivirus that really have protection for their computer and laptop. The free and trial version users consist of 44.5% out. These types of antivirus do not offer sufficient protection to the laptop. A total of 4 persons who used cracked version which is illegal as they didn’t buy the real antivirus. These are the people who take risk of getting caught by the antivirus company even though the cracked version’s function as well as the original version.

Do you ever receive spam before?
		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	-	1	4.5	4.5	4.5
	Yes	21	95.5	95.5	100.0
	Total	22	100.0	100.0

Table 4

All the respondents received a spam before except for a respondent who didn’t answer this question.

What do you do with the spam email?
		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Delete	7	31.8	31.8	31.8
	Read it	3	13.6	13.6	45.5
	Report it	6	27.3	27.3	72.7
	Delete and report it	3	13.6	13.6	86.4
	Delete and ignore it	3	13.6	13.6	100.0
	Total	22	100.0	100.0

Table 5

A total of 13 people out of 22 will delete a spam message eventually while there are 3 respondents who read it. In this survey, it clearly shown that the respondents have some basic awareness against spam.

How effective is your antivirus?
		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Very Effective	5	22.7	22.7	22.7
	Effective	8	36.4	36.4	59.1
	Moderate	7	31.8	31.8	90.9
	Not Effective	2	9.1	9.1	100.0
	Total	22	100.0	100.0

Table 6

Even thought there are a total 22.7% who felt that their antivirus is very effective. While none of the respondent thought that their antivirus is very not effective.

Have you encountered phishing ?
		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Yes	9	40.9	40.9	40.9
	No	13	59.1	59.1	100.0
	Total	22	100.0	100.0

Table 7

In table 8, 40.8% of the respondents have encountered phishing. This shows that more than half of the respondents have never received any spam which is about phishing.

Do you think it’s important to have an antivirus?
		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Yes	21	95.5	95.5	95.5
	No	1	4.5	4.5	100.0
	Total	22	100.0	100.0

Table 8

In table 8, only 1 out of 22 respondents who thought that it’s not important to have an antivirus. Basically, that particular respondent does not have sufficient knowledge in internet and computer security.

Recommendation

It is recommend that people should use original antivirus software as it gives full protection to the user computer and it is an ethical way to use this communication technology and the most important thing is that the user of computer and internet should aware and obtain sufficient knowledge on using computer and internet so that they can solve most of the problems regarding computer and internet. Other than that, users must improve their sensitivity on current issues related on computer and internet such as spam and phishing so that they can overcome cyber crimes from the irresponsible internet users.

Conclusion

This survey can detect the awareness of certain computer and internet users on the security of their computer and internet that they are using. However, people should entirely aware on the internet security issues because internet users increase every moment as well as the increase of cyber crimes.

References:

Journal Articles from UKM subscription research databases

Oppliger, R. (1997). Internet Security : Firewalls and Beyond. COMMUNICATION OF THE ACM , 92-102.

Kemmener, R. A. (2003). Internet Security and Intrusion Detection. 748-749.

Google Scholar

Dierks, M. P. (1993). Introduction. Computer Network Abuse .

Google Books

William R. Cheswick, S. M. (2003). Picking a Security Policy. Firewalls and Internet Security Second Edition : Repelling The Wily Hacker , 7-8.