Introduction to ICT

FEB11013(X)
Paul Bouman
Kim Schouten
ICT

Information and Communications Technology

• Information Systems store, collect, process and control information.

• Communication Systems transport information between locations.

• Technology enables newer and better applications.

Information Systems

• Systems that deal with data, usually computers.

• Early example include:

• the abacus (2400 B.C.)
• cog-wheel based devices
• sliding rules for logarithms
• IBM’s early punch-card machines
• Most important device is the general purpose computer:

Instructions

Processing Unit Information

Information Systems

• Systems that deal with data, usually computers.

• Early example include:

• the abacus (2400 B.C.)
• cog-wheel based devices
• sliding rules for logarithms
• IBM’s early punch-card machines
• Most important device is the general purpose computer:

Software

Hardware Data
General ICT Knowledge

• We will cover the following topics today:

• Files and Data

• Communication Systems and the Internet
• Authentication and Encryption
• Collaboration and the Cloud
Files and Data
Bits and Bytes

• We will only focus on digital data.

• The smallest unit of digital data is a bit, which models two possibilities (0 or 1)

• A group of 8 bits is called a byte and models 28 = 256 possibilities.

• Fun trick: using your fingers as bits, you can count to 31 with one hand!
• Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8V4kVSO5Ns
• We can use bits to model numbers.
• Numbers can be used to model characters, colors, measurements, etc.
• By creating long sequences we can model all kinds of data:
• Many characters can model a text
• Many colors can model an image
• Many measuremenets of air movenents can model sound
Files

• We usually organize bits and bytes in files.

• Files have a number of properties:

• File size (number of bytes)
• File name (usually a descriptive name of the contents)
• File extension (part of the name indicating what is stored)
• Files can be organized in folders or directories.

• Archive files (such as .zip files) can contain multiple files.

• Useful for transporting many files
• Also helps to reduce file size via compression
Data Processing

• Software Applications can read, process and write files

• Some applications can process many types of files.
• A certain type of file can be processed by different applications.
• Web Browser
• HTML files, CSS files, JavaScript files, Image files, Video files, etc.
• Microsoft Word
• DOCX files (MS Word), ODT files (OpenDocument), RTF files, etc.
• Microsoft Excel
• XLSX files (MS Excel), ODS files (OpenDocument), CSV files, etc.
• 7-Zip
• ZIP files, 7z files, etc.
• Notepad
• Raw, text-based editing of files
Data Formats

• Although all files store bits and bytes, the structure of formats can be vastly different.

• An important distinction is between text-based formats and binary formats.

• Text-based formats are designed in a way that humans can read them.
• Usually they require more space, but space is cheap nowadays
• Examples: HTML, CSV, XML.
• Binary formats are not readable by humans, but can be efficiently processed by computers.
• They require less space and can be processed a bit faster.
• Examples: video’s, images, audio, zip-files.
• Excel’s XLSX and Word’s DOCX files are secretly zip-files containing different types of files.
Communication
Systems and
the Internet
Communication Systems

• For information to be useful, it has to be at right place at the right time.

• Different systems have been used troughout the ages:

• Messenger by foot (see Marathon)
• Smoke signals
• Carrier pigeons
• More modern systems introduced faster communication over greater distance
• Telegraph
• Telephone
• Fax
• The Internet
The Internet

• A network of computer networks

• Telephone/Fax: direct open line between two endpoints

• The Internet: short messages routed via many computers in the network
The Internet – Packets and the Internet Protocol (IP)

• Communication over the internet happens via packet-switching

• Messages are divided in small packets that are send one by one.
• Every packet follow a different route via different computers
• A packet has a number of properties
• The address of the sender
• The addres of the receiver
• Some other properties related to time
• The contents of the packet
• Addresses are described using IP addresses
• Most common, but scarce are the IPv4 addresses, e.g. 130.115.158.254
• IPv4 works with 32 bit addresses, so 232 possible addresses.
• Currently moving toward IPv6 addresses, e.g. fe80::c118:3329:ca70:eccc%12
• IPv6 works with 128 bit addresses, so 2128 possible addresses.
The Internet – Domain Name System (DNS)

• For the average human, IP addresses are hard to remember

• For big sites, they may want to rotate machines to serve customers in order to spread out
demand over the available capacity

• The Domain Name System translates names (that we can remember) to addresses.

• For example: www.eur.nl is a name, that has to be translated into an IP-address before you
computer can request information.

• DNS is controlled by the Internet Coorporation for Assigned Numbers and Names (ICANN)

• For top-level domains, such as .nl and .amsterdam, seperate parties control the subdomains.
• In the Netherlands, we have the SIDN for .nl domains. Verisign manages .com and .net.
• Domain names typically have a yearly registration fee.
The Internet - Issues

• Issue: how do you know you communicate with someone?

• This is called Authentication
• Issue: can you trust the computers that transport your messages?
• You cannot. We can use Encryption to protect sensitive data.
Authentication
and
Encryption
Authentication

• In real life, you can recognize people you met before.

• Over the phone, this is a lot more difficult.
• On the internet, this is even more difficult.

• Authentication is all about checking someones identity

• Identity theft and fraud are becoming more serious issues in the digital world.
• Most well known type of authentication: passwords
Authentication - Passwords

• Most systems work with providing a username and password

• Username is public information, password is private to you
• Being able to provide the password is evidence that you are the user.
• Possible risk: passwords may be easy to guess
• Dictionary attack: test many common passwords and see if one works.
• Brute force attack: try all possible passwords of a certain length.
• Solution: use strong passwords, that require an enormous amount of tries.
• Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Password_strength
• Possible risk: password reuse.
• If your password is guessed on one website, it can be used for other sites.
• Use different passwords, or use a password manager.
Authentication

• More secure authentication methods exists

• Two-factor (or multi-factor) authentication.

• Use multiple proofs of your identity
• Example: you need both a cashcard and a PIN number
• Google, Facebook, Dropbox, DigID and others support this
• First login with your password
• Second type in a code you were sent via e-mail/phone/app
• Token based authentication
• Use a special device to generate a number unique to that device
Encryption

• Encryption relies on a secret key. The key can be used to encrypt or decrypt a message.

• An encrypted message looks like random, incomprehensible data.

• You need the correct key to turn it back into something useful.
• The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) offers very secure encryption.
• AES-256 works with keys of 256-bits.
• Trying all keys would take longer than our life spans, even if Google and the NSA team up.
• Is approved for encryption of US Government TOP SECRET data.
• One the internet, AES is typically used to transfer large amounts of data securely.
• Exchange of AES keys between two parties is a complicated issue.
Encryption – Key Exchange and HTTPS

• On the internet, two parties that want to communicate securely need to exchange keys.

• Certificates or public keys are pieces of cryptographic information that can be used to verify
that the party you communicate with are who they claim to be.

• Using certificates, a web of trust is built. This is used to verify new keys.
• Securely ask the people who you trust whether they trust the new certificate.
• They can ask their trusted partners for information securely as well.
• As so on…
• The https protocol uses these certificates to check whether the party you communicate with
is trustworthy and encrypt the connect.
• The http protocol does not and is therefore not suitable to transport sensitive data.
• The https protocol is just regular http over a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
• Other communication protocols (e.g. e-mail) can be run over SSL as well.
Collaboration
and the Cloud
Collaboration and ICT

• ICT can be used to collaborate more effectively

• However, different users typically work on different devices

• Emailing files back and forth leads to redundancy

• Advantage: if one device breaks, there are other copies
• Possible issue: who has the most current version of the work?
• In certain cases, redundancy is something we desire
• If we want to archive data, or have backup systems when something breaks
• In other cases, redudancy is something we want to avoid
• When collaborating on a document with multiple people we don’t want to end up with
multiple versions. Synchronization becomes an important issue.
Collaboration and ICT - Centralization

• For collaboration, we desire centralization

• A central location where the “true” information is kept.
• When synchronizing with a central data repository, conflicts can occur
• Two people modify the same file at the same time
• You modified a file, but it turned out that someone else sent a new file to the central
repository in the meantime.

• The more frequent synchronization between users and the central repository occurs, the
sooner conflict can be detected and resolved.
Collaboration and ICT – Application Models

• Local applications
• These are applications that run on your local device and interact with data on that device.
• Regular Microsoft Office applications such as Word and Excel are some examples.
• Useful if you want to run computations locally and stay independent of other systems.
• Client-Server applications
• Tasks and/or responsibilities are divided between a client application that typically runs on
your local device, and a server application that typically runs on an external server.
• Typical examples: web browser (client) and web server, mail client and mail servers,
streaming services (servers) for music or video, etc.
• Has the advantage that data is often centralized automatically on the server.
• Possible risk: if the server has a problem, the application is not available for any user.
Collaboration and ICT – The Cloud

• The Cloud model provides an alternative to the traditional way ICT is used
• Move away from owning devices and software licenses to services
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
• Instead of having an IT department that buy and manages hardware and network
infrastructure, you rent the capacity you need from a specialize company.
• Typically deals with basic ICT systems such as hardware, servers, network infrastructure
and storage

• Platform as a Service (PaaS)

• Offers a platform for developers that provides some standardized services.
• Example: Facebook applications can rely on Facebook to offer user identification and
possibly sales/advertisements, but you can develop applications on top of these.
• Probably not that relevant for you.
Collaboration and ICT – The Cloud

• Software as a Service (SaaS)

• Instead of running applications on your own computer, you access them via a website.
• Advantage: you can use software directly from the webbrowser without any installation.
• Disadvantage: you completely depend on the software vendor.
• Famous examples: Google Docs and Office 365
• Allow you to work on documents and spreadsheet within your browser
• Multiple users on different devices can work on the same document
• Although we will use regular Excel in this course, it is still very useful to be familiar with this.
• Other examples include Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, Accounting
software, …
• Allows small to medium sized companies to cut costs of IT-support.
• Sometimes vendors have data escrow or source code escrow
• If the software vendor goes bankrupt, a third party inherits the important properties and
provides them to the original customers.