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Computers and security
The purpose of this week's exercise is to refresh your memory about the
security concepts learned in the Network and System Administration I course.
If you spend time to review this now, it will make things easier
later. Another purpose of this week is to show you how the course
exercises work. Each week, there will be two parts to the exercises:
Self-test problems
Use self-test questions as a way of checking your own understanding. Self-test
problems are optional, and are not graded.
- Is a good graphical user interface an appropriate criterion for buying a security product?
- Suppose you are starting a new business which
deals with a secret new technology. Describe, in overview, how you
would design a secure work environment for the company. Think of
physical issues, software issues and work practices.
- How would you use the Unix find command to find files which
were writable by anyone? How would you use cfengine to do this?
Graded problems
Graded parts of the problems are the parts you will receive credit for.
Since there is no written exam, you will be asked to submit project
work and answer questions electronically. All graded problems
are compulsory (obligatory).
This course is based on continual assessment. Some of it will
be based on questions answered on the web, and some of it will be based
on project work. You will submit project work electronically.
For each piece of work you have contributed to, you will receive a
grade. You final grade will be based on a weighted sum of these
individual grades. You will have the opportunity to study and
evaluate this system in a future exercise.
- Part of the work in this course can be carried out in groups (max
4 persons), but part of it, you will have to answer yourself. Find
yourself a group to work with. you do not have to work with the same
group all the time, but you can only be a member of one group per
assignment.
Any graded work which is not an individual on-line test, should be
documented as project work. You should organize the project work by
answering the numbered questions in the weekly exercises. Any
additional information you wish to provide, on your own initiative,
can be organized as you see fit. Part of the point about project work
is that your project will be a useful document to you in the
future.
Projects will be submitted electronically as .DOC or .PDF files.
The first part will be submitted in week 7, the second part will be
submitted near the end of the course. You should complete every
exercise in the week it is set. Late work cannot be accepted!!!
- This week, we begin with a short test, to give you a taste of
the procedure for answering certain problems electronically. Everyone
must complete this problem individually:
| Multiple choice test - (weight 1) |
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