Page 17 - Appendix Final
P. 17
End-to-End encryption. Your computer can be downloading updates, receiving
Allows only the sender and recipient to access the encrypt- email, notification and all the while you’re surfing your fa-
ed data. No-one else can access the data. vourite website for a new pair of shoes. This ability to han-
dle all these tasks at once is down to these many ports. With
Expansion card (or adapter card or expansion thousands of ports, the majority unused, this poses a major
board) threat to your computer. Here’s where the firewall comes
A circuit board that plugs into a predefined ‘Expansion into play. Think of the firewall, as the door bouncer at the
slot’, (or expansion bus) on the motherboard, adding new local discotheque, only this guy’s on steroids. He’s bullish,
peripherals or functions to the system. hipper active, and nothing gets past him without his say so;
try, and your get bounced. That’s what the firewall does; it
Facial ID. blocks any malicious data, websites and programs from
Is the act of using your face, similar to using a password or gaining access to your computer, from these ports, whether
Pin number, to gain access. With the help of a webcam or the port’s used or unused. It also monitors what’s leaving
similar input device, you allow a computer to scan your your computer, and will block anything it deems suspicious,
face. The system compares the scanned details with previ- asking your permission to block or allow it. You should never
ously stored details held on special recognition software. If surf the internet without a firewall. Surfing without one is
the details match, the systems response will be positive. tantamount to your computer committing suicide, not to
mention the amount of personal data you could lose. To
FAT (File Allocated Table) check if your Windows 10 firewall is on, go to; Control pan-
The Fat file system is responsible for organising and manag- el> Windows Defender Firewall, look at > Windows De-
ing both external and internal disks. It does this by dividing fender Firewall state. A Firewall doesn’t have limitless pow-
the disk into sectors and blocks. It’s the Fat file system that ers of defence. They don’t protect you against, Virus’s, Spy-
specifies where data is stored, how it’s stored and the file ware, junk e-mail and pop-up ads. Some do have a limited
size. It also specifies the overall size of the disk itself. Differ- defence against Malware. To get a complete defence cover
ent Fat versions have different specifications. The present you must install third party software to root out Virus, Spy-
Fat32 system was introduce to accommodate the needs of ware, and Malware... intrusions. Firewalls that include a
Windows 95. It has since been replaced by the NTFS file complete defence cover, for malware, viruses, spyware and
system which is now recommended for the Windows oper- the like, are never on the freebie list, and are usually quite
ating systems. Fat32, however, is still the recommended expensive
system for most Flash Drives and Cards. An extended ver-
sion of the Fat system, exFat, was released in 2006, and .FireWire
was introduce to accommodate the growing needs of port- A system used for connecting devices to a computer, replac-
able media devices. ing old connectors like parallel ports and serial ports. Like
USB, these connections support Plug & Play, are much faster
File Extension than their predecessors, and allow multiple devices to be
A file extension is the three (.dot) letters attached to the connected to a single socket. They also allow users to plug
end of a file name. Examples are, ‘Explorer.exe, Family.jpg, and unplug devices without having to turn off their comput-
Documents.doc, and Manual.pdf.’ Normally users have no er first. (These connections are usually known by the much
control over the allocation of extensions. This is normally duller name, IEEE 1394 connections, because FireWire is a
allocated to the file by the software that created the file. trademark of (Apple Computer.)
Extensions are essential. Try to open a file and Windows
first examines the extension to determine what default Fixed Disk
software on your computer is capable of opening that file. A fixed disk is the one inside your computer. It’s a perma-
If none is found or no default program is set Windows can- nent fixture. Most computers have at least one fixed disk
not open the file. Deleting the extension or replacing it containing the operating system and possibly a small space,
with another extension (Unless you’ve a clear understand- known as a partition, for storage.
ing of what you’re doing) will only cause problems.
Flash BIOS
Firewall A small Chip containing Flash memory (RAM) that can
A firewall is a specialised piece of software that monitors be updated. A Rom BIOS requires a chip replacement.
what comes in and goes out of your computer. That piece
of cable that allows you to connect to the internet and to a Floppy drive
network may look unexciting; after all it’s only a piece of A physical drive attached to the computer, usually with
wire. But within its core are latterly thousands of connec-
the reserved drive letters A or B. This drive reads and
tion points, known as ports, allowing you to perform many
different tasks across the internet at once. writes to Floppy disks or Diskettes.( On modern com-
puters this drive is usually redundant)
17