Web Technologies

EX1: Backup, Security and Encryption

17 October, 20224 January, 2023 by ward2021

Backup

Data is the most valuable aspect of computing. We buy expensive computing devices such as computers, phones and tablets. However, these are just tools to learn, explore and create. The data held within these devices that we store is more valuable than the devices themselves. This is often overlooked as the data might of not of been of a monetary cost, but instead is created with our time. The data reflects moments in our life and memories. These can not be replaced if lost, whereas the devices themselves can be replaced at a cost.

There are measures we can take to backup our data to ensure if something went wrong with the device, we can recover our data. As time has gone on, these methods to backup our devices have gotten more sophisticated.

In the early 2000s we used floppy discs and CD/DVDs to back up our data, then moving to USB hard drives and sticks later on. These were a means of having a copy our of data and making it portable.

In modern times, cloud storage is one of the most favoured ways of backing up our devices. This is because it is often times instant providing the computer is connected to the internet, it is convenient as we do not need to plug anything in to our devices and it is accessible on multiple device types.

Behind the scenes of these cloud storage providers have massive arrays of servers that will be set up in a way to have multiple copies of the data. Often one of these copies will be held off site to ensure if something happened to the server building, the data was available elsewhere.

Security

With our data being the most valuable part of computing, new threats appear everyday, attempting to gain access to our data. These come in many different forms and we have to ensure we are protecting ourselves and our data.

It is best practice to ensure that we have an anti-virus installed on our machine, which can detect any malicious software that could of gain access to our machines. Using software like VPNs (Virtual Private Network) encrypt our network traffic encase anyone has hacked the internet connection and is monitoring the network requests.

Using a different password for each account is very important, if one account is comprised the others will still be secure. Software like password managers make it much easier to manage a lot of passwords and often will provide secure passwords. Short passwords such as 8 characters are easily crackable by todays computing power, this includes when using special characters and number instead longer passwords such as 16 or 24 characters are much harder to crack.

Encryption

Encryption is used to encrypt our data to make it obscure so that if the data was comprised without decrypting it, it is unreadable. One of the earliest forms of encryptions was used by Julius Caesar, a Roman dictator, in his private correspondences. The Caesar cipher also known as a shift cipher took a private key which was a number and was given to the recipient separately. The message was then encrypted using this key and sent out. Only the recipient would know how to read the message. Without the key, the letters would appear as a scrambled nonsense.

The shift cipher is one of the simplest forms of encryption. In modern computing, encryption is very important. It provides a way in which if our data was obtained, without the decryption key, it is unreadable. As computing power has gotten more powerful, encryption methods have to become more complicated, this is because computers can very quickly brute force ciphers if they’re simple.

Apple computers utilise an physical encryption chip inside of their newer machines, this is called the T2 chip. The T2 chip handles a lot of the systems security such as storing biometric information. The T2 chip is also responsible for holding the decryption key to the storage on the Mac. If the hard drive is stolen out of a Mac, without the T2 chip, it is very hard to decrypt a Macs hard drive due to the 256 bit key used. At todays computing power, it would take roughly 32 years to brute forcefully decrypt a 256 bit key.

‘How to’ Manual

The aim of this exercise was to create a PDF on a ‘How to’ manual for students to follow. This was based on how to install 3 WordPress plugins, Updraft, Wordfence and Elementor along with Boxcryptor.

As advised, I refered to Tondreau, B. (2019). Layout essentials : 100 design principles for using grids. This allowed me to create a well-structured PDF that is organised and easy to follow. I took inspiration from pages 88, 98 and 166 in the book.

Figure 1: Scans of 3 pages in the Tondreau, B. (2019). Layout essentials : 100 design principles for using grids book.

I also took inspiration from a step-by-step image that was available on Pinterest. This can be seen in figure 2.

Figure 2: An image is taken from Pinterest to use as inspiration for the manual layout.

I thought it was important for the design of the manual to be kept simple. I didn’t want the design to distract the viewer from the information I was providing them with. I often find that on some occasions, the information can get lost in a design which can make it hard to follow.