Assignment # 1

An Introduction to Information Technology

Information Technology Issues and Opportunities
Computer System

Aila Arielle S. Tolosa

11156678
May 25, 2011
 A. The Evolution of the Information Age

When I use the term "evolution" at this website, I am referring to the psycho-social
evolution of humankind, resulting in lasting change on the physical level, and not
the physical as we generally consider it. The current "Information Age" represents
society's evolution into definition, comparison, specialization of information and the
utilization/manipulation of that data. Assessing the how we get from here to there:
A useful assessment of any situation - to determine ones course of action - weighs
current and future assets (i.e.: resources and tools), liabilities, challenges and
objectives.

http://www.chalicebridge.com/EvolutionTrends.html

As the time runs by, Different things are changing rapidly like new fashion trends, new
cosmetic products and technology stuffs. Things are evolving from simple to much
complicated things but these things has more features, by the help of the evolution and
transformation, Information Age also evolves into something more to help give more
information to human beings. As the future technology is fast approaching, Information
Age will evolve to Holographic Age where data and data systems are not just the
current global-scale collection and organization of data and data systems, there is
the realization of synergy and connectedness (how everything reflects and affects
everything else).

B. The Principles and Career side of Information Technology Privacy and Ethics.

Information systems raise new ethical questions for both individuals and societies
because they create opportunities for intense social change, and thus threaten
existing distributions of power, money, rights, and obligations. Like other
technologies, such as steam engines, electricity, the telephone, and the radio,
information technology can be used to achieve social progress, but it can also be
used to commit crimes and threaten cherished social values. The development of
information technology will produce benefits for many and costs for others. Ethical
issues in information systems have been given new urgency by the rise of the
Internet and electronic commerce. Internet and digital firm technologies make it
easier than ever to assemble, integrate, and distribute information, unleashing new
concerns about the appropriate use of customer information, the protection of
personal privacy, and the protection of intellectual property. Insiders with special
knowledge can “fool” information systems by submitting phony records, and
diverting cash, on a scale unimaginable in the pre-computer era.

http://www.prenhall.com/behindthebook/0132304619/pdf/laudon%20MIS10_CH-
04%20FINAL.pdf

Ethics is referred as the principles of right and wrong that individuals, acting as free
moral agents, use to make choices to guide their behaviors. In Technology, not every
gadget or new thing invented can achieve our necessary needs and satisfaction in life but
these things can also lead us to harm or others to harm us for they want these certain new
things from us. Not all new and modernize things can make life satisfying because there
are really things that have these limitations and capabilities to this and that so not
everything is safe especially now that everything is high-tech. So Information
Technology as we all know helps us to improve the certain liabilities or disadvantages of
the newly equip materials by producing again something like protection on privacy and
the protection of intellectual property.

C. Intellectual Property Law

As a type of property, Intellectual Property (IP) refers to the intangible. In contrast

to real property and personal property, it refers to what the minds of men and
women have created, usually expressed or translated into a tangible form that is
assigned certain rights of property.
Intellectual property laws include patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret
laws, which typically protect IP rights. Patents, copyrights, and trademarks are
creations of statute, where the government recognizes and enforces the public
expression of an original idea for a limited period of time. Trade secrets, established
by common law, can protect IP through contractual and tort remedies. Copyright
laws generally protect creative and artistic works such as books, movies, music,
paintings, photographs, and software. Patents, trademarks and trade secret laws are
used more often to protect industrial properties, as they are generally created and
used for industrial or commercial purposes.

http://www.hg.org/intell.html

Intellectual Property helps a person to be mindful of what they created. Intellectual

Property includes musical, literary, and artistic works; inventions; software, symbols and
many others that are used in different works.

D. Computer Crimes and Threats

There are no precise, reliable statistics on the amount of computer crime and the
economic loss to victims, partly because many of these crimes are apparently not
detected by victims, many of these crimes are never reported to authorities, and
partly because the losses are often difficult to calculate.

There are three major classes of criminal activity with computers:

1. unauthorized use of a computer, which might involve stealing a username

and password, or might involve accessing the victim's computer via the
Internet through a backdoor operated by a Trojan Horse program.

2. creating or releasing a malicious computer program

3. harassment and stalking in cyberspace.

In old crimes, When lay people hear the words "computer crime", they often think
of obscene pictures available on the Internet, or solicitation of children for
sex by pedophiles via chat rooms on the Internet. The legal problem of
obscenity on the Internet is mostly the same as the legal problem of
obscenity in books and magazines, except for some technical issues of
personal jurisdiction on the Internet. I have discussed obscenity on the
Internet in my May 1997 essay on law & technology and I have nothing
further to say about obscenity in this essay on computer crime.

http://www.rbs2.com/ccrime.htm

Computer Crimes are currently revolving around the country or world but we
doesn’t even know it because maybe there are some who wants to report
something to the authority about it but due to the lack of power that they taught
that even they report it nothing would change and they have been hesitant ever-
since. Because being in s country where everyone has already know more about
the internet life than reality, people nowadays won’t realize that they had
committed crimes already even just browsing their friends profile everyday
when they log-on and by finding out anything that has to do with him. In old
crimes, older people when they thought about crimes, the very first thing that
pop into their heads are obscene pictures that encourage young people into the
adult life like that.

COMPUTER SYSTEM:

1. Software

Software is a generic term for organized collections of computer data and

instructions, often broken into two major categories: system software that provides
the basic non-task-specific functions of the computer, and application software
which is used by users to accomplish specific tasks.
System software is responsible for controlling, integrating, and managing the
individual hardware components of a computer system so that other software and
the users of the system see it as a functional unit without having to be concerned
with the low-level details such as transferring data from memory to disk, or
rendering text onto a display.

Application software, on the other hand, is used to accomplish specific tasks other
than just running the computer system. Application software may consist of a single
program, such as an image viewer; a small collection of programs (often called a
software package) that work closely together to accomplish a task, such as a
spreadsheet or text processing system; a larger collection (often called a software
suite) of related but independent programs and packages that have a common user
interface or shared data format, such as Microsoft Office.

http://www.openprojects.org/software-definition.htm

Software is responsible for all the things we see and work on the monitor or screen, from
computer applications to creating a document, viewing small programs of huge programs.
It is the collection of the things we see starting on the desktop on the monitor.

2. Hardware

Computer system hardware includes the CPU and its associated input and output
devices. Input and output devices, separate from the CPU itself, are called
peripheral equipment. The CPU communicates with each peripheral device through
input and output channels. To operate an electronic-imaging workstation, you
must have a general understanding of CPU primary and secondary storage,
peripheral devices, input and output channels, and modems.

http://www.tpub.com/content/photography/14208/css/14208_79.htm
Hardware is responsible for the devices we use to manipulate when we use the computer
especially the CPU. All devices is connected to the CPU through their input and output
outlets. The CPU will be the “head” of all hardware devices.

3. Peopleware

The term "peopleware" represents the personnel involved in systems analysis,

programming, computer operations, system maintenance, and the like. Systems
analysis and design are the jobs of the system analyst. Program development is the
specialty of the programmer. System development is carried out by a computer
operations, input data preparation staff, and output preparation clerks. Output
preparation involves collating, bursting, and binding the reports before they are
delivered to the user. Commonly, Analysts do some programming in addition to
analysis.

http://computer-concepts-tutorial.blogspot.com/2008/02/peopleware.html

Peopleware is responsible for people who has abilities and who are specialized in
computers like programmers, operators and analysts. These people are the one whom
someone can come to in case of problems and difficulties in a certain device / computer.

4. Dataware

A database designed to support decision making in an organization. Data from the

production databases are copied to the data warehouse so that queries can be
performed without disturbing the performance or the stability of the production
systems.

Operational Data Stores - The data warehouse is structured to support a variety of

analyses, including elaborate queries on large amounts of data that can require
extensive searching. When databases are set up for queries on daily transactions,
they are often called "operational data stores" rather than data warehouses (see
ODS). See OLAP, DSS, EIS and BI software.

Dataware is responsible for the large amount of data to be collected from the warehouse
wherein while it is collecting it doesn’t disturb the performance of the systems. It
supports various analyses and it can require more time for searching or collecting on data
depending on the amount.

5. Communication / Networking

Communication networks and computer systems research is entering a new phase in

which many of the established models and techniques of the last twenty years are
being challenged. The research community is continuing to free itself from past
intellectual constraints so that it may fully exploit the convergence of computing and
communications. Evaluating the performance of emerging communications and
computer systems constitutes a huge challenge. Thus, current research provides a
set of heterogeneous tools and techniques embracing the uncertainties of time and
space varying environments when the requests for diverse services are made in real
time, and with very different quality of service expectations.

http://www.worldscibooks.com/engineering/p451.html

Communication / Networking is responsible for linking together the computer of having

connection with each other. The communication on computers requires diverse services
for the service and for it to work.