CSIT58 Friday Assignment 3: Internet

Due March 19. Late submission ends March 26

Part 1 Study Questions (15 points)

Type the answers to the following questions in the answer box. As an alternative, you may put the answers in a WordPad or Word document and upload it. Number each answer. Do not repeat the question.

1. (2 points) Howstuffworks is a useful web site with information about a lot of topics, computers included. Go to http://www.howstuffworks.com . Click the link for Computer, then Internet. Use the links to locate an article on how Wikis work. Answer the following questions:

a. What is a Wiki?

b. Explain the difference between a blog and a wiki

2. (2 points) There are many social networking sites on the Internet. Go to the search engine http://www.bing.com and do a web search for a list of social networking sites.

a. Find a small social networking site that you might be interested in. It cannot be Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or LinkedIn. What is the name of the site you chose?

b. Visit the site. Explain what this site is about and why you chose it.

Use the techniques from the reading on constructing efficient searches using Google to answer the following questions:

3. (3 points) Go to http://www.google.com and click the News link. Search for news reports on cyber bullying.

a. Choose one of the articles. Give the title of the article and a brief one-paragraph summary.

b. Copy and paste the URL of the news story. Click in the Address bar to highlight the URL, choose Edit, Copy in the menu bar (or press Ctrl+C on the keyboard). Switch to the answer box, make sure you have the number 4b. and then right click the mouse and choose Paste. (or press Ctrl+V on the keyboard).

4. (5 points) Spoofing, phishing and pharming are threats to your privacy online

a. From the Google Search page, choose the Web link. Click on Advanced Search. In the first line of Advanced Search, with all these words, type: spoofing phishing pharming
Click Search. Notice that Google places spoofing phishing pharming in the Search Box. How many results were there?

b. (2 points) Use Advanced Search again. This time, leave the with all these words line blank, and in the line that says one or more of these words type spoofing, then after the OR type phishing, then after the OR type pharming
Click Search. Which search produced more results, a. or b.? Why?

c. Use Advanced Search to find pages that mention pharming but do not include the words spoofing or phishing. After you click Search, what does Google put in the Search Box?

d. Use one of the links to find a definition of phishing. What is the definition?

5. (3 points) A small nuclear reactor may be coming to your neighborhood. Let's use search results to decide if it is safe.

a. Use Google Web search to find web pages that discuss the safety of nuclear power plants. Do NOT use Advanced Search. Type your query directly into the Search Box.

Use the following query: safe nuclear power neighborhood

How many results were there?

b. Use the ~ in front of a keyword that may have synonyms. Which word did you put the ~ on?  How many results were there?

c. Why is there a difference in the number of results? Give an example of an actual synonym that was used instead of the original word.