1. Every computer along the path of your data can see what you send and receive. USERNAMES and PASSWORDS  Username can be assigned to you eg. Student ID  Password is your choice. The more characters the harder it is to guess.

2. Number of Characters Possible Combinations (using A-Z, 0-9) Average time to Discover Human Computer 1 363 minutes0.000 018 second 236 2 = 1 3002 hours0.000 65 second 336 3 = 47 0003 days0.02 second 436 4 = 1 000 0003 months1 second 5 60 000 00010 years30 seconds 103 700 000 000 000 000580 million years59 years Ideally, you would have upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols like #, $, !. This means that for an eight character password there are 72 8 combinations (700 000 000 000 000) (this would take 15 years to crack)

3.  If you change your password regularly, more than once every 15 years, your data should be safe!  Some systems have “3 strikes and you’re out” allowing three tries before the user is locked out of the account.  Read tips on p.218 of text.

4.  A firewall is the hardware and/or software that restricts access to data and information on a computer or a network.  A proxy server can act as a gate to the network. It is outside the network itself. It hides the identity of the network computers.

6.  To avoid others piggy-backing your internet and stealing data  Have a firewall  Ensure the wireless access point does not broadcast a network name  Use WEP (wireless Equivalent Privacy), which is the standard of data encryption.