James Bowes - Post 16 Computer Science

The Task: The Solution:

Gives certain bodies the right to monitor communications and internet activity. The act grants the right to:  Demand ISPs provide access to a customers surveillance. Allow, mass surveillance of communication. Demand ISPs fit equipment to facilitate surveillance. Demand access to be granted to protected information.  To allow monitoring of an individuals internet activities.  Prevent existence of such interception activities being revealed in court.  Controversial as you can see how the act could be misused. For example: it was once used by a school to see if a family lived in the catchment area (they tracked there internet usage). 

The Copyright, Designs & Patent Act has two main purposes: 1) To ensure people are rewarded for their work. 2) To give protection to the copyright holder if someone tries to copy or steal their work. It was created to protect investment of time, money and effort by the people who create original pieces of work, these include: books, music, film, games & apps. On computer it specifically prevents people from: copying software, copying music, copying images from the web or webpages and pretending its your own work. There are a few common myths associated with this Act that people mistakenly believe: "I didn't know so I'm not guilty" - if you copy any work you are guilty. "If it doesn't have a copyright notice, it is not copyrighted" - all work produced by anyone is automatically copyrighted.  "If I don't charge for it, I can copy it" - you can't copy any work whether you charge or not.  If you do break copyright l...

The Computer Misuse Act is designed to protect computer users against attacks and theft of information from computer systems. Offences include hacking, unauthorised access to computer system and purposefully spreading malicious and damaging software (malware), such as viruses. It is required to try and prevent these attacks from happening, to protect peoples personal data from being stolen. Breaching of the act can lead to a maximum of 5 years in prison and unlimited fines. This therefor should act as a deterrent to stop people from carrying this out.  The 4 offences: Unauthorised access to computer material (up to 6 months in prison + large fine). Unauthorised access with intent to commit or facilitate a crime (up to 5 years in prison + large fine). Unauthorised modification of computer material (up to 5 years in prison + large fine). Making, supplying or obtaining anything which can be used in computer misuse offences (up to 5 year in prison and unlimited fine). Ho...

Karnaugh Maps are used to simplify expressions. Example: Simplify (¬P v ¬Q) ^ P 1) Create a truth table for each of the sections of the expression. 2) A, B, C, D etc correspond to each section of the Karnaugh Map.  3) Put the values from the truth table into the Karnaugh Map following the structure above. 4) Q values go DOWN the columns, P values go ACROSS the rows. Use this to make out the letters. Use the original connection from the question as the connection in the answer.  See image above. 

The Data Protection Act protects data that specifically identifies an individual. Such as name, address, date of birth etc. It protects companies from misusing the data. There are 8 principles of the Data Protection Act: 1) Personal data should be obtained fairly and lawfully - data can only be collected about you where required and you must be told why it is being collected. 2) Data can only be retained for lawful purposes and only be used for the purpose it was collected for, it can't be further processed without the consent from the user. 3) Personal data should be adequate for the purpose but nothing additional should be required if it is not needed. 4) Personal data should always be kept up to date. 5) Data should not be stored for longer then it is required. 6) At any time the data subject can request to see the data being held on them. 7) Data is stored securely to prevent it from being obtained by a third party. 8) If data is sent abroad, this act must app...

4 Types of logic gates: NOT, OR, AND, XOR. NOT Gates: AND Gates: OR Gates:  XOR Gates: Logic gate circuits are where multiple logic gates are combined together. Simply follow the circuit around working out each individual logic gate.