This week, we had a strong focus on cybersecurity. We watched some videos on what cybersecurity is, why it's important, and the types of cyber crimes that are often used. We then had to write a "one-pager" about any major cyber crime incident. I chose to write about the NASDAQ hack of 2014. Below is the final product: Sources Goodin, Dan. “How elite hackers (almost) stole the NASDAQ.” ArsTechnica, 17 July 2014. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/07/how-elite-hackers-almost-stole-the-nasdaq/. Accessed 10 March 2022. Yang, Stephanie and Holodny, Elena. “The Massive Hack Of The Nasdaq That Has Wall Street Terrified Of Cyber Attacks” Business Insider, 17 July 2014. https://www.businessinsider.com/nasdaq-attacked-by-hackers-2014-7. Accessed 8 March 2022. Zetter, Kim. “NSA to Investigate Nasdaq Hack” WIRED, 30 Mar 2011. https://www.wired.com/2011/03/nsa-investigates-nasdaq-hack/. Accessed 8 March 2022. Now that our cybersecurity week is over, I can safely say that I learned a lot about the importance of cybersecurity in all aspects of my life. The major cyber crime incidents that are reported on by the media are usually large-scale hacks on giant corporations, but the techniques that the hackers used to commit these acts are the same techniques they use when they target everyday people. My classmates all researched different incidents, and the sheer number of large scale cyber crime incidents made me wonder just how many smaller cyber crimes are committed every day.
From other people's presentations as well as my own research, I learned that there are a lot of different ways that people can get hacked. Having an antivirus and using a VPN are just two things that anyone can do to help mitigate their chances of getting hacked. I also learned that, no matter what, hackers can almost always find a way to hack you (such as using zero-day exploits, which are exploits no one knows about), so making sure that you have a backup plan in case any account or computer gets hacked is extremely important.
0 Comments
With the end of quarter 2 and midyear exams came the start of the second semester and quarter 3. Help Desk is a semester-long course, so it has now started again as "Tech Integration IV" It has been a while since the start of quarter 3 (we're almost at the end of it) so this post is mostly a recap of what we have done throughout the quarter. The first thing we did in class is use the Circuit Playground Express. The Circuit Playground Express is a small little circuit board that has LEDs and loads of sensors. To program it, we used Microsoft MakeCode for Adafruit. It is an online program editor that uses both block coding and JavaScript. The big project we did with this was creating a piano. We drew a set of piano keys on a sheet of paper and put metal strips on the keys. We then connected those keys to the pin inputs on the sides of the Circuit Playground Express. We finally used MakeCode to make the Circuit Playground play a note every time an input was triggered. We also enabled a LED every time a key was pressed.
Next, we used a program called Sweet Home 3D. Sweet Home 3D is a free CAD software that is used to design houses and buildings. Buildings can be furnished with models that could easily be downloaded from their website.
Our school is hosting the Hour of Code from December 6-12, and since we are the Help Desk, we will be the class that leads the event. Everyone in the class has been asked to lead an activity during the hour of code event.
Therefore, I am thinking of creating my own tutorial project. It would contain code that I've created over the years I worked with Unity. This way, I can create one unified project with one single tutorial, and offering help to participants will become easy.
The project will most likely contain assets that can work for many types of games, such as a racing game, an fps game, and a platformer game. Participants will be able to use assets from any of these things to create their own unique levels. They will follow instructions teaching them about the Unity editor and how to construct levels from these "production-ready" assets. This should allow for some individual creative expression while also maintaining a single universal asset base and tutorial structure. Participants can help each other discover assets and the ways they can be used. Participants can go at their own pace if desired, following the instructions on the slides. They can also have me or another leader walk them through the steps. Overall, I think this will be the best type of activity for me to lead, as it allows me to put my knowledge of Unity to the test while teaching something that I am passionate about. As I have just finished creating a game in Unreal Engine, I could possibly show that as something that I've made all by myself. I can also show screenshots of my old and current projects. This, combined with the Unity activity, could hopefully provide inspiration to participants and fuel some sort of interest in computer science. After getting to use technology for the first few weeks in this class, our class was tasked with creating a video tutorial on a topic of our choosing. We were allowed to work with a partner, and my partner was Vin Patel.
We recorded all of our footage using one of our iPad's camera, while the other iPad was used to control the Sphero. We also screen recorded the app. Our recordings went well, but since we were recording inside the Help Desk there was a lot of background noise.
In order to edit the video, I used a free program called DaVinci Resolve. Resolve is a professional video editing software, similar to the more popular Adobe Premier Pro. However, Resolve is not only free to use, but it also comes with a built-in VFX tool, Fusion. Fusion uses a visual flowchart with notes instead of traditional layers, so while it can be tough to learn initially, it eventually become really easy to view and understand (the website has an explanation of the Fusion workflow). With DaVinci Resolve I was able to edit our tutorial fairly quickly, stopping to learn Fusion and add in some basic animated title cards. The audio was challenging to work with - while it would sound normal in Resolve, when I exported the file the audio mixing was terrible. I spent a lot of time re-mixing the audio until it exported in an acceptable state. The final product can be viewed here.August 30th was the start of the new school year, and also the start of my time at the BHS Help Desk. I joined the help desk to learn more about different technologies and put my prior knowledge of technology to use, possibly through the helping of other students. During the first week of school, we learned more about drone technology. Drones are unmanned aerial vehicles, and the term "drone" covers everything from large military equipment to small toys. We learned how to use a few types of drones, including the more professional DJI Maverick as well as Tynker drones, which are used more for education and recreation. We also learned about the possible future of drones and how the adoption of drones into everyday life facilitates conversations about privacy and security. Recently, we have also started using an app called “Ready Maker”, which uses visual scripting and simplified object controls. In class, we followed a tutorial on how to make pong, which covered object creation, physics, graphics, movement and input, and scripting. Our pong games are almost done.
|
ArchivesCategories |