Final IS Review Sheet
CORE Fall 2009
By Jin You can sleep when youre dead Zhou
Disclaimer: As usual, the use of this study guide will not guarantee you an A on the exam.
In fact, as I have always said, if you are sufficiently void of any fucking gray matter
whatsoever between your ears, you are more fucked than a $5 Thai hooker during Happy
Hour in downtown Bangkok. That being said, however, if you at least know a little about
IS and the general idea of how shit works, then this guide can go a long way towards
consolidating all the needed information for you. Okay, with that shit out of the way, lets
get started.
(Note to self: In future, begin charging good money for this shit.)
Overview: The IS Final is a non-cumulative exam, covering all topics from IS11
(Calculating Product Awareness) to IS21 (Ethics and Privacy). Of these, IS16 and IS19
are both workshops, so in reality, there are about nine units to cover from start to end.
The good news is that, although this is a lot of stuff, there are not as many cases as there
are in OM, so as long as you review the reading, the slides, and this guide, you should be
fine. Emphasis on should be.
IS11: Calculating Product Awareness:
Read: Note on Calculating Product Awareness through the Web (SMGTools)
-3 Steps:
A. Determine # of annual first time visitors to your website through organic
search.
B. Determine # of annual first time visitors to your website through online
marketing tactics (e-mail, banner ads, etc)
C. Divide sum of above by total target market size.
-Sources:
A. Organic search results
-Three types of keywords: Generic, Targeted, and Highly Focused.
-Ranked in order of frequently searched/high SERP (search engine rank position) to
infrequently searched/low SERP ranking.
-Use the website grader score to calculate CTR (click-through rate) for each type of
keyword that you have.
-FORMULA: Organic Search Annual Visits. THIS IS DONE FOR EACH FUCKING
KEYWORD YOU HAVE. IF YOU HAVE 80, TOO FUCKING BAD.
(# monthly searches * CTR * months in a year)= Searches/Year.
B. Internet marketing efforts.
-Just remember this one formula:
Visitors from Paid Search = (annual amount spent per keyword)/(CPC)
Ex. For highly focused from sample exam, ($5,000/$3 CPC)=~1,667 clicks.
C. Banner Ads
-Bought on a CPM basis.
-Offered by Google, other search engines, and websites.
-Average CTR is 0.5%, average CPM is $5.
-As usual, # of visitors= ($ Spent)/(CPC)
STEP 3: Calculating Annual Product Awareness from # of new visitors.
A. Multiply total visitors to your website by .8 to get actual number in your target
segments (Rule of thumb)
B. Divide the result by total target market to get product awareness!
C. Use the following chart to calculate New Visitor %:
Year
New Visitor %
1
90%
2
85%
3
80%
4
75%
5
70%
NOTE: If given a question on the exam that just asks new visitor % without
giving
a year to work with, I would assume 80% because it is the mean.
IS 12: Hardware/Software
Note: This chapter and IS13 are purely technical terms and processes. If you are easily
bored by even the mention of RAM and ROM, drink a motherfucking Red Bull and keep
your eyes open, because you aint got no damn choice here.
Read: P.140-173, and if you want more basic terms, try Wikipedias entry on what a
computer and an operating system are.
-IT (Information Technology) Infrastructure is the shared technology resources that
provide the platform for the firms specific information systems applications. IT
infrastructure includes investment in hardware, software, and services- such as
consulting, education, and training-that are shared across the entire firm or across entire
business units in the firm. A firms IT infrastructure provides the foundation for serving
customers, working with vendors, and managing internal firm business processes.
*Simply put (a LOT simply put), IT infrastructure is what supports and enables
the company to use and maintain technology in the workplace.
-IT infrastructure is also a set of firmwide services budgeted by management and
comprising both human and technical capabilities. (whiskey tango foxtrot?)
-Progression of IT infrastructure:
A. 1959: Mainframe-Minicomputer
B. 1981: Personal Computer
C. 1983: Client Server
D. 1992: Enterprise Internet
E. 2000: Cloud Computing
-Mainframe Computers: Big-ass motherfucking computers that could perform a shitload
of tasks every second. Extremely powerful, used the most back when computers were
new and really fucking rare.
-Minicomputer: Far smaller, but still powerful. Made it possible in the late 60s to
customize computers to each department rather than an entire business.
-PC: Personal computer. No shit.
*Wintel Standard: Windows operating system, Intel processor (CPU). 95% of the
worlds computers use this. The rest consist of shitty Macs and other such
unworthy systems.
-Client/Server computing: PCs (Clients) are networked to Servers, which are powerful
computers that provide the clients with a variety of services and capabilities.
-Two tiered: Just a server and a client.
-Multi-tiered/N-tier: Multiple layers and multiple servers between the top and the bottom.
May be handled over the internet using a web server.
-Application server: Handles application operations between a user and an organizations
back-end business systems.
-TCP/IP: THE networking standard used by the Internet. Ties networks together. Short
for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol.
-Enterprise Computing: Uses the Internet to link the entire companys networks into a
single network that can freely share information and applications.
-Cloud Computing: A model of computing where firms and individuals obtain
computing power and software applications over the Internet, rather than purchasing their
own hardware and software. Currently, cloud computing is the fastest growing form of
computing. Ex. Salesforce.com, Netsuite, SAPs Business By Design, etc.
-Moores Motherfucking Law: The number of processors on a chip with the smallest
manufacturing costs per component has doubled each year or so. Translation: Every year,
computers become twice and powerful for the same cost. In another five years or so,
theyll start rebelling and killing all of us.
-Nanotechnology: Uses individual atoms and molecules to create computer chips and
other devices that are thousands of times smaller than what we have right now. In other
words, they may one day be able to make an entire computer that would actually be
smaller than a pimple on your face.
(OK, wake up! I knows this shit is boring, but suck it up.)
-Law of Mass Digital Storage: Every 15 months, the amount of shit you can store on a
chip for a given amount of $$$ doubles.
-Metcalfes Law/Network Economics: Value/power of a network grows exponentially as
a function of the number of network numbers.
-Declining communications costs and the internet is another driver that is transforming IT
infrastructure to become more internet-based.
-Technology Standards: Technology standards are specifications that establish the
compatibility of products and the ability to communicate in a network.
IT COMPONENTS:
A. Data Management and Storage
B. Internet Platforms
C. Computer Hardware Platforms
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.
Operating Systems
Enterprise Software Applications
Networking/Telecommunications
Consultants/System Integrators
Porn Sites Never leave your computer alone with your roommates.
-Blade Severs: Ultrathin computers consisting of a circuit board with processors,
memory, and network connections that are stored in racks.
-Operating Systems: Manages the resources and activities of the market. Ex. Windows,
UNIX, Linux, and Mac OS-X
-Enterprise Software Applications: Components of IT Infrastructure. Largest providers
include SAP and Oracle. Costly to switch from one vendor to another.
-Data Management and Storage: Software that organizes and manages the firms data so
it can be efficiently accessed and used.
-Storage Area Networks (SANs): Connect multiple storage devices on a separate highspeed network dedicated to storage.
-Web Hosting Service: Maintains a large Web server, or series of servers, and provides
fee-paying subscribers with space to maintain their Web sites.
-Legacy Systems: Older transaction processing systems created for mainframe computers
that continue to be used to avoid the high cost of replacing or redesigning them.
-On Demand/Utility Computing: Purchasing computing services from remote providers
and paying only for the amount of computing power they actually use. Ex.
Salesforce.com, Amazon.com, etc.
-Autonomic Computing: Industry-wide effort to develop systems that can configure
themselves, optimize and tune themselves, heal themselves when broken, and protect
themselves from outside intruders and destruction. Basically, your computer with a
Terminator brain and Chuck Norriss roundhouse kick.
-Virtualization: Process of presenting a set of computing resources so that they can all be
accessed in ways that are not restricted by physical configuration or geographic location.
-Multicore Processor: Integrated circuit to which two or more processors have been
attached for enhanced performance, reduced power consumption and more efficient
simultaneous processing of multiple tasks. Ex. Intel Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, Core i7.
-Open Source Software: Software produced by community of several hundred thousand
programmers around the world. Cheap, but usually not as reliable.
-Java: Operating system-independent, processor-independent, object-oriented
programming language that has become the leading interactive programming language
for the web.
-Web Browser: Easy-to-use software tool with a graphical user interface that-oh fuck it,
its what you use to access and use the internet. If you dont know this by now, please go
sterilize yourself with a rusty spatula.
-Web Services: Set of loosely coupled software components that exchange information
with each other using universal web comm. standards and languages. Independent of
operating systems.
-XML: Extensible markup language. Foundation technology for web services. More
flexible and powerful than HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) for websites.
-Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA): Set of self-contained services that communicate
with each other to create a working software application.
-Mashups: Taking software from different sources and combining them in order to
produce an application that it greater than the sum of its parts.
-Widgets: Small software programs that can be added to Web pages or placed on the
desktop to provide additional functionality.
-Software Package: Prewritten commercially available set of software programs that
eliminates the need for a firm to write its own software programs for certain functions,
such as payroll processing and order handling. Ex. SAP or Oracle.
-SaaS (SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE): Services for delivering and providing access to
software remotely as web-based service.
-Outsourcing: A firm contracts custom software development or maintenance of existing
legacy programs to outside firms, frequently forms that operate offshore in low-wage
areas of the world. Like India, China, or Allston.
-SLA (Service Level Agreement): Formal contract between customers and their service
providers that defines the specific responsibilities of the service provider and the level of
service expected by the customer.
Holy shit, that was fucking long. Ok, next unit
IS 13: Telecommunications
-Network: Two or more connected computers.
-Network Interface Card (NIC): Used to interact with the network. Usually built into the
motherboard.
-Network Operating System (NOC): Routes and manages communications on the
network and coordinates network resources. Can be on every computer, or one dedicated
server.
-Hubs: Simple devices, connect network components, sends packets of data to all other
connected devices.
-Switch: Has more intelligence, can filter and forward data to specified destinations on
the network.
-Router: Communications processor used to route packets of data through different
networks, ensuring that the data sent gets to the right address.
-Larger firms may need to create corporate infrastructures to deal with more complicated
IS needs.
-Client/Server Computing: Distributed computing model in which some of the processing
power is located within small PCs and devices, which are linked to one another by a
network controlled by a network server.
-Packet Switching: Method of slicing digital messages into parcels called packets,
sending the packets along different communications paths as they become available, and
then reassembling the packets once they arrive at their destinations.
-Protocol: Set of rules and procedures governing transmission of information between
two points in a network.
-HOW TCP/IP WORKS: TCP establishes a connection between the computers,
sequences the transfer of packets, and acknowledges the packets sent. IP is responsible
for the delivery of packets and includes the disassembling and reassembling of the
packets at the origin and destination.
-Modem: Translates digital signals into analog form.
-LAN: Designed to connect personal computers and other digital devices within a halfmile or 500-meter radius.
-CAN: Campus-area network. Up to 1,000 meters or ~ a mile.
-MAN: Metropolitan area network. City/city area.
-WAN: Wide area network. Transcontinental/global area. Ex. the internet.
-Peer-to-peer architecture: LAN format that treats all processors equally. Best used in
small networks of ten or fewer users.
-Topology: The way the components in a network are connected together.
A. Star: All devices connect to a single hub.
B. Bus: One station transmits, which go both ways in a transmission segment.
Most common Ethernet topology.
C. Ring: Connects network components in a closed loop. Goes only in one
direction, and only one station is allowed to transmit at a time.
-Twisted Wire: Strands of copper wire twisted in pairs. Older, but still can go up to
1Gbps. Max length is 100m.
-Coaxial Cable: Thickly insulated copper wire. Transmits larger volume of data than
Twisted wire. Clocked at 1Gbps.
-Fiber-Optics/Optic Networks: Consists of bound strands of clear glass fiber. Transfers
data using light pulses. Really fucking fast. Delicate. Expensive. Used for very high
speed internet and on-demand video.
-Microwave: Transmits high-frequency radio signals through the atmosphere.
-Hertz: One cycle of whatever medium you transfer on.
-Bandwidth: Difference between highest and lowest frequencies that can be
accommodated on a single channel. Bigger is better.
-ISP: Internet Service Provider: Commercial organization with a permanent connection to
the internet that sells temporary connections to retail subscribers. Ex. AT&T, Comcast.
Etc.
-Digital Subscriber Line (DSL): Operate over existing telephone lines.
-Cable Internet Connections: Use digital cable coaxial cables to deliver shit.
-T1: International telephone standards for digital communication. Very fucking fast.
-IP (Internet Protocol) Address: 32-bit number unique to every computer on the internet.
-Domain Name System (DNS): Converts IP addresses to domain names. Ex. .com is a
domain, then google, then maps. So maps.google.com is three domains in one.
-IPv6 and Internet2: Future versions of the internet that may be used to replace what we
have right now. Hopefully, it comes with a new version of uTorrent as well. I still need to
fill up my fucking iPod.
-Email, Chat, IM: If I have to actually explain these to you, then please, for the love of
god, go fuck yourself with an egg beater.
-VoIP: Voice over Internet Protocol. Delivers voice information in digital form using
packet information tech. Ex. Vonage, Magic-Jack, etc.
-Unified Communications Tech: Integrates disparate channels for voice communications,
data communications, instant messaging, e-mail, and electronic conferencing.
-VPN: Virtual Private Network: Secure, encrypted, private network. Takes advantage of
the available internet to provide a low-cost, high-security alternative to custom networks.
-Web Site: Collection of web pages linked to a home page.
-HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol. How your computer requests web pages stored on
an internet host server.
-URL: Uniform Resource Locator. An address that tells the browser exactly where to look
for the information. Ex. http://www.chinks.com/herro/pingpong/porkfwiedwice.html
-Web Server: Software for locating and managing stored Web pages.
-Search engines: Attempt to solve the problem of finding useful information on the web
nearly instantly. Although to be honest, turning SafeSearch off on Google and hitting
go is hilarious.
-Search Engine Marketing: Using sponsored links, organic search, and banner ads to
drive traffic towards your website for commercial purposes.
-Shopping Bots: Intelligent agent software used for searching the Internet for shopping
info, ex. Froogle.
-Web 2.0: Enable people to collaborate, share information, and create new services
online.
-RSS: Rich Site Summary/Really Simple Syndication. Syndicates web site content so that
it can be used in another setting.
-Wikis: Collaborative websites where visitors can add, delete, or modify content on the
sites. Best known is Wikipedia.
-Web 3.0: Future web where all this digital information can be woven into a single
meaningful experience. Inevitably, this will involve porn.
-Semantic Web: Another term for Web 3.0. Effort to make the web more intelligent.
-Intranets: Private, internal organizational networks.
-Extranets: Allows access to authorized vendors and customers to have limited access.
Ex. Nike, Dell, etc.
-Firewalls: Security systems with specialized software to prevent outsides from entering
private networks.
-PDA: Personal Data Assistants. Small, handheld computers featuring certain thing like
email. Also called Smartphones. Ex. Blackberry, iPhone 3G, etc.
-3G: Third Generation cellphone network.
-Bluetooth: 802.15 wireless networking standard. Useful for creating small PANs
(personal-area networks.) 30-foot operating radius.
-WiFi: 802.11 set of standards. Includes 802.11a, b, and g. 10 to 300 meter range.
-Hotspots: Consist of one or more access points positioned on a ceiling, wall, or other
strategic point to provide maximum wireless coverage for that area.
-WiMax: Looking to replace WiFi. 31 mile max range, very powerful.
-RFID: We took OM already. Radio-Frequency Identification. Used for supply
chains/inventory control.
-Wireless Sensor Networks: WSN for short, networks of interconnected wireless devices
that are embedded into the physical environment to provide measurements of many
points over large spaces.
IS 14: Web Analytics and Direct Selling
Read: Note on Calculating Direct Sales and Operational Support Costs. Try to not fall
asleep.
Very simple actually. It costs $$ to run a site, $$ to process orders. And $$ to fulfill
orders. Read the thing and understand those points, and you should be fine.
IS 15: Business Intelligence, Decision Support, and KPIs
-Three types of decisions:
A. Unstructured Decisions: Those in which the decision maker must provide judgment,
evaluation, and insight to solve the problem. Each of these decisions are novel, important,
and nonroutine. No well-understood/established operational procedures. (Senior Mngmt)
B. Semi-structured Decisions: Only part of the decision has a well-established way of
solving it.
(Middle Mngmt)
C. Structured Decisions: Repetitive and routine. Involve a definite procedure for handling
them so that they do not have to be treated each time as if they were new. (Operational
Management: Individual employees and teams)
-Four step Process to decision making:
1. Intelligence: Discovering, identifying, and understanding the problems occurring in the
organization.
2. Design: Identifying and exploring various solutions to the problem.
3. Choice: Choosing among solution alternatives.
4. Implementation: Making the chosen alternative work and continuing to monitor how
well the solution is working.
-Classic Model of Management: Planning, Organizing, Coordinating, Decoding, and
Controlling.
-Behavioral Models suggest that the roles of managers are different. Very different.
-Managerial Roles: Expectations of the activities that managers should perform in an
organization.
MINTZBERGS ROLE MODEL:
A. Interpersonal Role: Managers act as figureheads for the entire organization. They
act as leaders, try to motivate people, counsel and support them when needed, and
liaison between levels of management.
B. Informational Role: Managers act as the nerve centers of their organizations,
receiving the most concrete, up-to-date information and redistributing it to those
who need it.
C. Decisional Role: Managers act as entrepreneurs by initiating new kinds of
activities. They handle disturbances, allocate resources to staff, and negotiate
conflicts.
(Felt like I was back in OB again.jesus..)
Three Reasons why IT investment do not always pan out:
A. Information quality: High quality decisions need high quality info. Not always
there..
B. Management Filters: Everybody fucks up once in a while. Some people more than
others.
C. Organizational Inertia and Politics: Some people dont want to change, some
people dont see the need, and some people just want to fuck around.
-MIS: Management Information Systems: Provide routine reports and summaries of
transaction-level to data middle and operational level managers to provide answers to
structured/semistructured problems.
-DSS: Decision Support Systems. Provide analytical models or tools for analyzing large
quantities of data for middle managers. Semi-structured decisions.
-ESS: Executive Support Systems. Provide executive management with external info and
high-level summaries of firm performance to make unstructured decisions.
-GDSS: Group Decision Support Systems: Specialized systems that provide a group
electronic environment in which managers and teams are able to collectively make
decisions and design solutions for unstructured and semi-structured problems.
-Data-Driven DSS: Support decision making by enabling users to extract useful info that
was previously buried in large quantities of data.
-DSS Database: Collection of current or historical data from a number of applications or
groups.
-DSS Software System: Contains the software tools that are used for data analysis.
-Model: Abstract representation that illustrates the components or relationships of a
phenomenon.
-Sensitivity Analysis: Asks what if questions to determine the impact on outcomes if
one or more factors changed. For example, what if I drank myself into oblivion right
before the exam and randomly filled in circles on the IS scantron instead of actually
reading the questions? Answer: You might actually get a better grade.
-Pivot Table: Table that displays two or more dimensions of data in a convenient format.
-Data visualization: A tool that helps users see patterns and relationships in large amounts
of data that would be difficult if they were just a shitload of text. Ex. graphs in excel vs
just a huge fucking list.
-Geographic Information Systems (GIS): Special category of DSS. Allows you to make
decisions based off of huge holographic maps.
-Customer decision-support systems: Support the decision-making process of an existing
or potential customer.
-Balanced Scorecard Method: Framework for operationalizing a firms strategic plan by
focusing on measurable outcomes on four dimensions of firm performance: Financial,
business process, customer, and learning and growth.
-KPI: Key Performance Indicators. Measures proposed by senior management for
understanding how well the firm is performing along any given dimension.
-Drill down: Ability to move from one piece of information to lower and lower levels of
data.
-ESS value comes from flexibility and ability to analyze, compare, and highlight trends.
-Data warehouse: Database that stores current and historical data of potential interest to
decision makers throughout the company. The data originate in many core operational
transaction systems, such as systems for sales, customer accounts, and manufacturing,
and may include data from website transactions.
-Data mart: Subset of a data warehouse. Contains a summarized/highly focused portion
of the warehouses data. Usually made for specific departments or lines of business. Not
as costly as a data warehouse.
-BI: Business Intelligence. Tools for consolidating, analyzing, and providing access to
vast amounts of data to help users make better business decisions.
-OLAP: Online Analytical Processing: Supports multidimensional data analysis, enabling
users to view the same data in different ways using multiple dimensions.
-Data Mining: Provides insights into corporate data that cannot be obtained with OLAP
by finding hidden patterns and relationships in large databases and inferring rules from
them to predict future behavior.
Ex.
A. Associations: Occurrences linked to a single event.
B. Sequences: Events linked over time.
C. Classification: Recognizes patterns that describe the group to which an item
belongs by examining existing items that have been classified and by interring a
set of rules.
D. Clustering: Works like classification, but no groups have been defined.
E. Forecasting: Uses a series of existing values to forecast what other values will be.
-Predictive Analysis: Uses data mining techniques, historical data, and assumptions about
future conditions to predict outcomes of events, such as the probability that a customer
will respond to an offer or purchase a specific product.
-Text Mining: Tools that help you analyze data from huge motherfucking blocks of text.
If only I had one for this textbook..
-Web Mining: Discovery and analysis of useful patterns and information from the World
Wide Web.
-Database Server: Receives SQL requests and provides the requested data.
NOTE ON KPIs:
-Must be quantifiable, agreed to beforehand.
-Should reflect organizational goals
-Must be key to organizational success, i.e. what you measure must be important.
-Must be well-defined
-Get the rest of your business to buy into it.
IS16: Web Strategy Workshop
Justno.
IS17: ERP/CRM/SCM
-ERP: Enterprise systems (Also called ERP systems). Based on a suite of integrated
software modules and a common central database. Collects data from many divisions and
parts of a firm and makes it available to applications within the firm.
-Enterprise Software: Built around thousands of predefined business processes that reflect
best practices. Must first select the functions of the system, then map their businesses to
what the software has predefined.
-ERP systems increase operational efficiency and provide firm-wide info to help
managers make better decisions. They also help firms to respond rapidly to customer
requests because all aspects of the business are integrated and move as one.
-SCM: Supply Chain Management systems help to communicate, coordinate, and control
your supply chain, both upstream (your suppliers) and downstream (those you supply to)
as well as your internal supply chain (your own business process).
-Just-in-time strategy: Stuff gets there precisely when its needed, not a bit sooner or later.
Needs extremely coordinated SCM to do this.
-Safety stock: the just in case something happens stock.
-Bullwhip effect: When one little disturbance in one end of the supply chain leads to the
rest of the supply chain shitting their pants and building up far more safety stock than
needed.
-Supply Chain planning systems: Enable firms to model existing chain, forecast demand,
and optimize supply and manufacturing.
-Demand Planning: Determines how much a business needs to make to satisfy all of its
customers demands.
-Supply Chain execution systems: Manage the flow of products through distribution
centers and warehouses to ensure that products are delivered to the right locations in the
most efficient manner possible.
-Global supply chains takes the inherent difficulty of managing a supply chain and ramps
it up to near head-banging levels.
-Push-Based model Supply Chain: Production master schedules are based on forecasts or
best guesses of demand, and products are pushed to customers.
-Pull-Bases model Supply Chain: Stuff is only made and shipped by actual customer
orders.
-IT and the internet make it possible for supply chains to go from sequential to
concurrent.
-CRM: Customer Relationship Management. Software that allows you to collect, store,
analyze, and distribute customer information to become better acquainted with your
customers so you can serve them better.
-Touch Point: Method of interaction with customer. Ex. phone, email, etc.
-PRM (Partner Relationship Management) and ERM (Employee Relationship
Management) also exists. The names pretty much tell you what they are.
-Sales force automation (SFA): Helps sales staff increase productivity by focusing sales
efforts on the most profitable customers.
-Customer Service Modules in CRM packages provide info and tools to increase
customer service efficiency.
-Cross-selling: Marketing of complementary products to customers, ex. selling a low
interest loan for a car to a guy who already has a mortgage.
-Operational CRM: Customer-facing applications, ex. SFA, call center support, etc.
-Analytical CRM: Analyzes customer data generated by Operational CRM to improve the
overall business.
-CLTV: Customer Lifetime Value: Based on the relationship between how much revenue
the customer generates, the expenses incurred by the customer, and the expected life of
the relationship between the customer and the company.
-Churn Rate: Measures the number of customers who stop using or purchasing products
or services from a company. Indicates growth or decline of customer base.
-Enterprise applications are complicated, hard to implement, and hard as hell to switch
once youre in.
-Service Platforms: Integrates multiple applications from multiple business functions,
business units, or business partners to deliver a seamless experience for the customer,
employee, manager, or business partner. Basically a system that allows different systems
to integrate and talk to each other.
IS18: IT Technology Infrastructure Investment
Read: The slides. No other material present.
IS19: KPIs and IT Infrastructure Investment Workshop
Read over the workshop, and use the last two actual readings to help you study up a bit.
IS20: Security
Read: P. 316-351
-Security: Policies, procedures, and technical measures taken to make sure that YOUR
SHIT DOES NOT GET MAJORLY FUCKED UP.
-Controls: Methods, policies, and procedures that ensure the safety of assets,
accuracy/reliability of records, and adherence to standards.
-Basically, you can and will get bent over and digitally sodomized by viruses, Trojans,
spyware, and all that other shit if you do not take steps to protect yourself.
-War Driving: People driving by companies with wireless access and trying to steal shit
by hacking into the servers/intercept traffic.
-Malware: General term for all that crazy shit the internet can throw at you. NOTE: does
not include meatspin, lemon party, kids in a sandbox, or two girls, one cup, though for the
love of god, it should.
-Virus: rogue software program that must be attached to another program to be activated.
-Worms: Independent computer programs that copy themselves from one computer to
another over a network. Can operate independently, unlike viruses.
-Trojan Horse: Looks harmless, but will eat your files for lunch.
-Spyware: Basically tracks what you do.
-Keyloggers: Software that tracks all inputs into a computer. Your Kerberos password, for
instance.
-Hacker: Too obvious to define.
-Cybervandalism: Disruption, defacement, or destruction of a web site/corporate system.
If you ever left a retarded comment on blog, you are fucking guilty.
-Spoofing: Masquerading as someone/thing else to get into a system.
-Sniffer: Easvesdropping system that monitors info traveling over a network.
-DoS Attack: Denial of Service Attack. Floods a server with so many false requests that
the system becomes overloaded.
-DDoS: Distributed Denial of Service attack. Launched from multiple computers and
aimed at multiple points.
-Botnet: A network of hacked computers that become proxy weapons for hackers to
spread really bad shit around.
-Computer Crime: Any violations of criminal law that involve a knowledge of computer
technology for perpetration, investigation, or prosecution.
-Identity Theft: Figure it out, retard.
-Phishing: Setting up fake sites/sending false emails to try to get people to unknowingly
give out critical information.
-Evil Twins: Wireless networks that pretend to offer Wi-Fi, but really are just out to steal
your info.
-Pharming: A program that redirects a user to a bogus website, even when they entered a
real site.
-Click Fraud: Occurs when you use the cost-per-click ads abuse function and drive up
the costs for a rival company by simply clicking over and over and over and over again.
i.e. the internet version of the FUCK YOU OVER.
-Cyberterrorism and Cyberwarfare: Who needs planes when that little software upgrade
can cause your F-16 to never take off in the first place, bitch?
-Social Engineering: Some hacker pretending to be your boss and asking you for your
password and ID so he can enter it into the company database when you get a promotion
and need more access to programs.
-Patches: Small upgrades or fixes that come from the software vendor to fix problems, ex.
Windows update.
-HIPAA: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Outlines medical security
and privacy rules.
-Gramm-Leach-Bailey Act: Also called the Financial Services Modernization Act of
1999. Requires financial institutions (banks, investment clusters, etc) to ensure security
and confidentiality for customer data.
-Sarbanes-Oxley Act: Forces responsibility on companies and their management to
safeguard the accuracy and integrity of financial information that is used
internally/released externally. Forces companies to be accountable for what they create
and who creates it.
-Computer Forensics: Scientific collection, examination, authentication, preservation, and
analysis of data held on or retrieved from computer storage media so that they can hit
people with it in court.
-General Controls: Govern the design, security, and use of computer programs and the
security of data files in general throughout the IT infrastructure of a firm.
-Application Controls: Specific controls unique to each computerized application.
Consists of:
A. Input Controls
B. Process Controls
C. Output Controls
-Risk Assessment: Determines the level of risk to the firm if a specific activity or process
is not properly controlled.
-Security Policy: Consists of statements ranking information risks, identifying acceptable
security goals, and identifying the mechanisms for achieving these goals.
-AUP: Acceptable Use Policy. Defines acceptable uses of the firms information
resources and computing equipment. Ex. cannot use copier to Xerox ass, cannot use
laptop as doorstop, cannot use internet to download porn.
-Authorization Policies: Determine different levels of access to info for different levels of
users.
-Authorization Management Systems: Establish when and where a user is allowed to
access parts of a database.
-Disaster Recovery Planning: Devises plans for the restoration of computing and
communications services after your shit got messed up.
-Business Continuity Planning: Focuses on how the company can restore business
operations after a disaster strikes.
-MIS (Management Information Systems) audit: Examines the firms overall security
environment as well as the controls for individual info systems.
-Access Control: All the policies and procedures a company uses to prevent improper
access from within and without.
-Authentication: Ability to know if he/she/it is who he/she/it claims to be.
-Token: Physical device, ex. keycard, that is designed to prove an identity.
-Smart Card: A type of token, about the size of a credit card.
-Biometric Authentication: Using fingerprint readers, retinal scans, or even voice to
authenticate.
-Firewalls: Combination of hardware and software that controls the flow of incoming and
outgoing traffic. Acts as a shield between internal network and external network.
-Intrusion Detection Systems: Monitoring system that detects and deters potential
hackers.
-Antivirus/Antispyware Software: Check systems and drives for the presence of computer
viruses, constantly updated.
-UTM: Unified Threat Management: Software Packages that tie VPN, antivirus,
antispam, and other software together.
-Encryption: Process of transforming plain text or data into cipher text.
-Protocols for encryption: SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and S-HTTP (Secure Hypertext
Transfer Protocol).
-Public Key Encryption: A key to encrypt, and a different key to decrypt. Unless you
have both, you cant hack it.
-Digital Certificates: Data files used to establish the identity of uses and electronic assets
for protection of online transactions. Ex. A Bank of America account.
-PKI: Public Key Infrastructure. Use of public key cryptography working with a
certificate authority.
-Online Transaction Processing: Transactions entered online are immediately processed.
-Fault-tolerant Computer Systems: A system that has backup hardware, software, and
power options to always keep it up and running. No downtime at all.
-High Availability Computing: Helps companies to recover from serious crashes.
-Recovery-Oriented Computing: Designing systems to recover quickly.
-Deep Packet Inspection (DPI): Sorts out data and assigns priority to critical files. Ex.
Ball State U
-MSSP: Managed Security Service Providers. Outsourced security that does it for you.
Almost there.. 4:34 in the fucking morning.
IS20: Ethics and Privacy
-Ethics: refers to the principles of right and wrong that individuals, acting as free moral
agents, use to make choices to guide their behaviors. (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?)
-Information Rights: The controls and privileges you have over your own and other
information.
-Profiling: Use of computers to combine data from multiple sources and create electronic
dossiers of detailed information on individuals.
-NORA (Non-obvious Relationship awareness) takes info about people from multiple
sources and correlates relationships to find, profile, and examine people.
-Responsibility: Accept the consequences for your actions.
-Accountability: Ability to determine who that responsibility lies with.
-Liability: Allows the harmed parties to recover damages done to them.
-Due process: Laws are known, understood, and there is an ability to appeal to higher
authorities to ensure that laws are applied correctly.
Ethical Analysis:
1. Identify and describe the facts.
2. Define conflict/dilemma and i.d. higher order values involved.
3. Identify stakeholders.
4. Identify reasonable courses of actions.
5. Identify potential consequences of actions.
SELECTED ETHICAL PRINCIPLES:
A. Golden Rule: Do shit to other people that you want other people to do to you.
B. Immanuel Kants Categorical Imperative: If we all did this shit, can we still exist
as a society?
C. Descartes Rule of Change: If you cant do that shit again and again, then dont do
it in the first place.
D. Utilitarian Principle: Do the shit that achieves a higher or greater value.
E. Risk Aversion Principle: Take the action that creates the least amount of shit.
F. No Free Lunch: Assume that all shit has a rightful owner unless if the actual
shit-taker tells you otherwise.
-There is a professional code of conduct, no matter what field you are in.
-Privacy: Claim of individuals to be left alone, free from surveillance or interference from
other individuals or organizations.
-FIP: Fair Information Practices. First in 1973. Set of principles governing the collection
and use of info about individuals.
-Informed Consent: European directive. Forces companies to ask for consent when
collecting information with intentions of usage.
-Safe Harbor: Private, self-regulating policy and enforcement mechanism that meets the
objectives of government regulators and legislation but does not involve government
regulation or enforcement.
-Cookies: Tiny files deposited on a computer hard drive when a user visits certain sites.
Used to later identify the user when they return.
-Web Bugs: Tiny graphic files embedded in an email that monitors who is reading that
email and transmits that info to another computer.
-Opt-Out: Your info gets collected unless if you ask not to.
-Opt-In: Your info only gets collected if you want to.
-P3P: Standard for communicating a web sites private policy to internet users and for
comparing that policy to the users standards or others.
-Intellectual Property: Considered to be intangible property created by individuals or
corporations.
-Trade Secret: Any non-public domain work product used for a business purpose.
-Copyright: Statutory grant that protects the creators of intellectual property from having
their work copied by other for the lifetime of the author +70 years.
-Patent: Grants the owner an exclusive monopoly on the ideas behind an invention for 20
years.
-Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA): 1998. Makes it illegal to circumvent
technology-based protections of copyrighted materials.
Quality of Life: Equity, Access, and Boundaries
-Balancing Power: Centralized decision making vs. Periphery (decentralized) Power.
-Rapidity of Change: Reduced response time to competitor actions.
-Maintaining Boundaries: Not shunning family, work, and friends just for the internet.
-Computer Crime: Commission of illegal acts through the use of a computer or against a
computer system.
-Computer Abuse: Commission of acts involving a computer that may not be illegal, but
may be unethical.
-Spam: Junk email sent by an organization or individual to a mass audience of Internet
users who have expressed no interest in the product or service being marketed.
-Hopefully, technology will trickle down and create many more high-paying jobs.
-Digital Divide: Well-off areas are likely to have more access and more knowledge of
technology and information than poor areas.
-Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI): Occurs when muscle groups are forced through repetitive
actions with high impact loads (football, tennis, lifting furniture) or many, many lowimpact repetitions (typing, sowing, kneading dough, spanking the monkey, etc)
-Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: Your wrist gets hurt from repetitive action. Cue guy jokes..
-Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS): Eyestrain from looking at a computer too long. Like
RIGHT THE FUCK NOW.
-Techno-stress: Stress induced by computer usage.
Thats it. Good luck, and see you on the other side.