Secure Email Project Blog; ISM3004; Courtney Jeffries

Secure Email Project Blog; ISM3004

by: Courtney Jeffries

Here is a screen capture of my Thunderbird inbox:

Web Article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/us/politics/12hackers.html?_r=2

This article talks about a group of hackers that hacked into the computers of HBGary Federal, which is a security company that sells investigation services to other companies. The wikileaks hackers posted tens of thousands of emails that appeared to be of HBGary's internal company, on the internet. It looked as if these documents contained information for ways to undermine adversaries of Bank of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; for example posting fake background research on their critics to embarrass them.

A spokesperson for Bank of America said they had never hired HBGary and were unaware of the presentations that were made involving them. Since these hacked e-mails were on a file-sharing network, blogs have been retrieving and discussing them all over the internet, as well as in The New York Times.

A power-point presentation was also released that claimed that three companies, HBGary, Palantir Technologies, and Berico Technologies were coming together to attack Wikileaks, who were rumored to have internal e-mails from Bank of America. The three companies planned to submit fake documents to Wikileaks and then expose them as forgeries. Other documents proposed ways to embarrass adversaries of the Chamber of Commerce, asking for an initial $200,000 and later $2 million. These e-mails revealed the chamber's opposition to the Obama healthcare plan.

HBGary made the statement that it had been a victim of a cyberattack and the documents found had been falsified. The two other businesses that were mentioned along side of HBGary put out statements to distance themselves from HBGary Federal, but did not say whether or not the documents were fake.

The article ends with a quote from chamber spokesperson Tom Collamore saying, "The leaked e-mails appear to show that HBGary Federal was willing to propose questionable actions in an attempt to drum up business, but the chamber was not aware of these proposals until HBGary’s e-mails leaked".

This article proves the point that it is important to secure your e-mail to protect important information that you may not want others to know about!

Database Project Blog; ISM3004

ISM3004: Database Project Blog Post

By: Courtney Jeffries

After completing the database project I feel like I am much more familiar and comfortable using Microsoft Access. Before starting this project, I was worried because even after watching all of the lecture videos, it still seemed like it might be a challenge. There were times that I got stuck, but it was mainly just little issues like sorting the data in the query, and creating a footer in the report. I noticed that going back over the videos and also referring to the class discussion section seemed to really help me and thankfully I managed to find a solution to all my problems without too much stress. Overall, I would now feel comfortable and prepared to help others with problems they might encounter while using Access, and I think that is the number one thing that I have learned.

One way I would enhance the functionality of the database would be, in the report section for example, not having so many page view options. For me personally and others who might not be as familiar with Access, it can get confusing trying to figure out what all these views are for. The report section has four different views to choose from, and even though they can be useful, for a beginner it just seems confusing and I found myself going back and fourth trying to figure out what each view was for, and getting lost in one view when I should have been in a different one. This is really the only thing I found to be a bit annoying. When it came to the more complicated stuff like actually creating a query, form or report, I found the wizard to be extremely helpful and it was probably my favorite part of the whole project.

Presentation Blog Project: ISM3004; Courtney Jeffries

Presentation Blog Project: ISM3004

by: Courtney Jeffries

I chose to do my presentation PowerPoint on the Susan G. Komen non-profit organization; which supports breast cancer research. I felt that my presentation had a logical flow to it and was easy to understand. One improvement I though of after watching a few other students presentation however was that I could have included a bit more research information. For the most part I feel like I answered questions well about what the cause is supporting and what the cause does to show their support.

In order to catch the audience attention I talked about how Susan G. Komen was diagnosed with breast cancer at the young age of 33. One improvement I could have made was to ask the audience more questions, but I do think I did a good job of giving enough information to answer any questions. I felt my context was clear and to the point; my goal was to make it easy for everyone to understand and I feel I accomplished that.

I validated claims by providing the research about the foundation and what they do. I had no typos or errors in my presentation and made sure to double-check my work to make sure of that. I did not feel that my presentation had much clutter but when I looked at some other presentations I noticed a few of them did not have as much on their slides as I did, so maybe to some people it could have appeared slightly cluttered. I did however make sure it had a neat flow. To ensure readability, I made sure to list the main facts on my slides but I also made sure to add additional information when I presented the presentation myself.

Thanks to my presentation I myself learned a lot about the Susan G. Komen foundation that I did not know before. I knew that they supported breast cancer research but I did not know how much actual money they have actually raised in hopes to finding a cure. Also, I was not aware of how many ways the foundation has helped to reach out and teach women about breast cancer who may be unaware that they should have yearly mammograms, etc. in order to prevent the disease. Finally, I was pleasantly surprised to see how many well known companies support and promote the foundation.

Here is a link to my presentation on the Susan G. Komen foundation!

http://www.slideboom.com/presentations/315665/Breast-Cancer-Presentation