Glossary of Terms

Alphabetic Spam

(AKA Alpha Spam.) Spam which is transmitted to newsgroups in alphabetic order. Alphabetic spam generally indicates that the spammer plans to hit every newsgroup on the net and is completely unconcerned with whether or not the message is appropriate to the newsgroups spammed. The newsgroup alt.3d invariably gets hit first and hardest by alphabetic spam.

Business Continuity

Business Continuity is a progression of disaster recovery, aimed at allowing an organisation to continue functioning after (and ideally, during) a disaster, rather than simply being able to recover after a disaster.

Cryptography

Cryptography is the practice and study of hiding information. In modern times, cryptography is considered to be a branch of both mathematics and computer science, and is affiliated closely with information theory, computer security, and engineering. Cryptography is used in applications present in technologically advanced societies; examples include the security of ATM cards, computer passwords, and electronic commerce, which all depend on cryptography.

FTP

In computing, the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a network protocol used to transfer data from one computer to another through a network, such as over the Internet.
FTP is a file transfer protocol for exchanging files over any TCP/IP based network to manipulate files on another computer on that network regardless of which operating systems are involved (if the computers permit FTP access). There are many existing FTP client and server programs. FTP servers can be set up anywhere between game servers, voice servers, internet hosts, and other physical servers.

Gigabyte

A gigabyte (derived from the SI prefix giga-) is a unit of information or computer storage meaning either exactly 1 billion bytes (10003, or 109) or approximately 1.07 billion bytes (10243, or 230).

Megabyte

A megabyte is a unit of information or computer storage equal to either 106 (1,000,000) bytes or 220 (1,048,576) bytes, depending on context. In rare cases, it is used to mean 1000x1024 (1,024,000) bytes. It is commonly abbreviated as Mbyte or MB (compare Mb, for the megabit). The term megabyte was coined in 1970.

PDA

A personal digital assistant (PDA) is a handheld computer, also known as small or palmtop computers. Newer PDAs also have both color screens and audio capabilities, enabling them to be used as mobile phones (smartphones), web browsers, or portable media players. Many PDAs can access the Internet, intranets or extranets via Wi-Fi, or Wireless Wide-Area Networks (WWANs). Many PDAs employ touch screen technology.

Phishing

In computing, phishing is an attempt to criminally and fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. PayPal, eBay and online banks are common targets. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging, and often directs users to enter details at a website, although phone contact has also been used. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to fool users. Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical measures.

SME

Small and medium enterprises or SMEs, are companies whose headcount or turnover falls below certain limits.
The abbreviation SME occurs commonly in the European Union and in international organizations, such as the World Bank, the United Nations and the WTO. The term small and medium-sized businesses or SMBs is predominantly used in the USA.

SMTP

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is the de facto standard for e-mail transmissions across the Internet. Formally SMTP is defined in RFC 821 (STD 10) as amended by RFC 1123 (STD 3) chapter 5. The protocol used today is also known as ESMTP and defined in RFC 2821.

Spam

E-mail spam, also known as "bulk e-mail" or "junk e-mail", is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by e-mail. A common synonym for spam is unsolicited bulk e-mail (UBE). Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk. "UCE" refers specifically to "unsolicited commercial e-mail."

Terabyte

A terabyte (derived from the prefix tera- and commonly abbreviated TB) is a measurement term for data storage capacity. The value of a terabyte based upon a decimal radix (base 10) is defined as one trillion (short scale) bytes, or 1000 gigabytes.

Virus

A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without permission or knowledge of the user. The term "virus" is also commonly used, albeit erroneously, to refer to many different types of malware and adware programs. The original virus may modify the copies, or the copies may modify themselves, as occurs in a metamorphic virus.

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