Unit 4 Digital Impacts - Topic 1: Digital methods for exchanging data

In this topic, students will:

• recognise and describe
  • encryption

    a process in cryptography of encoding (converting) data, using mathematical formulas, into a form that only an intended recipient can decode, often including a personal digital signature, e.g. when connecting to an online banking or shopping website, typically on login, a secure communication is set up based on encryption provided at the website, and this will be represented by a https://URL and a lock symbol on the user’s internet browser
    and authentication strategies appropriate for securing data transmissions and their differences
  • features of symmetric (Data Encryption Standard — DES, Triple DES, AES — Advanced Encryption Standard, Blowfish and Twofish) and assymetric (RSA) encryption algorithms
  • how data
    compression

    a process of encoding information using fewer bits, i.e. 0 or 1, than an original representation, to reduce file size, typically using mathematical formulas to remove repeated data, combine related data or simplify data, e.g. a line segment can be represented by the position of the end points instead of every dot on it;
    
    common examples include:

    • .zip files, which can contain one or more files or folders that have been compressed
    • .jpg files in digital photography are produced by processing complete (lossless) data from a camera’s sensor through compressing (looking for redundant/unnecessary data) into a smaller file size
    • .mp3 files for audio, which compress an original audio source to reduce the file size significantly but still sound like an exact copy of the original
    , encryption and hashing are used in the storage and transfer of data
  • how simple algorithms consist of input, process and output at various stages
  • how useability principles are used to inform solution development
  • how the elements and principles of visual communication inform user interface development
• explain
  • Australian Privacy Principles

    The Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), which are contained in schedule 1 of the Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act), outline how most Australian and Norfolk Island Government agencies, all private sector and not-for-profit organisations with an annual turnover of more than $3 million, all private health service providers and some small businesses (collectively called ‘APP entities’) must handle, use and manage personal information (Australian Government 2013).
    (2014 - OAIC) and ethics applicable to the use of personally identifiable or sensitive data from a digital systems perspective
  • network transmission principles, including latency, jitter, guarantee and timeliness of delivery, and
    protocols

    a set of generally accepted standards or ‘rules’ that govern relationships and interactions between and within information systems
    relevant to the transmission of data over the internet, e.g. HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, VPN, streaming and broadcasting data packets
  • methods for data exchange used to transfer data across networked systems including
    REST

    the underlying architectural principle of the web, where requesting systems (clients, browsers) and servers can interact in complex ways without the client knowing anything beforehand about the server and the resources it hosts using a uniform and predefined set of stateless operations; this is a way of providing interoperability between computer systems on the internet; an API that adheres to the principles of REST does not require the client to know anything about the structure of the API; the server provides whatever information the client needs to interact with the service
    , JSON and XML
• symbolise, analyse and evaluate Caesar, Polyalphabetic (e.g. Vigenere and Gronsfield), and one-time pad encryption algorithms
• describe data using appropriate naming conventions, data formats and structures
• symbolise and explain
  • how application sub-systems, e.g. front end, back end, work together to constitute a solution
  • secure data transmission techniques and processes, including the use of encryption, decryption, authentication, hashing and checksums
  • the basic constructs of an algorithm, including assignment, sequence, selection, condition, iteration and
    modularisation

    a concept used for reducing the complexity of a system; this system (e.g. IT application) is deconstructed into more or less independent units or modules; the modules should be able to exist independently from each other, but the system as a whole can only function as an integrated structure
• symbolise
  • representations of a digital solution
  • data flow through a system using data flow diagrams.