What Is the Difference Between a Computer Virus, a Worm and a Trojan Horse?

Assignment 9

1. Read the Wikipedia article on “computer virus" , then answer these questions by writing a short paragraph for each one.

What is the difference between a computer virus, a worm and a Trojan horse?

A computer Virus is a malware program that replicates itself and inserts itself into other computer programs or files. A worm is a malware program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers, usually via a computer network. A worm doesn’t need to attach itself to another program like a computer virus does. A work is usually design just to spread in comparison to a virus that is usually designed to gain valuable information or cause harm to someone. A Trojan Horse is any malicious computer software which disguises itself as useful or helpful to fool a victim into installing it. The word comes from the old trick the greek used to infiltrate Troy.

What steps should you take to avoid viruses?

Download anti-virus software that detects and protects your computer from known viruses. Make regular backups of your data that are kept on an unconnected system so a virus can’t destroy all your data. Restore an earlier clean copy backup of your computer from a disk or outside copy. Careful internet browsing, timely operating system updates, and only installing trusted software.

How might computer viruses be detected?

Anti-virus software uses virus signature definitions. It examines the content of a computer's memory and compares it to a database of known virus signatures. A virus signature is a string of code used to identify viruses. The other way to detect a virus is to use a heuristic algorithm based on common virus behavior. IT can identify new viruses that don’t have a signature yet, however it can have many false positives.

How might an operating system protect you from computer viruses?

You can re-install an operating system as a way to remove a virus. The original hard drive can be reformatted and re-installing the operating system can clean the computer of the virus.

2.

I used google translate and noticed some patterns in mis-translated sentences between English and Spanish. The first sentence I used was “the housing market crashed” and when I translated it back into english it read “the real estate market crashed”. Obviously in english real estate is more than just houses but it seems that in spanish they use real estate to refer more to residential land. Another sentence I did was “gray desk boy helped” and it returned after translation as “Gray boy helped desk”. As you can tell these two sentences have different meanings. Spanish arranges its words differently than in english and references nouns differently, so through the translation the words became re-arranged. My last example, an anaphora, was “My life is my purpose. My life is my goal. My life is my inspiration.” which translated back in the exact same way. The structure of this sentence is equal in both languages so no problems arose through translation. It’s very interesting to me how some sentences are virtually impossible to say the same way in two different languages because of the different language structure.

3.

As mentioned in the Wikipedia page, PageRank is the best known method for ranking a page on Google and was named after Larry Page. The algorithm works by finding a web page and seeing how many times that web page has been linked in other web sites. For example, when Google is ranking a specific web page it will scan to see if the webpage has been mentioned in the New York Times’ official website as well as other various high traffic websites. Google will then rank the website higher on their search engine in relation to other similar websites that have not had as much recognition from other high traffic pages because that website has received notable recognition. Another method Google ranks a web page is seeing how much traffic the specific webpage has received. If your website is receiving a high amount of traffic due to an external variable, like an advertisement on television, Google will pick up on this and increase your pagerank.

There are many techniques individuals can use to increase their search engine optimization. One common technique is creating a blog that pertains to your website that is loaded with content and youtube videos. As people view your youtube videos pertaining to your website that has your blog or website linked to it viewers will begin to click through to your website or blog. The key part to this formula is having your website