Email security

Just about finished with this topic now, we've been using www.lockbin.com Outlook Express and Thunderbird to explore sending and receiving encrypted emails and digital signatures.
Almost all have made a start on their research topics by now... challenge each other by posting comments on others' blogs! :)

Review of secure communications

Last week we summarised with each taking their own notes:

    encryption algorithms - types (RSA, DES, blowfish, RC4 etc)

    digital signatures and certificates - Public Key Infrastructure

    secure sockets - encryption protocols (SSL, TSL)
    proxy servers

    firewalls - hardware (network based) or software (application based)

Then today we had a quiz to check understanding of above - team 'Calvin, Gordon, Calum and Pawel' won; well done!

We also talked about different connection types... what's most suitable for where, speeds,etc.  Calum gave an example of a home network where multiple users caused a noticable difference to access and download speeds.