The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the associated entities. Most prominently, it translates readily memorized domain names to the numerical IP addresses needed for locating and identifying computer services and devices with the underlying network protocols. The Domain Name System has been an essential component of the functionality of the Internet since 1985.
In computer networking, a proxy server is a server application that acts as an intermediary between a client requesting a resource and the server providing that resource. It improves privacy, security, and performance in the process.
In cryptography, a certificate authority or certification authority (CA) is an entity that stores, signs, and issues digital certificates. A digital certificate certifies the ownership of a public key by the named subject of the certificate. This allows others to rely upon signatures or on assertions made about the private key that corresponds to the certified public key. A CA acts as a trusted third party—trusted both by the subject (owner) of the certificate and by the party relying upon the certificate. The format of these certificates is specified by the X.509 or EMV standard.
Internet security is a branch of computer security. It encompasses the Internet, browser security, web site security, and network security as it applies to other applications or operating systems as a whole. Its objective is to establish rules and measures to use against attacks over the Internet. The Internet is an inherently insecure channel for information exchange, with high risk of intrusion or fraud, such as phishing, online viruses, trojans, ransomware and worms.
A dark net or darknet is an overlay network within the Internet that can only be accessed with specific software, configurations, or authorization, and often uses a unique customized communication protocol. Two typical darknet types are social networks, and anonymity proxy networks such as Tor via an anonymized series of connections.
Domain privacy is a service offered by a number of domain name registrars. A user buys privacy from the company, who in turn replaces the user's information in the WHOIS with the information of a forwarding service.
Artists Against 419 is an Internet consumer protection group dedicated to identifying and shutting down 419 scam websites. Its volunteers seek to stop, disrupt or hinder fraudsters' activities by cataloging and reporting fraudulent domains.
HTTP cookies are small blocks of data created by a web server while a user is browsing a website and placed on the user's computer or other device by the user's web browser. Cookies are placed on the device used to access a website, and more than one cookie may be placed on a user's device during a session.
In the United States, internet censorship is the suppression of information published or viewed on the Internet in the United States. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects freedom of speech and expression against federal, state, and local government censorship.
DNS hijacking, DNS poisoning, or DNS redirection is the practice of subverting the resolution of Domain Name System (DNS) queries. This can be achieved by malware that overrides a computer's TCP/IP configuration to point at a rogue DNS server under the control of an attacker, or through modifying the behaviour of a trusted DNS server so that it does not comply with internet standards.
Cyber ethics is the philosophic study of ethics pertaining to computers, encompassing user behavior and what computers are programmed to do, and how this affects individuals and society. For years, various governments have enacted regulations while organizations have defined policies about cyberethics.
The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" to see how websites looked in the past. Its founders, Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, developed the Wayback Machine to provide "universal access to all knowledge" by preserving archived copies of defunct web pages.
File sharing in the United Kingdom relates to the distribution of digital media in that country. In 2010, there were over 18.3 million households connected to the Internet in the United Kingdom, with 63% of these having a broadband connection. There are also many public Internet access points such as public libraries and Internet cafes.
Internet censorship circumvention, also referred to as going over the wall or scientific browsing in China, is the use of various methods and tools to bypass internet censorship.
KickassTorrents was a website that provided a directory for torrent files and magnet links to facilitate peer-to-peer file sharing using the BitTorrent protocol. It was founded in 2008 and by November 2014, KAT became the most visited BitTorrent directory in the world, overtaking The Pirate Bay, according to the site's Alexa ranking. KAT went offline on 20 July 2016 when the domain was seized by the U.S. government. The site's proxy servers were shut down by its staff at the same time.
A downgrade attack, also called a bidding-down attack or version rollback attack, is a form of cryptographic attack on a computer system or communications protocol that makes it abandon a high-quality mode of operation in favor of an older, lower-quality mode of operation that is typically provided for backward compatibility with older systems. An example of such a flaw was found in OpenSSL that allowed the attacker to negotiate the use of a lower version of TLS between the client and server. This is one of the most common types of downgrade attacks. Opportunistic encryption protocols such as STARTTLS are generally vulnerable to downgrade attacks, as they, by design, fall back to unencrypted communication. Websites which rely on redirects from unencrypted HTTP to encrypted HTTPS can also be vulnerable to downgrade attacks, as the initial redirect is not protected by encryption.
Internet censorship in Switzerland is regulated by the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland on a case by case basis. Internet services provided by the registered with BAKOM Internet service providers (ISPs) are subject to a "voluntary recommendation" by the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland, which requires blocking of websites just after 18 December 2007. As of October 2015, this might change soon and additional topics like Online gambling are on the focus now.
Quad9 is a global public recursive DNS resolver that aims to protect users from malware and phishing. Quad9 is operated by the Quad9 Foundation, a Swiss public-benefit, not-for-profit foundation with the purpose of improving the privacy and cybersecurity of Internet users, headquartered in Zurich. It is the only global public resolver which is operated not-for-profit, in the public benefit. Quad9 is entirely subject to Swiss privacy law, and the Swiss government extends that protection of the law to Quad9's users throughout the world, regardless of citizenship or country of residence.
Digital cloning is an emerging technology, that involves deep-learning algorithms, which allows one to manipulate currently existing audio, photos, and videos that are hyper-realistic. One of the impacts of such technology is that hyper-realistic videos and photos makes it difficult for the human eye to distinguish what is real and what is fake. Furthermore, with various companies making such technologies available to the public, they can bring various benefits as well as potential legal and ethical concerns.