CALIFORNIA
CIVIL DISCOVERY LAW
CALIFORNIA CIVIL DISCOVERY
ELECTRONIC DATA DISCOVERY
VIRTUAL DISCOVERY
TECH GLOSSARY GUIDE
Various web sites provide definitions of technical terms. The following samples illustrate the different styles, treatment and depth. The web sites are listed with exemplar definitions and additional definitional web sites are listed below. Recommendations of other sites are appreciated.
http://homepages.enterprise.net/jenko/Glossary/G.htm
"BACKUP "
A Back up is a duplicate copy of some data or a disk or some software that is made by the user as a safeguard against the loss of the original information. Should this happen then the information can be recovered by restoring or copying the information back from the backup.
Techweb, Tech Encyclopedia
http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/
tape backup
Using magnetic tape for storing duplicate copies of hard disk files. See magnetic tape. For a complete summary of tape, disk and optical storage technologies, see storage.
magnetic tape
A sequential storage medium used for data collection, backup and historical purposes. Like videotape, computer tape is made of flexible plastic with one side coated with a ferromagnetic material. Tapes come in reels and cartridges of many sizes and shapes. Although still used in legacy systems, open reels have been mostly superseded by cartridges with enhanced storage capacities.
Locating a specific record on tape requires reading every record in front of it or searching for markers that identify predefined partitions. Although most tapes are used for archiving rather than routine updating, some drives allow rewriting in place if the byte count does not change. Otherwise, updating requires copying files from the original tape to a blank tape (scratch tape) and adding the new data in between.
Tracks either run parallel to the edge of the tape (linear recording) or diagonally (helical scan). A variation of linear recording is serpentine recording, where sets of tracks are duplicated and the data "snakes" back and forth from the end to the beginning.
Open reel tapes use nine linear tracks (8 bits plus parity), while modern cartridges use up to 128 or more (Magstar). Data is recorded in blocks of contiguous bytes, separated by a space called an "interrecord gap" or "interblock gap." Tape drive speed is measured in inches per second (ips). Over the years, storage density has increased from 200 to 38,000 bpi.
Tape is more economical than disks for archival data. However, if tapes are stored for the duration, they must be periodically recopied or the tightly coiled magnetic surfaces may contaminate each other. See helical scan.
storage
The semi-permanent or permanent holding place for digital data. Storage means disks and tapes, not memory. Memory, which is made of RAM chips, is a temporary workspace for executing instructions and processing data. All storage devices in the Encyclopedia are summarized below under the following entries:
storage 1 - magnetic disks storage 2 - optical disks storage 3 - magnetic tapes
BITS & BYTES & CYBERSPACE
http://www.matisse.net/files/glossary.html
Bit
(Binary DigIT) -- A single digit number in base-2, in other words, either a 1 or a zero. The smallest unit of computerized data. Bandwidth is usually measured in bits-per-second.
See Also: Bandwidth , Bps , Byte , Kilobyte , Megabyte
Byte
A set of Bits that represent a single character. Usually there are 8 Bits in a Byte, sometimes more, depending on how the measurement is being made.
See Also: Bit
Cyberspace
Term originated by author William Gibson in his novel Neuromancer the word Cyberspace is currently used to describe the whole range of information resources available through computer networks.
CARNIVORE
Carnivore is the Internet surveillance system developed by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), who developed it to monitor the electronic transmissions of criminal suspects. Critics, however, charge that Carnivore does not include appropriate safeguards to prevent misuse and might violate the constitutional rights of the individual.
Carnivore, a PC- or laptop-based application, is installed with an Internet service provider (ISP) to keep court-ordered tabs on a criminal suspect's e-mail and instant messages. The FBI says it cannot be enabled without help from the ISP. It works much like a commercial sniffer and other network diagnostic tools. The FBI says Carnivore has a unique ability to distinguish between communications that have been authorized for interception and those it does not have the right to search. For instance, Carnivore could be configured to intercept e-mail but not online shopping records.
Documents suggest that the FBI may have been working on a predecessor to Carnivore as early as 1996. But the FBI officially began the Carnivore project, under the name "Omnivore," in February 1997. It was proposed originally for a Solaris X86 computer. In June 1999, Omnivore was replaced by Carnivore running on a Windows NT-based system.
Carnivore's chief critic is the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a public interest group dedicated to emerging civil liberties issues. The group sued and got the FBI to release background information on the system, although the Bureau refused to turn over Carnivore's source code. A private study conducted by the Illinois Institute of Technology Research Institute, which was commissioned by the U.S. Justice Department, found several shortcomings in Carnivore. For example, the system does not keep track of individual users, so any operator defaults to "administrator," leaving no audit trail. Also, the system lacks a feature that would require users to confirm that a court order was granted. The U.S. Congress is currently considering bills that would restrict the FBI's use of Carnivore.
Some security software vendors now claim to have developed alternatives to Carnivore. Carnivore could also lead to a rise in encryption software for Internet transactions, which would make such "sniffer" tools less effective. The FBI explains the intended use of Carnivore on its Web site: http://www.fbi.gov/programs/carnivore/carnivore.htm The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) discusses its objection to Carnivore on its site: http://www.epic.org NOTES: Lowell, this is a definition that will probably require updating over the coming months. Congress continues to debate Carnivore and its uses. Should a bill be passed, it would definitely need to be included. I'll keep my eyes out for you.
Read more about it at:
> The FBI explains Carnivore on its Web site.
> The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) discusses its objections to Carnivore.
> SearchSecurity.com provides news and links to more information about Carnivore.
Last updated on: Dec 21, 2000
COOKIE
http://www.nexausa.com/Glossary.html
The most common meaning of "Cookie" on the Internet refers to a piece of information sent by a Web Server to a Web Browser that the Browser software is expected to save (on the computer hard drive) and to send back to the server whenever the browser makes additional requests from the server. An excellent resource to find out more about cookies and how to stop or delete them is Cookie Central.
DATA WAREHOUSING
Net Lingo Definitions: http://www.netlingo.com/inframes.html
A generic term used for a system for storing, retrieving and managing large amounts of any type of data. Data warehouse software often includes sophisticated compression and hashing techniques for fast searches, as well as advanced filtering. Planners and researchers can use this database freely without worrying about slowing down day-to-day operations of the production database.
DIGITAL
NetLingo: http://www.netlingo.com/inframes.html
A form of representation in which distinct objects, or digits, are used to stand for something in the real world, so that counting and other operations can be performed precisely. Data represented digitally can be manipulated to produce a calculation, a sort, or some other computation. In digital electronic computers, two electrical states correspond to the 1's and the 0's of binary numbers, which are manipulated by computer programs.
FILE FRAGMENT
http://www.pcguide.com/
A search for "file fragments" produced 492 links that appear very useful starting with:
CROSS REFERENCES
[ The PC Guide | Systems and Components Reference Guide | Hard Disk Drives | Hard Disk Logical Structures and File Systems | Clusters and File Allocation ]
AND A DEFINITION
File Deletion and UndeletionOne of the advantages of the FAT file system is the ease with which it allows for files to be undeleted, because of the way that it deletes files. Contrary to what many people believe, deleting a file does not result in the contents of the file actually being removed from the disk. All that the system does is mark the file as deleted.When you delete a file, the system doesn't really delete the file. It places the hex byte code E5h into the first letter of the file name of the file. This is a special tag that tells the system "this file has been deleted". The space that was formerly used by the file is available for use by other files, but it is not cleared. It is just sort of "left there".Over time, these clusters will eventually probably be reused by other files as they request more clusters for storage. However, if you accidentally delete a file you can very often recover it if you act quickly. If you run a utility like DOS's UNDELETE or Norton Utilities' UNERASE immediately, it can identify and recover the deleted files in a directory. As long as you provide it with the missing first character of the file name (which was overwritten by the E5h code when the file was deleted), it may be able to recover all or most of the file. The less you do between the time the file is deleted and the time when you try to undelete it, the more likely you will be able to recover the file. Obviously, if you defragment your disk or do some other large-scale disk work, you will most likely lose the file's contents forever. Finally, many utilities will protect your files after being deleted so they can be recovered easily without worrying about the disk space being reused. For example, Windows 95 sends all deleted files initially to its "Recycle Bin", from which they can be restored if needed. Norton Utilities also includes a form of protection for recently-deleted files.
HARD DISK DRIVE
http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/
A search for "hard disk drive" yields
hard disk drive
<storage> (HDD) A disk drive used to read and write hard disks.
which links to e.g. hard disks and explains as follows:
<storage> (In contrast to floppy disk). One or more rigid magnetic disks rotating about a central axle with associated read/write heads and electronics, used to store data. Most hard disks are permanently connected to the drive (fixed disks) though there are also removable disks.
High speed disks have an access time of 28 milliseconds or less, and low-speed disks run 65 milliseconds or more. The higher speed disks also transfer their data faster than the slower speed units.
Each surface of each disk is divided into a number of evenly spaced concentric circular tracks. The set of all tracks at a given radius on all surfaces (the tracks which can be accessed without moving the heads) are known as a cylinder. Each track is divided into sectors.
Disk drives are commonly characterised by the kind of interface used to connect to the computer, e.g. ATA, IDE, SCSI.
See also winchester.
Suchanka's PC-DISK library.
OTHER SITES TO CHECK OUT
http://whatis.techtarget.com/
http://www.technologyterms.com/
http://webopedia.com/
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7273/compglos.html
http://www.ora.com/reference/dictionary/
http://acky.net/terms/#s
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/