Week 01 Posting - Intro

 This is my third-semester writing blogs as an assignment. I wanted to give more information about myself and my journey. I am thirty-five years old and moved back to my hometown after living in Northern California for a couple of years. I felt like nothing was happening and wasn't moving toward anything career-wise. I returned to my hometown to begin working and finish my degree, which I had put on pause for a long time. Working at Target has dramatically benefited me since they are paying for my entire degree. I am projected to be finished by July-ish. I saw that they would also help me reach a master's degree, and I am unsure whether or not I want to go that route, but I will figure that out when I am closer to finishing my Bachelor's. Thanks for coming by and reading this!

Week 10 Posting - Was Fun While It Lasted

 I love blogging because it gives me something extra to think about that isn't related to a specific topic of the week. I can write about something I learned or came across while researching something else. It allows me to look into something separate from my assignments that interested me enough to look deeper into. 

Blogging doesn't come in handy at my current job since I mainly fix up merchandise on store shelves and backrooms.

I have never been much of a talker, and I am only great at formulating thoughts into words if required by an assignment. So, I never enjoyed it, even when I attempted to do it years ago during the Xanga and MySpace ages. I have always believed that no one cares about what I say and only speaks when spoken to, so I never felt a reason for blogging or writing in any journal.

More and more companies are applying to be tech-savvy, and learning that you can blog might give you an advantage for individuals who believe that blogging in the future will reach an audience. It can also be good practice for PR if you are in charge of your company's Twitter account.

Week 9 Posting - BSIT220-T301 - The Wild West

 I learned while doing some more research for my final draft of the fifth milestone that people used to be able to listen in on conversations during 1G. Due to the lack of encryption during the inception of mobile telecommunication, people could listen to discussions if they knew what frequency to listen to and if they were in range. It is wild to think about how big names in the game who were the first to adopt mobile communication could have fallen victim to people eavesdropping on critical and classified calls if they were unaware of the potential risks. Back then, mobile communication really was the Wild West. 

Week 8 Posting - BSIT220-T301 - Physical Firewalls

This might be obvious to many, but I discovered it when researching this week's assignments. I didn't know that there were physical firewalls. I'm sure I read about them earlier, but things go over my head when I am not paying attention to irrelevant things. I learned that they have physical devices between the routers that can filter out threats as they come to the device. It is an excellent layer of protection for devices, and having a device like this for all businesses makes complete sense. Security is about redundancies, and having a firewall before a firewall is another one of those things that should be obvious. 

Week 7 Posting - BSIT220-T301 - Didn't Know This About My Router

 I had yet to learn that my current router came with built-in security, and it even lets you see the potential threats it protected your devices from. I just got the router because I live in a house full of gamers, and it was recommended for its speed and reliability. So, learning earlier while researching for the written assignment and checking out everything my router does, I was blown away to see all of the different threats the router has defending our home network from. Not only that, but it can also be used to set up a VPN and add an existing VPN so that it protects the entire network and not just one device. I am curious to know if these are the default features of every router now; I am just happy that they exist in the one I am using. 

Week 6 Posting - BSIT220-T301 - So Many Addresses

 When doing research into IPv6 and finding out how it alone solved the issue of running out of IP addresses, I began to wonder if it would even be possible to run out of IP addresses using IPv6. Due to the number of addresses available from IPv6, it would not be possible to hit that limit any time soon. However, reaching that limit is still possible due to the finite amount. One thing I found funny while researching this is that the amount of possible IP addresses from IPv6 is more than one hundred times the number of atoms on the surface of the Earth. So, it would be likely to run out since there is not an infinite number of IP addresses. Given what we know today, it might be endless due to the near-zero chance it will ever reach that limit.

Week 5 Posting - BSIT220-T301 - Network TAPs

When doing research for the written assignment, I ran into network TAPs. Still new in the IT game, I wanted to understand better what they were and how they are the alternative to port mirroring. I discovered many network TAPs, like Aggregation TAPs and regeneration TAPs. Still, the two most commonly used for network traffic monitoring are passive and active TAPs.

One major problem shared between the network TAPs and port mirroring is the packet drops that can occur when creating a copy of the data and sending it to the monitoring device. Different applications can help with packet loss, but it is still something inherent to these types of devices.

I would love to see one in action so I can see in person how they can actually assist in security because it's one thing to read about them and watch videos online. Still, seeing it firsthand and being shown how and what to look out for would make a huge difference.