Protecting A Computer

Essay by Anonymous UserHigh School, 10th grade November 1995

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About two hundred years before, the word 'computer' started to appear

in the dictionary. Some people even didn't know what is a computer.

However, most of the people today not just knowing what is a computer, but

understand how to use a computer.

Therefore, computer become more and more popular and important to our

society. We can use computer everywhere and they are very useful and

helpful to our life. The speed and accuracy of computer made people felt

confident and reliable. Therefore, many important information or data are

saved in the computer. Such as your diary, the financial situation of a oil

company or some secret intelligence of the military department. A lot of

important information can be found in the memory of computer. So, people

may ask a question: Can we make sure that the information in the computer

is safe and nobody can steal it from the memory of the computer?

Physical hazard is one of the causes of destroying the data in the

computer. For example, send a flood of coffee toward a personal computer.

The hard disk of the computer could be endangered by the flood of coffee.

Besides, human caretaker of computer system can cause as much as harm as

any physical hazard. For example, a cashier in a bank can transfer some

money from one of his customer's account to his own account. Nonetheless,

the most dangerous thief are not those who work with computer every day,

but youthful amateurs who experiment at night --- the hackers.

The term 'hacker 'may have originated at M.I.T. as students' jargon for

classmates who labored nights in the computer lab. In the beginning,

hackers are not so dangerous at all. They just stole computer time from the

university. However, in the early 1980s, hackers became a...