Hello folks!

It’s been a while since my last post, and judging from my current energy levels and work projects, it may be a few more weeks before I can regularly blog again.

I look forward to a re energized discussion on games in education and the life of an aspiring technical director in New York City.

Warmly,

Bill

Part 1

What is security?

The process of ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and availability of computers, their programs, hardware devices, and data (source).

My list?

• Making sure everything works
• Ensuring data integrity
• Only allowing authorized users to access data and resources
• Keeping physical hardware safe
• Ensuring data is keep private

Just a short list, I know.  I suppose it could be shortened to “keeping stuff safe”.

Where is the best place to implement?

The best place to implement security is low on the OSI chain.  Routers, switches, and network-level devices are an excellent place to start. These devices control communication, and are an excellent way to secure a network. All the other layers are important as well, but security without the low level stuff really isn’t secure, is it?

Information

Before an attack of infection happens, what is happening on our network? With the right tools, we can analyze traffic, and sniff packets in and around our network. We use router and switch logfiles to see from what MAC address is traffic originating from, shape traffic, prioritize traffic, etc… This has the double advantage of being able to optimize our network, and troubleshooting problems as they arise. You also have a history to look back on when diagnosing problems.

After something like this happens, we need to gather as much information as possible. I ask who, what, when, why, where and how, applying each question to the issue at hand. I pay attention to disease vector (how did the virus spread, where did it start).

Being stupid

Of course networks and computers need to be secure. But if this security comes at the price of usability, it doesn’t make sense, does it?  I have seen corporate-types lock down a computer to the point of it being unuseable! I suppose we could build a metal box around a PC, unplug it and proudly exclaim, “She’s Secure, Sir!” This leads us naturally to…

Multiple layers of security

The thinking of “stopping them at the beachhead” is good, but doesn’t really work in a very dynamic network.  Yes it is important to block as much as you can as it comes into your network, but it is equally important to keep each node protected - updated, current anti-virus, etc…

Moreover, it is important inside the organization to block unknown IP addresses, MAC addresses, and require authentication inside the network. Using an authentication server adds a degree of control to the network and creates a virtual paper trail should there be an issue.

The Federation of American Scientists have released a report, Harnessing the power of video games for learning (1.3MB PDF).

It’s an exceptional research report, and rightly calls for more investigation and understanding. 

So I’m taking a class at a local university and learning Polish.  I probably know about 200 words, and I’m learning a great deal about grammar, and vocabulary, The instructor is very good, and the class is moving along at a good pace for new Polish speakers. I’d say I’m getting about 50% of the material, and my Polish is getting much better.

..until that is, I encountered this sentence in my textbook… (this is an actual quote)

“Adjectives referring to masculine inanimate and neuter nouns take in the accusative the same forms as in the nominative.  Masculine adjectives referring to animate nouns take in the accusative the -ego ending, and female adjectives, the ending -q. ...Note that the singular -i- appears between the stems ending in K, G, and ending -ego. The -i- marks palatalization of K and G.”

I’m a pretty smart guy, but these Polish declensions are kicking my ass!

Who changes the NOUN and ADJECTIVE depending on the verb (and it’s gender) in the sentence ?!

Ooof.  I’ll keep trying to learn, but I just had to vent a little.

Having spent the majority of my professional life in an OS X environment, moving to a Windows-based school was quite an adjustment. However, over the last few months, I have been managing with the overall, basic functionality of Windows.  It certainly doesn’t have the same ease of use; and I note the included windows software is light-years behind what is available for OS X.

So last Friday we noticed the school network was sluggish, and then about noon, we had many faculty members reporting pop-ups on their computers.  About 30 or 40 minutes later, we had a call from the college, telling us a virus was port scanning everything in site. We have a pretty standard Windows layout - ghosted machines, anti-virus corporate edition with updated definition files, and we use a fortress-like tool to secure our labs. We have a competent network administrator, and a strong IT team.

Still, though, the sad thing is only one computer on a network needs to be unsecured for the entire system to fall like dominos. It is, actually, a rather classic manifestation of malicious software infestation.

We disabled all incoming and outgoing traffic to our school, and started the painful and arduous process for reissuing passwords and scanning every single machine in the school. Some machines will need to be re-ghosted, and anything saved locally will be erased.

The downtime looks to be moderate (a few hours if we are lucky), but it is a massive pain the neck. Fortunately, it gives me a few hours to write this series of articles about educational network security. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while. 

A question:

Hello. I am very interested in games in education and would love to get
involved in this as a career move. Please contact me.

An answer:

First of all, thank you for asking. It’s actually a great question. 

Become a teacher or school librarian

Almost every state offers a friendly certification process. Usually you need to take 3 or 4 standardized tests. These consist of basic math and writing, human development and learning, subject matter, and pedagogy (every state is different, but that’s the basic gist).

Once you are a teacher (English, science, history, math, etc...) start using games to teach!  As long as you have high standards for your students, you will be fine. 

Being a teacher is great work. Very difficult, and very rewarding.

You could start an after-school club, or do something at your local library, but the real potential of games in the classroom is content-specialists using them to teach. This is an article I wrote about how to use games in your classroom once you are a teacher. Lot’s of stuff to think about before you throw the kids in front of Sim City, or the Sims.

School librarians are often at the center of technology in a school, so it is a logical place to advocate and encourage the use of games (and other technology) in a building.

I suppose you could enter academia, and study the use of games in education (we could always use more research to help inform our thinking about games in the classroom) but I believe it is actual practitioners who can really show this stuff working.