Glossary of Terms 

Camera phone: A small camera built into a modern cell phone.

Cold-call: A phone call that comes “out of the blue” from an unknown person.

Encryption: Converting plain “English” text into what appears to be random data.

Phishing scheme: A scheme where a “bad guy” tries to get a user to turn over sensitive data.

Plain text: Unencrypted data.  Data that exists as “plain English,” for example.

Portable computers: A laptop, netbook, smart phone, or other computer designed to be used on-the-go.

Public computer: A computer that many people share and/or that is left in a public place.  According to security experts, you should never use a computer if you are not reasonably sure it hasn’t been tampered with.

Public terminal: see public computer

Salt value: In cryptography, a salt value is a piece of data added to a bit of data before the data is encrypted.  Salt values are used to make reverse-lookups of plain text passwords (using captured, encrypted data) more difficult.

Security certificate: A certificate issued by a third party company that validates the server in question.  Any site accessed via “httpS” is using a security certificate.  A security certificate can provide both encryption and authentication of a server.

Self-signed certificate: A Security Certificate where the server in question validates itself.  A self-signed certificate provides encryption but NOT authentication.

Server: A server is a physical computer that is accessed by other machines.  For example, every website is running on a server.

Shoulder surfing: The act of “spying” on someone (usually by looking over their shoulder) while they type their password.

Smart phone: A modern cell phone that is capable of many other functions.  Examples could include: iPhone, Blackberry, Palm, Android, etc.

Trusted computer: A trusted computer is one that the user is reasonably sure has not been tampered with.  A computer that stays in a locked office or at home can usually be considered “trusted.”

Web browser: A program that runs on your computer and provides access to the Internet.  The most common web browsers are Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera.