COIT20246 Assignment: Exploring Computer Science Technologies

This COIT20246 assignment submission by Santoshi Khadka explores various computer science topics across ten weeks, each focusing on a specific technology or concept. Week 1 examines CPU security exploits, specifically Spectre and Meltdown, summarizing how they compromise CPU functionality. Week 2 delves into early GUI operating systems, with a focus on the Xerox Alto. Week 3 investigates Low-Powered Wide-Area Networks (LPWANs) and their applications in the Internet of Things (IoT). Week 4 analyzes Voice over IP (VoIP) protocols, particularly the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Week 5 discusses blockchain technology, explaining its underlying mechanisms separate from cryptocurrencies. Each week includes a summary of a chosen resource, providing insights into the workings, applications, and implications of these technologies. The assignment adheres to Harvard referencing style and requires the student's own words, highlighting the student's understanding of the subject matter.

COIT 20246 ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSION
Due date: Thursday Week 11 (2PM AEST)
Part: Written Assessment
Weighting: 30% of total assessment.
Submission: Electronic (see course website for details)
Instructions
It will be necessary to use literature/online resources to complete this
assignment, please ensure you cite and reference any such materials using
the Harvard format.
DO NOT copy content directly from either the text or Internet resources: this
assignment is to be in your own words. You will lose marks if you do not
use your own words!
Please complete your assignment using this submission template file,
inserting your responses where indicated.
DO NOT delete the marking criteria page – changes are permitted to the
formatting of other pages including the headers and footers.
Please fill in the following details:
Student Name SANTOSHI KHADKA
Student Number 12086896
Tutor’s Name ZAKIULLAH KHAN

Tasks
There are ten (10) tasks, one for each week: the tasks are detailed below. There is a
table to complete for each task. Please fill in the information required.
Note: Each resource summary should be around 200-300 words.
Week 1
The text discusses how modern CPUs function. Recently a critical flaw in microprocessor
design has been discovered that allows two extremely serious security exploits: Spectre and
Meltdown. Find and summarise ONE resource that describes how either of these exploits
work. The resource (and your summary) should focus on what is occurring in the CPU that
allows these exploits to occur.
Title and Reference:
Meltdown and Spectre: How chip hacks work’
BBC News. 2018. ‘Meltdown and Spectre: How chip hacks work’. [online] Available
at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42564461 [Accessed 22 May 2018].
Summary:
The article focuses on the discussion about the vulnerabilities called spectra and
meltdown. The reason for choosing this article is that this site provides the workings
of spectra and meltdown.
The CPU of the computer shuffles data between the different parts of the memory
and the computer chips. This work is done by the kernel of the computer. The main
objective of the CPU is to provide necessary data to the users and performs the
operation as fast as possible. The newly discovered vulnerability works when the
data is in cache and is managed by the processor. The main feature of the Spectra is
to make the programs to perform the unnecessary tasks and makes a way to leak
the important data (BBC News 2018). On the other hand the meltdown uses the
memory used by kernel to collect the information, which is not desirable.
The spectra and meltdown, both the vulnerabilities are of “speculative execution” in
nature. The speculative execution allows the pre determined result generation before
the execution of the memory processes. This action can allow the hackers to control
the processing of the instructions and to get the sensitive data regarding the system.
According to the experts the individuals are not at the higher risks zone.
However, the companies providing services to the others can be largely affected
from these vulnerabilities. In order to mitigate the effect of the vulnerabilities the
patches has been provided. However, the use of patches indicates the degradation
of the speed and the performance of the CPU. The reduction of the performance of
the CPU may not be noticeable for the individuals however, the circumstances of
reduced performance may be noticed in the large organizations.
The article provides an insight about the workings and the definition of these two
security vulnerabilities. It also provides a view about the risks associated with these
vulnerabilities and the ways for the elimination of the vulnerabilities.

Week 2
Prior to 1985, there were very fewOperating Systems (OSes) that used Graphical User
Interfaces (GUIs). Find and summarise ONE resource that describes ONE of these GUI
operating systems. The OS must have been release prior to 1985 so cannot be Microsoft
Windows.
Title and Reference:
History of Computers and Computing, Birth of the modern computer, Personal
computer, Xerox Alto
History-computer.com. 2018. ‘History of Computers and Computing, Birth of the modern
computer, Personal computer, Xerox Alto’. [online] Available at:
http://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Personal/Alto.html [Accessed 22 May 2018].
Summary:
The article give sthe details about the Xerox Alto. The reason for choosing this article
is that it provides the detailed view of the first operating system developed before
1985 that supports the graphical user interface.
Xerox Alto developed by Xerox PARC in 1972 was the first attempt to the
development of the operating system that uses graphical user interface (History-
computer.com 2018). The development of Xerox Alto influences the design and the
working principal of the personal computer at a great level.
However, the project of developing such operating was not commercialized. Xerox
Alto operating system was used in the universities and the research purpose. That
operating system cannot be purchased by anybody for the individual use. The
operating system was influenced by the on-line system(NLS). The features of the
original Xerox Alto are-
Memory- 128 KB
Hard drive- Cartridge hard drive of 2.5 MB which was removable.
Three button mouse
5.8 MHz CPU.
The display was bit mapped and black and white in nature.
The PARC Altos can be connected through the local area network using the
Ethernet. The application software supported in this operating system is written in the
BCPL code followed by the Smalltalk and the Mesa programming language. The
processor used for running this operating system is bit slices processor made by the
Texas Instruments (74181 chip).
This article is helpful as it describes the details about the first operating system that
attempted the graphical user interface. The article deals with the both hardware and
software specification needed for the operating system which gives an overview
about the working of this operating system.
Week 3
Low-Powered Wide-Area Networks (LPWANs) are wireless communication networks that are
characterised by linking devices over large distances. Devices (including simple sensors)

typically can only communicate at very low bit rates, however, the communication and
associated electronics consume very little power. As such, LPWAN devices can be battery
powered and operateindependently for many months or even years. Find and summarise
ONE resource that describes ONE platform or technology that implements a LPWAN.
Title and Reference:
LPWA network technologies and standards: LPWAN wireless IoT guide’
i-SCOOP. 2018. ‘LPWA network technologies and standards: LPWAN wireless IoT guide’.
[online] Available at:
https://www.i-scoop.eu/internet-of-things-guide/lpwan/ [Accessed 22 May 2018].
Summary:
This article describes the application of the Low-Powered Wide-Area Networks in the
field of IoT. The reason for choosing this article is that both the IoT and LPWAN are
the emerging concepts. The paper describes overview of the solutions provided by
the LPWAN in the field of IoT along with the various approaches and the facts about
the deployment of the implementation.
There is a difference between LPWA and LPWAN. LPWAN refers to the standards
which denotes low power wide area network. There are certain questions about the
deployment methods and the usages of the LPWAN (i-SCOOP 2018). However, the
use of this network standard is becoming popular for the IoT( internet of things). One
of the main adjective of the IoT is to provide service using low power consumption.
The low power consumption can be achieved through the use of the LPWAN. In most
of the cases, the industrial IoT uses a mix , which is using the conventional network
along with the use of fixed line( a usage of LPWAN) in order to communicate.
One of the major drawbacks of using LPWAN is the confusion of the application
regarding LPWAN. The selection of the particular LPWAN offerings depends on the
requirement specification for the company.
There are various LPWAN standards such as non-cellular and the unlicensed band
which are out of the licensed standard.
The article provides a bunch of rich information about the overview and the
standards of using LPWAN for the IoT. It also defines the future of this technology
and the possibilities which are growing around this technology.
Week 4
Voice over IP (VoIP) is a group of hardware and software technologies that allow users to
communicate via voice and video over the Internet. VoIP uses a number of different software
protocols, depending on the application. Find and summarise ONE resource that describes
ONE of these VoIP protocols.
Title and Reference:
The Session Initiation Protocol - The Internet Protocol Journal
Cisco. 2018. ‘The Session Initiation Protocol - The Internet Protocol Journal - Volume 6,
Number 1’. [online] Available at:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/press/internet-protocol-journal/back-issues/table-
contents-23/sip.html [Accessed 22 May 2018].
Summary:
The article discusses about the Session Initiation Protocol which is regarded as one
of the VoIP protocols. The article gives a detailed view about the workings of this
protocol.
The overview of the session Initiation Protocol is given. SIP is a signalling protocol
which helps to create , modify and terminate any multimedia sessions over internet.
The session can be a calling between two endpoints. It is an application layer
protocol which delivers the transfer of voice and calls over IP network (Cisco 2018).
The SIP protocol is defined in RFC 3261 and its standard is defined by Internet
Engineering Task Force. The use of SIP can be employed for both unicast and
multicast sessions.
While establishing and terminating the multimedia communication SIP supports five
components-
User location: The user can move to another location and can use the internet
telephone.
User availability: This step determines the willingness of the of the calling endpoint to
engage in the communication.
User capabilities: This step determines the required media and media parameters.
Setup of the session: This stage sets up the connection between the endpoints on
the basis o the agreed parameters.
Management of the session: This step involves in the creating, modification and the
termination of the session by modifying the session parameters.
The importance of the article is that this article has discussed the detailed description
of the session initiation protocol. However, the comparative study with the other VoIP
protocols has not been discussed in this article. The main contribution of the article is
that it provides the detailed information about the working principal of the SIP
protocol.
Week 5
One of the many uses of cryptography has been the development of the blockchain.
Blockchains are commonly used as the basis for maintaining the data integrity of crypto
currencies, though have many, many more applications. Find and summarise ONE resource
that describes how blockchains work. Note that the resource should focus on the blockchain
mechanism, NOT crypto currencies.
Title and Reference:
What is blockchain technology and how does it work?
Kettley 2018. Blockchain 2018:’ What is blockchain technology and how does it work?’.
[online] Express.co.uk. Available at:
https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/917059/what-is-blockchain-technology-how-does-it-
work [Accessed 22 May 2018].
Summary:
This article focuses on the definition of the block chain along with the working

principal of the block chain. The reason for choosing this article is supported by the
fact that this article is particular about the definition and giving the general working
principal of the block chain technology.
Block chain is way of maintain the record in the business process. It uses peer-to-
peer ledger in order to store the records. The use of the block chain technology can
be used for various purpose. However, the block chain technology has become
famous as it uses to keep the transaction record in the crypto currency system.
The workings of the block chain depends on the utilization of the daisy chained data
blocks. Each data blocks records the transaction and verifies the transactions. The
block chain transactions are time stamped and each of the block contains a hash
value which works as a digital signature.
The hash value prevents outside stamping which enhances the security process.
Thus the block chain mechanism provides a secured way of storing and verifying the
data and records compared to the traditional system.
The paper contributes in understanding the bock chain and its working principals.
However, the working methodology of the block chain has not been discussed in
broader way in this article, but the advices and the opinions of the experts about the
use and the security of the block chain has enriched this article in order to
understand the effectiveness of this technology.
Week 6
One controversial practical application of network traffic management is in the contravention
of the principle of “net neutrality”. Find and summarise ONE resource that describes what net
neutrality is and how its contravention could impact on individual and business users of the
Internet.
Title and Reference:
Net Neutrality Was Repealed and How It Affects You
Collins 2018. Why Net Neutrality Was Repealed and How It Affects You. [online]
Nytimes.com. Available at:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/technology/net-neutrality-rules.html [Accessed
22 May 2018].
Summary:
The article discusses the net neutrality and its effects in general sense. This article
tries to provide a overview of the net neutrality and its effects on both the individuals
and the organizations. The reason for choosing this article is that this paper will
provide the information about net neutrality and its contravention and impact on the
business.
Net neutrality provides a way that makes the internet service providers to offer equal
internet services to all the users. The net neutrality will not allow the charging for the
higher quality of service in the internet or specific treatment for some specific
websites.
The application of the net neutrality was proposed for dome of the reasons. It has
been seen that the behaviour of using the internet is changing. Using the net
neutrality, the internet service providers can not block any lawful content or the

websites and they cannot slow down the transmission of the data.
Some of the users are afraid that using the net neutrality will make the accessing of
the websites expensive. The internet service providers will sell the transmission of
the service in bundle. The imposing of the bundling system under the net neutrality
will make the users to pay money for accessing popular free websites.
Another concern about the net neutrality is that the consumers can suffer from pay to
play deals. The large internet service providing companies will occupy the fast
transmission of internet while the others will still get the low transmission rate of
internet. This will affect the small business companies as they cannot pay as much
compared to the industry giants. The net neutrality will not provide a sustainable
development to the growth of start ups and e-commerce.
The paper contributes to the impact of the net neutrality on the small and large scale
business organizations along with the individual users.

Week 7
Information Systems have led to greater and greater degrees of automation in the workplace.
There is currently extensive speculation on which jobs will cease to be performed by humans
in the near future. Find and summarise ONE resource that discusses jobs that are likely to
not exist in the future due to ICT based automation. Note that the resource must clearly link
the loss of the job(s) to advances in ICT.
Title and Reference:
The Effects of Technology on Employment and Implications for Public Employment
Services
G20.org.tr. 2018. [online] Available at:
http://g20.org.tr/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/The-Effects-of-Technology-on-Employment-and-
Implications-for-Public-Employment-Services.pdf [Accessed 22 May 2018].
Summary:
The article is concerned about the negative effect of the advancement of ICT on the
employment. The reason for choosing this article is that the article clearly describes
the attributes those are playing apart in the unemployment. The paper also discusses
about the ways to mitigate the negativity.
The advancement of the technology has changes the economy and the labour
market. The improvement of the ICT has enable the implementation of the smart
cities and the smart houses (G20.org.tr 2018). The technical advancement has led
to the elimination of the human resources.
Smart machines supported by the ICT is replacing the human and these smart
machines and technologies are used by the organizations. The organizations are
inclined to use the advancement of the ICT as it delivers more accurate results in
short time spans. These technologies are serving the organizations in such a way so
that they can gain more profit and can get the cost effective solutions.
Some of the experts say that the advancement of ICT has improved the chances of
getting digital jobs. However, those jobs are specified for some number of experts
who are knowledgeable enough to manage the ICCT driven machines. This
tendency is developing the polarization of the job opportunity which is not desirable.
Many organizations are sacking employees as the ICT is going to be the substitute of
the large amount of employees. This is enhancing the number of unemployable. The
advancement of the ICT is shifting then more risks to the individuals as the nature of
labour market is also changing.
The paper contributes to provide information about the use of ICT in the industry and
the way it is effecting the labour market by increasing the number of unemployed.
However, there are counter argument about the effects of ICT for the job seekers.
This paper also contributes the facts that can help to mitigate the negative effect of
the advancement of the technology.
Week 8
With the advent of mass data collection and storage has come the use of these datasets for
machine learning. Find and summarise ONE resource that describes what machine learning
is and how it is being used.

Title and Reference:
Machine Learning: What it is and why it matters.
Sas.com. 2018. Machine Learning: What it is and why it matters. [online] Available at:
https://www.sas.com/en_in/insights/analytics/machine-learning.html [Accessed 22 May 2018].
Summary:
The article is provided by the SAS. This article focuses on the concept of the
machine learning and its importance in the technical field. This article provides an
overview of the machine learning and the use of machine learning.
Machine learning started form the concept of the pattern reorganization. The primary
concept of the machine learning reflects that the machines able to give response
without the execution of then pre programmed instructions (Sas.com 2018). The
systems can find the answers from the analysis of the data. The system can learn
from the previous computational results and procedures.
The importance of the machine learning lies on the quick processing of the data
without human interaction. The self evaluation of the process by the system using the
data can reduce the computational cost and provide more powerful and affordable
storage of data.
However, the use of the machine learning needs more complex algorithm and
requires the handling of the experts. The automation and the iterative process of
implementation of the machine learning needs to be scalable. The use of machine
learning can be applied to the various fields. It can be used in the IoT and solving
the various business challenges.
The main contribution of the paper is that it provides the basic knowledge about
machine learning at initial stage and the follows
The detailed analysis of the machine learning form the bigger perspective. It also
discusses about the future possibilities of developing the system using the machine
learning and the requirements for developing the machine learning process.
Week 9
Critical to application development are the languages used to implement the specifications.
Find and summarise ONE resource that describes ONE programming language that has
been developed since 2008. The resource (and your summary) should include information
on the principle uses and features of the language.
Title and Reference:
A Programming Language That Combines Best Of Python, Go, And Rust.
Verma, A. (2018). Nim — A Programming Language That Combines Best Of Python, Go, And
Rust. [online] Fossbytes. Available at:
https://fossbytes.com/nim-programming-language-nimrod/ [Accessed 22 May 2018].
Summary:
This article discusses about the Nim programming language which has been developed from
2008. The reason for choosing this article is that it contributes in discussing the features of
this programming language.

Nim was known as Nimrod, which can be regarded as the improvement of the python
programming language. The main feature of this programming language is that the
compromisation of the run time efficiency is not done in this programming language.
The syntax use in this programming language is similar to the paython. The main
advantage of Nim is that it merges the effectiveness of the Go, Paython,Rust and
Lisp. The development of the Nim has started from 2008 and the most recent relese
of the version of Nim is 0.16. Nim is an object oriented language which prefers
composition over inheritance.
The local heaps and the messaged are passed between the threads in case of Nim.
The benchmark of the Nim is comparable to the C. The compiler of the Nim
programming language produces the C code by default (Verma 2018). The use of
different backend compilers can produces Javascript, C++ or objective-C The Nim
compiler and library are MIT licensed.
The Nim tries to combine the advantages of the programming languages like Go,
Rust and Lisp. However, the use of this programming language is not very popular
and is used by the few developers among the community,
The paper contributes about the general overview of the Nim programming
language. The paper does not discuss about the detailed description of this
programming language. However, the paper discusses about the features of this
programming language.

Week 10
While information systems and technology deliver many benefits to society, they can also
result in negative effects and outcomes. One recent controversy, the propagation of fake
news and its influence on elections, has been linked to a type of software called a “bot”. Find
and summarise ONE resource that describes what bots are and how they can be used for
disseminating misinformation and affecting human behaviour.
Title and Reference:
Thanks to bots, fake news spreads faster on Twitter
The Economic Times. (2018). ‘Thanks to bots, fake news spreads faster on Twitter’. [online]
Available at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/thanks-to-bots-fake-news-
spreads-faster-on-twitter/articleshow/63244520.cms [Accessed 22 May 2018].
Summary:
This article tells about the spreading of the fake news through the bot. The main
reason for choosing this article is that it tells about the current situation from the
impact of the fake news by the bot.
The spreading of the fake news regarding the politics travels faster through the bot
and the other social medium like twitter (The Economic Times 2018). The social
media has played an important role in spreading the information to all the people.
However, the use of social is done nowadays for spreading of the fake news. The
spreading of the fake news through the social media is easy as they are not humans
but works as a robots.
According to this article the main source of spreading the fake news is twitter. The
unbroken twitter chain has helped to spread the false news much faster than any
other medium.
It has been seen that people like to share fake news without knowing the truthiness
in the news. This happens because of the novel nature of the fake news. It has been
seen that the spreading of the fake news are generally regarded to the politics. The
spreading and acceptance of the fake news also depends on the human psychology.
The people accept the fake news as it represent a result that provides more
surprises to the people.
The paper contributes in the findings about the spreading of the fake news through
social media. Apart from that it also describes the reason of acceptance of the fake
news to the people. The paper does not describes the detailed consequences on the
impacts of the fake news through bot on different aspects however, it informs that the
most of the fake news are related to the political field.

MARKING SHEET - DO NOT DELETE
Criteria
0 No Response
<=1 Poor resource selection; resource is too broad or lacks relevance to the
task; summary fails to explain what the resource was about; the relevance
and/or usefulness of the resource has not been explained.
<=2 Good resource selection; resource is relevant to the task; summary is
adequate but may require either more detail or is too long; the relevance
and/or usefulness of the resource has been explained to some extent, but
needs additional information.
<=3 Excellent resource selection; resource is highly relevant to the task (the
resource is probably highly specialised); summary is detailed yet concise;
the relevance and usefulness of the resource selection has been clearly
explained.
Key
Deductions
-3
-2
-1
Reference/URL provided does not link to resource (and resource cannot
be located or determined from details provided) OR
Reference/URL provided does not relate to the summary (i.e. summary is
not of resource content / contains content not contained in the resource)
Resource is generic AND/OR covers multiple technologies/examples
rather than focuses on a single technology/example
Resource not referenced correctly/not in Harvard format
Week Marks Awarded
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
TOTAL
Comments: