Understanding the Digital World: What You Need to Know about Computers, the Internet, Privacy, and Security, 2nd Edition

Length: 304 pages
Edition: 2
Language: English
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Publication Date: 2021-03-30
ISBN-10: 0691219095
ISBN-13: 9780691219097
Sales Rank: #0 (See Top 100 Books)

A brand-new edition of the popular introductory textbook that explores how computer hardware, software, and networks work

Computers are everywhere. Some are highly visible, in laptops, tablets, cell phones, and smart watches. But most are invisible, like those in appliances, cars, medical equipment, transportation systems, power grids, and weapons. We never see the myriad computers that quietly collect, share, and sometimes leak personal data about us. Governments and companies increasingly use computers to monitor what we do. Social networks and advertisers know more about us than we should be comfortable with. Criminals have all-too-easy access to our data. Do we truly understand the power of computers in our world?

In this updated edition of Understanding the Digital World, Brian Kernighan explains how computer hardware, software, and networks work. Topics include how computers are built and how they compute; what programming is; how the Internet and web operate; and how all of these affect security, privacy, property, and other important social, political, and economic issues. Kernighan touches on fundamental ideas from computer science and some of the inherent limitations of computers, and new sections in the book explore Python programming, big data, machine learning, and much more. Numerous color illustrations, notes on sources for further exploration, and a glossary explaining technical terms and buzzwords are included.

Understanding the Digital World is a must-read for readers of all backgrounds who want to know more about computers and communications.

Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Part I: Hardware
	1. What Is a Computer?
		1.1 Logical Construction
			1.1.1 Processor
			1.1.2 Primary memory
			1.1.3 Secondary storage
			1.1.4 Et cetera
		1.2 Physical Construction
		1.3 Moore’s Law
		1.4 Summary
	2. Bits, Bytes, and Representation of Information
		2.1 Analog versus Digital
		2.2 Analog-Digital Conversion
			2.2.1 Digitizing images
			2.2.2 Digitizing sound
			2.2.3 Digitizing movies
			2.2.4 Digitizing text
		2.3 Bits, Bytes, and Binary
			2.3.1 Bits
			2.3.2 Powers of two and powers of ten
			2.3.3 Binary numbers
			2.3.4 Bytes
		2.4 Summary
	3. Inside the Processor
		3.1 The Toy Computer
			3.1.1 The first Toy program
			3.1.2 The second Toy program
			3.1.3 Branch instructions
			3.1.4 Representation in memory
		3.2 Real Processors
		3.3 Caching
		3.4 Other Kinds of Computers
		3.5 Summary
	Wrap-up on Hardware
Part II: Software
	4. Algorithms
		4.1 Linear Algorithms
		4.2 Binary Search
		4.3 Sorting
		4.4 Hard Problems and Complexity
		4.5 Summary
	5. Programming and Programming Languages
		5.1 Assembly Language
		5.2 High-Level Languages
		5.3 Software Development
			5.3.1 Libraries, interfaces, and development kits
			5.3.2 Bugs
		5.4 Intellectual Property
			5.4.1 Trade secret
			5.4.2 Trademark
			5.4.3 Copyright
			5.4.4 Patent
			5.4.5 Licenses
		5.5 Standards
		5.6 Open Source Software
		5.7 Summary
	6. Software Systems
		6.1 Operating Systems
		6.2 How an Operating System Works
			6.2.1 System calls
			6.2.2 Device drivers
		6.3 Other Operating Systems
		6.4 File Systems
			6.4.1 Secondary storage file systems
			6.4.2 Removing files
			6.4.3 Other file systems
		6.5 Applications
		6.6 Layers of Software
		6.7 Summary
	7. Learning to Program
		7.1 Programming Language Concepts
		7.2 A First JavaScript Program
		7.3 A Second JavaScript Program
		7.4 Loops and Conditionals
		7.5 JavaScript Libraries and Interfaces
		7.6 How JavaScript Works
		7.7 A First Python Program
		7.8 A Second Python Program
		7.9 Python Libraries and Interfaces
		7.10 How Python Works
		7.11 Summary
	Wrap-up on Software
Part III: Communications
	8. Networks
		8.1 Telephones and Modems
		8.2 Cable and DSL
		8.3 Local Area Networks and Ethernet
		8.4 Wireless
		8.5 Cell Phones
		8.6 Bandwidth
		8.7 Compression
		8.8 Error Detection and Correction
		8.9 Summary
	9. The Internet
		9.1 An Internet Overview
		9.2 Domain Names and Addresses
			9.2.1 Domain Name System
			9.2.2 IP addresses
			9.2.3 Root servers
			9.2.4 Registering your own domain
		9.3 Routing
		9.4 TCP/IP Protocols
			9.4.1 IP, the Internet Protocol
			9.4.2 TCP, the Transmission Control Protocol
		9.5 Higher-Level Protocols
			9.5.1 Telnet and SSH: remote login
			9.5.2 SMTP: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
			9.5.3 File sharing and peer-to-peer protocols
		9.6 Copyright on the Internet
		9.7 The Internet of Things
		9.8 Summary
	10. The World Wide Web
		10.1 How the Web Works
		10.2 HTML
		10.3 Cookies
		10.4 Active Content in Web Pages
		10.5 Active Content Elsewhere
		10.6 Viruses, Worms and Trojan Horses
		10.7 Web Security
			10.7.1 Attacks on clients
			10.7.2 Attacks on servers
			10.7.3 Attacks on information in transit
		10.8 Defending Yourself
		10.9 Summary
Part IV: Data
	11. Data and Information
		11.1 Search
		11.2 Tracking
		11.3 Social Networks
		11.4 Data Mining and Aggregation
		11.5 Cloud Computing
		11.6 Summary
	12. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
		12.1 Historical Background
		12.2 Classical Machine Learning
		12.3 Neural Networks and Deep Learning
		12.4 Natural Language Processing
		12.5 Summary
	13. Privacy and Security
		13.1 Cryptography
			13.1.1 Secret-key cryptography
			13.1.2 Public-key cryptography
		13.2 Anonymity
			13.2.1 Tor and the Tor Browser
			13.2.2 Bitcoin
		13.3 Summary
	14. What Comes Next?
Notes
Glossary
Index