The Spammers and the System Administrators of the world are engaged in an escalating technical battle of wills. As soon as the sysadmins block the latest unwanted advertisements for pornography, pharmaceuticals and get rich quick schemes, the spammers find a way back into your mailbox.
Do some research to find out what aspects of modern networks work in favor of sysadmins, and what aspects of modern networks work in favor of the spammers. Report your results. Then address why, again relying on technical data, it is unlikely that either side will ever conclusively prevail.
Over the years, there have been many famous hacker attacks over networks. Someone defaced websites belonging to the US government; someone stole thousands of social security numbers from corporate and university databases; someone unleashed code that triggered love letters to be sent from unsuspecting users to all their contacts - to name just a few incidents.
Identify a serious hacker attack that occurred within the last three years, in which the perpetrator was caught. Research and report what technical aspects of the target networks the attacker was able to exploit. Report also how she or he was eventually caught - what technical issues led to their capture?
Discussions of national security and fear of domestic terrorist attacks usually focus on physical threats, e.g. bombs, poisonings, interference with nuclear facilities. It could be argued that there is an equal threat to our national security via network vulnerabilities.
Research and tentatively identify one credible weakness in national security as a result of our dependence upon networked infrastructure. If you choose to answer this question, your response *must* go well beyond speculation and focus on solid technical evidence supported with well grounded data and facts. Where you may speculate (briefly) is on why network vulnerabilities do not get as much press as physical ones.