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Computer Science Concept

Analyse an area of computer science. CHOOSE ONE of the following:

computer security

Questions may cover:  spam emails, two-factor authentication, reCAPTCHA, common issues, steps individuals should take to protect their data, data privacy, ways to protect individual computers and computers managed by an organisation, policies or practices of a multi-national technology corporation*.

error control

Questions may cover: redundancy; automatic repeat request (ARQ); error detection schemes (e.g. error correction / notification, checksums); bar codes, credit cards, and QR codes; a New Zealand-based* organisation’s policies or practices. 

artificial intelligence

Questions may cover: machine learning, common issues, training, evaluation, Turing test relevance, adoption, policies, the use of artificial intelligence for shopping (e.g. self-checkouts), AI hallucinations, and recent developments in large language models such as ChatGPT and Google Bard.

There will be a question on “impacts” in relation to future-proofing or human factors.

* The multi-national technology corporation must be from the following list: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google (including Waymo), Meta (including Facebook), Tencent (including WeChat), ByteDance (including TikTok).

Candidates can ONLY choose from the list of corporations provided. They only need to choose one corporation.

Where it is not possible to know the corporation’s policies or procedures, questions will be of the “how might / should” type.

Using information, including research and/or classwork that you have previously undertaken, you identify the computer science concept chosen from the achievement standard (see above). You will provide clarity by giving a detailed account of

RESOURCES

Assessment Specifications

PAST CONCEPTS

complexity & tractability

Questions may cover: common examples; an instance in which it makes sense for a solution not to be found; an instance of an approximate solution to an intractable problem.

encryption

Questions may cover: passwords, HTTP(S), any major development in encryption (e.g. private / public key), policies, or practices of a multi-national technology corporation*.