Understanding Information Systems: What They Do and Why We Need Them Book

1	Describing information
	The nature of information	17
	What is an information system?	19
	Properties of information	20
	Working definitions of information	22
	Information distortion	30
2	Representing information
	Are all arithmetics created equal?	37
	The cumbersome decimal system	38
	The simple binary system	41
	Converting binary to decimal and back again 44 numbers as meaning (gematria and numerology)	47
	Hexadecimal representation	63
	Number-based humor	68
	How did the romans deal with fractions?	70
	Prefix andpostfix representation	73
3	Organizing information
	Fundamental information structures	79
	Who wants short sorts?	93
4	Retrieving information
	The nature of information retrieval	104
	Recall and precision	106
	Boolean and beyond	109
	Vector methods (simplified)	118
	Fuzzy information retrieval	125
	Inverted files	130
5	Networking information
	Bus topology	136
	Ring topology	137
	Mesh topology	138
	Star topology	138
	Hybrid topologies	139
	Routers, switches and gateways	140
6	Securing information
	Physical, data, server, backup, network security	142
	The first line of defense : the lowly password	149
	Viruses, worms, trojan horses and other nasties	154
	A dangerous script	159
	Misdirection and applications	163
7	Concelaing information
	Codes and ciphers	171
	Steganography (hiding in plain sight)	176
	Equidistant letter sequences and the bible code	177
	Key issues	179
	The unbreakable one-time pad	181
	Symmetric and public key cryptography	182
	How and why it works	188
	The secret history of public cryptography	193
	Navajo code talkers	195
8	Measuring information
	Bibliometrics (measuring the printed word)	200
	Sabermetrics (measuring baseball information)	209
	Web metrics	219
9	Counting information
	Counting tools (abacus, slide rule)	200
	Counting methods (cast out nines, Russian peasant algorithm, finger math)	231
	Counting things	238
10	Numbering information
	Prime cuts	288
	The intriguing nature of pi	295
	Pascal's triangle (applications to births and books)	305
11	Managing information
	Characteristics of a successful information system	311
	Some information management facts of life	312
	Two fundamental design approaches	314
	Building a successful information system	315
	Why things go wrong	318
	Costs and risks	320
12	The computer as an information system
	How big is an exabyte?	325
	Data compression (getting more bytes for the buck)	327
13	The internet as an information system
	Basic internet protocol addressing (location, location, location)	332
	What is an IP address?	332
	How big is the internet?	334
	Addressing schemes	335
	The internet metaphor project (metaphors be with you)	342
	Is the internet a privilege or a right?	350
	Internet issues (evolution, who pays, economic models, who runs?)	357
14	Music as an information system
	The nature of music and sound	364
	Tuning information systems	368
	How many tones belong in a scale?	373
	Making cents of it all	375
	Melody machines	377
	Fundamentals of music information retrieval	382
	Cultural violations	386
	Style, theme and melody based retrieval	395
15	Counter-intuitive information
	Not quite paradoxes and the paradoxes of zeno	400
	The birthday paradox (applications to books, blood and parking tickets)	411
	The trouble with infinity (a short history, what it is, what it is not)	414
App. A	Who owns the server?	424
App. B	The square root of two is irrational!	426
App. C	Who's on first?	428
	Answers to selected exercises	435
	References	447