This program will provide high school students with personal learning experiences designed to teach the dangers of the Internet, the risks of poor online habits, and the importance of protecting their "selfware" -- the self-respect and self confidence necessary to grow as students and young adults.  By speaking with proficient security experts from the online industry, students will receive practical instruction in the four CYBERGUARD areas.

Subject Clusters

• Predators: Who to look out for on the Internet (pedophiles, identity theft, etc.)

• Piracy and Hacking: The dangers of Internet empowerment (illegal uses of the Internet by young adults)

• Personhood Pitfalls: Guarding against Internet isolation (living in a virtual world, Internet gambling, etc.)

• Protecting Systems: How to protect hardware, software and selfware.

Instructional Methodology

• Instructor led classroom discussion

• Readings current Internet Piracy research

• Consequences of Intellectual Property Theft

• Background reading of current and recent legal proceedings related to piracy & hacking

• Hands-on programming challenges to learn how to protect personal networks

• Learning sessions with IT professionals (e.g. CarolinaCon and DefCon)

• Field trips to cutting edge software manufacturers (e.g. Red Hat and SAS)

Introduction Sessions
Instructor will lead classroom discussion according to the following schedule:

Learning Integration
Once initial discussion session is completed, students will be encouraged to integrate the four Ps into their daily behavior and bring those experiences to follow-up classes.

Specific Outcomes
The student will be able to

1. Understand better that the availability of open-source software lessens the desire towards software piracy that emanates from retail software programs.

2. Protect personal systems and home networks through the application of layers of defense.

3. Gain growing disdain for those who will exploit these defenses.

4. Engender knowledge of potential career tracks in computer security.

Potential
The CYBERGUARD Project can be adapted easily to instructor-led curriculum throughout a school system. After beta-testing the curriculum, CYBERGUARD will package a series of teacher-led targeted lesson plans for higher achieving IT students. In addition, a resource Web site will be part of the CYBERGUARD Project for teachers and students to explore other researchers in this field, including reformed former hackers and Internet pirates. Given a recent Virginia case in which spammers were sentenced to active jail time, students should learn that the definition of crime is expanding but the consequences do not change.