Английский язык. Ч.2. Учебное пособие по грамматике, чтению и переводу

Extra texts for reading and translation

All the texts given could be used for additional translation and comprehension training for students after each of four units. The tasks for every text are the same and listed below.

1.Read the text.

2.Underline or write out all the new phrases. Translate them into Russian or find the explanation in English.

3.Make up 5 questions to the text. Be ready to answer them.

4.Give short feedback on the text. What information was new for you? What would you like to implement in your life? What information provided the greatest emotional response? Do you agree with the authors? Why? Why not?

5.Be ready to translate the text using your vocabulary list.

Text 1 Can Android Become an Invulnerable System in the Future?

By Lisa R. Taylor

October 2, 2019

The Android operating system run by Google is suitable for different devices. It can work on mobile phones and tablets. The system is used by people all over the globe and is the direct competitor of Apple’s iOS system.

Although Android is widely recognized as a reliable, functional, and recommendable option, there are still numerous vulnerabilities that come with it. The Android system we use today is far from perfect. All its positive features aren’t good enough to make us forget or completely disregard the negative ones. Being aware of the potential flaws we might come across using the Android system, we can’t help wondering if there a chance for Android to become invulnerable in the future.

To try and break this down, we’ve put together a list of the basic pros and cons of Android, which can influence the way it develops in the future.

1.Security

Regardless of what purposes you use your phone or tablet for, the Android system you’re using should provide security for your data. However, security is one of the major issues of the Android system and the dominating reason for why people aren’t using it. There are hundreds of confirmed security vulnerabilities that need to be fixed, confirmed by Google itself. Luckily, the product management of Android confirmed that a security revolution is about to take place.

2.Updates

With Android, system updates are regular and necessary if you want your device to function in accordance with the latest developments and upgrades. However, for so many users, system updates are either painfully slow or completely impossible. This is

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a serious problem. If you’ve bought a device directly from Google, your system will be updated in no time. It might even happen in the background, without you knowing it. However, for people using devices from another manufacturer, there might be problems such as: update takes too long; update isn’t possible; system remains outdated and vulnerable. This means that users should watch out and use the devices which are guaranteed and updated.

Google needs to find a way to provide equal update options for all devices to move towards becoming invulnerable. Otherwise, more users will give up on the system and turn to the competition. If this issue could be removed, the system would significantly improve.

3.Limited Use of Apps

The previous update issue leads to further issues which might make Android users quite angry. There are those users whose devices haven’t been updated for one of the two reasons: they haven’t received the update or they want to stick to the old system version.

The numerous apps you can use thanks to the Android system are not as available for everyone as you might think. Yes, they are free of charge, but newer apps require you to have an updated system. This means that the above-mentioned users can’t use the new apps on their devices. This is definitely an issue and a major vulnerability that needs fixing.

4.Monitoring You

If you’re worried about your privacy and wish to keep your matters private, we’ve got bad news for you. Google and the Android system are tracking down most of your everyday moves and using it for advertisement and personalization. Once you sign in into your Google account, it can easily track down the following:

•the places you visit

•music you prefer

•events you attend

•people you communicate with

•your personal information

All of these data are then used to show you the right ads, sell you the right products or offer the right services. Although the situation is no different from the iOS system, this is something which should not be disregarded.

5.Device Choice

A great thing about the Android system is that it doesn’t limit you to a specific device you need to buy in order to use it. It’s functional on devices of the different price range, quality, functionality, and purpose. This is a huge benefit and a reason why Android will keep getting stronger in the future:

•various device options

•suitable for people of different social and economic backgrounds

•removes the monotony

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You can change your devices frequently but still, keep the well-known Android features you like and enjoy using.

The initial question we’ve asked was whether or not the Android system can become invulnerable in the future. It’s hard to predict what the future carries and how things are going to develop. However, based on the facts we’ve analyzed above,

Android needs to work on the major issues it currently has. If they manage to remove the issues and provide a smooth and secure experience for the users, they might become the invulnerable system we all need in the future.

[abridged from https://www.dumblittleman.com/pros-and-cons-of-android/]

Text 2 What is threat management and how it works

Threat management is a process that is used by cybersecurity professionals to prevent cyberattacks, detect cyberthreats and respond to security incidents.

Most security teams face information fragmentation, which can lead to blind spots in security operations. And wherever they exist, blind spots compromise a team’s ability to identify, protect against and respond to security threats promptly.

Today’s dangers now include mutating software, advanced persistent threats (APT), insider threats, and vulnerabilities around cloud-based computing services – more than antivirus software can handle. With the ever-disappearing perimeter of a protected IT infrastructure and remote workforce, enterprises constantly face new complex risks and security threats.

Against the backdrop of this evolving threat landscape and the shift to cloud, security professionals work on the assumption that breaches have occurred and will occur again.

Enhanced with automation and informed by AI, a cyberthreat management system can help counter today’s advanced attacks by cybercriminals. It gives security teams the visibility that they need to succeed. Unifying security data enables security teams to identify data at risk and vulnerabilities across networks on thousands of endpoints and between clouds.

Threats from inside an organization are particularly dangerous in the realm of cybersecurity. And insider attacks are more costly for organizations than external threats.

Many modern threat management systems use the cybersecurity framework that is established by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). NIST provides comprehensive guidance to improve information security and cybersecurity risk management for private sector organizations. One of their guides, the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (NIST CF), consists of standards, best practices and five core functions, namely to identify, protect, detect, respond and recover.

1. Identify. Cybersecurity teams need a thorough understanding of the organization's most important assets and resources. The identify function

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includes categories such as asset management, business environment, governance, risk assessment, risk management strategy and supply chain risk management.

2.Protect. The protect function covers much of the technical and physical security controls for developing and implementing appropriate safeguards and protecting critical infrastructure. These categories are identity management and access control, awareness and training, data security, information protection processes and procedures, maintenance and protective technology.

3.Detect. The detect function implements measures that alert an organization to cyberattacks. Detect categories include anomalies and events, continuous security monitoring and early detection processes.

4.Respond. The respond function ensures an appropriate response to cyberattacks and other cybersecurity events. Categories include response planning, communications, analysis, mitigation and improvements.

5.Recover. Recovery activities implement plans for cyber resilience and help ensure business continuity in the event of a cyberattack, security breach or another cybersecurity event. The recovery functions are recovery planning improvements and communications.

Today's enterprise organizations install security operation centers (SOC)

equipped with modern technology, like AI, to efficiently detect, manage, and respond to threats. By implementing AI-powered technology and an open, modular range of threat management solutions and services, organizations can spend less time and resources integrating and operating fragmented tools and data sources.

[abridged from https://www.ibm.com/topics/threat-management]

Text 3 Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

22 March, 2023

AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity, as shown by extensive research and acknowledged by top AI labs. As stated in the widely-endorsed Asilomar AI Principles, Advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth, and should be planned for and managed with commensurate care and resources. Unfortunately, this level of planning and management is not happening, even though recent months have seen AI labs locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict, or reliably control.

Contemporary AI systems are now becoming human-competitive at general tasks, and we must ask ourselves: Should we let machines flood our information

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channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization? Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders. Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable. This confidence must be well justified and increase with the magnitude of a system’s potential effects. OpenAI’s recent statement regarding artificial general intelligence, states that “At some point, it may be important to get independent review before starting to train future systems, and for the most advanced efforts to agree to limit the rate of growth of compute used for creating new models.” We agree. That point is now.

Therefore, we call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4. This pause should be public and verifiable, and include all key actors. If such a pause cannot be enacted quickly, governments should step in and institute a moratorium.

AI labs and independent experts should use this pause to jointly develop and implement a set of shared safety protocols for advanced AI design and development that are rigorously audited and overseen by independent outside experts. These protocols should ensure that systems adhering to them are safe beyond a reasonable doubt. This does not mean a pause on AI development in general, merely a stepping back from the dangerous race to ever-larger unpredictable black-box models with emergent capabilities.

AI research and development should be refocused on making today’s powerful, state-of-the-art systems more accurate, safe, interpretable, transparent, robust, aligned, trustworthy, and loyal.

In parallel, AI developers must work with policymakers to dramatically accelerate development of robust AI governance systems. These should at a minimum include: new and capable regulatory authorities dedicated to AI; oversight and tracking of highly capable AI systems and large pools of computational capability; provenance and watermarking systems to help distinguish real from synthetic and to track model leaks; a robust auditing and certification ecosystem; liability for AI-caused harm; robust public funding for technical AI safety research; and well-resourced institutions for coping with the dramatic economic and political disruptions (especially to democracy) that AI will cause.

Humanity can enjoy a flourishing future with AI. Having succeeded in creating powerful AI systems, we can now enjoy an “AI summer” in which we reap the rewards, engineer these systems for the clear benefit of all, and give society a chance to adapt. Society has hit pause on other technologies with potentially catastrophic effects on society. We can do so here. Let’s enjoy a long AI summer, not rush unprepared into a fall.

[abridged from https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/pause-giant-ai-experiments/]

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Text 4 12 Tips to Become a Better Programmer

14 July, 2023

Becoming a good programmer is something that every computer science student wants. Students try to learn coding from the start of their college in order for becoming good programmers. You just have to start from the basics and then learn slowly, as codes are the building blocks for any program therefore it is necessary that you learn it step by step. Technology has become the base of almost every company, so, it is important for you to have the proper knowledge.

Talking about the advantages of becoming a good programmer, let’s talk about the 12 tips you need to have in order to become a better programmer. These tips will definitely help you to grow in your career and make you a better programmer.

1. Learn a programming language, preferably C++ or Java.

The advantage of C++ is that you get a lot of help in the university (from seniors, teachers, etc). The advantage of Java is that it is still the most used language in the industry. Also, Java reports many issues in the compilation. For example, an issue like missing one = “if (x = y)” might waste your time in C++, but the Java compiler is going to report the issue in the compilation.

2.If you are programming in C++, learn C++ STL. If you are programming in Java, learn the main Java Collection.

The idea should be to solve problems using readily available containers, like unordered set in C++ STL and HashSet in Java if you are solving hashing set questions.

3.Keep practicing and keep learning.

Pick a problem, and try to solve it yourself. Don’t give up. Discuss with your friends/seniors. Good coders among your seniors are the best people to guide you. If you feel like your whole day is being wasted on a single problem, don’t give up, learn a standard algorithm from the net.

4.It is not recommended to see the code written by someone else initially. You can take a look at the algorithm if you are getting no clue. Implement yourself, then see the solution written by some experts.

5.If you are regularly getting stuck, solve lower-level problems for some time and spend more time learning standard data structures and algorithms.

6.If you are among the best coders in your university, teach your juniors through coding clubs, live classes, WhatsApp groups, etc. A teacher learns the most out of a session.

7.Try to work with other coders or developers too in order to gain knowledge. You can also clear your doubts too and make it an interactive session. Apart

from that, you can also contribute to an open-source project or join a programming user group and interact with other people.

8. Focus on learning techniques rather than just focusing on tools and methodologies as they come and go.

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The techniques are something that will remain for a long time and can be used while learning more programming languages and frameworks. Also, focus on the fundamentals of programming because the basic always remains the same.

9.For becoming a good programmer it is important for you to read a lot of codes and solve them equally. Then when you pass out your university you will have practiced an ample number of codes and can solve almost every coding question.

10.Focus on the quality and performance of the code and do not stick to the mentality that if the code is running properly then it is fine but also focus on the functionality of the code.

11.Always test your code like a user as it will help you to discover flaws. You must try to give the finest code to the user out there as it is the best approach for becoming a good programmer.

12.Last but not least you can also register yourself with some programming courses in order to enhance your technical as well as coding skills.

Please remember there is no shortcut and there is a lot to learn. It is a long journey. The earlier you begin, the better for you.

[abridged from https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/tips-to-become-a-better-programmer/]

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Top 100 most used English verbs

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