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Homework refers to tasks assigned to students by their teachers to be completed mostly outside of class.

Alternative education, also known as non-traditional education or educational alternative, includes a number of approaches to teaching and learning other than mainstream or traditional education.

Differentiated instruction is a way of thinking about teaching and learning. It involves teachers using a variety of instructional strategies that address diverse student learning needs.

Home schooling, home learning or home school – is the education of children at home, typically by parents or professional tutors, rather than in a public or private school.

Traditional education is a long established and generally accepted custom that is found in schools that society deems appropriate.

FIPS 140 (Federal Information Processing Standard 140)

The Federal Information Processing Standard 140 (FIPS) are series of publications numbered 140 which are a U.S. government computer security standards that specify requirements for cryptography modules. As of December 2006, the current version of the standard is FIPS 140-2, issued on 25 May 2001.

Purpose of FIPS 140

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) issued the 140 Publication Series to coordinate the requirements and standards for cryptographic modules which include both hardware and software components for use by departments and agencies of the United States federal government. FIPS 140 does not purport to provide sufficient conditions to guarantee that a module conforming to its requirements is secure, still less that a system built using such modules is secure. The requirements cover not only the cryptographic modules themselves but also their documentation and (at the highest security level) some aspects of the comments contained in the source code.

User agencies desiring to implement cryptographic modules should confirm that the module they are using is covered by an existing validation certificate. FIPS 140-1 and FIPS 140-2 validation certificates specify the exact module name, hardware, software, firmware, and/or applet version numbers. For Levels 2 and higher, the operating platform upon which the validation is applicable is also listed. Vendors do not always maintain their baseline validations.

The Cryptographic Module Validation Program (CMVP) is operated jointly by the United States Government's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Computer Security Division and the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) of the Government of Canada. The use of validated cryptographic modules is required by the United States Government for all unclassified uses of cryptography. The Government of Canada also recommends the use of FIPS 140 validated cryptographic modules in unclassified applications of its departments.

Security levels

FIPS 140-2 defines four levels of security, simply named "Level 1" to "Level 4". It does not specify in detail what level of security is required by any particular application.

FIPS 140-2 Level 1 the lowest, imposes very limited requirements; loosely, all components must be "production-grade" and various egregious kinds of insecurity must be absent.
FIPS 140-2 Level 2 adds requirements for physical tamper-evidence and role-based authentication.
FIPS 140-2 Level 3 adds requirements for physical tamper-resistance (making it difficult for attackers to gain access to sensitive information contained in the module) and identity-based authentication, and for a physical or logical separation between the interfaces by which "critical security parameters" enter and leave the module, and its other interfaces.
FIPS 140-2 Level 4 makes the physical security requirements more stringent, and requires robustness against environmental attacks.