Hacking - Example: NSA

What exactly entails the term, computer hacking? At the beginning of the internet and computer revolution, there was only a vague understanding of what it meant. But, as the internet and computer has become more and more integrated into everyday life, awareness has increased much more so than before. However, there are still many unclear specifications about hacking that have yet to become common knowledge.

Computer hacking is the exploitation of a computer, computer system, network, (and surprisingly also classified) or human error, that allows the hacker to gain illegally accessed privileges, sensitive information, or money.

Hacking has a very ugly side that most people did not realize until recent events; that is in reference to the revelation of severe violations of privacy invaded by the National Security Agency (NSA) which was shed light upon by one of the agency's contractors Edward Snowden. The revelation that the NSA had vastly superior hacking methods and technologies absolutely threw the world, and I mean the entire world, into chaos. Even now, upon further review of the secrets Snowden revealed through over the 200,000 documents that he leaked is still causing uproar.

Hacking is a dangerous tool if one is capable of it. 


http://hacking-computers.com/what-is-computer-hacking/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/14/nsa-snowden-documents_n_4276708.html

Open Source: Sharing is Awesome!

It is my personal belief that code should be free to access for all, naturally there may be some exceptions such as security and finance, but other than those exceptions free code for all promotes a public that is more eager to learn how to code and use that code beneficially.

Free source code is simple known as Open Source and code that is not readily available to the public is called Closed Source. Open Source gives all users free license and does not require any paid fees to use their software and it is great for group collaborative efforts or projects that are team developed. Free code is great for providing code already created and preventing time spent on redundant coding.

However, there are some pitfalls of Open Source. Namely in its greatest benefit of providing free code is that those that wish malicious intent can use that free code to better understand how to get through security loop holes of that code or create viruses and malware intended to wreak havoc.

Despite the having the lower end of security as opposed to Closed Source code, Open source is great when it comes to having users come together and collaborate on development teams, forums on the internet, threads targeted and solving problems. Open Source simply promotes group development, research, and collaboration thus resulting in greater discovery and development.

I am pro Open Source all the way!


http://opensource.org/

What is Agile and What Can It Be Used For?

Agile is a set of software development methodologies that broke from the old tradition of how software developers dealt with their clients which did not leave much room for creativity and subsequently led to customers not receiving their product exactly as they wanted or envisioned.

In Agile what is valued are interactions between the developer and customer, having an actual working product to show the customer as a prototype rather than having documentation of what the product does, providing room to change the product even late in the development stage which allows for greater creative potential, having a team of coordinated, cooperative, and excellent members to produce a simple yet effective product.

While the name Agile is thrown a lot, it is often accompanied by the word "Scrum". What exactly is Scrum?
Scrum is an aspect of Agile that puts the methodologies of Agile into action that has its own methodologies that improve the team development process of projects and gets the customer much more involved in the process which helps both the developing team to more effective understand what the client wants and thus for the client to receive a product that is much more aligned to their interests.

The Scrum process is most well known for its division of the development process which is called, Sprints. Each sprint delivers an achievable goal within the specified time of the Sprint and allows for changes in development.

Overall Agile and Scrum are effective methods that allow the software developers and their clients to meet with one another to better help each other create an effective product whereas in past methodologies the client and development team would have had extremely limited interaction.

https://drive.google.com/#folders/0B9EFnnfOcvqFdTBUNTNvc3VFNEE