Cyber Security

We are now becoming heavily dependent on online resources, whether it's to access our bank accounts, check emails, or even our social media sites. All of our data is stored online, so what happens when a bank's site gets compromised or the email provider you use gets attacked? First of all, you should probably freak out or should you?

Cyber security is a field in computer science that is growing and will continue to grow with our heavy reliance on software. This field of study can be applied to the full spectrum of computers, ranging from databases to network systems, from your personal laptop to a cluster of machines. You might think that some types of security are more important than others, but the truth is all types of security are important.

In November of 2013 during the holiday shopping madness, millions of Target's credit card machines were compromised with information stealing malware. This was one of the biggest attacks done that's been made public. Banks had to reissue credit cards to their customers, I included, and they had to waive any purchases that were made illegally.

Aside from the public sectors, cyber security also plays a huge role in the private sector, and even in the military branches. In those latter sectors it has escalated to the point of cyber warfare where countries are trying to hack into each other's servers to get valuable information.

So what do you think about cyber security? Is it a big deal, is it something you think about often? Or are you the type that just lets someone else worry about it?

Citation:
Zetter, K. (2013, December 12). Target Admits Massive Credit Card Breach; 40 Million Affected. Wired. Retrieved March 12, 2014, from http://www.wired.com/2013/12/target-hack-hits-40-million/

Open Source

In the past open source was known as a radical thing, who would ever want to develop under an open development model in which the source code was available to any and all who wished to view it? Well it turned out to be a very popular development model of our time.

Have you met any computer scientists or software engineers that do not use open source software? Yea didn't think so and if you do, then chances are they live in a cave or something (ironic for a cs or se person right?). Even non technical people probably use open source software. Some good examples of open source projects are Linux, and R statistical programming language. These are great alternatives to other paid software such as OSX or Windows, and SPSS. Although open source software lacks the great features and security that paid software provides, it is still good software.

So how does open source work? Like this: developers come together to create and improve open source software over time, that's it simple. Or is it that simple? Probably not as there is licensing and other legal stuff that has to be done, but for the most part that's the gist of open source development.

Even though open source has become a great part of our lives at this point, I do not see all software becoming open source. A reason for this is that most people want to make money and you usually can't make money with open source projects.

It is a known fact that open source has been a big part of the computer science and software field for quite a while now, and it is here to stay.