Term | Definition |
Moore's Law | the observation that computing power roughly doubles every two years. |
Big Data | a broad term for datasets so large or complex that traditional data processing applications are inadequate. |
One-pager | A business/corporate term for a one-page document that summarizes a large issue, topic or plan. |
Encryption | a process of encoding messages to keep them secret, so only "authorized" parties can read it. |
Decryption | a process that reverses encryption, taking a secret message and reproducing the original plain text |
Cipher | the generic term for a technique (or algorithm) that performs encryption |
Caesar's Cipher | a technique for encryption that shifts the alphabet by some number of characters. |
Random Substitution Cipher | an encoding technique that maps each letter of the alphabet randomly to different letters or characters. |
Cracking encryption | When you attempt to decode a secret message without knowing all the specifics of the cipher, you are trying to crack the encryption. |
Vigenère cipher | a method of encrypting text by applying a series of Caesar ciphers based on the letters of a keyword. |
Computationally Hard | a "hard' problem for a computer is one in which it cannot arrive at a solution in a reasonable amount of time. |
Modulo (or "mod") | the name of the mathematical operation. |
Asymmetric encryption | a type of cryptographic based on algorithms that require two keys -- one of which is secret (or private) and one of which is public (freely known to others). |
Public key | a value that can be used to encrypt a message. However, only when combined with a mathematically-related private key, can the message be decrypted. |
Private key | the complementary key to a public key that is used to decrypt a message. |
Antivirus Software | usually keeps big lists of known viruses and scans your computer looking for the virus programs in order to get rid of them. |
DDoS Attack | Distributed Denial of Service Attack. Typically a virus installed on many computers (thousands) activate at the same time and flood a target with traffic to the point the server becomes overwhelmed. |
Firewall | software that runs on servers (often routers) that only allows traffic through according to some set of security rules. |
Phishing Scam | a thief trying to trick you into sending them sensitive information. Typically these include emails about system updates asking you send your username and password, social security number or other things. |
SSL/TLS | Secure Sockets layer / Transport Layer Security - An encryption layer of HTTP that uses public key cryptography to establish a secure connection. |
Virus | a program that runs on a computer to do something the owner of the computer does not intend. |