Day 59: Salt, Hashing, and Encryptions

Continued my web security studies. I reviewed how encryption and salting are used to improve security with regular username and password authentication strategies. I had previously covered the concept so it was not that difficult to comprehend. The encryption is used to hash the password and the salt is used to add an additional layer of security so that rainbow tables are made to be less effective.

I chose not to dive too deep into the topic because I need to see some level of progression before I get completely disengaged in my work and end of quitting on myself. It is ironic that although I am highly motivated to self-improve, I also have to manage my engagement levels to keep me focused and less distracted. When I am excited to work I tend to work a lot more. It is easy to understand but hard to manage.

TLDR;

Okay, so here are the highlights of what I did:

  • Backend -> Continued studying the concepts mentioned in the web security section. Continued to go through the videos in the PassportJS playlist. I have a few videos left. I should be able to move forward soon.


Goal For Round 8 of the #100DaysofCode Challenge

This is my eighth round of the “#100daysofcode” challenge. I will be continuing my work from round five, six, and seven into round eight. I was working through the book “Cracking the Coding Interview” by Gayle Laakmann McDowell. My goal was to become more familiar with algorithms and data structures. This goal was derived from my goal to better understand operating systems and key programs that I use in the terminal regularly e.g. Git. This goal was in turn derived from my desire to better understand the fundamental tools used for coding outside of popular GUIs. This in turn was derived from my desire to be a better back-end developer.

I am currently putting a pause on the algorithm work to build some backend/full stack projects. I primarily want to improve my skills with the back-end from an implementation perspective. I have improved tremendously in terminal and CLI skills but I lost focus due to how abstract the algorithm concepts got. I wanted to work on things that were more tangible until I can get to a position where I could directly benefit from improving my algorithm skills and theoretical knowledge. So that’s the focus right now. Build my backend skills and prove my full stack capabilities by building some dope projects.

Again, I still have no idea if my path is correct but I am walking down this road anyways. Worst case scenario I learn a whole bunch of stuff that will help me out on my own personal projects. Best case scenario I actually become one of those unicorn developers that go on to start a billion dollar company… You never know LOL.