P

Pruning

A model compression technique that involves removing unnecessary neurons or connections from a trained neural network to make it smaller and faster.

ai

Pseudonymization

A data management and de-identification procedure by which personally identifiable information fields within a data record are replaced by one or more artificial identifiers.

security

Public Blockchain

A blockchain that is both permissionless and transparent, allowing anyone to view the ledger and participate in the network.

web

Public Cloud

Cloud services offered by third-party providers over the public internet.

cloud

Public Key Infrastructure(PKI)

A framework of roles, policies, hardware, software, and procedures needed to create, manage, distribute, use, store, and revoke digital certificates.

security

Pub/Sub

A messaging pattern where senders (publishers) do not program the messages to be sent directly to specific receivers (subscribers).

dev

Pub/Sub Service

A messaging pattern where publishers send messages to a topic, and multiple subscribers receive those messages asynchronously.

cloud

Pull Request(PR)

A method of submitting contributions to an open-source project or a shared repository, allowing for code review before merging.

dev

Pulumi

An infrastructure as code platform that allows developers to use familiar programming languages to define and deploy cloud infrastructure.

cloud

Purple Teaming

A collaborative security methodology where Red and Blue teams work together to improve an organization's security posture.

security

Push API

A browser API that allows web applications to receive messages pushed to them from a server, even when the application is not active.

web

P-value

The probability of obtaining results at least as extreme as the observed results, assuming the null hypothesis is true.

ai

PWA Manifest

A JSON file that provides information about a web application in a format that allows it to be installed on a user's device like a native app.

web

Python for Networking

The use of the Python programming language to automate network tasks, interact with APIs, and build custom networking tools.

network

R

Radar Chart

A graphical method of displaying multivariate data in the form of a two-dimensional chart of three or more quantitative variables represented on axes starting from the same point.

ai

Rainbow Table Attack

A type of attack used to crack password hashes by using pre-computed tables of hashes for every possible password.

security

Random Access Memory(RAM)

A type of computer memory that can be read and changed in any order, typically used to store working data and machine code.

hardware

Random Forest

An ensemble learning method that operates by constructing a multitude of decision trees during training and outputting the average prediction of the individual trees.

ai

Random Sampling

A sampling technique where each member of the population has an equal chance of being selected.

ai

Random Search

A hyperparameter optimization technique that selects random combinations of hyperparameters to train and evaluate models.

ai

Ransomware

A type of malware that threatens to publish or block access to data unless a ransom is paid.

security

React

A popular JavaScript library for building user interfaces, particularly single-page applications, using a component-based architecture.

web

Reactive Programming

A declarative programming paradigm concerned with data streams and the propagation of change.

dev

ReAct Prompting(ReAct)

A prompting technique that combines 'Reasoning' and 'Acting,' allowing an LLM to generate reasoning traces and task-specific actions in an interleaved manner.

ai

Read-Only Memory(ROM)

A type of non-volatile memory used in computers and other electronic devices that cannot be easily modified.

hardware

Read Replica

A copy of a primary database instance that can be used to serve read-only traffic, improving performance and scalability.

cloud

Reassembly

The process of putting fragmented IP packets back together into their original form at the destination device.

network

Recall

A metric that measures a model's ability to find all relevant cases within a dataset; the ratio of true positives to the total number of actual positives.

ai

Recurrent Neural Network(RNN)

A class of neural networks where connections between nodes form a directed graph along a temporal sequence, allowing them to process data with a time dimension.

ai

Red Teaming

A full-scope, multi-layered attack simulation designed to measure how well an organization's people, networks, applications, and physical security controls can withstand an attack from a real-life adversary.

security

Refactoring

The process of restructuring existing computer code without changing its external behavior.

dev

Referrer-Policy

An HTTP header that controls how much referrer information (the URL of the previous page) is sent with requests.

security

Register Renaming

A technique used to eliminate false data dependencies between instructions by mapping architectural registers to a larger pool of physical registers.

hardware

Regression Analysis

A set of statistical processes for estimating the relationships between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables.

ai

Regression Testing

Re-running functional and non-functional tests to ensure that previously developed and tested software still performs after a change.

dev

Regularization

A set of techniques used to prevent overfitting by adding a penalty term to the loss function or modifying the training process.

ai

Reinforcement Learning(RL)

A type of machine learning where an agent learns to make decisions by performing actions in an environment to maximize a cumulative reward.

ai

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback(RLHF)

A technique used to align AI models with human preferences by training them based on feedback from human evaluators.

ai

Relational Database(RDBMS)

A type of database that stores and provides access to data points that are related to one another.

ai

Release Management

The process of managing, planning, scheduling, and controlling a software build through different stages and environments.

dev

Release Pipeline

The latter part of a deployment pipeline focused on deploying artifacts to various environments and performing final verification.

dev

Reliability Engineering

A sub-discipline of systems engineering that emphasizes the ability of equipment to function without failure.

dev

ReLU

Rectified Linear Unit; a popular activation function that outputs the input directly if it is positive, and zero otherwise.

ai

Remix

A full-stack web framework that focuses on web standards and modern user experience, built on top of React Router.

web

Reorder Buffer(ROB)

A hardware structure in out-of-order processors that ensures instructions are committed (retired) in their original program order.

hardware

Repeater

An electronic device that receives a signal and retransmits it at a higher level or higher power, so that the signal can cover longer distances.

network

Replay Attack

A cyberattack where a valid data transmission is maliciously repeated or delayed on a different chain or at a later time.

web

ReplicaSet

A Kubernetes object that ensures a specified number of pod replicas are running at any given time.

cloud

Reservation Station

A buffer that holds an instruction and its operands, waiting for execution until all dependencies are resolved.

hardware

Reserved Capacity

A pricing model where users commit to using a specific amount of a cloud resource for a fixed term (1 or 3 years) in exchange for a significant discount.

cloud

Resilience Engineering

A paradigm for safety management that focuses on how to help people cope with complexity under pressure to achieve success.

dev

Resource Prioritization

The process of telling the browser which resources are most important to load first to improve perceived performance.

web

Resource Tagging

The practice of assigning metadata to cloud resources in the form of key-value pairs to improve organization, cost tracking, and automation.

cloud

Resource Timing API

A browser API that provides detailed network timing data for every resource loaded by a web page.

web

Responsible Disclosure

A vulnerability disclosure model where researchers report flaws to the vendor first and give them a reasonable amount of time to fix the issue before making it public.

security

Responsive Web Design(RWD)

An approach to web design that makes web pages render well on a variety of devices and window or screen sizes.

web

Retrieval-Augmented Generation(RAG)

A technique that enhances LLM outputs by retrieving relevant information from external knowledge bases before generating a response.

ai

Retry Pattern

A design pattern that enables an application to handle transient failures when it tries to connect to a service or network resource.

dev

Return Stack Buffer(RSB)

A specialized branch predictor used specifically to predict the return addresses of function calls.

hardware

Reward Model

A separate model used in reinforcement learning to predict the reward an agent should receive for a given action or output.

ai

Ring Topology

A network topology where each node connects to exactly two other nodes, forming a single continuous pathway for signals through each node.

network

RIP(RIP)

A legacy distance-vector routing protocol that uses hop count as its primary metric.

network

RISC

Reduced Instruction Set Computer; a CPU design strategy based on simple instructions that can be executed quickly.

hardware

RISC-V

An open-standard instruction set architecture (ISA) based on established reduced instruction set computer (RISC) principles.

hardware

Risk Assessment

The process of identifying, estimating, and prioritizing risks to an organization's operations and assets.

security

Risk Mitigation

The process of developing options and actions to enhance opportunities and reduce threats to project objectives.

security

RoBERTa

A Robustly Optimized BERT Pretraining Approach; an improved version of BERT that modifies the key hyperparameters and training data size.

ai

ROC Curve(ROC)

Receiver Operating Characteristic curve; a graph showing the performance of a classification model at all classification thresholds.

ai

Role-Based Access Control(RBAC)

A method of regulating access to resources based on the roles of individual users.

security

Rolling Update

A deployment strategy that gradually replaces old instances of an application with new ones, ensuring continuous availability.

cloud

Rollup

A type of Layer 2 scaling solution that performs transaction execution outside the main blockchain but posts transaction data to it.

web

Rook

An open-source cloud-native storage orchestrator for Kubernetes.

cloud

Root Cause Analysis(RCA)

A systematic process for identifying the underlying cause of a problem or incident to prevent it from recurring.

dev

Rootkit

A collection of computer software, typically malicious, designed to conceal the existence of certain processes or programs from normal methods of detection.

security

Root Mean Squared Error(RMSE)

A regression metric that calculates the square root of the average of squared differences between predicted and actual values.

ai

Router

A networking device that forwards data packets between computer networks, operating at the Network Layer (Layer 3).

network

Route Table

A set of rules, called routes, that are used to determine where network traffic from a subnet or gateway is directed.

cloud

Routing Protocol

A set of rules used by routers to determine the best path for data packets to travel across a network.

network

R-squared()

A statistical measure that represents the proportion of the variance for a dependent variable that's explained by an independent variable or variables in a regression model.

ai

RSTP(RSTP)

An evolution of STP that provides significantly faster convergence after a topology change.

network

Rug Pull

A type of scam where developers abandon a project and run away with investors' funds.

web

Runtime Application Self-Protection (RASP)(RASP)

A security technology that resides within an application's runtime environment and can detect and block attacks in real-time.

security

S

Saga Pattern

A design pattern for managing distributed transactions in a microservices architecture.

dev

Saliency Map

A visualization technique used in computer vision to highlight the pixels or regions of an image that were most influential in a model's prediction.

ai

Salting (Cryptography)

Adding a unique, random string of characters to a password before it is hashed to protect against pre-computed attacks.

security

Same-Origin Policy(SOP)

A fundamental web security model that restricts how a document or script loaded from one origin can interact with a resource from another origin.

security

Sandboxing

A security mechanism for separating running programs, usually in an effort to mitigate system failures or software vulnerabilities from spreading.

security

Sandwich Attack

A form of MEV where an attacker places trades both before and after a victim's transaction.

web

Sankey Diagram

A type of flow diagram in which the width of the arrows is proportional to the flow rate.

ai

SANS Top 25

A list of the most widespread and critical errors that can lead to serious software vulnerabilities.

security

Sass/SCSS

A preprocessor scripting language that is interpreted or compiled into Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

web

SATA

Serial AT Attachment; a computer bus interface that connects host bus adapters to mass storage devices.

hardware

Satoshi(sat)

The smallest unit of Bitcoin, named after its creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

web

Scalability

The property of a system to handle a growing amount of work by adding resources to the system.

dev

Scapy

A powerful Python-based interactive packet manipulation program and library.

network

Scatter Plot

A chart that uses Cartesian coordinates to display values for typically two variables for a set of data.

ai

Scrum

An Agile framework for managing complex projects, characterized by short iterations called Sprints and specific roles like Scrum Master and Product Owner.

dev

SD-WAN(SD-WAN)

A software-defined approach to managing Wide Area Networks (WANs) that simplifies management and improves performance by using multiple transport services.

network

Seaborn

A Python data visualization library based on matplotlib that provides a high-level interface for drawing attractive and informative statistical graphics.

ai

Seasonality

A characteristic of a time series in which the data experiences regular and predictable changes that recur every calendar year.

ai

Secret

A Kubernetes API object used to store and manage sensitive information, such as passwords, OAuth tokens, and ssh keys.

cloud

Secrets Management

The tools and processes used to securely store, manage, and rotate sensitive information like API keys, passwords, and certificates.

cloud

Secure Access Service Edge(SASE)

A network architecture that combines wide area networking (WAN) capabilities with cloud-native security functions.

security

Secure Boot

A security standard that ensures a device boots using only software that is trusted by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM).

security

Secure Sockets Layer(SSL)

A deprecated security protocol for establishing encrypted links between a web server and a browser, now replaced by TLS.

security

Security Architecture

The design and structure of security controls and systems within an organization's IT environment to protect its assets and ensure business continuity.

security

Security as Code

The integration of security tools and practices into the DevOps pipeline through automation and code-based configurations.

dev

Security Awareness Training

A strategy used by IT and security professionals to prevent and mitigate user risk through education.

security

Security by Default

The practice of designing products and systems so that the most secure settings are enabled out-of-the-box.

security

Security by Design

An approach to software and hardware development that integrates security at every stage of the design and development process.

security

Security Group

A virtual firewall for cloud instances that controls inbound and outbound traffic at the instance level.

cloud

Security Header

HTTP response headers that tell a browser how to behave when handling a website's content to improve security.

security

Security Information and Event Management(SIEM)

Software that combines security information management and security event management.

security

Security Operations Center (SOC)(SOC)

A centralized unit that deals with security issues on an organizational and technical level, responsible for monitoring, detecting, and responding to cyber threats.

security

Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response(SOAR)

Software that allows organizations to collect threat data and respond to security events automatically.

security

Security Token

A digital asset that represents an investment in a real-world asset and is subject to securities regulations.

web

Security Token Offering(STO)

A regulated token sale where the tokens represent securities and comply with legal requirements.

web

Seed Phrase

A series of 12 to 24 random words that acts as a master key to a cryptocurrency wallet, allowing for its recovery if the device is lost or damaged.

web

Segmentation

A memory management technique that divides memory into segments of varying lengths based on logical groupings.

hardware

Segregation of Duties(SoD)

A security principle that requires more than one person to complete a critical task to prevent fraud and error.

security

Self-Attention

An attention mechanism where a model relates different positions of a single sequence to compute a representation of that sequence.

ai

Selfish Mining

A strategy where a miner keeps discovered blocks private to gain an advantage over the rest of the network.

web

Self-Service Infrastructure

A model where developers can provision and manage the infrastructure they need without manual intervention from an operations team.

dev

Self-Sovereign Identity(SSI)

A model for digital identity that gives individuals full ownership and control over their personal data and how it is shared.

web

Semantic HTML

The use of HTML markup to reinforce the semantics, or meaning, of the information in web pages and web applications rather than merely to define its look or appearance.

web

Semantic Versioning(SemVer)

A versioning scheme for software that uses a three-part number (MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH) to convey meaning about the underlying changes.

dev

Semiconductor

A material with electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator, forming the basis of modern electronics.

hardware

Semi-supervised Learning

A machine learning approach that combines a small amount of labeled data with a large amount of unlabeled data during training.

ai

SentencePiece

A language-independent subword tokenizer that treats the input as a raw stream of characters, including spaces.

ai

Sentiment Analysis

The use of natural language processing to identify, extract, and quantify affective states and subjective information from text.

ai

SEO(SEO)

The process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines.

web

Serverless Computing

A cloud execution model where the provider manages the infrastructure, automatically allocating resources based on demand.

cloud

Serverless Database

A database that automatically scales its compute and storage resources based on demand.

ai

Serverless Functions(FaaS)

A cloud computing model that allows developers to run code in response to events without managing the underlying servers.

cloud

Serverless Query Service

An interactive query service that allows you to analyze data directly in object storage using standard SQL, without managing any infrastructure.

cloud

Server-Sent Events(SSE)

A server push technology enabling a browser to receive automatic updates from a server via an HTTP connection.

web

Server-Side Rendering(SSR)

The process of rendering a web page on the server and sending the fully generated HTML to the client's browser.

cloud

Server-Side Request Forgery(SSRF)

A vulnerability where an attacker can trick a server-side application into making requests to an unintended location.

security

Service Account

A special type of cloud identity used by applications or virtual machines to interact with other cloud services programmatically.

cloud

Service Catalog

A centralized repository that provides information about all the services available within an organization.

dev

Service Discovery

The process of automatically detecting devices and services on a network.

cloud

Service Mesh

A dedicated infrastructure layer for facilitating service-to-service communications between microservices.

cloud

Service Orchestration

The automated coordination and management of multiple services to achieve a larger business goal or workflow.

dev

Service-Oriented Architecture(SOA)

An architectural style where software components provide services to other components via a communications protocol over a network.

dev

Service Worker

A script that your browser runs in the background, separate from a web page, opening the door to features that don't need a web page or user interaction.

web

Service Worker Caching

A powerful caching mechanism that allows developers to programmatically manage network requests and responses using a Service Worker.

web

Session Hijacking

The exploitation of a valid computer session to gain unauthorized access to information or services in a computer system.

security

Session Layer

The fifth layer of the OSI model, responsible for establishing, managing, and terminating sessions between applications.

network

sFlow

An industry-standard technology for monitoring high-speed switched or routed networks using sampling.

network

SHA-256(SHA-256)

A cryptographic hash function that generates a 256-bit (32-byte) signature, part of the SHA-2 family.

security

Shadow Deployment

A deployment strategy where a new version of a service receives a copy of production traffic without affecting the actual response sent to users.

dev

Shadow DOM

A web standard that provides encapsulation for the JavaScript, CSS, and templating in a Web Component.

web

Shanghai Upgrade

An Ethereum network upgrade that enabled the withdrawal of staked ETH from the Beacon Chain.

web

SHAP(SHAP)

Shapley Additive Explanations; a game-theoretic approach to explain the output of any machine learning model.

ai

Sharding

A database partitioning technique used to scale blockchains by splitting the network into smaller, more manageable pieces called 'shards.'

web

Shared Database Pattern

An anti-pattern in microservices where multiple services access the same database directly.

dev

Shared Responsibility Model

A security framework that defines which security tasks are handled by the cloud provider and which are the responsibility of the customer.

cloud

Shift Left Security

The practice of moving security testing and considerations earlier (to the 'left') in the software development lifecycle.

security

Shift Left Testing

The practice of performing testing earlier in the software development lifecycle (to the 'left' on a project timeline).

dev

Shift Right Testing

The practice of performing testing and monitoring in the production environment (to the 'right' on a project timeline).

dev

Sidecar

A design pattern where a helper container is deployed alongside a main application container in the same Pod.

cloud

Sidecar Pattern

A design pattern where a separate container or process is deployed alongside the main application to provide supporting features.

dev

Sidechain

An independent blockchain that runs in parallel to a main blockchain (Layer 1) and is connected to it via a two-way bridge.

web

Sigmoid

An activation function that maps any input value to a value between 0 and 1, often used in the output layer of binary classification models.

ai

SIMD(SIMD)

Single Instruction, Multiple Data; a type of parallel computing where one instruction operates on multiple data points simultaneously.

hardware

Simultaneous Multi-threading(SMT)

A technique that allows multiple independent threads of execution to better utilize the resources provided by modern processor architectures.

hardware

Single Page Application(SPA)

A web application or website that interacts with the user by dynamically rewriting the current web page with new data from the web server, instead of the default method of a browser loading entire new pages.

web

Single Sign-On(SSO)

An authentication scheme that allows a user to log in with a single ID to any of several related, yet independent, software systems.

security

Single-tenant Architecture

An architecture where each customer has their own dedicated instance of an application and its supporting infrastructure.

cloud

Singleton Pattern

A creational design pattern that ensures a class has only one instance and provides a global point of access to it.

dev

Singularity

A hypothetical future point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unfathomable changes to human civilization.

ai

Site Reliability Engineering(SRE)

A discipline that applies software engineering principles to infrastructure and operations.

cloud

Slippage

The difference between the expected price of a trade and the actual price at which it is executed.

web

Small Cell

Low-power wireless base stations that operate in licensed and unlicensed spectrum and have a range of 10 meters to a few hundred meters.

network

Smart Contract Audit

A thorough analysis of a smart contract's code to identify security vulnerabilities and inefficient code.

security

Smishing

A form of phishing that uses SMS (text messages) to trick victims into revealing sensitive information or downloading malware.

security

Smoke Testing

A preliminary set of tests to reveal simple failures severe enough to reject a prospective software release.

dev

SMOTE(SMOTE)

Synthetic Minority Over-sampling Technique; an over-sampling method that creates synthetic samples for the minority class.

ai

Snapshot

An off-chain voting platform used by many DAOs to allow token holders to vote on proposals without paying gas fees.

web

SNAT(SNAT)

A process that changes the source IP address of a packet as it passes through a router or firewall.

network

SNMP(SNMP)

An internet-standard protocol for collecting and organizing information about managed devices on IP networks.

network

Snowflake (Data Warehouse)

A cloud-based data-warehousing platform.

ai

Snowflake Schema

A logical arrangement of tables in a multidimensional database such that the entity relationship diagram resembles a snowflake shape.

ai

Soak Testing

A type of performance testing where a system is subjected to a significant load for an extended period of time.

dev

SOC 2(SOC 2)

An auditing procedure that ensures your service providers securely manage your data to protect the interests of your organization and the privacy of its clients.

security

Social Engineering

The psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information.

security

Social Engineering Toolkit (SET)(SET)

An open-source Python-driven framework designed to facilitate social engineering attacks for security testing purposes.

security

SocialFi

A combination of social media and decentralized finance, where users can monetize their social interactions and content through blockchain-based incentives.

web

Socket

The combination of an IP address and a port number, representing one end of a two-way communication link.

network

Socket.io

A library that enables real-time, bi-directional, and event-based communication between web clients and servers.

web

Soft Fork

A backward-compatible upgrade to a blockchain protocol where only the upgraded nodes enforce the new rules.

web

Softmax

An activation function used in the final layer of a neural network to turn a vector of numbers into a probability distribution that sums to 1.

ai

Software as a Service(SaaS)

A cloud model that delivers software applications over the internet on a subscription basis.

cloud

Software Bill of Materials (SBOM)(SBOM)

A formal, structured record of the various components, libraries, and dependencies used in building a piece of software.

security