How do hackers steal money from bank accounts

        Every time, when people use credit or debit card online, they will face some risk that their personal information or money could be stolen. In November 2015, a massive criminal computer hacking scheme happened at JP.Morgan Chase. As a result, 76 million households and 7 million small businesses ' user contact information was stolen. There are many similar situations happening at the world. However, have you wonder how hackers steal our accounts information and steal our money? 


     First of all, hackers will get the victim's internet banking details by a phishing attack or installing  a key logger on victim's computer. Then, they will obtain existing hijacked accounts, which are to help them transfer money in and out and they does not function in banking hours to prevent being undetected by actual accountholder. 

     Second, they will do the SIM swap because they need to receive one-time-passwords which is sent to the banking client via SMS. After the Sim swap has taken place and the fraudster will have access to the number used by the Internet banking victim and now they are able to transfer money to these beneficiaries which hackers create.

     In the end, hackers will withdraw the money form these accounts. Then, they successfully steal the money from banking accounts. They simply find and attract the weaknesses of system to achieve their goals. As the financial serive industry continues to develop in providing more security,  we can do more things to protect our accounts, such as, using our smartphone's passcode or fingerprint unlocking feature if available. 

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Picture reference:
http://phantomhacker.su/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Bank-Transfer-to-your-account.png
http://english.manoramaonline.com/content/dam/mm/en/news/world/images/2016/Jul/6/atm-fraud-hackers-kerala.jpg.image.784.410.jpg
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Credit-card-hacker.jpg

Writing reference;
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/savings/could-bank-hackers-steal-your-money-1.aspx
https://www.quora.com/How-do-hackers-steal-money-without-trace
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/banking/125652-how-criminals-steal-money-from-your-online-bank-account.html
http://business.time.com/2012/07/03/how-exactly-do-cyber-criminals-steal-78-million/

Integrated development environment(IDE)

      There are many programming languages, such as, Java, C++, Swift. However, programmers can't just write their codes on Microsoft word like the way we write essays. Microsoft word is not able to compile these programs. Therefore, programmers need a platform to write codes. Also, These codes need to be tested and compiled. Integrated development environment(IDE) is useful software application that can do all these jobs for programmers. There are many integrated development environments that programmers use, such as, netbeans, Xcode. However, have you ever wonder what integrated development environment is and what the advantages of using integrated development environment are.      

      According to Wikipedia, "An integrated development environment(IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. Its purpose is to maximize programmer productivity by providing tight-knit components with similar user interfaces."

      Integrated development has three sections, which are a file browser, a text editor and a console and it is like a universal tool that combines an editor, compiler and linker. Developers don't need to do a separate debugger and compile each source file separately when they are using integrated development environment. It makes developers's jobs much easier. It not only can help developers to organize resources, but also is able to prevent mistakes by checking the codes automatically. When we have compiler errors in our codes, we can simply double-click on the compiler error and it will take us directly to the line of the error. In addition, it can even provide shortcuts. For example, If we have misspelling errors or forget to import some package when we are writing codes, it will show a red sign to remind us. Sometimes, we can just click the sign to import package. Generally speaking, there are many other advantages of IDE I have not mentioned about. Computer scientists just make programming become easier after they designed IDE. 

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Picture reference;
http://2012.igem.org/wiki/images/5/57/Sustc_shenzhen_a_xcode.jpeg
http://www.javatpoint.com/fullformpages/images/ide.jpg

Writing reference;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_development_environment
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/technical-articles/what-are-integrated-development-environments/
https://salfarisi25.wordpress.com/2010/12/22/advantage-and-disadvantage-of-using-ide/
http://cboard.cprogramming.com/c-programming/112861-advantages-using-ide.html

Computational Finance
  

     As a student majoring in finance, I always think about the how to prepare for my future career in college. After I take the introduction course of computer science this term, I realize how big the power of computer and programming is. They can make a lot of things easier and help people work more efficiently. Then, I start to think about whether there is a relationship between computing and finance. Hence, after hours of researches, I find out they do have some relationship. There is a concept called computational finance and I am going to explore what it is in this blog.

    According to wikipedia, Computational finance is a branch of applied computer science which help people to deals with practical problems in finance. It not only emphasizes practical numerical methods, but also focuses on techniques that can be applied directly to economic analyses. Therefore, We have to learn mathematical finance and numerical methods in computational finance. It is an interdisciplinary field between these two major areas which are efficient in computation of financial securities and the modeling of price markets.

     So far, we understand what the computational finance is, but is it very important for financial world? Let's keep exploring. 

      With the skills and knowledge associated with computational finance, I am able to work in quantitative roles. Not only I can work in investment banks and central banks, but also I can be hired in software companies, hedge funds, and finance department of large corporations. Now, there are many prestigious colleges offering master programs in computational finance and will guide students to learn spreadsheet models, common application for investment analysis and so on. After knowing  computational finance’roles , will you be excited and willing to know it more?

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Picture reference:
http://www.cdm.depaul.edu/academics/PublishingImages/heroCF.jpg
http://qcfinance.in/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/stocks-1024x683.jpg

Writing reference;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_finance
https://www.coursera.org/specializations/wharton-business-financial-modeling
https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/members/students/postgraduate-courses/msc-mcf/frequently-asked-questions#WhyMSc

Siri's voice

I believe that many people have spoken with Apple’s Siri and ask it some hilarious questions and it can always give they some reasonable answers in human voice. Have you every wondered why it can answer you in a human mind and even human voice. Maybe some people may think that Apple company has a big database that already includes all the possible answers to different types of questions. And when a question is asked, the Siri, the smart system is going to find the most similar question with the most reasonable answer to that question and output it. However, why is it able to answer questions in human voice instead of robotic voice. Does someone already record all the possible answers in voice ahead?  Therefore, in this article, I am going to explore the reason why Siri is able to say everything in human voice.

There is no doubt that Siri needs a voice recorder if it wants to has human voice and Bennett is the voice recorder for Siri. It is extremely difficult to record voice for computerized voice like Siri because it requires some high technical pronunciation  and people are not able to speak clear English for a long time. Therefore, it is impossible for one person to record everything in voice. 

Actually, people use a technique called  concatenated speech to create all possible sentences' voices by using sophisticated computer programs to create words and sentences from basic sounds. The computer programs will include all possible sound to assemble in every possible combination for every possible word. Therefore, voice actors have to to recite gibberish-like sentences that include all of the English language's different sounds. For example, when Bennett need to record an "s" sound — she doesn't just record "s". Instead of, she will record the varying "s" in words like"his","snakes". Eventually, the computer will stitch all the sounds together and make it naturalistic. 

There is  a video about Bennett's story with Siri and hope you guys can enjoy!

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Writing reference;

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/23/8831131/siri-voiceover-susan-bennett

Picture reference;

http://media.gizmodo.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Siri.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/24/e5/5c/24e55c3c9149ba77b1db8df8348d6c34.jpg