Inspiration
With this year's HowdyHack theme being Spy, we really wanted to create something that would not only be useful for college students, but for everyone. Nowadays, a lot of websites and companies get compromised via data breaches, and such information is leaked online. With you're email exposed on a breached data list, you're privacy and security is at risk. We wanted to create something that allows people to keep their security and privacy in check and protect themselves from future data breaches.
What it does
This project enables users to get notified whenever there is a data breach that leaks their email and/or password by alerting them via sms or email. This application checks the database on HaveIBeenPwned through its API.
How we built it
We utilized Flask for the front-end and back-end (due to complications stated later), MongoDB (which isn't in use currently), and Python.
Challenges we ran into
Originally, we were planning to do the project with React as our front-end and Node.JS/Express.JS/MongoDB in the back end (The video showed the demo video previewed the React front-end), but we had spent several hours learning the technologies/frameworks until we realized what we had setup to utilize the API wasn't going to work well (We utilized a python script to interface with the HaveIbeenPwned API). Last night, we just decided to commit to Flask with MongoDB instead. The original project was supposed to routinely notify users of new data breaches that included their email(s) as data is given in the HaveIBeenPwned API, but due to time limitations and constrains (along with our worn out brains), we decided to just notify users about the current amount of breaches for now (MongoDB is not utilized, as it was intended for use for routine notifications). There were a lot of times where we were stressed out but we managed to pull through. Never give up! Emotionally: Our brains are fried, but it was worth it, considering the amount of knowledge we gained.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're really glad the push notifications through e-mail and sms work. We've spent countless hours trying to debug various bugs.
What we learned
These 24 hours have taught us a lot. It is important to stay organized, there were times where our minds were going all over the place, and we realized how imperative it was to organize our thoughts and ideas and utilize SCRUM and the website "Trello." We were completely unfamiliar with Framework and MongoDB so we had to learn how to use them. The first several hours were spent learning React, Node.JS/Express.JS, but those technologies never got put into use.
What's next for BreachAlert
We are going to continue on working on this project to become a full-fledged web app (with routine notifications). We're all really excited about this idea and how it can potentially help a lot of people with keeping check with their privacy and security. We're also going to work on having a better web interface as we were focused on having the app working. Better security and authentication is something we also want to implement in the future.
The core of the web app works, but we just need to fully deploy it into a web server (along with integration with MongoDB to routine check for new data breaches for a user).
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