What is the meaning of the phrase "less informed prey"?
However, there are best practices to hinder and frustrate attackers, pushing them to look elsewhere for more vulnerable, less informed prey!
Here is the tutorial that contains the phrase.
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1It refers to those who know less. But in this context, I think the author means those apps written by those who know less, thus they are more vulnerable.– Damkerng T.Commented Dec 14, 2013 at 7:16
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1 Answer
Informed here is a past participle—in this context it might better be called a passive participle—employed as an adjective.
When you give people information about something, you inform them, and they are informed. Consequently, to say that someone is informed means that they possess information: they are knowledgeable about some topic.
Prey means the entity which a predator attacks. Mice are the prey of cats; elephants and rhinos are the prey of big-game hunters.
In the case at hand, the term is employed figuratively. The author of the post treats the applications you create as potential victims, prey, of attacking software—predators seeking to rob or kill your apps. He suggests that if you “inform” your apps, make them “smarter”, they will be able to resist the attacks, which will cause the predators to become discouraged and turn their efforts to “less informed prey”—somebody else’s apps which are not so smart, not so informed, and therefore are easier to rob or kill.
answered Dec 19, 2013 at 14:37
