Privacy Policy

What this prototype stores

Better Hacker has no user accounts and does not create a server-side learner profile. Completion markers for the eight Core Lessons, two supplemental lessons, 15 Hands-On Practice activities, seven investigations, and completed Attack Box simulations are stored in your browser’s localStorage on this device. The site also stores your sequential progress through four guided labs, completed Learning Assistant / Topic Guide IDs, and your most recent Course Review result. Your answers to lesson checks and practice questions are not stored as answer text.

Daily Practice, XP, and streaks

Daily Practice stores the latest 60 completed local dates with activity IDs and awarded XP; newer records also include the activity title and topic. Lifetime completion and XP totals and current/longest streak values are stored separately from that bounded history. XP, levels, achievements, and skill badges are calculated locally from validated learning and challenge evidence. None of this information is public or synchronized.

Practice Library

Free Practice Mode stores each completed activity’s ID and first completion date locally. It does not award Daily Practice XP or streak credit. The evidence-and-reasoning reflection typed into the practice form is not stored and is not sent to a live AI service.

Simulated Attack Box

The Attack Box uses fixed fictional challenge data and does not connect to your device, the Better Hacker host, or external networks. The terminal command history stays in the current page session and is not saved or transmitted. Only completed challenge IDs are saved locally. Each first completion contributes 50 XP; repeat reviews do not award duplicate XP.

Learner Portfolio

Projects stay on this device unless you choose to share an export. Stored projects include an activity ID, project title, completion date when available, creation/update times, and your own commands, investigation or work performed, findings, learning, challenges and solutions. Portfolio readiness is calculated from that evidence. Adding a project does not publish it or create an account.

Previewing GitHub-ready files stays in the browser. Copying places Markdown on your clipboard; downloading creates local files. Better Hacker does not authenticate with GitHub or publish directly. Uploading an export to GitHub or sharing it elsewhere is your choice and is handled by that service. Do not include passwords, personal information, confidential employer data or real incident evidence.

Cybersecurity Jobs

The jobs experience loads a public, sanitized dataset of current listings from connected employer ATS feeds. Better Hacker maps explicit phrases in source titles, categories, and descriptions into its controlled skill taxonomy; unmapped phrases are not compared. Skill comparisons use completed activity IDs, started activity IDs recorded after an answer or practice choice, and saved portfolio activity IDs in this browser. Started activities may be labeled Developing, but are not demonstrated evidence or completion. The versioned betterHackerJobReadinessProgress key stores authored activity IDs only; it does not store answers or learner-written portfolio text. Learner progress, portfolio contents, and comparison results are not sent to Greenhouse, Lever, employers, analytics providers, or application sites, and are not added to application links. Employers cannot see this learner evidence. Choosing Apply at Source opens the employer/ATS destination in a new tab. Fictional demo records, when shown, are labeled separately and do not count as live listings.

Course Review results

The stored Course Review result includes your score, percentage, completion time, and per-topic summary. It remains in your browser and is used to restore the dashboard, result summary, recommendation, and Knowledge Checkpoint achievement.

Waitlist email

If you submit the waitlist form, your normalized email address is sent to Formspree at the endpoint configured in this site. Better Hacker stores the email in localStorage only after Formspree confirms a successful request. The learning and portfolio data described above are not included in this request. If local storage fails after the service confirms signup, the page explains that your email was not saved on this device. Formspree processes the submission under its own privacy practices; Better Hacker’s local reset does not remove an email already submitted to that service.

Subscriptions and payments

Paid checkout is not configured, and this site does not currently collect payment details or start subscriptions. If subscriptions are launched later, checkout will be handled by a hosted payment provider; the provider’s privacy practices will apply to information submitted there. Better Hacker will update this notice to identify the active provider and describe the information it receives before accepting payments.

Learning Assistant

The current Learning Assistant and Byte Learning Guide use authored, rule-based guidance. They do not send questions to a live AI model or perform personalized AI analysis. Topic completion is local; Byte’s current activity context is session-only.

Educational badges

Better Hacker skill badges and achievements are local educational indicators. They are not accredited certifications or professional qualifications.

Your controls

Reset Learning Progress removes lesson, Hands-On Practice, guided-lab, investigation, Learning Assistant / Topic Guide, Course Review, Practice Library, Daily Practice, Attack Box, and started job-readiness activity markers from this browser. XP, streaks, derived achievements and badges reset with that evidence while preserving your authored portfolio projects and a confirmed waitlist email. Preserved projects remain editable and exportable. You can remove individual projects using Remove from Portfolio; doing so leaves activity completion unchanged. Download any work you want to keep before clearing site data in your browser. Clearing site data removes portfolio projects and the locally remembered email too; it does not undo an external waitlist submission.

Prototype limitations

Because learning state is local, it is not synchronized between devices and may be lost if browser storage is cleared. If storage is blocked or full, the site marks changes as session-only rather than saved; those changes may be lost on reload. Export portfolio work before leaving. No cloud backup or cross-device recovery is provided.

Contact

For questions about this Privacy Policy or how Better Hacker handles information, email betterhackerteam@gmail.com.