Late last month I had the chance to fulfill a childhood dream; I went to Space Camp! No, not that kind of space camp… I went to Meteor Space Camp!

Thanks to the hard work of Josh Owens and a handful of very generous sponsors and organizers, I had the opportunity to spend a weekend with fifty other passionate Meteorites in a beautiful cabin nestled in the Great Smoky Mountains.

When it came time for talks, I used the opportunity to discuss something near and dear to my heart - software security! I gave a quick presentation on the importance of always checking your arguments in your Meteor applications. We looked at example methods, publications, and collection validators and dove into how they could be exploited by malicious users. I capped things off with a quick demo (that didn’t completely go as planned) to make things more real.

I’ll be sure to post a video of the talk once it’s available, but in the meantime check out the slides for a quick teaser.

Being able to put faces to people I’ve met in the community was an invaluable experience. I feel like we solidified some real friendships, and made great new connections with awesome people in the community. The value of meeting people face to face and talking about something you love really can’t be underrated. If you didn’t make it out to Space Camp this year, read Katie Reed’s fantastic write-up to get a taste of what you missed.