What is a flag / option — CCA-F Exam Prep

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L0.27|What is a flag / option
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Mystery
A detective at a terminal in a dark room. Screen shows 'ls' with 3 files visible. She leans forward, types 'ls -la', and the screen floods with 47 files. Hidden files revealed. Noir lighting, blue terminal glow.

The detective found a file. Then she found 44 more.

Digital forensics case. Suspect's laptop. She runs `ls` on the desktop folder. Three files: vacation.jpg, notes.txt, budget.xlsx. Looks clean.

She runs `ls -la`. Same folder. 47 files. Hidden configuration files. A .ssh directory with encryption keys. A .bash_history showing every command the suspect ever ran.

Same command. Different flag. The flag changed what the command revealed.