Test Your Nerd Knowledge — May 3, 2022

Here’s a review of this week’s questions:

  1. What popular technology tool started at Microsoft in 1996 and was referred to as “a peer-to-peer tunneling protocol”?
  2. In post-World War II warfare, what type of weapon utilizes electronics, computers, sensors, and avionics along with turbojet propulsion and aerodynamics?
  3. What is a Black Hat Hacker?

And here are the answers:

  1. VPN.VPNs are commonly used today, for both commercial and personal use. The peer-to-peer tunneling protocol, or PPTN, was a method of creating a secure network between users through encrypting data and forming a tunnel over a LAN or WAN connection. Up until the early 2000s, PPTN and other forms of VPN were used primarily in business settings to protect against data breaches. But as the rest of the public gained access to the internet, and people started transferring their own data online, VPNs became an increasingly popular method of keeping individual and personal details secure.
  2. Tactical Guided Missiles.Computerized guidance systems are what separated tactical guided missiles from their predecessors, in that these missiles had the ability to make down-course corrections to seek or “home” onto a target that was programmed into the weapon’s computer system. Guided missiles are of two types, cruise and ballistic. Both types of missiles can carry warheads, and ballistic missiles are those generally used in shorter-distance attacks.
  3. Criminals who break into computer networks with malicious intent. The term“Black Hat Hacker” originated in the 1990s, but the practice of breaking into computer networks for nefarious purposes goes back to the 1960s. Applying “Old West” terminology to good guys and bad guys can often seem ambiguous (there are “White Hat Hackers,” but also “Grey Hat Hackers”), but there’s no denying the amount of bad stuff that Black Hat Hackers are capable of.