Like many industries, IT has a host of shorthand terms that are thrown around to the point where they are commonplace, at least for the IT professionals using them. For more casual users these terms are gibberish. I have been working with and on computers most of my life, and I’m often having to look up new terms or relearn old ones simply because there are so many. In this blog we are going to talk about some common ones, and some with interesting origins.
Hello! How is your 2021 going so far? Cheers to the New Year!
… okay, now that that’s out of the way, let’s discuss a new hack that has come to my attention. It’s called “Juice Hacking” and only recently came on my radar. Juice Hacking occurs when you plug your phone into a “public charger,” expecting simply to recharge your battery. But instead, your phone is connected to a computer and your data is accessed or stolen. Yikes! I have definitely plugged my phone into a public charger a million times and didn’t think twice about it, so consider this an important PSA.
In my last blog, I mentioned VPNs and how the innumerable YouTube ads trying to sell you a VPN service often aren’t completely truthful about the security they offer. There are primarily two use cases to a VPN, and I’ll discuss both today!
What is a VPN?
A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, is an extra layer added onto a network connection to provide a way to route your traffic to a specific place. Often this lets you bypass a firewall and access resources that are relegated to users who are onsite. When your computer sends a network packet (the fancy word for any data that is being sent over a network), it is built into layers that tell any other computers what kind of traffic it is and where it’s going.
