Western Washington Wonders
Eastern Washington Secrets
Field Tech Adventures
Cybersecurity Nightmares
The "Is It DNS?" Files
200

Floating high above the Seattle skyline, this iconic observation tower was originally built for the 1962 World's Fair.

What is the Space Needle?

200
Spanning the Columbia River, this massive concrete gravity dam was complete in 1942 and remains the largest power-producing facility in the U.S.

What is the Grand Coulee Dam?

200

Techs often use these cheap plastic ties to wrangle spaghetti monsters under user desks, even though Velcro straps are superior.

What are zip ties?

200

This malicious software encrypts a user's files and demands payment to unlock them.

What is Ransomware?

200

This system translates human-readable web addresses in IP addresses so browsers can actually load them.

What is DNS?

400

Located on the Olympic Peninsula, this famous temperate rainforest is know for its lush green canopy and extreme annual rainfall.

What is the Hoh Rain Forest?

400

This vibrant, rolling region in southeastern Washington is famous worldwide for its incredible fertile, wind-blown silt dunes that produce massive amounts of wheat.

What is The Palouse?

400

When deploying dual monitors, this digital port is highly preferred over older blue VGA ports, transmitting both high-def video and audio.

What is HDMI (or DisplayPort)?

400

An attacker uses this deceptive email technique, pretending to be an agency executive urgently asking for gift cards.

What is Phishing?

400

This unique 48-bit physical address is hardcoded into a network interface card at the factory.

What is a MAC addresss?

600

Located on Lake Washington, SR-520 hold the Guiness World Record for being the longest type of this specific bridge in the world.

What is a floating bridge?

600

This deep, narrow ribbon lake stretches for 50 miles into the Cascades, acting as the gateway to the remote, boat-in-only town of Stehekin.

What is Lake Chelan?

600

This handheld mechanical tool is used by techs to attach RJ45 connectors to the ends of CAT6 cable.

What is a crimping tool?

600

This security requirement forces users to provide a password and approve a prompt on an external device before logging in.

What is MFA/2FA?

600

In a standard /24 subnet, this is the maximum number of usable IP addresses available to assign to devices.

What is 254?

800

In 1859, the United States and Great Britain engaged in a bloodless, years-long boundary standoff in the San Juan Islands that was entirely triggered by the shooting of this specific farm animal.

What is a pig? (The Pig War)

800

During the Ice Age, this central Washington cliff was the site of an epic waterfall estimated to be five times wider than Niagara Falls.

What is Dry Falls?

800

This localized security group is routinely stripped from endpoints to prevent users from installing unauthorized software.

What is the Local Administrator group?

800

If a user finds a random one of these in the parking lot, they should turn it in, but absolutely never plug it into their workstation.

What is a USB (Thumb) drive?

800

When using the ping command, this three-letter metric drops by one every time the packet passes through a router, preventing the data from bouncing around the internet forever.

What is TTL (Time to Live)?

1000

Accessible by a 3-mile boardwalk hike through the rainforest, this rocky point in Olympic National Park is the westernmost tip of the contiguous United States.

What is Cape Alava?

1000

In 1931, Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon landed their plan in East Wenatchee, completing the world's first non-stop flight across this body.

What is the Pacific Ocean?

1000

A technician opening a computer case needs to be careful not to trigger this sudden flow of electricity, which shares its three-letter acronym with our agency.

What is Electrostatic Discharge?

1000

This physical security breach involves an unauthorized person closely following an employee through a secure, badge-access door.

What is Tailgating?

1000

If you are configuring a firewall rule specifically to allow standard DNS traffic to pass through, you need to open this specific UDP port.

What is Port 53?

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