Practical tips, how-to guides, and field notes on Wi-Fi, mesh networks, and home network security — from someone who has spent 20+ years in IT.
Wi-Fi 6 routers have been mainstream for a few years now. Wi-Fi 6E added the 6 GHz band. Wi-Fi 7 is starting to arrive. If you’re still running a Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) router you bought in…
Read article →Most guides about crypto security focus on wallets, seed phrases, and exchange accounts. That’s the right starting point. But your home network is part of your security posture too, and it’s often the part that crypto…
Read article →Most people put their router wherever the cable is. That’s usually a corner of the living room, next to the TV, on the floor behind furniture, or in the front room of a house where it…
Read article →Upgrading to a mesh system sounds like a straightforward task until you’re standing in front of your equipment at 9pm wondering why half your smart home devices have gone offline. The transition doesn’t have to go…
Read article →Here’s a scenario that sounds unlikely until it isn’t: a security researcher in 2019 demonstrated that they could pivot from a vulnerable smart fish tank thermometer to the casino network it was connected to and extract…
Read article →Speed tests are easy to run. Fast.com or Speedtest.net, click a button, wait a few seconds, get a number. What that number means — and whether it’s actually good or bad for your situation — takes…
Read article →The question comes up regularly, and I want to give you a straight answer rather than the usual paranoid “never use public Wi-Fi for anything” advice, which isn’t realistic, or the breezy “it’s fine, HTTPS protects…
Read article →When you look at mesh Wi-Fi system specs, you’ll often see a mention of backhaul — sometimes wireless, sometimes wired, and with tri-band systems, a dedicated wireless backhaul band. It sounds technical, and the marketing tends…
Read article →There’s a list online — publicly available, regularly updated — that contains the factory default usernames and passwords for hundreds of router models. Admin/admin. Admin/password. User/1234. The specific defaults for Netgear, TP-Link, Linksys, Asus, and dozens…
Read article →You set up a smart plug. It works great for a week, then one morning your phone says it’s offline. You unplug it, plug it back in, it reconnects. Two weeks later: same thing. Or it’s…
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