Module 7 of “The Internet” was a both a fun exploration of the evolution of wireless technology & a practical discussion of how to improve the security of any wireless devices I own. I was hit by a blast of nostalgia reading about 2G devices only being able to support calls and basic text messages, as it reminded me of my mom’s old flip phone and painstakingly typing out a 1 sentence text on that tiny screen. Looking back with the knowledge that 4G devices were first developed in 2010, I find it even more surprising that my family did not own a smartphone until 2017. The jump in data transfer capacity and speed is hugely impressive, and I know that 5G is the latest buzz word in wireless carrier company ads, so I’ll be interested to see when the textbook will be updated to provide information on the features of 5G.

It was definitely eye-opening to find out how weak the default security is for home wireless network devices. Although I have never set one up myself, this chapter provided me valuable tips (such as immediately changing the default login and password, enabling MAC address filtering, & disabling the SSID for my router) to prevent malicious sources from accessing my local network. This chapter also made me realize I need to be incredibly careful in connecting to public Wi-Fi networks. While there’s always a risk of my data being compromised, I can minimize that risk by only doing sensitive online work (any sites that require a verified identity or passwords, or deal with personal records or money) from my home or a trusted secure network. Keeping my OS up to date, backing up my data, and monitoring data usage are all other recommended practices that I’ve already been actively using to protect my devices from online threats.

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