Chapter 7

I have mixed feelings about wireless networks. On one hand, I have fond memories of the dial up and wired LAN days. Me and my friends would set up a LAN party to play games together before online multiplayer video games were common. I also remember playing video games with a wired connection and being disconnected every time the phone rang. While it seems archaic now and I found it frustrating at the time, I can’t help but find it endearing now. On the other hand, even though Wi-Fi and wireless networks in general make the internet significantly easier, my eye glaze over reading about the difference between 4G and 5G. It seems like we hit a plateau in technology to the point where I don’t even notice the difference.

I don’t have many personal anecdotes about more modern wireless networks. If it works properly, I’m happy. I don’t need a watch to show me a grocery list or my refrigerator to tell me the time. I could understand someone feeling different if they grew up during the expansion of the Internet of Things. Even though I’m indifferent to most of the new wireless technology, that doesn’t mean I don’t use it. I’ve used hotspots to bail me out of a few situations where I had no internet. While I scoff at the idea of my household appliances having Wi-Fi, there’s some things I’m taking for granted. The book uses the examples of medical and traffic sensors. While I may not feel the impact in my everyday life, I feel they’ve definitely improved it.

When I was a teenager living with my parents, they didn’t have a password for their wireless network. I tried to tell them it was a bad idea, but they didn’t want to write down “another” password. Eventually, our internet was slowing down, and we found out our neighbors were using our wireless network. The power of spite got them to use a password. Now that I pay for my own internet, I use WPA. I don’t have a personal story for these terms, but I found the terms “over-the-shoulder”, “evil twin”, “café latte”, and “sniffer program” humorous. It’s unfortunate that they’re used to describe potentially federal crimes.