TECH ARTICLES
First and foremost I am an Engineer and Technology enthusiast.
Net Neutrality
There is incendiary debate today on the subject of Network Neutrality. There is a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding about the debate. The author has been involved with radio and telecommunications in various ways since 1964. The author has worked for radio and telecom companies, participated in the founding of two businesses intimately involved in building the Internet, and had direct personal involvement in building major peering points interconnecting major ISPs. The author shares his opinions on the topic.
The Great DD-WRT Adventure
Free, Open-Source, user-built and supported computer software has long been a passion of mine. DD-WRT is a software system built on the Open Source Linux Operating system. It is designed to replace the manufacturers embedded software completely, with a superior, open and powerful system.
DD-WRT is available for many popular routers. When new routers appear on the market, the dd-wrt enthusiasts around the globe jump in and add support right away, but availability for any specific router is not assured. I recently acquired a new router, a Netgear R6300. The R6300 is made in two major versions. The first version has been out a while and had become supported. Version 2 came with an upgraded CPU, more memory and other tweaks, and had only been added to the supported routers list very recently.
I thought I was "home free" with my new shiny R6300V2. When I discovered the Netgear stock software had some serious bugs, I immediately decided to switch over to dd-wrt. To my shock and surprise, my R6300V2 was a special Chinese market variant. This is the tale of the quest to update dd-wrt to support it.
Ten Magical, Wonderful Things
DD-WRT Can Do!
Routers too have operating systems, and DD-WRT is an excellent replacement for a manufacturers proprietary system. Not only is it open source, but it offers features and capabilities not usually found in consumer platforms.
DD-WRT is powerful and flexible. The following uses show ways you can get the most out of DD-WRT.
Whither Privacy
The media has been atwitter of late with countless stories about how “they” are snooping on our private data. The simple truth is that someone has ALWAYS been snooping on our data. In this essay I suggest that today is no different save we have better tools to protect ourselves, if we will bother to use them.
