Welcome to Super Simple Security Principles. I'm Nick Jackson and I want to love computers, but they don't want to love me back. I am learning how to stay safe online from a good buddy of mine, my master guardian, Makani Mason. He wrote his first computer program at the age of six. This sealed his fate as a computer nerd. And guys, he knows his stuff. He knows it. Now he spends his time each week teaching people like you and me how to stay ahead of the bad guys. Hallelujah, folks. He keeps it super simple and we love it. Learn along with me each week. I ask questions and make sure he keeps it super relevant and simple for us. If I can do it, you can do it. We got this. Let's dive in. This is episode 58. How a guest network can protect your home. Here are the questions we're going to be answering in today's episode. You ready? I'm ready. Let's go. All right. So what is a guest network? I've seen guest networks. I couldn't really describe them. So we're going to figure this out together. How can it protect my home network? No clue. Like I'm excited to hear how a guest network could protect my home network. Excited? Does everyone need to use it? Again, like you guys, I'm not quite sure how a guest network will protect my home network. So I'm going to say, yeah, everybody in your household should use it. We'll find out. I'm trying to get Makani to give away a little bit with his facial expressions, and he's not doing that. All right. And last, our last question we're going to be going over. What are the three categories of Internet of Things, IoT devices? Internet of Things devices. I like it. Three categories, huh? Yeah, and that's one of those acronyms I'm going to try to beat into it so I don't have to say Internet of Things every time. Yeah, that's kind of a tongue twister, isn't it? Internet of Things. It's kind of an important distinguisher because we're trying to distinguish between your computers and your phones towards all the other internet dependent devices in your home, right? So it's an important one, but it's not the simplest and one that runs off the tongue too easily. So anyway, I like to say IoT devices, but I love my acronym. Look, we can adopt that. We can adopt that. I'm okay with that one. Yeah, I don't like saying Internet of Things either, to be honest. Just got to repeat it enough times that we get used to it. Yep, IoT means Internet of Things, and those are devices. Just in case they need a quick recap. Should we see if I could do the recap? Oh, I just threw myself out of the bus. About the Internet of Things, or should we just jump into it with our... Oh, what is Internet of Things? Yeah. Oh, that's fine. Yeah, you can... Internet of Things is devices that can connect to the internet, right? Yeah, like your smart TV. Okay, perfect. That's kind of what I thought. Right. Obviously, your phone and computer connect to the internet, but we don't normally call those Internet of Things because those are more a fully capable computer. There's all these other more minor devices that also now are internet dependent that never would have been in the past, even speakers. Right, right. Well, we get to lots of homes or other devices. Yeah, yeah. Okay, awesome. So there's a quick rundown of Internet of Things. Simple, but more simple devices that are connected to the internet. Now, it seems like everything's connected to the internet. Exactly. So awesome, man. So where do we dive in? We've kind of gone around this wagon. Let's jump right in. Like, I'm ready. Right. So in episode 56, we talked about computer viruses spreading on your home network, right? Yep, yeah. And we're going to talk about several layers of protection against that. And this is, I think, the first one we're talking about. No, the second one, because we talked about firewalls a little bit last time. That was the first most fundamental one, right? So this is another one, and it's very simple to set up, and it is something I recommend for most people. However, and this kind of gets back to that opening question is, you know, should everybody use it? And like I said, I do recommend it, but the amount of benefit you're going to get is very dependent on your specific home network setup and usage. So I do consider it more of a situational layer of protection rather than a fundamental universal one like firewalls. Okay. And I just recommend it for everybody because it's easy to set up. There's really no downside. But, you know, after we dig into the specific value, and that's what we're going to get into, is what it can do for you and depending on your situation. And then, you know, our listeners can decide for themselves if they want to, but I do recommend it. Okay, sounds good. Sounds good. We could roll with that. So let's just start, though, about what a guest network is. And it sounded like you don't know. I thought you had one set up at your house. I do. I do. I have a guest network set up at my house. Now, for our listeners, I did not set that up myself. He did. Right. So Makani helped set me up with that. Yeah. Can I be fully transparent? Yeah. I've even forgot the user password for the guest network. So you haven't been utilizing it anyway. Yeah, definitely haven't been using it. Okay. So yes, I have one. If I were to try to put a description on it, I would say it's a network that you can let visitors use when they come to your home if they need to use the internet. Yeah, well, right. And then the name, right, gives a big clue, right? And that is actually a pretty good description, unlike some computer descriptions. So it's a second Wi-Fi network in your home. It's identical to your first, except that it's just segregated from your first. Okay. And so it has a name, but that name is visible, just like the name of your main Wi-Fi network. So the only secret thing about it is the password. There's not a username for it because this is just for connecting and getting access to the internet. Okay. Okay, that makes sense. And so it's kind of analogous of like, if you were on your main home network versus your neighbor's home network, and it's just like, you can create a second one of those in your house. I mean, it's the same idea of how your home network is separate from your neighbor's home network. Does that make sense? Makes total sense. Makes total sense. Yeah. So that leads us to the first and primary purpose. Well, depending on how you categorize that, but one of the main things is to protection against any devices that are brought into your home by those guests. Yeah. And just to be clear though, this is not about the kind of people you invite into your home. I'm sure they're all very lovely. Right, right. One of their devices might be infected with malware without them knowing it. Right, right, right. That's kind of what I had assumed is they were unaware. It wasn't like they were sneaking into your house. Like, I'm going to spread this virus. Right, exactly. Right. It's just, they might not know. And there's no benefit in trusting that all those devices that they bring in are safe. Right. Especially, and I'll say this, because chances are if you're listening to my podcast, then the level of security on your devices in your home is probably higher than most of your guests, statistically speaking. So just another little, I mean, even if it weren't, it's still worthwhile, but just kind of another little nudge to give you a reason to do it. Okay. And as a reminder, the reason why they might not know they have malware is because, and we've talked about this in a number of episodes, but malware likes to stay hidden. So it could just keep doing stuff. And one of the main things it likes to do is to watch and spread to new devices. Yeah. Not every form of malware everywhere does this, but it's very, very common. And so with a guest network, that's going to make sure that if there's any malware on any of your guest devices, it won't spread to any of the devices on your home because there's just no, they don't have any ability to communicate. It's like there's no overlap. It's like they're set distinct, completely. Yeah. You know, we've talked about the phone calls that devices make to each other, right? Yeah. They don't have your device's phone numbers. You could look at it that way. They just don't have any way to call them. Okay. Now, the value of this, of course, depends on how often you have people visit your house. Right? So that's just, you know, some people don't have that visitor over that often or if they do, they're not necessarily getting on your internet connection very often. So that's why this is kind of a situational one because some people do have guests over a lot and, you know, share their internet with them and some people a lot less so. And so that just depends on your case. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. It makes total sense. Okay. Now, the other big protection that this can offer, and this goes back to our opening questions too, with the internet of things. And this is also, again, completely dependent on individual situation and specifically the kinds of devices that you have in your home. Okay. And so here's how I'd characterize it. A guest network, it could range all the way from what I would consider a critical protection for some people if they have a lot of these kinds of devices. And for some, it may be not help at all because they might not have any of these IoT devices that they can put on their guest network. Okay. So in the opening... Yeah. I was just going to ask, and since you're familiar with me and my situation, you've been here, you've actually been to my house, you've actually done this before. But I have one of the devices we love. It's an Apple TV. Absolutely love it. And that's because I can have my friends over, my son can have his friends over. They can log into their Apple account on this device and stream their movies. You know, they can find their stuff. And it's part of the reason why I really like it. Is this a perfect example of one that we'd want to set up on a guest network? That's a good question. I'm not positive, honestly. Okay. Well, let me explain the categories and then because you'll know your usage of it. I don't have an Apple TV. And then let's revisit that after we talk about these and then see if you know. And if not, then we'll look into it more offline as well. Sounds great. I love that. Right, because you're exactly, you're going in the exact right direction though, because the next question is, okay, so I have these devices. How do I know if I want to put them on the guest network or if I need to keep them on the main network, right? Exactly. Yep, yep. That's exactly what I was thinking. You nailed it. And so the way I thought about explaining this is we're going to break them into three categories. Okay. Now, these are just my made up categories for purposes of deciding if they should go on the guest network or stay on the main network. Yeah. And category one is, can you access the device? Like, do you have an app specifically probably that lets you access that device when you are away from home? Okay. And these are the absolute most important devices to put on your guest network, because if you can access it away from home, guess what? That means hackers can access it from the internet. Okay, okay. Right? And this is exactly, if you remember in episode 56, we talked about the Ring security system that got hacked. Yeah, yep. Well, that will probably come as no surprise. It's because it's available from the internet. Okay, yep. And an increasing amount of devices are in this category because it's just so convenient. And obviously, security systems, I understand the appeal there, right? You want to check on your home while you're on vacation. You want to be able to look at the security cameras, you want to, whatever. But it's still at the same time, a terrifying prospect to me, because their security just tends to be so poorly designed. And anyway, this is the most important category for putting on the guest network. Because if you can access it from home then, or away from home, excuse me, you want to put them on your guest network. Okay. Second category, and these are going to be devices that you don't want to put on your guest network, okay? First category, guest network. This one needs to stay on main. Printers are perhaps the most obvious of these. And these are one, actually, let me describe the category is, they're going to be ones that are only available at your home, right? And opposed to the first category, it's away from home. And a second requirement though, is that your devices need to be able to, you have other devices that use this device. So like a printer, obviously, and they're not very much good unless you can send a document to print from your computer or your phone, right? Right, right. Speakers are another common one. Unless you're only streaming audio from the cloud, right, like a lot of times, you're going to stream it from your phone or TV or whatever, right? Yeah. So anyway, that's category two. Okay. And then category three is basically anything else that doesn't fit in the other two, and devices that your devices don't need to access. Okay. And this is probably the smallest category. These are devices that, of course, all these are going to be internet connected devices, all three categories that are only relevant if they connect to the internet, but that you never access or connect to from other devices. Okay. So here's an example. That makes sense. I actually have an example of one of those. Oh, you do? Well, good. You show me your example. So my son got this little remote, kind of like forklift thing. He can, like, program it to go lift up and move blocks and drive around, and it recognizes his face as much as I don't like that. Like, it's got face recognition on it. Connects to the internet, but it can only be connected to one device. And so, yeah. It can be connected to one device? What does that mean? It means, so, like, to have another device tell it what to do. He can only have, it's only on his phone that he uses it. Like, if we were to try and download a different app and jump on, it would basically. Yeah, but that's not in this category because unless it's doing it over the internet, which it might be, it's possible. Oh, okay, okay. It depends on exactly how that works. Okay. But because what happens is if you threw this forklift, we'll call it, on the guest network, right? Right. But the phone that's controlling it is on the main network, then unless that communication between those devices is routed through the internet, then they wouldn't be able to communicate. Okay, I see how we're categorizing these now. Okay, that was much clearer. Yeah, so. Okay. That's the key thing. Do the devices need to be able to communicate? And do they communicate through the internet, right? Because, like, for example, with the Ring security system, right, you're going to be communicating to it through an app on your phone, right? Right, right, right. But because you can do it away from home, that communication is actually happening through the internet. And so. Okay. It's all a question of does that communication happen through just your local network, like with a printer? Because the printer, you know, your computer doesn't send a document to the internet and the internet send it back down to your printer. Right, it goes straight to the printer. It communicates directly to the printer. Yes, I got it. And so if you put your printer on your guest network, okay, I just. Yeah, I totally get it now. No, totally get it now. That was one of those good definition defining ones. I like it. Okay, so I don't know if you have any ones, but when I was looking online, because I don't know that I have any either right now, but it was like a Peloton or other fitness equipment. Okay, yeah. Where it's pulling like workouts from the internet and stuff. But, you know, it's all controlled with on device things. So you're not necessarily using your phone to do it. I guess I don't have a Peloton, but right. Okay, yeah. So, right. And there's, I'm sure other kinds as well, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like, yep. Yeah. Another example was digital photo frames. Again, if they're pulling only from the cloud, not from a local device, which I think is probably common these days. Yeah, okay. I've got two now. Yeah, well, another one. And this is one I actually want, but I have not gotten yet, just because it's kind of pricey. Whatever would be cool is have my own local weather station. You can like you can put a weather thing to help kind of improve weather detection. And you can let other people access it and whatever, you know, which is one case where I'd actually be all about that, right? Be kind of right. Be neat. But anyway, yeah. But, and then, you know, it's kind of wracking my brain. You could also technically put like e-readers, you know, Kindle or Kobo, Nook on a guest network because they need internet, right? But they're not going to be talking to your other local devices. Yeah. I mean, you know, I don't know, whatever. You could anyway. I don't know if you'd want to, but anyway, that's category three. Okay. Nice. Okay. So any other questions on categorizations or devices? You had a lot along the way, but anything else? No, not that I can think of. Okay. So the next thing then is, and this is the last piece I want to cover today, is how to set up a guest network. Yeah. Yep. So, you know, this will end up essentially being our call to action, but I want to go into a bit more detail, you know, rather than trying to squeeze that into that section, so. Okay. So I'm just going to say it real quick. Yeah. For all our faithful listeners who love our call to action, there's a couple who know exactly who I'm talking about. I'm talking about you guys. Here's our call to action. It's going to be a little bit of a longer one. Yeah. So Master Guardian, I'm turning the time over to you. Let's get our call to action. Let's figure out how to, I'm assuming we're going to figure out how to set up a home guest network. Yeah. And, you know, yeah. We'll recap it at the end in kind of a one sentence call to action, but because it's not really too hard, but it's very similar to just setting up your main Wi-Fi network. It's something that you go configure on your router, which, you know, back in episode 54, if you went and followed along, you learned already how to log into your router to do these sorts of things. And you found the manual for your router. Right. Right. And that will be helpful here also because there are routers that actually don't even have the guest network feature. That's one of the things I wanted to make sure to point out here. I don't know exactly. I have no idea on the statistics of how common it is or not. But in case you're hunting and you can't find it, anyway, definitely know that it is a question of if your router supports that feature or not. Okay. I think most do these days. Anyway. And then just like with your main Wi-Fi network, you've got to pick a name and a password. And the same basic rules apply with picking, you know, don't put personal information in the Wi-Fi name. Don't put the name of the router in the name. And of course, with the password, please make it a strong, unique one. You don't have it used anywhere else. Especially in particular, make sure it's not the same Wi-Fi password as your main network because that would really kind of defeat half the point of having a separate network. Yeah. Does that make sense? It makes total sense. Yeah. Because they could access either network and it wouldn't matter. Yeah. So the one sentence version of our call to action is if you feel like it's worth it, and I recommend it, log into your router and set up a guest network. Use the instructions from your manual if needed. Okay. That's it? That's it. That's it. That's not bad. Yeah. And it's one of those things too, where it's a one-time setup, right? Yeah. So there's nothing ongoing to do with that. So that's the other nice aspect. Sweet. So we got our call to action. We got our questions answered. We got it, man. That was a great show. Amen. Right? I like it. Okay. So just to lead into next week's episode, it is time to come back to the topic of firewalls. And we learned about firewalls and their importance. This time, we're going to be diving into a powerful tool that very few people have, and that's outbound firewalls. Now, this sounds confusing, but remember, I'm going to be right there with you. And we're going to want to add an extra layer of protection. So this is going to be an episode you really want to tune in for, especially adding that extra protection, layering up, as we call it. So we look forward to having you for that next episode. Hope you enjoyed this one. This was a really good one. Find out the ways you can use a guest network to your advantage. You know, I love it. Are you ready to take action and wondering where to start? Get my Bulletproof MyIdentity Starter Kit for free. The seven most vital layers of protection everyone needs. I'll send you one step at a time and help you if you get stuck. Just go to bulletproofmyid.com and enter your name and email, and I will send you the first step. Again, that's bulletproofmyid.com.