5 steps to keep your smart home from being hacked

Consumers who outfit their homes with home automation devices without considering security may be inviting hackers and thieves inside.

Repeatedly, studies have revealed that devices designed to automate the home have serious vulnerabilities. Many devices have weak password policies and do not protect against man-in-the-middle attacks, according to an HP survey of 10 off-the-shelf home security systems. Others do not prevent access to the device’s debugging interface, which could allow easy hacking of the device, according to an April study by code-security firm Veracode. And, if an attacker is able to gain access to the device, almost all devices could be easily compromised and turned into a Trojan Horse, according to a study by security from Synack.  In fact, it only took between 5 and 20 minutes to find a way to compromise each device, once the researchers unpacked the hardware.

“These companies are really pushing to get a product to market to really compete in this Internet of things boom, but they don’t have a security guy on their team, so there is a lot of small stuff being overlooked,” says Colby Moore, a security research analyst for Synack. “The majority of companies are ignoring the basics.”

Buying a used Nest could be a bad idea. Criminals could install custom firmware that enables them to compromise a host of other devices on your home network.

When Wi-Fi doesn't work, try these things first

Be patient. Diagnosing a network can be one of the most frustrating chores in the tech world. If the simple steps below don't work, we have a more detailed Wi-Fi troubleshooting guide, or you can check out some helpful Wi-Fi utilities.
When your PC (or other device) can’t access your Wi-Fi network, you have to find out where the problem is—your laptop or your router. So the first thing you need to do is test the network without the laptop. Try another computer—or any device that uses Wi-Fi, such as a smartphone or tablet. If that other PC or device can access your Wi-Fi, the problem is with your laptop.

If the problem is with the PC

Once you’ve established that the problem is with the computer, make sure that the laptop’s Wi-Fi is turned on. There’s probably a little hardware switch somewhere. Find it, and switch it. Windows will tell you if you turned it off or on. If you turned it off, try turning it back on.

If that doesn’t fix the problem, reboot.

How to disable Windows 10's Wi-Fi Sense password sharing

Windows 10’s new Wi-Fi Sense feature is a powerful tool that takes the headache out of managing Wi-Fi connections on the run. With Wi-Fi Sense enabled, Windows 10 will automatically sign you into open Wi-Fi networks, as well as private networks that your Outlook.com, Skype, and Facebook contacts have logged into—so you won’t have to manually sign into the network when you visit your buddy’s house.

As convenient as Wi-Fi Sense is, however, not everyone's thrilled with it. Windows 10 enables Wi-Fi Sense by default, but you can disable it. Here’s how.

How to disable Wi-Fi Sense in Windows 10

First, open the Start menu and head to Settings > Network & Internet > Wi-Fi > Manage Wi-Fi settings. In here, you basically want to disable every option you see, as well as tell Windows 10 to forget any Wi-Fi networks you’ve signed into in the past.

The Wi-Fi Sense settings screen in Windows 10

That’s easy, and all well and good. But what if you don’t want your friends sharing the information about yournetwork’s password with their friends? That takes some additional tinkering, and it’s not obvious. There isn’t a mere option toggle in Windows 10 itself.

Instead, you need to dive into your actual router’s settings and give your network a new name with “_optout” at the end. For example, a network called “WiFiSenseUgh_optout” wouldn’t be stored by Wi-Fi Sense, while one that’s just called “WiFiSenseUgh” would be usable with Microsoft’s sharing feature.

Yeah, it’s a pain, but if you don’t add “_optout” to your network and want to stay out of Microsoft’s Wi-Fi Sense database, you’ll need to manually enter your password on your friends’ devices when they pop by your house and make sure to uncheck Windows 10’s “Share network with my contacts” box when you do so.

How to uninstall programs and apps in Windows 10

After using Windows 10 for a while it becomes pretty clear that Microsoft is slowly moving as many former Control Panel functions as possible to the new Settings app. Given how central the Control Panel is (or was) to Windows, that must be a massive job.

Because of this switch, every now and then we can expect to see duplicated functionality in various regions of Windows 10. One example of this is how you uninstall traditional desktop programs in the new OS.

In Windows 8.1, you uninstall desktop programs the traditional way—by heading to the Control Panel. You can still do that in Windows 10, but there are also two new methods: one in the Start menu, and one in the new Settings app.

Here's how they work.

The Start menu

The quickest way to get rid of any desktop program or Windows Store app in Windows 10 is to head to the Start menu. This process is similar to how you'd uninstall Store apps from the Start screen in Windows 8.1.

Once the Start menu is open, all you do is find the program you want to get rid of in the All apps list or the more readily available live tiles. Now right-click it, select Uninstall from the context menu, and follow any uninstall wizards that appear. Done!

That was easy, and it now works for traditional desktop programs as well as Store apps, unlike in Windows 8.

How to block a phone number on your Android phone

After about the twentieth time that telemarketer bugs you with an “incredible deal” you’re probably ready to throw your phone out the window.

There’s a better way. With just a few steps you can banish that caller from contacting you forever. Here’s how to do it.

As a caveat, your specific dialer may look different or have some of the options placed elsewhere depending on which device you have. By and large, however, the process is pretty similar.

If it’s someone who called you recently, go to the dialer and then touch the three-dot menu button. Then touch Select. 

                                                           You can block callers through the dialer or contacts app.