Human Infrastructure 458: Wi-Fi Design Evolution, IETF in Space, and More

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Drew Conry-Murray & Ethan Banks
August 06, 2026

THIS WEEK’S MUST-READ BLOGS 🤓

John Howard got a GPG error after a macOS upgrade. This post is his dive down the rabbit hole to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. - Drew  

From device offsets to channel contention, Eva digs into three design changes in the Wi-Fi space that have caused her to adjust her default thinking when it comes to Wi-Fi design work. - Drew 

Job hunting has never been easy, and despite the utility of LinkedIn and the profusion of online job search sites, it’s probably harder than ever. Leon Adato weighs in with some thoughts to help frustrated IT job hunters retain a shred of their sanity. - Drew 

Geoff Huston offers a detailed overview of space-networking related sessions at IETF 126, including updates on the Delay-Tolerant Networking Group and the Bundle protocol, an initiative called “Taking IP To Other Planets (TIPTOP), a census of current and planned low- and medium-orbit satellites for broadband and other purposes, and more. BTW, Heavy Networking dedicated an episode to the Bundle protocol, which digs into the challenges of getting packets to and from objects in space. Listen here. - Drew 

MORE BLOGS

  1. Scrapli Vs. Nornir - Roger Perkin   

With AI scaling beyond the data center into distributed inference across clouds and the edge, a modern IP networking foundation is key to success. Ciena’s Vini Santos shares how to turn intelligence into real value with an IP network built for performance, adaptability, and efficiency.

TECH NEWS 📣

Technology always moves faster than the law, and that seems to be the case with multiple instances of AI models escaping “containment” (such as it was) and breaking into third-party computer systems. As a non-lawyer, it seems clear to me that laws were broken and that the organizations that built and operated these AI models were negligent and thus responsible. However, this Tech Crunch article interviews actual lawyers and legal experts, and it turns out there’s more gray area than I thought. - Drew 

Industrial control systems manage critical infrastructure, such as public water and power systems, which makes them likely targets for malicious actors. While you may have heard of recent attacks against water and wastewater treatment facilities in Michigan, this article says six other US states reported incidents to the FBI in recent weeks. This article provides a good overview of the challenges of protecting local utility systems, how the Iran war increases the threat of attack against these systems, and how US political conflicts complicate possible solutions. - Drew 

In a related story to the one above, this article checks in on the DEF CON Franklin project, a volunteer effort to help provide technical information and resources to local water utilities. So far, the project has made a very modest impact. Given current events, perhaps that might change. - Drew 

MORE NEWS

FOR THE LULZ 🤣

RESEARCH & RESOURCES 📒

Rick Donato is curating a list of resources and tools for network engineers who want to bring AI and ML into their automation practices. The list includes learning resources, tools, frameworks, podcasts, and more. - Drew 

Sif Baksh has written a new book, aimed at network engineers, to help them integrate AI into network troubleshooting. There are more details about what’s in the book in this LinkedIn post from Sif. - Drew 

MORE RESOURCES

UPCOMING LIVE EVENTS 🍕🍻

A curated list of near-future meatspace events of interest to network engineers. Sometimes a Packet Pusher or two will be there (noted below).

Subscribe to events.packetpushers.net in your calendar software.

AUGUST 2026

(MN)NUG | Summer Event 2026 (USNUA)
19 August | St. Paul, MN

SEPTEMBER 2026

(KY)NUG Lexinton Fall Event (USNUA)
1 September | Lexington, KY

NLNAM Meetup 3 | NL Network Automation Meetup
9 September | Utrecht, Netherlands

Wi-Co Manchester
9 - 10 September | Manchester, UK

2026 Summer Social | TORNOG
10 September | Toronto, Canada

Zeek Workshop
10 - 11 September | Berkeley, California

Cybr.Sec.Con
15 - 16 September | Houston, Texas (Drew and JJ will be there!)

(MO)NUG | Missouri Networking User Group (USNUA)
23 September | St. Louis, Missouri

NetBrain Live 2026
22 - 24 September | Boston, MA

Wi-Co Cleveland
24 September | Cleveland, OH

Higher Education NETCOMM Workshop 2026
29 September | Denver, CO

OCTOBER 2026

Wi-Co Montreal
7 October | Pointe-Claire, QC

INDUSTRY BLOGS & VENDOR ANNOUNCEMENTS 💬 

NetBox Labs has released the public preview of its Analytics feature, which offers pre-built dashboards (10 currently, more to follow) that provide information on the most repeatedly-asked questions about an organization’s infrastructure. Dashboards will be available for executive views, capacity and utilization, inventory, and more. This feature is available in the SaaS version of the product. - Drew 

InfoBlox has a view into trillions of DNS queries. These data and others inform the company’s 2026 threat landscape report. What’s in the report? From the press release:

“The report examines cybercrime through four dimensions: the industrialized services powering attacks at scale, the hidden infrastructure enabling evasion, the evolving lures reaching victims and the expanding attack surfaces opening new footholds inside the enterprise.”

You can download the report here in exchange for contact information. - Drew

MORE INDUSTRY NOISES

DYSTOPIA IRL 🐙

TOO MANY LINKS WOULD NEVER BE ENOUGH 🐳

LAST LAUGH 😆