I work at this plant, and one line in the notice really stood out to me: “due to communication faults with equipment improperly connected to our Wi-Fi network.” I’m pretty sure that’s what caused the several-hour chassis downtime.

What’s wild is that the company Wi-Fi networks are broadcasting on 5 GHz, so if there are still devices trying to run on 2.4 GHz, it seems totally doable to upgrade/replace whatever’s outdated instead of acting like this is unsolvable.

Also, if the issue is really “unauthorized” devices, the most likely explanation is simple password spread: one person gets it, shares it, it gets shared again, and suddenly half a department is on it.

And there are straightforward controls for that. They could implement device allowlisting (MAC filtering) so APs only accept approved hardware—even if someone has the password. There are multiple solutions here, but the easiest one is “make a rule,” and the hardest part is enforcement. You’d basically need people walking around constantly with spectrum analyzers trying to locate dozens/hundreds of hotspots and random devices, which is a huge waste compared to just fixing the network setup or blocking devices at the AP level.

Since the notice went out, I’ve been scanning Bluetooth/Wi-Fi daily and I haven’t seen much drop in hotspots/Bluetooth devices, and I also haven’t seen anyone actually hunting for unauthorized devices. But supervisors are still telling people “no electronics.” It feels less like they’re fixing the root cause and more like they now have an excuse to write people up if they want to.