[Commotion-discuss] New wifi products now already with locked firmware

[dpeel at vtlink.net]

A small group of us are really excited about building a small mesh network in our low income neighborhood in a city in Vermont. The politicians all say they want to expand broadband internet, but the people we would like to reach can't afford to pay much at all for internet. The cheap internet the big  providers offer them is not very good at all. We think a mesh could do much better for them. It makes me extraordinarily angry that once again government is serving the needs of big corporations. Right now we're using mostly Ubiquity routers. Will they be safe from being locked down?
-----Original Message-----
From: "Ben West" <ben at gowasabi.net>
Sent: Friday, September 25, 2015 10:20pm
To: "commotion-discuss" <commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Subject: Re: [Commotion-discuss] New wifi products now already with locked firmware



Wired published an article today as well:
[ http://www.wired.com/2015/09/hey-fcc-dont-lock-wi-fi-routers/ ]( http://www.wired.com/2015/09/hey-fcc-dont-lock-wi-fi-routers/ )


On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 12:20 PM, Ben West <[ ben at gowasabi.net ]( mailto:ben at gowasabi.net )> wrote:

This is the thread start on the PRPL Foundation listserv discussing the appearance of wifi routers that now have locked stock firmware that prohibits flashing alternate firmware.  Yes, before the FCC's proposed rulemaking even gets approved!
[ http://lists.prplfoundation.org/pipermail/fcc/2015-September/000339.html ]( http://lists.prplfoundation.org/pipermail/fcc/2015-September/000339.html )


This thread began at prompt of an Ars Technica writer, who just published this story:

FCC: Open source router software is still legal—under certain conditions
Locking out OpenWRT and DD-WRT is the easiest way to comply with new FCC rules
[ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/09/fcc-open-source-router-software-is-still-legal-under-certain-conditions/ ]( http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/09/fcc-open-source-router-software-is-still-legal-under-certain-conditions/ )


These are the specific products mentioned in the thread where locked firmware was encountered:
Rosewill RNX-N300RTv2
TP-Link TL-WR841N v8.2 
Netgear WNDR4300


Some of these products were observed to not have locked firmware previously, even for the same hardware revision.


The TL-WR841N, for example, appears on the list of hardware potentially supported by Commotion, which evidently may change very soon.
[ https://wiki.commotionwireless.net/doku.php/development_resources/router/hardware_compatibility_list ]( https://wiki.commotionwireless.net/doku.php/development_resources/router/hardware_compatibility_list )


-- 

Ben West
[ ben at gowasabi.net ]( mailto:ben at gowasabi.net )


-- 

Ben West
[ http://gowasabi.net ]( http://gowasabi.net )
[ ben at gowasabi.net ]( mailto:ben at gowasabi.net )
314-246-9434
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