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

[Dan Staples]

It's hard to say whether you'll be safe or not. Most of these companies
will make decisions based on risk of perceived liability, which is why
we're seeing them lockdown firmware before the FCC regulation even goes
into into effect. They really don't have any interest or stake in
supporting open source firmwares, as that's not their business model.

On 09/26/2015 08:58 AM, dpeel at vtlink.net wrote:
> 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/
> 
> 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
> 
>     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/
> 
>     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
> 
>     -- 
>     Ben West
>     ben at gowasabi.net <mailto:ben at gowasabi.net>
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Ben West
> http://gowasabi.net
> ben at gowasabi.net <mailto:ben at gowasabi.net>
> 314-246-9434
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Commotion-discuss mailing list
> Commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-discuss
> 

-- 
https://disman.tl
OpenPGP key: http://disman.tl/pgp.asc
Fingerprint: 2480 095D 4B16 436F 35AB 7305 F670 74ED BD86 43A9