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Wireless Networking Government Networking United States

Ask Slashdot: How Can You Avoid Routers With Locked Firmware? 320

Posted by EditorDavid from the wise-why's-of-WiFi dept.
thejynxed writes: Awhile ago the FCC in the USA implemented a rule that required manufacturers to restrict end-users from tampering with the radio outputs on wi-fi routers. It was predicted that manufacturers would take the lazy way out by locking down the firmware/bootloaders of the routers entirely instead of partitioning off access to the radio transmit power and channel ranges. This has apparently proven to be the case, as even now routers that were previously marketed as "Open Source Ready" or "DD-WRT Compatible" are coming with locked firmware.

In my case, having noticed this trend, I purchased three routers from Belkin, Buffalo, and Netgear in Canada, the UK, and Germany respectively, instead of the USA, and the results: All three routers had locked firmware/bootloaders, with no downgrade rights and no way to install Tomato, DD-WRT, OpenWRT, etc. It seems the FCC rule is an example of the wide-reaching effect of US law on the products sold in other nations, etc. So, does anyone know a good source of unlocked routers or other technical information on how to bypass this ridiculous outcome of FCC over-reach and manufacturer laziness?
The FCC later specified that they were not trying to block Open Source firmware modifications -- so leave your best suggestions in the comments. How can you avoid routers with locked firmware?
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Ask Slashdot: How Can You Avoid Routers With Locked Firmware? More

Ask Slashdot: How Can You Avoid Routers With Locked Firmware?

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  • Get a cheap PC that 10 years old, add PFSense (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anaerin ( 905998 ) on Monday July 24, 2017 @03:40AM (#54865135)
    It's a fantastic router platform, supports oodles of hardware, and can run on cheap machines. For instance: Start here [orangecomputers.com] use a 5600 series Xeon and the smallest amount of RAM and HDD you can get, and you've got a killer router capable of handling much greater than gigabit traffic. If you need Wireless as well, you can either add a low-profile 802.11 card, or buy a cheap home "router" and run it in Access Point only mode, which will put it behind your firewall (and thus safe from internet-based hack attacks), rather than it being your firewall and vulnerable.

    • Re:Get a cheap PC that 10 years old, add PFSense (Score:5, Informative)

      by eastlight_jim ( 1070084 ) on Monday July 24, 2017 @04:14AM (#54865219)

      Whilst your electric might be free, running a 100-200W PC instead of 6W router is a little overkill for most people. The best solution, of course, is to be allowed to put new firmware on your existing router ;-)

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Salgak1 ( 20136 )

        . . .and if your existing router won't take, or doesn't have a DD-WRT or OpenWRT image available. . . . there's always Ebay. I built out an entire Legacy Systems lab off of Ebay purchases, after we got complaints from the field that the latest plastic fantastic software wouldn't run on their old Win7 or WinXP boxes. . .

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by TheCarp ( 96830 )

          What you could do though, is make the wifi router as dumb as possible and use a pi to replace its services.

          I use an ancient WRT54G with a tomato firmware. its nice, but I prefer a bit more control over dhcp and dns so I setup a VM for that. Well... that means my network services break whenever the VM host needs some TLC. So I moved all those services to a pi.....because needing to reconfigure my desktop to connect to the web and explain to others why the network isn't working are both annoying when I need t

      • You can run pfSense on a small platform such as the APU2C4 [pcengines.ch] from PC Engines. It draws 6W to 12W.

        I bought a complete kit from here [corpshadow.biz]. Quite happy with it.

      • I no longer buy wireless routers. I use old laptops or raspberry pis running hostap. I set them to auto-update so I do not have to worry about security vulnerabilities. For additional network ports I use usb devices.
        These systems are rock solid.

    • Re: Get a cheap PC that 10 years old, add PFSense (Score:5, Interesting)

      by raburton ( 1281780 ) on Monday July 24, 2017 @04:41AM (#54865285) Homepage

      Can't argue with the pricing there. But if you want something lower power and smaller size try one of these https://m.aliexpress.com/s/ite... [aliexpress.com] still more power than you need for most applications (especially if you're comparison is some crappy little MIPS router). I considered pfsence but I'm more of a Linux person and didn't need the bells and whistles of the nice GUI, so it's just running stock Debian with ip tables and very little else on it (but with a lot of options if you want to do more with it).

    • Re:Get a cheap PC that 10 years old, add PFSense (Score:5, Interesting)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Monday July 24, 2017 @04:45AM (#54865293)

      It's recommendations like this that are the reason for America's incredible high emissions per capita stats.

      Running a full powered PC from an era that didn't concern itself with efficiency, in a field (servers) which didn't concern themselves about efficiency instead of a small appliance that should use less power than an energy saving bulb.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dwywit ( 1109409 )

        So do it with a laptop instead. Find a used but serviceable core2duo or core i3, replace the HDD with a small SSD, and make sure the power management is set to as low a usage as it can be without affecting performance (mostly make sure the screen turns off ASAP - you could even run it headless, how 'bout dat?). One ethernet and one wi-fi interface makes it perfect for home use.

        You might even get away without an SSD - run a live distro off a bootable USB. Generous RAM, no swap needed.

        • One ethernet and one wi-fi interface makes it perfect for home use.

          Yeah, if you live on your own.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dwywit ( 1109409 )

            Yeah, 'home', as in 'family' - not a bunch of enthusiasts who will readily saturate a connection with ISOs or GoT torrents. I've figured out how to throttle my linux torrents and let them run overnight or off-peak, instead of causing problems for the other people sharing my connection.

            Anyway, if you're using that kind of bandwidth, shouldn't you be looking at a commercial solution, and not a hacked domestic router/modem?

            • I have four kids and my wife and I are cable-cutters, so we're routinely drawing a lot of bandwidth on our 200 Mbps internet connection. My home router is running DD-WRT, because it's three years old. But if I didn't have that, I think I might be able to get by with an old laptop as long as it had two USB 2.0 ports. I could plug USB gigabit ethernet devices into those. The bandwidth would be capped at what USB 2.0 can handle, but that should be well above 200 Mbps.

              • Re: (Score:3)

                by Wolfrider ( 856 )

                > I might be able to get by with an old laptop as long as it had two USB 2.0 ports. I could plug USB gigabit ethernet devices into those. The bandwidth would be capped at what USB 2.0 can handle

                --No. Just NO. If you're going to use an old laptop, at least get one that can handle a USB3 expansion card, like the Startech 2-port Expresscard. (ECUSB3S22, ~$30 on Amazon.)

                --Using 2xUSB2 ports for Gig Ethernet will limit your bandwidth to ~15MB/sec maximum if they're both in simultaneous use. (Real world, prob

                • So I have a much weaker understanding of this kind of thing than I would like. My understanding is that the total bandwidth of any set of USB ports connected to a single USB "card" on the motherboard is actually the max for one port. i.e. if a particular version of USB has bandwidth X, then you can't have port 1 with throughput X as the same time port 2 has throughput X. If they both use the same "card" on the motherboard, then the total throughput between them combined is X. Then on top of that, I took

                  • Re: (Score:3)

                    by Wolfrider ( 856 )

                    --Real-world measurements/experience. I have an older laptop that has a single-core, 64-bit CPU, USB2 native ports and 100MBit native Ethernet port.

                    More info here:
                    https://freedompenguin.com/art... [freedompenguin.com]

                    ( You can search freedompenguin for 'zfs' if you want to see my other articles )

                    --I switched out the sloow original laptop spinning-platter 160GB SATA drive with an SSD, BTW - boots Antix nice and fast. If I put a USB3 Gig Ethernet adapter on a USB2 port along with an external USB3 1 Terabyte spinning hard drive

      • To be pedantic about "that didn't concern itself with efficiency": they were extremely concerned with efficiency. Google, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, HP, Amazon, Yahoo, and others in 2005 (for example) cared very much about every dollar spent on power and every dollar spent on cooling. They bought the most efficient server hardware they could afford. That hardware was just twelve years behind the levels of efficiency we have today.

        This whole problem is very much one of those places where the Free Softwar

    • Re:Get a cheap PC that 10 years old, add PFSense (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mellon ( 7048 ) on Monday July 24, 2017 @05:23AM (#54865395) Homepage

      I'm currently experimenting with the NanoPi, which I think has better I/O (it has gigabit ethernet and comes with an antenna). I haven't gotten openwrt running on it yet, but am working on it: http://nanopi.org/NanoPi-2_Fea... [nanopi.org]

      The best thing about it is that if it doesn't suck, I can just scatter a bunch of them around the house--they are ridiculously cheap compared to typical WiFi routers.

      If you want something a lot beefier, consider getting a Turris Omnia [turris.cz]. Not cheap, but it's practically a server, and will draw a lot less power than your 10-year-old PC. They are working on FCC certification, should be available in the U.S. in a few months. I have one from the kickstarter... :)

      • Thanks for the Turris Omnia suggestion. That's awesome.

        Though I suspect their 802.11ac wireless drivers are proprietary. I haven't done research recently, but when I checked last year there were no fully open source 802.11ac device drivers.

    • Re:Get a cheap PC that 10 years old, add PFSense (Score:5, Informative)

      by arglebargle_xiv ( 2212710 ) on Monday July 24, 2017 @06:16AM (#54865515)
      If you're going to go that way, get an Alix APU [pcengines.ch], which is x86 without all the bloat and heat of a standard PC. It's designed for use as routers/firewalls/whatever, and runs pfSense out of the box. Also, unlike a Pi, it's actually properly designed, with real ethernet NICs, proper power conditioning, proper flash storage that doesn't shit itself every time there's a power glitch, and so on. I've got older Alix hardware that's been running for close to ten years without being touched, and that I have no expectation of needing maintenance for many more years to come.
    • You're probably much better off getting a NUC-style system, perhaps with multiple NICs. The power consumption on the old CPUs is what gets you.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • This was covered up-thread, but the Raspberry Pi has a 100 Mpbs ethernet port and also shares bandwidth between ethernet and USB 2.0, so that if you're doing something data-intensive over USB 2.0 like reading a big file it will actually slow your network throughput.

        So that's an acceptable solution for someone that isn't using much data, but won't work if you and your friends are watching a few different shows on Youtube or Netflix at the same time.

    • Re:Get a cheap PC that 10 years old, add PFSense (Score:5, Insightful)

      by danbert8 ( 1024253 ) on Monday July 24, 2017 @07:47AM (#54865807)

      If you are going for a 10 year old PC, why not just get an older router that supports flashing firmware?

    • The minimum CPU on those boxes is 80W. You'll pay a lot for your power bill in the long run over going for something like an i3 mini PC from AliExpress. Not only are those servers huge, but they also create a whole lot of noise.

  • Roll your own (Score:4, Informative)

    by Zarhan ( 415465 ) on Monday July 24, 2017 @03:40AM (#54865137)

    http://elinux.org/RPI-Wireless... [elinux.org]

    Pretty much only way to be sure.

    Beyond that, you go with the same approach as when getting a PC to use with Linux - try to verify each individual component and whether it works or not.

  • Solution: Don't buy those brands anymore... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Steve Jackson ( 4687763 ) on Monday July 24, 2017 @03:50AM (#54865163)
    PLENTY of "make your own" options out there these days... Easy options even. Newegg has an ITX mainboard with a built in AES-NI CPU for Hardware accelerated encryption, for 56$... Add a dell Broadcom SFF 4 Port Gig NIC and some RAM, and whola! Whatever router config you need is just a download away!

    • Well, as soon as the NSA spooks get wind of this, the US government will ban vendors from supplying any useful encryption, as well.

      Because banning encryption from the hands of ordinary citizens will "fix" the problem of terrorism, right?

      If good old King George of England had the NSA back then, the American Revolution never could have happened.

      "One, if by land! Two, if by sea!"

      Oh, wait, the American Colonists are not allowed to have lanterns!

    • PLENTY of "make your own" options out there these days... Easy options even. Newegg has an ITX mainboard with a built in AES-NI CPU for Hardware accelerated encryption, for 56$... Add a dell Broadcom SFF 4 Port Gig NIC and some RAM, and whola! Whatever router config you need is just a download away!

      I disagree with your statement, because you are missing one thing: "The Modem" (however I'm limiting this statement to Europe, because I don't know the situation in the US)
      In Europe you cannot buy isolated cable modems for Eurodocsis 3.1. The most you can get is a complete router with an integrated Eurodocsis modem, which, if you are lucky, you can configure into a bridged modem mode.

      For your project to succeed and be the "be all, end all" solution, you would require a cable modem add-in card. This is some

  • Turris Omnia (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JoSch1337 ( 1168265 ) on Monday July 24, 2017 @03:59AM (#54865185)

    https://omnia.turris.cz/ [turris.cz]

    Specs: 1.6 GHz dual-core ARM, 2 GB DDR3, 8 GB flash, 5 Gbit LAN, 1 Gbit WAN, 2 USB 3.0, 2 Mini PCI Express, 1 mSATA / mini PCI Express, 3x3 MIMO 802.11ac, 2x2 MIMO 802.11b/g/n

    I use it together with two hard drives attached via SATA.

    It ships with a custom version of OpenWRT but you can also install other stuff on it like Debian:

    https://wiki.debian.org/Instal... [debian.org]

    Or openSUSE:

    https://en.opensuse.org/HCL:Tu... [opensuse.org]

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by alantus ( 882150 )
      It looks good, but overpriced.
    • The Turris Omnia is some very nice hardware, and built by people who are very much devoted to free software (nic.cz [www.nic.cz], the same guys who brought us the Bird routing suite and KnotDNS). It's a little bit overkill for a home router (it's got massive amounts of memory and a fiber interface), but if you're fine with spending over 200 euros, it's an excellent choice.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cramit ( 609487 )
      I didn't see a way to purchase in the US; did I miss it?

    • Re:Turris Omnia (Score:4, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday July 24, 2017 @08:29AM (#54865999) Homepage Journal

      Seems very expensive for what it is... If you go on AliExpress and search for "x86 router" or "arm router" you will find hundreds of options costing less than 1/3rd as much. For example: https://www.aliexpress.com/ite... [aliexpress.com]

      Celeron J1900 (quad core, 2.4GHz)
      1x DDR RAM RAM socket
      Intel chipset
      mSATA SSD slot
      4 Intel I211AT gigabit LAN ports
      3x USB 2.0
      1x USB 3.0
      2x MiniPCIe ports
      10W max power consumption

      The case has holes for wifi antennas, which you can order with it. It's pretty much a standard PC so will run whatever Linux or even Windows OS you want. It's got VGA as well which can be handy for an emergency shell.

      You could add a really simple UPS with a 12V lead acid battery and a few diodes too.

  • Separate Access Point from Router (Score:5, Interesting)

    by aaarrrgggh ( 9205 ) on Monday July 24, 2017 @04:24AM (#54865247)

    Personally, I find that going with a dedicated router and dedicated access point(s) makes for a more flexible solution anyway. Better placement options, easier to upgrade the wireless, etc. I use Ubiquiti gear, which gives me Vyatta on the routing/firewall and a solid (locked down) access point.

    Curious to try out the little pfsense appliances, but they are a bit more pricey.

  • "save wifi" campaign (Score:4, Interesting)

    by lkcl ( 517947 ) <lkcl@lkcl.net> on Monday July 24, 2017 @04:31AM (#54865257) Homepage

    The FCC later specified that they were not trying to block Open Source firmware modifications

    they were told IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS that this is exactly what would happen - that manufacturers would take the "lazy" way out. unfortunately, a number of prominent "open source" activists completely and utterly failed to comprehend that this would happen, and ENDORSED the FCC's proposal.

    there are some very specific companies that sell RYF-Endorsed products (answering the OP's question: google "RYF Certified router" or other such keyword combinations), and these companies are near-completely screwed. if they are not careful they have to sell ILLEGAL products in order to satisfy the RYF-Endorsement Criteria! however it turns out that there's a small workaround: what they can do is put an UNPUBLISHED hidden link into the web interface in order for users to carry out quotes unauthorised quotes firmware updates.

    basically as a world-wide community we f******d up. the opportunity to stop the FCC from being a Corporate lap-dog was when the "Save WIFI" campaign was underway. it was a complex situation understood by very few people: we should have listened to the people who properly understood it, and supported them. we didn't do that... and now we suffer the consequences, as indicated by the OP.

    • that apparently USA selling companies would put in misleading advertising(ddwrt compatible) on devices where you cannot put ddwrt on.

      look, the simple choice: ORDER FROM ASIA. like come on, you're ordering shitty cheap shit all the time from dx etc anyways..

      I mean come on, it is more of a consumer issue anyways.

  • x64 (Score:2)

    by darkain ( 749283 )

    Intel/AMD x64 pfSense. #DONE!

  • What is your evidence that this is true?

  • Don't blame the FCC (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Monday July 24, 2017 @05:23AM (#54865391)
    Blame the idiots hacking their firmware and using their routers irresponsibly (illegally).

    First you have to understand why the FCC made the request to router manufacturers. Shortly after the FCC opened up the 5 GHz band for unlicensed use, terminal doppler weather radar [wikipedia.org] was invented in response to several airliner crashes due to adverse weather conditions. Unfortunately, it relies on frequencies smack dab in the middle of the open 5 GHz band, so the FCC took the unusual step of revising their rules which opened up those frequencies

    That's why most 5 GHz devices only support channels 36-48 and 149-165. The intermediate channels were reclassified as DFS - dynamic frequency selection. Open devices could use them, but if they detected weather radar in use they had to switch to a different channel. A few devices actually do this and check to see if weather radar is in use. Most manufacturers just took the easy way out and blocked out channels 50-144 entirely in the firmware.

    DD-WRT supports DFS - it will change frequencies if it detects weather radar in use (at least it does on my hacked TP-Link). If you install third party firmware and use the 5 GHz band, do the responsible thing and enable this functionality if you're going to enable channels 50-144. Unfortunately, some idiots didn't do this [aerohive.com], which caused the FCC to grow concerned about the impact of third party firmware on the effectiveness of TDWR. That's why the FCC made the request to router manufacturers. Not because they hated third party firmware, but out of concern for the safety of the flying public.

    This is why we can't have nice things - a few idiots ruin it for everyone else. I had lots of fun with lawn darts as a kid, but we always treated the target area as if it were a shooting range. Here's an example of what happens to TDWR when an idiot blasts their router in the TDWR frequencies. The unauthorized broadcast shows up as a wedge-shaped area spanning a few degrees and extending to the edge of the radar image [fpvlab.com], completely obscuring any weather in the wedge.

    And buying the router in Canada or Europe won't make any difference because those countries have the exact same restrictions on those TDWR frequencies [wikipedia.org]. The only reason they're not being as aggressive as the FCC is because TDWR so far is mostly used at U.S. airports. Eventually most airports in the developed world are going to upgrade to it (or at least airports which frequently encounter bad weather). So the regulatory agencies in Canada, the EU, and most of the rest of the developed world are all going to be on the same page as the FCC once TDWR is rolled out in those countries.

    • I have a modest proposal: stop designing safety critical radar systems that operate smack in the middle of an unlicensed band.

  • Some routers aren't "locked" particularly well... (Score:5, Informative)

    by AC-x ( 735297 ) on Monday July 24, 2017 @05:33AM (#54865423)

    Some routers aren't "locked" particularly well, for example I have a WR841N v11 here which had supposedly FCC locked firmware, but it was relatively simple to install open firmware on it using the TFTP firmware recovery procedure [openwrt.org]

  • Sod locked firmware (Score:3)

    by Chrisq ( 894406 ) on Monday July 24, 2017 @06:13AM (#54865511)
    I'd be happy if we could just stop Americans from pronouncing it "rawter". They need to learn the difference between "rout" and "route".

  • FCC: The inept Paper Tiger.... (Score:4)

    by beheaderaswp ( 549877 ) * on Monday July 24, 2017 @06:14AM (#54865513)

    First off, the FCC is underfunded and cannot enforce it's own rules. This is one of those cases where lack of funding leads to inept regulation. The FCC cannot set a rule and simply enforce the rule. They have to set a rule that is enforced in a defacto manner without them spending any money.

    So by regulating what manufacturers can and cannot do- they get the "appearance" of responsible regulation. With the added side effect of stifling innovation, modification, or customization (within the law) of the equipment.

    You can try to explain this to people.. but since the principles involved are nuanced and technical most eyes glaze over. But the short form is this: if you lock down the hardware you stifle innovation.

    Another primary example of the FCC failing for lack of funding is the regulation of radio bandwidth which citizens have access to. That would be the CB, GMRS, FRS, MURS, or Amateur Radio services. The FCC either farms out the enforcement (Amateur Radio is farmed out to the ARRL) or simply makes no enforcement action at all. The result being that the radio spectrum has become a cesspool of "pirate radio", free-banders (Illegal unlicensed operators), or licensed operators who break all the rules.

    There are illegal operators across all the bands in the spectrum that are known by the FCC, the general public who use the spectrum, local law enforcement, and the defense community. But they are rarely enforced against.

    They are not enforced against because the FCC has no budget for enforcement. They rarely enforce interference with government services first, commercial services second, and do nothing at all anywhere else. Very occasionally there is Amateur enforcement.

    This means as a citizen FCC enforcement will come through any tangential avenue that has no cost to the FCC.

    • Re:FCC: The inept Paper Tiger.... (Score:4, Informative)

      by StatureOfLiberty ( 1333335 ) on Monday July 24, 2017 @09:09AM (#54866173)

      The FCC either farms out the enforcement (Amateur Radio is farmed out to the ARRL) or simply makes no enforcement action at all.

      ARRL [arrl.org] has no enforcement power. It does have an Official Observer [arrl.org] program. These operators do look for improper operation and can document this behavior. They do send out notices of improper operation to ham operators (amateur radio is usually called ham radio). There are no teeth behind this notice. An important part of their role is sending out notices when hams operate particularly well.

      Documentation of improper operating can end up being forwarded to the FCC in hopes that they will act on it. It is only the FCC that has actual enforcement power. Many submissions never get acted upon. The ones that seem to get immediate action are if you interfere with another licensed service (interfering with police, emergency medical, aviation, commercial broadcast).

      Lack of enforcement by the FCC is a problem. Many field offices have been closed down. Lack of funding is definitely making the problem worse.

      ARRL is a great organization. They do provide great training materials for proper operation. They do a lot of lobbying for the Amateur Radio Service. They work to protect the service from band encroachment. They watch for well intentioned but poorly worded legislation that impacts the service. For example: North Carolina has been considering legislation (SB 393) [ncleg.net] that would ban use of almost any electronic communication device in a vehicle. ARRL is organizing operators in the state to ask their representatives to amend the verbiage to exclude amateur radio. Mobile operation is an important part of the amateur radio service. Banning it would make much of the value that the amateur radio service provides impossible. In addition, amateur radio mobile operation has a stellar safety record.

      ARRL cannot enforce, but it can educate and work to influence.

  • Since companies like to consolidate different markets with the same products with minor flavor changes, I don't see them allowing unlocking when the most important market of all (US) requires it indirectly (by the aforementioned complexity of making specific channel/power output locks instead of flat out firmware lock).

    So I believe our best hopes reside in non-US-centric crowdsourced solutions for open routers, compatible with existing solutions or even packaging their own open software solution in the prod

  • Slashdot needs to stop the ads with self-playing audio.

  • The FCC *forced* TP-Link to support open firmware as part of a settlement agreement made AFTER these new rules.
    https://www.fcc.gov/document/f... [fcc.gov]

    • Ironically, this could lead to a massive increase in TP-LINK sales.

      We used to make fun of TP-LINK as brand a few years ago, but I now own some TP-LINK hardware and have been very happy with it.

  • I can easily purchase a 4 watt 2.4ghz or 5ghz amp for under $100, and a "decent" one for under $200. The FCC has to know about these, so it almost seems that locking out open-source WAS one of the goals.
  • It's fairly simple, you just make your own open source router and you're off to the races. If you need WiFi, you buy a proper access point, and then you're set.
    • pfSense has WiFi-related capabilities (e.g. using a NIC that supports AP mode), but then you're at the mercy of FreeBSD kernel support for device drivers. I'm not really sure how their driver ecosystem stacks up to Linux, so I might actually be arsed to look into that.

  • Contrary to what other people say, requiring OEMs to lock down their outputs DOES make the FCC responsible for open source hostile routers.

    Almost ever piece of consumer equipment I've seen has had some sort of "part b/15 computing device" thingy sticker on it saying

    * This device may not cause harmful interference
    * This device must accept any interference recieved

    It's not supposed to be the OEM's responsibility what their users do with the devices they pay for. As far as I'm concerned, tampering with the fi

  • Mikrotik

  • Sure the difference between murder and manslaughter is one of intent to kill. But in both cases the outcome at hand is death of the victim.

    The FTC's requirement may not have intended this effect, but it was forseeable, and avoidable.

  • IMO, it's far better to get a dedicated box that only does routing (like Ubiquiti or Mikrotik), and use access points for the Wi-Fi. With multiple access points, you can give your house blanket coverage and eliminate dead spots, and if/when a new, faster Wi-Fi standard comes along and you want it, you can just replace the APs instead of an entire all-in-one device.

    Not to mention that APs typically look far better than the today's all-in-one monstrosities that look like robotic spiders.

  • Your best bet is to start with the site supporting the firmware flavor (DD-WRT, OpenWRT, etc) that you want to run. Their site will be able to tell you which models currently work with their current firmware. When I went to buy my router, they had screenshots of the packaging to help identify between v1 and v2 - which the casual buyer might not have noticed. Support levels on them were different. If the shiny new router mentioned at CES isn't supported yet, you may need to rethink your plan or do a lot m

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