Page 1 of 1

Now the govt is coming for your dd-wrt

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2015 2:29 pm
by Losbot
In the next installment of poorly planned out moves by a US government agency attempting to solve a problem that does not exist, we shall see an attempt to make illegal the modification of the firmware on any device which contains an radio. This is likely to prevent you from using open source software to modify your wireless router into a death ray which will allow you to take over the planet.

Specifically, it will make illegal the modification of any device which can broadcast on U-NII bands which happen to include the 5GHz bandwidth that WiFi broadcasts on. While most firmware changes, such as dd-wrt only change the processor the routers are SoC's which means that the radio is technically a part of the same device as what you modify when applying custom firmware.
Hack a Day has links to the FCC proposal, you might want to consider emailing your congress critters about it.

Image

Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2015 12:00 pm
by FlyingPenguin
Possibly not as bad as it sounds, just that the FCC has not been clear about intentions. They seem more concerned about manufacturers locking down the ability to change the transmit power and frequency, rather than preventing open source firmware, but we'll see.

FCC accused of locking down Wi-Fi routers, but the truth is a bit murkier
http://arstechnica.com/information-tech ... t-murkier/