[olug] Linksys router Vulnerability

Wed Mar 12 19:32:50 UTC 2008

just looked at buffalo's website. i think i'm going to find out more about
this court action.
seems very interesting. does anyone know a good way to order one of these
without breaking the law?

On 3/12/08, ridgid <ridgid at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> "would really like to know exactly how much flash and ram comes inside a
> FON off
> the top of my head"
>
> http://wiki.openwrt.org/TableOfHardware
>
>
>
> Rob Townley wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 9:55 AM, Rob Townley <rob.townley at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 2:41 AM, DYNATRON tech <dynatron at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>> thank you chris.
> >>>
> >>> i knew a little bit about the situation, but i had not gotten that
> >>> in-depth.
> >>> i see what you mean now luke. that is a bit of a downer.
> >>> however, i still have to say that it is a good router.
> >>>
> >>> linksys (cisco) must have sold millions of these things.
> >>> i have to give them credit for bringing wireless to the masses at an
> >>> affordable cost.
> >>> if cutting the memory in half is what made it affordable, i'd say it's
> >>> for
> >>> the greater good.
> >>> if they cut the memory, and not the price, then yeah.....the WRT
> sucks!
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On 3/11/08, Christopher Cashell <topher-olug at zyp.org> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 1:14 AM, DYNATRON tech <dynatron at gmail.com>
> >>>>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>> what problems have you had with them, luke?
> >>>>>
> >>>> I think Luke is refering to the fact that starting with the v5 WRT54G
> >>>> Linksys moved from a Linux based firmware to a minimal embedded
> >>>> VxWorks OS.  At the same time, they cut the RAM and flash in half
> >>>> (16MB of RAM to 8GMB of RAM, 4MB of flash to 2MB of flash).  This
> made
> >>>> the custom firmware projects like OpenWRT and such unusable (at least
> >>>> initially, a couple of them managed to release stripped down, less
> >>>> functional, variants for the v5 on).
> >>>>
> >>>> On the plus side, Linksys released the WRT54GL shortly after the v5
> >>>> WRT54G was released.  The L variant is basically just a renamed v4
> >>>> WRT54G sold to keep those wishing to run custom firmware happy (the
> >>>> 'L' allegedly stands for Linux).  It's a small thing, but I was quite
> >>>> impressed when Linksys did this, as I expect that the number of
> people
> >>>> who really loaded custom firmware (of which I am one) is an extremely
> >>>> small part of their WRT54G customer base.
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Christopher
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> OLUG mailing list
> >>>> OLUG at olug.org
> >>>> http://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> dynatron digital services
> >>> box 191 - 68037
> >>> www.dynatron.org
> >>> dynatron at gmail.com
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> OLUG mailing list
> >>> OLUG at olug.org
> >>> http://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug
> >>>
> >>>
> >> i know what you mean Dynatron as i was a big fan of Linksys at one
> time.
> >> Then i started to critically think about Cisco buying Linksys in 2003
> as
> >> buying companies and lawsuits are ways of controlling the
> market.  Cisco
> >> would have us believe that cutting memory was to save money.  But
> memory is
> >> cheap especially when you are talking about less than 16MB on a
> worldwide
> >> distribution scale.  It has much more to do with the fact that open
> source
> >> versions of the Linksys routers competed directly with Cisco's
> expensive
> >> (several hundred dollars and more) wireless systems.   FON may not be
> the
> >> best hardware but it is much much cheaper than any version of Linksys
> (would
> >> really like to know exactly how much flash and ram comes inside a FON
> off
> >> the top of my head).  Cisco bought Linksys to control the market - not
> to
> >> help the consumer.   One of the best competitors to  Cisco Linksys when
> it
> >> comes to FOSS seems to have been BuffaloTech.  But
> http://www.buffalotech.com/products/wireless/
> >> <http://www.buffalotech.com/products/wireless/>  still can't be sold in
> >> the USA.  It is EXTREMELY interesting to me as it should be you that
> Cisco
> >> Linksys is not on the list of companies that filed an amicus brief in
> >> support of BuffaloTech.  Anyone truly interested in lower prices for
> the
> >> consumer wireless has to ask why Cisco Linksys doesn't support
> BuffaloTech
> >> in this lawsuit because potentially every wireless manufacturer may be
> >> barred from selling in the US with the exception of Cisco of
> course.  Cisco
> >> Linksys indirectly supporting the CSIRO lawsuit is almost the same
> tactic of
> >> Microsoft supporting the SCO lawsuit.  If Cisco Linksys released an
> >> 802.11N router with an open source download, then i might change my
> mind,
> >> but i suspect they won't do that if they ever do till the others have
> been
> >> buried.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > Well for a little more to munch on from csiro.au
> >    website:  "That design, licensed to Australian company Radiata
> > (subsequently acquired by Cisco for US$300 million in
> > 2000<http://www.solve.csiro.au/0807/article14.htm>),
> > led to the first demonstration of a chip implementing the standard IEEE
> > 802.11a."  Governments and Companies working together can be a great
> thing
> > and it often is, it can also be fascism.
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> >
> >
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