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Europe is going to kill free software Have you contacted your state's rep?
- aylons 11y agoThe problem is a very important one, but oh god, it's so hard to parse this page...
- tootie 11y agoThey're going to turn people off with a ridiculous headline. The actual story is that they are killing open source router firmware. Not the entire open source movement.
- bkmartin 11y agoWhich is insanity all by itself.
- lolidaisuki 11y agoNot just routers. A lot of other devices have radios as well.
- LukeB_UK 11y agoAm I being stupid or are there no actual sources listed for the claim in the title?
- creshal 11y agoEven if they could get a source, I wouldn't trust TP-Link. Their entire business models revolves around making routers as shoddily as possible, of course they have a vested interest to block open source firmwares on cheaper models from eating up their fake premium models.
- vonklaus 11y agoI was skeptical. Type "router firmware" into google news. Many articles about firmware lockdown
- LukeB_UK 11y agoFree router firmware and free software aren't the same.
- retrogradeorbit 11y agoAlthough I would note firmware is software. But yes, they are not banning Free Software. This is more an issue with making the routers into treacherous computing platforms [1]. [1] https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/drm.html https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/drm.html
- lolidaisuki 11y agoThe radio firmware is usually included in the OS. Thus if you want to change the OS on a router, phone, tablet, whatever else and that is the case you won't be able to do it at all.
- Kristine1975 11y agoThe European Union ("Europe") won't kill free software (if only because Apple wouldn't be pleased if suddenly iOS and OS X were illegal in the EU[1]). At most it will kill free software in Wifi routers. More about the EU directive: https://juliareda.eu/2015/10/dear-european-governments-dont-endanger-free-and-open-wifi-networks/ https://juliareda.eu/2015/10/dear-european-governments-dont-... [1] They use open source components
- creshal 11y agoMuch more likely, it will only require firmware blobs on the actual wifi chips (not the general purpose CPU of the router/access point built around it) for compliance. Which is already the status quo for 90% of all wifi hardware.
- wyager 11y ago>Which is already the status quo for 90% of all wifi hardware. And they are killing the other 10%. 90+% of consumer PCs use a closed-source OS. Is it OK to ban the other <10%?
- creshal 11y agoRealistically, no, they always have been walking dead. Without special licenses, it always was illegal to drive radio hardware out of spec. It was just largely a grey area because of how incredibly hard it was to enforce compliance. While the hardware technically had shared-source firmware/drivers, you were never legally able to use it modified outside of specially shielded environments, so it's not "open" source in the true sense, and never was. Claiming that the FCC "is killing it" is a red herring, they're just enforcing laws that have been existing for longer than wifi. Should the laws restricting radio broadcasting be abolished? Maybe. (Accidentally jamming radars or EMT/police radios can be a huge risk.) Maybe not. (If someone wants to jam EMT/police radio or radars on purpose, they can build a better contraption without using off-the-shelf wifi hardware.) But focusing on open versus closed software is a red herring.
- lolidaisuki 11y ago
- vonklaus 11y agoI came here to say this was alarmist bullshit, but I wanted to read the article first. I was very wrong. Locking router firmware down is maliscious & the coup de grâce to an opened internet. Today the http status code 451 was oficially added. I really respect the EFF and this no way falls on them, but they (and all of us) need to work harder. To some extent, it is pretty sad we have to work so hard to just promote a message of freedom. We like to say "it's the technology stupid", it isn't it's really the society. They just don't care. Our society is a reflection of consensus. To some extent there is friction there, but by and large only a few people still give a fuck.
- lolidaisuki 11y agoIt's not just router firmware. Its firmware for ANYTHING that has radios.
- jkot 11y agoThe device should not be capable of operating at some frequencies, that can be done with hardware restrictions. Closing firmware is not really a solution, since it can be decompiled and cracked.
- wyager 11y ago>Closing firmware is not really a solution, since it can be decompiled and cracked. Presumably they will require cryptographic signatures on the firmware. This is also not infallible, but it is substantially more inconvenient (and in many cases it might as well be unbreakable) for people who like free software.
- teekert 11y agoIt's very easy to turn a Raspberry Pi into a wifi Router, how are they going to deal with that?
- emodendroket 11y agoThe fact that a more complex solution favored by a very small number of people is still around doesn't really mean the problem is solved.
- zanny 11y agoRouters are just computers with radio peripherals. You cannot lock them all down, the problem is that overnight all consume router hardware will be stuck on broken insecure defective proprietary firmware that never gets updated. You can always build your own router, though. But the FCC rulings might also apply to drivers for radios. Right now you can get any ath-9k hardware and do almost anything you want to it with a Linux kernel since all the driver infrastructure is open. With ath-10k, newer Broadcom parts, and all Intel parts they include proprietary firmware blobs to restrict what you can do now, though. It is likely these rulings will push the OEMs of radios to start moving more functionality into blob payloads, which will include future iterations of the raspi. This is why these kinds of decisions are incredibly ignorant and stupid on the part of the FCC. They cannot retroactively lock down all existing radio technology. Hell, they cannot reasonably expect to ever stop someone who wants to use a radio to congest the RF bands of someone else from doing so - it is trivial to assemble your own scrambler. This is simply an emotional response to criticisms about the relatively open state of routers and radios in recent years and how some bad actors have been taking advantage of that open access to more easily harm networks.
- teekert 11y agoI don't understand this, does this really mean I can't even buy an open Chinese router for example, run my own/open firmware, comply and with all regulations regarding power and frequencies, but it is still illegal? So because I can theoretically break the law if I intentionally alter the firmware to broadcast on a forbidden frequency I am already punishable by law? So.. what about knives and stabbing and all those types of arguments? I can almost not believe this!
- swiley 11y agoI don't understand what these restrictions want to solve when it's so incredibly easy to just fuck around with the WiFi cards in most normal PCs. I never even buy off the shelf routers anymore since it's so easy to just grab an old desktop no one wants for free (or nearly free) and run hostapd on it.
- PinguTS 11y agoYour Wifi card in your PC is a locked down certified device. What they want to solve? Radio is a shared medium and everybody has to follow the rules. Especially there are parts of the spectrum used by so-called first user like weather radar, military use, and alike. Originally radio was seen and considered as an somehow unlimited resource like IPv4 addresses. But then this this unlimited resource became very limited like IPv4 addresses. So now, we have many radio frequencies used twice by so-called secondary users. The secondary user can use the spectrum as long as the first user do not use it. This is e.g. in the 5G with Wifi. This legislation is to (hopefully) assure that everybody plays by the rules. This realized by certifications. But the problematic nature of SDR is, that software controls the behavior and software can be replaced easily. For that reason none of those people, which govern the radio usage, like SDR. They want to lock down the device, so that they are sure that every body plays by the rules.
- wyager 11y agoAs you said, this law is immediately rendered pointless by the existence of SDR. It doesn't matter what the regulators' pie-in-the-sky intentions are; they are actively making life more inconvenient while accomplishing nothing. Anyone who can replace a baseband firmware can also build or acquire hardware that is capable of WiFi-range TX.
- aries1980 11y agoRoads are shared infrastructure as well with regulations, but it is up to you how do you meet with those. You are allowed to hack your veichle, but if you fail to keep the highway code or exceed the allowed limits, you will get some. But you are free and not treated like a criminal up until then.
- adamt 11y agoSensationalist title and also misleading. Most articles I can find on this say the US FCC already has laws in place that ban this, so why is the title blaming Europe for doing what the FCC has already done in the US? Sources: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/tp-link-blocks-open-source-router-firmware-to-comply-with-new-fcc-rule/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/tp-lin... http://www.pcworld.com/article/3044594/open-source-tools/tp-link-blocks-open-source-router-firmware-to-comply-with-new-fcc-rules.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/3044594/open-source-tools/tp-... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/11/tplink_kills_plan_for_open_routers/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/11/tplink_kills_plan_fo...
- wyager 11y agoSo every time an American agency does something shitty it's also acceptable for a European agency to do the same? Is our moral standard based on the lowest common denominator?
- richmarr 11y agoWhen a headline says "Out-group X is doing BAD THING" when the in-group has already done "BAD THING" it seems reasonable to assume it's an attempt to leverage peoples irrational bias against out-groups.
- lolidaisuki 11y agoThe title is not misleading at all. And yes, you should blame EU for even considering it. Just because other people kill doesn't mean that we shouldn't blame people who also kill.
- awinter-py 11y agoWhat does 'locked down' mean? That it requires signed drivers? Or just placing limits on frequencies & signal power. How does this affect SDR hardware?
- awinter-py 11y agoThe information from last year here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9959088 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9959088 quotes the FCC saying: Manufacturers must implement security features ... so that third parties are not able to reprogram the device to operate outside the parameters for which the device was certified. Goes on to talk about signing but uses 'may' not 'must'.
- lolidaisuki 11y agoMight make SDR illegal.
- fweespee_ch 11y agoLook, this just requires us to build our own routers. The manufacturers are just lazy and that isn't the Governments fault. I find it hilarious whenever the private sector says resolving X problem is unprofitable, people blame the government at this point.
- lolidaisuki 11y agoHow do you build a wifi router without a radio? And there is no problem that has to be solved. This restriction is completely useless and hurts everyone except big companies.
- fweespee_ch 11y agoThe radio isn't the problem. The router manufacturers [for end consumer units] found the cheapest route to be locking out open source. That doesn't magically get rid of wifi cards on linux/bsd
- fixermark 11y agoWhat is the purpose of locking the firmware? What threat is the FCC protecting against? (And why is the article headline "Europe" when the cited article in the news story says TP is locking their stuff down due to an FCC ruling? The linked news story is a word-salad).
- lolidaisuki 11y agoMight be a chance that someone could go next to an airport and jam all of the frequencies. It's not very likely scenario and this wouldn't even prevent them from doing that. But that's I could think of. The headline has Europe in it because they are now making similar rules as those that FCC made.