4 ms·

Wonder what this means in the grand scheme of things. Will Apple dump Broadcom and go with Qualcomm or attempt to fix Broadcom's broken driver. I say broken as

by mangix 9y ago

Wonder what this means in the grand scheme of things. Will Apple dump Broadcom and go with Qualcomm or attempt to fix Broadcom's broken driver. I say broken as I've yet to see good code come from Broadcom.

revelation 9y ago
This is a bug that was already fixed. It means nothing in the grand scheme. In the current grand scheme, Apple and Qualcomm are also currently suing each other and I'm pretty sure part of that is Apple withholding billions in payments.
- floatingatoll 9y ago
  This is a Hacker News post about an interesting security vulnerability. It is, by both moderator and owner intentions, specifically meaningful in the 'grand scheme' of Hacker News, a site set up to permit people to discuss links. Yes, at a different level of business, Apple has an open lawsuit against Qualcomm, but that's not the scope that we're here to discuss. Mentioning it is fine, linking to a recent HN post about it would be stellar!, but "It means nothing in the grand scheme" is dismissive and wrong. Your concerns are clearly expressed, but insulting others for choosing to discuss a topic not relevant to your concerns is no excuse to shut them down verbally. That approach is not welcome here. EDIT: I'm not a mod or anything.
  - revelation 9y ago
    You are not a mod, you are a fool responding to a comment without ever reading the comment mine was in response to. What the fuck.
    - dang 9y ago
      Whoa. Attacking another user will get you banned here regardless of how bad some other comment was. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't ever post like this again.
senatorobama 9y ago
This isn't even in Broadcom code.
- 0x0 9y ago
  Maybe not this time, but they have a history of fatal firmware bugs that could compromise the host system - such as http://boosterok.com/blog/broadpwn2/ http://boosterok.com/blog/broadpwn2/
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    For what it's worth, Broadcom's market share in attractive heavy-firmware wifi adapters is pretty high. They could just be an exploit magnet.
    - ge0rg 9y ago
      Does that mean that all embedded WiFi (and probably also baseband) controllers are deeply rotten, and we only blame Broadcom so far because of their popularity with device manufacturers?
      - bsder 9y ago
        Pretty much. In general, you can assume that if you can't audit it, it's absolute crap. This is true for hardware and software.
  - senatorobama 9y ago
    These companies with widely available low level firmware should really switch to Rust.
    - ComputerGuru 9y ago
      I love rust and have rewritten a dozen cross-platform utilities in it, but rust is nowhere near usable for general purpose embedded development.
ksec 9y ago
Go with Qualcomm? Last time I check Atheros aren't any better software wise and much worse in hardware. I am not sure if there are any real alternative to Broadcom WiFi and Ethernet, apart from Apple making one themselves. ( The W1 and W2 may be part of this )

by mangix 9y ago

revelation 9y ago

This is a bug that was already fixed. It means nothing in the grand scheme. In the current grand scheme, Apple and Qualcomm are also currently suing each other and I'm pretty sure part of that is Apple withholding billions in payments.

floatingatoll 9y ago
This is a Hacker News post about an interesting security vulnerability. It is, by both moderator and owner intentions, specifically meaningful in the 'grand scheme' of Hacker News, a site set up to permit people to discuss links. Yes, at a different level of business, Apple has an open lawsuit against Qualcomm, but that's not the scope that we're here to discuss. Mentioning it is fine, linking to a recent HN post about it would be stellar!, but "It means nothing in the grand scheme" is dismissive and wrong. Your concerns are clearly expressed, but insulting others for choosing to discuss a topic not relevant to your concerns is no excuse to shut them down verbally. That approach is not welcome here. EDIT: I'm not a mod or anything.
- revelation 9y ago
  You are not a mod, you are a fool responding to a comment without ever reading the comment mine was in response to. What the fuck.
  - dang 9y ago
    Whoa. Attacking another user will get you banned here regardless of how bad some other comment was. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't ever post like this again.

senatorobama 9y ago

This isn't even in Broadcom code.

0x0 9y ago
Maybe not this time, but they have a history of fatal firmware bugs that could compromise the host system - such as http://boosterok.com/blog/broadpwn2/ http://boosterok.com/blog/broadpwn2/
- microcolonel 9y ago
  For what it's worth, Broadcom's market share in attractive heavy-firmware wifi adapters is pretty high. They could just be an exploit magnet.
  - ge0rg 9y ago
    Does that mean that all embedded WiFi (and probably also baseband) controllers are deeply rotten, and we only blame Broadcom so far because of their popularity with device manufacturers?
    - bsder 9y ago
      Pretty much. In general, you can assume that if you can't audit it, it's absolute crap. This is true for hardware and software.
- senatorobama 9y ago
  These companies with widely available low level firmware should really switch to Rust.
  - ComputerGuru 9y ago
    I love rust and have rewritten a dozen cross-platform utilities in it, but rust is nowhere near usable for general purpose embedded development.

ksec 9y ago

Go with Qualcomm? Last time I check Atheros aren't any better software wise and much worse in hardware. I am not sure if there are any real alternative to Broadcom WiFi and Ethernet, apart from Apple making one themselves. ( The W1 and W2 may be part of this )