6 ms·

This type of whackery is (the primary reason) why I try to buy computing devices on which I can flash a clean OS (OpenWrt/DD-WRT for routers)[1]. It sucks becau

by mhitza 5y ago

This type of whackery is (the primary reason) why I try to buy computing devices on which I can flash a clean OS (OpenWrt/DD-WRT for routers)[1]. It sucks because it limits my choices down to a few, but at the same time I feel like I don't throw out money at abandonware. [1] don't even get me started on TP-Link releasing routers with the same name but v2/v3/2020/2021 update where it's hard to even know if I'm buying the one that supports the custom OS flash.

azinman2 5y ago
The author touched on right of repair. I’d love to see a law requiring all devices to either be supported, or if being sunset, being required by law to provide tools/source/schematics to take over the device and extend its utility beyond the manufacturer’s willingness. Particularly a last firmware that disables anything requiring phoning home to continue to function. We saw that with OnHub recently, when after only 6 years Google decided to render a lot of devices e-waste. The least they could do is recycle them for you at their own cost.
- msla 5y ago
  "Right of repair" being focused on hardware is a neat little trick to enforce the illusion that changing software is beyond your rights as a consumer. Yes, you can fix the antenna when it breaks, and focus on how hard the fight was to get the right to fix the hardware you own... which you don't own as long as the company uses software to control what the hardware can and cannot do. But you sure physically own those mostly-useless atoms real good!
  - R0b0t1 5y ago
    I had no idea it was focused on hardware. It applies to software too.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > "Right of repair" being focused on hardware is a neat little trick to enforce the illusion that changing software is beyond your rights as a consumer. Is it a trick, or just limited imagination? My impression is that "right of repair" came from mechanically-minded people seeking to maintain their traditional ability to repair physical devices in the face of corporate hostility (e.g. farmers vs. John Deere). > Yes, you can fix the antenna when it breaks, and focus on how hard the fight was to get the right to fix the hardware you own... which you don't own as long as the company uses software to control what the hardware can and cannot do. But you sure physically own those mostly-useless atoms real good! This seems more of software-centric Free Software attitude, which is not a place someone with mechanical skills but not very strong software skills is likely to arrive at themselves.
    - salawat 5y ago
      Hate to break it to ya, but anyone with any mechanical aptitude has what it takes to do whatever may need doing with software. Heck, Before I received any formal instruction in programming I was tracing things via symbols and strings just like I did hardware connections.
    - scblock 5y ago
      The tractor right to repair issues include software. You might even say that software is the prime issue preventing repair of the newer from equipment. Parts with drm, unsupported software, etc.
      - tablespoon 5y ago
        > The tractor right to repair issues include software. You might even say that software is the prime issue preventing repair of the newer from equipment. Parts with drm, unsupported software, etc. My understanding is the farmers just want to be able to repair their tractors without dealer approval (e.g. replace broken parts). They're not looking to hack new features into the firmware and stuff like that.
        webmaven 5y ago
        > My understanding is the farmers just want to be able to repair their tractors without dealer approval (e.g. replace broken parts). For which they need to circumvent or disable DRM, and be able to run the manufacturers diagnostic software (or be able to use 3rd party diagnostic software). > They're not looking to hack new features into the firmware and stuff like that. I think you may be reasoning from a set of assumptions about farm equipment that is out of date. Modern farm equipment is very sophisticated and ties into all sorts of external services (GPS, mapping and terrain, high resolution soil data, weather forecasts, etc.), and can do things like adjust the direction and spacing of rows, depth seeds are sown, selective harvesting, selective pest control, selective fertilization, and more. The software that controls all that isn't just 'firmware'. Not to mention that the equipment sends every bit of data back to the manufacturer to power add on services they can sell to the farmer by subscription. Farmers certainly like all these features. In fact they like them so much they pay for after-market upgrades for older (repairable) equipment to add features and 3rd party services. They don't like being stuck inside the manufacturers' walled gardens. These things have passed the point of just being equipment or tools, and are now platforms in their own right, and farmers are in many ways no longer their owners, but just captive users. While right to repair starts with re-enabling a local mechanic to replace a part, it doesn't end there. Not by a long shot.
- rhizome 5y ago
  Imagine not being able to use a lawn mower engine to make a go-kart.
- rocqua 5y ago
  There is a specific problem with routers and certification for radio usage. This makes right to repair harder. It's not just a legal issue. The ether is quite full and it mostly works because there are clear rules that devices must meet. With user serviceable routers, bumping up power, or moving to locally forbidden (quieter) frequencies could become lifehacks. There was already an airport whose radio saw interference from extra powerful 5ghz wifi routers. Locking down devices as a business model is bad. But Locking them down as a regulatory precaution to keep radio working is different. How to keep every manufacturer from seeking excemption from right to repair under these rules would be challenging tho.
  - haneefmubarak 5y ago
    If we didn't allow for an exemption but still required full compliance, perhaps manufacturers could physically limit the output from the power amplifiers and/or use blowable fuses in the chips to set a non-modifiable power limit. I imagine that the same could be done for frequency management either on board (bandstop filtering) or on chip (once again, blowable fuses to set disallowed frequencies). I know that there will still be enterprising folks who modify their hardware itself to try to get around these limitations, but such enterprising people are already more than capable of physically modifying their existing hardware.
    - somerandomqaguy 5y ago
      Not in manufacturing so I'm just speculating here. But I'd imagine that would create a new set of logistical issues, specifically instead of one bill of material that can be applied everywhere with controlled applied via software, now you need N BOM's, when N is the market region that has a slightly different set of RF transmission rules. Not infeasible but certainly a significant increase in cost.
  - howdydoo 5y ago
    My PC has a 5ghz wifi antenna, and I can install any OS I want. Why should a router be any more locked down than my PC? The FCC takes illegal broadcasting VERY seriously and I think that should deter people from becoming criminals.
stonepresto 5y ago
TP-Link loves to make things proprietary. They have a custom protocol called the Tether Management Protocol, the weird OneMesh stuff noted here, custom firmware headers and signing, etc. all without proper documentation. Many major vulns in TP-Link devices have been a result of these protocols, save for a few prolific things such as FragAttack. But hey, I guess it gives people something to hack on.
3np 5y ago
You may interested in my comment below. And yes, after helping a family member set up a TP-Link mesh I will do my best not to take part in expanding their coverage again. I'm not affiliated, just a bit psyched about discovering that there exist alternatives. :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29642616 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29642616
foxrider 5y ago
I used to do that and I suggest you look into OPNsense
GekkePrutser 5y ago
Yeah I used to get TP-Link because they were so well supported by openwrt and dd-wrt. But lately they've really become consumer hostile like with their smart plugs, removing local control functions so they can no longer be used with home automation systems :( For WiFi I moved to unifi but they're also becoming more difficult to work with. They are making it harder to use their stuff locally without their cloud service and to use the docker controller instead of their hardware. So when I replace it I'll have to look for yet another supplier.. Why do companies always have to turn evil.
- hiptobecubic 5y ago
  In general, margins in hardware manufacturing are low. Companies will generally do anything they can to increase demand, and establishing a "moat" is a great way to inflate demand. "I have some stuff, but it only works with other stuff from this same company" sucks for us as buyers, but it's obviously great for the seller. This is also why literally every company ever says that repairing anything they sell will void the warranty unless you also buy all the parts from them unless the law expressly forbids them from doing so.
  - nickff 5y ago
    >” This is also why literally every company ever says that repairing anything they sell will void the warranty unless you also buy all the parts from them unless the law expressly forbids them from doing so.” No, manufacturers do that because they don’t want to have to fix products that you’ve hacked up, then guarantee the item’s safety and regulatory compliance.
pdonis 5y ago
Exactly. I have a nice TP-Link router that doesn't have the problem described in the article..because the first thing I did was to flash OpenWRT on it. Problem solved.
alias_neo 5y ago
If you can afford it, go one better. I started out buying expensive home Wi-Fi routers, and I now have a box of expensive home routers I've decommissioned because they have vulnerabilities and stopped receiving updates. Probably well over ~£1000-2000 spent on them over the past ~decade. Next I switched to separate Router/Switch/AP and started with a Ubiquiti EdgeSwitch 8 POE, EdgeRouter Lite 3 and an AP-AC-Pro. Later I added a EdgeSwitch 24. Recently my EdgeRouter kicked the bucket, and wanting to be entirely free from manufacturer updates so I bought a Protectli box, flashed it with Coreboot (instead of AMIBIOS) and installed pfSense. I still use the AP-AC-Pro for now but will look for more open WiFi AP options once that dies or I move from my London apartment to a bigger home. I say "if you can afford it" because the Protectli box came in at just over £500 once RAM and SSD were added (I got the i3 model), the AP-AC-Pro is ~£120 (IIRC) and the EdgeSwitch another ~£150. This isn't "reasonably" priced equipment for home use, nor would I recommend Ubiquiti of late, but it's working well for me at the moment.
- spaniard89277 5y ago
  Have you tried Turris routers?
  - alias_neo 5y ago
    I have not. I considered one when I was replacing the EdgeRouter but I'm a firm believer in separation of concerns, I didn't want my router to be handling my WiFi or doing the switching. It would have been my top choice had I wanted to stick to an "all in one".
- wooben 5y ago
  I would recommend installing Proxmox on the Protectli bare metal and running pfsense (I prefer opnsense) in a VM. Then you can run your unifi controller in a container on the same device. The i3 should be able to handle that, and you can use Proxmox to share some USB drives over NFS.
  - alias_neo 5y ago
    Thanks for the suggestion but "separation of concerns" is key for me; I also wouldn't want extra software running on my edge, even containerised. I have plenty of hardware (and several Kubernetes clusters) inside my network to run software workloads on. For storage I built my "NAS" in the Silverstone CS381 (https://www.servethehome.com/silverstone-cs381-8-bay-matx-case-shown/ https://www.servethehome.com/silverstone-cs381-8-bay-matx-ca...) with an LSI HBA, Ryzen 9 3900X / 128GB RAM, 6 Intel NICs, 2 NVM.e SSDs + 1 SATA SSD for Proxmox and a bunch of HGST Ultrastar He10s as ZFS mirrors. I run the Unifi controller in a container on there. Before the pfSense Protectli I was also running AdGuard Home in a container (which replaced Pi-Hole on a Pi) but Unbound + pfBlockerNG is more capable. Re: pfSense / OPNSense; I was running OPNSense initially, but had some issues, I'm likely to go back if they're resolved; I find myself falling on the OPNSense side of the politics there.
Maxburn 5y ago
OpenWRT was a reason I finally started considering TPlink routers, otherwise they are on my never buy list for this article and other reasons.
vinay_ys 5y ago
This type of issue of OneMesh discovery could be a wifi chip firmware functionality that isn't programmable via host OS. In such a scenario, even if you could run your own host OS, it wouldn't be of much help.
jiggunjer 5y ago
Linksys does the same shenanigans closing their router. Have to check the manufacture date to know if a model can be modded with openwrt.
hulitu 5y ago
Openwrt has a good description of the various supported routers (v2, v3 etc.) and i had no issues with it.

by mhitza 5y ago

azinman2 5y ago

The author touched on right of repair. I’d love to see a law requiring all devices to either be supported, or if being sunset, being required by law to provide tools/source/schematics to take over the device and extend its utility beyond the manufacturer’s willingness. Particularly a last firmware that disables anything requiring phoning home to continue to function. We saw that with OnHub recently, when after only 6 years Google decided to render a lot of devices e-waste. The least they could do is recycle them for you at their own cost.

msla 5y ago
"Right of repair" being focused on hardware is a neat little trick to enforce the illusion that changing software is beyond your rights as a consumer. Yes, you can fix the antenna when it breaks, and focus on how hard the fight was to get the right to fix the hardware you own... which you don't own as long as the company uses software to control what the hardware can and cannot do. But you sure physically own those mostly-useless atoms real good!
- R0b0t1 5y ago
  I had no idea it was focused on hardware. It applies to software too.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > "Right of repair" being focused on hardware is a neat little trick to enforce the illusion that changing software is beyond your rights as a consumer. Is it a trick, or just limited imagination? My impression is that "right of repair" came from mechanically-minded people seeking to maintain their traditional ability to repair physical devices in the face of corporate hostility (e.g. farmers vs. John Deere). > Yes, you can fix the antenna when it breaks, and focus on how hard the fight was to get the right to fix the hardware you own... which you don't own as long as the company uses software to control what the hardware can and cannot do. But you sure physically own those mostly-useless atoms real good! This seems more of software-centric Free Software attitude, which is not a place someone with mechanical skills but not very strong software skills is likely to arrive at themselves.
  - salawat 5y ago
    Hate to break it to ya, but anyone with any mechanical aptitude has what it takes to do whatever may need doing with software. Heck, Before I received any formal instruction in programming I was tracing things via symbols and strings just like I did hardware connections.
  - scblock 5y ago
    The tractor right to repair issues include software. You might even say that software is the prime issue preventing repair of the newer from equipment. Parts with drm, unsupported software, etc.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > The tractor right to repair issues include software. You might even say that software is the prime issue preventing repair of the newer from equipment. Parts with drm, unsupported software, etc. My understanding is the farmers just want to be able to repair their tractors without dealer approval (e.g. replace broken parts). They're not looking to hack new features into the firmware and stuff like that.
      - webmaven 5y ago
        > My understanding is the farmers just want to be able to repair their tractors without dealer approval (e.g. replace broken parts). For which they need to circumvent or disable DRM, and be able to run the manufacturers diagnostic software (or be able to use 3rd party diagnostic software). > They're not looking to hack new features into the firmware and stuff like that. I think you may be reasoning from a set of assumptions about farm equipment that is out of date. Modern farm equipment is very sophisticated and ties into all sorts of external services (GPS, mapping and terrain, high resolution soil data, weather forecasts, etc.), and can do things like adjust the direction and spacing of rows, depth seeds are sown, selective harvesting, selective pest control, selective fertilization, and more. The software that controls all that isn't just 'firmware'. Not to mention that the equipment sends every bit of data back to the manufacturer to power add on services they can sell to the farmer by subscription. Farmers certainly like all these features. In fact they like them so much they pay for after-market upgrades for older (repairable) equipment to add features and 3rd party services. They don't like being stuck inside the manufacturers' walled gardens. These things have passed the point of just being equipment or tools, and are now platforms in their own right, and farmers are in many ways no longer their owners, but just captive users. While right to repair starts with re-enabling a local mechanic to replace a part, it doesn't end there. Not by a long shot.
rhizome 5y ago
Imagine not being able to use a lawn mower engine to make a go-kart.
rocqua 5y ago
There is a specific problem with routers and certification for radio usage. This makes right to repair harder. It's not just a legal issue. The ether is quite full and it mostly works because there are clear rules that devices must meet. With user serviceable routers, bumping up power, or moving to locally forbidden (quieter) frequencies could become lifehacks. There was already an airport whose radio saw interference from extra powerful 5ghz wifi routers. Locking down devices as a business model is bad. But Locking them down as a regulatory precaution to keep radio working is different. How to keep every manufacturer from seeking excemption from right to repair under these rules would be challenging tho.
- haneefmubarak 5y ago
  If we didn't allow for an exemption but still required full compliance, perhaps manufacturers could physically limit the output from the power amplifiers and/or use blowable fuses in the chips to set a non-modifiable power limit. I imagine that the same could be done for frequency management either on board (bandstop filtering) or on chip (once again, blowable fuses to set disallowed frequencies). I know that there will still be enterprising folks who modify their hardware itself to try to get around these limitations, but such enterprising people are already more than capable of physically modifying their existing hardware.
  - somerandomqaguy 5y ago
    Not in manufacturing so I'm just speculating here. But I'd imagine that would create a new set of logistical issues, specifically instead of one bill of material that can be applied everywhere with controlled applied via software, now you need N BOM's, when N is the market region that has a slightly different set of RF transmission rules. Not infeasible but certainly a significant increase in cost.
- howdydoo 5y ago
  My PC has a 5ghz wifi antenna, and I can install any OS I want. Why should a router be any more locked down than my PC? The FCC takes illegal broadcasting VERY seriously and I think that should deter people from becoming criminals.

stonepresto 5y ago

TP-Link loves to make things proprietary. They have a custom protocol called the Tether Management Protocol, the weird OneMesh stuff noted here, custom firmware headers and signing, etc. all without proper documentation. Many major vulns in TP-Link devices have been a result of these protocols, save for a few prolific things such as FragAttack. But hey, I guess it gives people something to hack on.

3np 5y ago

You may interested in my comment below. And yes, after helping a family member set up a TP-Link mesh I will do my best not to take part in expanding their coverage again. I'm not affiliated, just a bit psyched about discovering that there exist alternatives. :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29642616 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29642616

foxrider 5y ago

I used to do that and I suggest you look into OPNsense

GekkePrutser 5y ago

Yeah I used to get TP-Link because they were so well supported by openwrt and dd-wrt. But lately they've really become consumer hostile like with their smart plugs, removing local control functions so they can no longer be used with home automation systems :( For WiFi I moved to unifi but they're also becoming more difficult to work with. They are making it harder to use their stuff locally without their cloud service and to use the docker controller instead of their hardware. So when I replace it I'll have to look for yet another supplier.. Why do companies always have to turn evil.

hiptobecubic 5y ago
In general, margins in hardware manufacturing are low. Companies will generally do anything they can to increase demand, and establishing a "moat" is a great way to inflate demand. "I have some stuff, but it only works with other stuff from this same company" sucks for us as buyers, but it's obviously great for the seller. This is also why literally every company ever says that repairing anything they sell will void the warranty unless you also buy all the parts from them unless the law expressly forbids them from doing so.
- nickff 5y ago
  >” This is also why literally every company ever says that repairing anything they sell will void the warranty unless you also buy all the parts from them unless the law expressly forbids them from doing so.” No, manufacturers do that because they don’t want to have to fix products that you’ve hacked up, then guarantee the item’s safety and regulatory compliance.

pdonis 5y ago

Exactly. I have a nice TP-Link router that doesn't have the problem described in the article..because the first thing I did was to flash OpenWRT on it. Problem solved.

alias_neo 5y ago

If you can afford it, go one better. I started out buying expensive home Wi-Fi routers, and I now have a box of expensive home routers I've decommissioned because they have vulnerabilities and stopped receiving updates. Probably well over ~£1000-2000 spent on them over the past ~decade. Next I switched to separate Router/Switch/AP and started with a Ubiquiti EdgeSwitch 8 POE, EdgeRouter Lite 3 and an AP-AC-Pro. Later I added a EdgeSwitch 24. Recently my EdgeRouter kicked the bucket, and wanting to be entirely free from manufacturer updates so I bought a Protectli box, flashed it with Coreboot (instead of AMIBIOS) and installed pfSense. I still use the AP-AC-Pro for now but will look for more open WiFi AP options once that dies or I move from my London apartment to a bigger home. I say "if you can afford it" because the Protectli box came in at just over £500 once RAM and SSD were added (I got the i3 model), the AP-AC-Pro is ~£120 (IIRC) and the EdgeSwitch another ~£150. This isn't "reasonably" priced equipment for home use, nor would I recommend Ubiquiti of late, but it's working well for me at the moment.

spaniard89277 5y ago
Have you tried Turris routers?
- alias_neo 5y ago
  I have not. I considered one when I was replacing the EdgeRouter but I'm a firm believer in separation of concerns, I didn't want my router to be handling my WiFi or doing the switching. It would have been my top choice had I wanted to stick to an "all in one".
wooben 5y ago
I would recommend installing Proxmox on the Protectli bare metal and running pfsense (I prefer opnsense) in a VM. Then you can run your unifi controller in a container on the same device. The i3 should be able to handle that, and you can use Proxmox to share some USB drives over NFS.
- alias_neo 5y ago
  Thanks for the suggestion but "separation of concerns" is key for me; I also wouldn't want extra software running on my edge, even containerised. I have plenty of hardware (and several Kubernetes clusters) inside my network to run software workloads on. For storage I built my "NAS" in the Silverstone CS381 (https://www.servethehome.com/silverstone-cs381-8-bay-matx-case-shown/ https://www.servethehome.com/silverstone-cs381-8-bay-matx-ca...) with an LSI HBA, Ryzen 9 3900X / 128GB RAM, 6 Intel NICs, 2 NVM.e SSDs + 1 SATA SSD for Proxmox and a bunch of HGST Ultrastar He10s as ZFS mirrors. I run the Unifi controller in a container on there. Before the pfSense Protectli I was also running AdGuard Home in a container (which replaced Pi-Hole on a Pi) but Unbound + pfBlockerNG is more capable. Re: pfSense / OPNSense; I was running OPNSense initially, but had some issues, I'm likely to go back if they're resolved; I find myself falling on the OPNSense side of the politics there.

Maxburn 5y ago

OpenWRT was a reason I finally started considering TPlink routers, otherwise they are on my never buy list for this article and other reasons.

vinay_ys 5y ago

This type of issue of OneMesh discovery could be a wifi chip firmware functionality that isn't programmable via host OS. In such a scenario, even if you could run your own host OS, it wouldn't be of much help.

jiggunjer 5y ago

Linksys does the same shenanigans closing their router. Have to check the manufacture date to know if a model can be modded with openwrt.

hulitu 5y ago

Openwrt has a good description of the various supported routers (v2, v3 etc.) and i had no issues with it.