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The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau has reached a $200,000 settlement with TP-Link in regards to selling in the US routers that could operate at output levels higher that allowed by FCC rules.
At the same time, TP-Link has also agreed to work with the open-source community and Wi-Fi chipset manufacturers to enable consumers to install third-party firmware on their Wi-Fi routers.
Source: Help Net Security
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FCC Orders TP-Link to Allow Third-Party Firmware on Their Routers
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Remember Darwin; building a better mousetrap merely results in smarter mice.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday August 04 2016, @07:49PM
I am suggesting option 2 (the one that captures economy of scale). The modern chipset for WiFi includes a microcontroller running a signed binary blob. Each regulatory domain gets it's own version of that blob. So in the U.S., the (possibly 3rd party) OS loads the signed blob into the radio chipset. The chipset checks the signature and if it is correct, in initializes and sets an appropriate status code.
In another domain, a different blob is loaded.
Worst case if some regulator has a stick up it's backside, a few jumpers get strapped on the board to tell the chipset which signed blobs are acceptable.
In cases where the radio chipset is part of the CPU, the CPU itself likely has a protected domain that the OS can't get at. I know ARM supports that as does x86. I think MIPS does too. Many flash chips are also segmented and have blowable fuses to prevent a portion of them from being re-written. So, bootloader gets it's own segment and OTP fuse gets blown. Main OS gets another segment that remains re-writable. Bootloader establishes the trust zone that controls the hardware, then loads the OS (whatever is flashed into the OS portion of the flash). As a side benefit, the bootloader can have a protected re-flash/diagnostics function that can't be erased, making bricking practically impossible short of a soldering iron.