Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by LaminatorX on Thursday September 03 2015, @03:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the from-my-cold-dead-hands dept.

Hackaday sounds the alarm and along with ThinkPenguin, the EFF, FSF, Software Freedom Law Center, Software Freedom Conservancy, OpenWRT, LibreCMC, Qualcomm, and others have created the SaveWiFi campaign (archive.is capture, real link is at this overloaded server) , providing instructions on how to submit a formal complaint to the FCC regarding this proposed rule. The comment period is closing on September 8, 2015.

From Hackaday:

Under the rule proposed by the FCC, devices with radios may be required to prevent modifications to firmware. All devices operating in the 5GHz WiFi spectrum will be forced to implement security features to ensure the radios cannot be modified. While prohibiting the modification of transmitters has been a mainstay of FCC regulation for 80 years, the law of unintended consequences will inevitably show up in full force: because of the incredible integration of electronic devices, this proposed regulation may apply to everything from WiFi routers to cell phones. The proposed regulation would specifically ban router firmwares such as DD-WRT, and may go so far as to include custom firmware on your Android smartphone.

A lot is on the line. The freedom to modify devices you own is a concern, but the proposed rules prohibiting new device firmware would do much more damage. The economic impact would be dire, the security implications would be extreme, and emergency preparedness would be greatly hindered by the proposed restrictions on router firmware. The FCC is taking complaints and suggestions until September 8th.

Leave a comment for the FCC via this link to the Federal Register


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by Rich on Friday September 04 2015, @11:24AM

    by Rich (945) on Friday September 04 2015, @11:24AM (#232195) Journal

    First, the requirements go much farther than "er, like DD-WRT, and stuff". They present a link to the DD-WRT site, explicitly demand that this be excluded, and then further suggest that the securing people work within the context of RFC2828 to implement X.800. Then they lower themselves to laymans terms and explain that so called "flashing" must be inhibited. That definitely is not "slopply engineer wording" as the techdirt blog says.

    The FCC reply seems already illogical within two sentences: 1.) Our rules .. permit radios ... where the ... secure software ... cannot be modified. 2.) versions of ... software can be used as long as they do not add the functionality to modify ... RF .. .

    The only way this logic resolves is entirely contrary to how the second sentence sounds. The weather radar issue is a complete strawman excuse they prepared for the expected shitstorm. These modifications are already illegal and someone who wants to stay illegal will get their outlaw gear from ebay. On the other hand, someone who goes to mentioned detail in describing how to lock out free software, knows what he is doing.

    This also goes together with a nice european directive ("2014/53/EU") that has nothing to do with the FAA and their happy weather forecast and was put in place so silently that it slipped neatly under the radar of anyone concerned with the topic.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2