[olug] Linksys router Vulnerability

[ridgid]

"would really like to know exactly how much flash and ram comes inside a FON off
the top of my head"

http://wiki.openwrt.org/TableOfHardware



Rob Townley wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 9:55 AM, Rob Townley <rob.townley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 2:41 AM, DYNATRON tech <dynatron at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>     
>>> thank you chris.
>>>
>>> i knew a little bit about the situation, but i had not gotten that
>>> in-depth.
>>> i see what you mean now luke. that is a bit of a downer.
>>> however, i still have to say that it is a good router.
>>>
>>> linksys (cisco) must have sold millions of these things.
>>> i have to give them credit for bringing wireless to the masses at an
>>> affordable cost.
>>> if cutting the memory in half is what made it affordable, i'd say it's
>>> for
>>> the greater good.
>>> if they cut the memory, and not the price, then yeah.....the WRT sucks!
>>>
>>>
>>> On 3/11/08, Christopher Cashell <topher-olug at zyp.org> wrote:
>>>       
>>>> On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 1:14 AM, DYNATRON tech <dynatron at gmail.com>
>>>>         
>>> wrote:
>>>       
>>>>> what problems have you had with them, luke?
>>>>>           
>>>> I think Luke is refering to the fact that starting with the v5 WRT54G
>>>> Linksys moved from a Linux based firmware to a minimal embedded
>>>> VxWorks OS.  At the same time, they cut the RAM and flash in half
>>>> (16MB of RAM to 8GMB of RAM, 4MB of flash to 2MB of flash).  This made
>>>> the custom firmware projects like OpenWRT and such unusable (at least
>>>> initially, a couple of them managed to release stripped down, less
>>>> functional, variants for the v5 on).
>>>>
>>>> On the plus side, Linksys released the WRT54GL shortly after the v5
>>>> WRT54G was released.  The L variant is basically just a renamed v4
>>>> WRT54G sold to keep those wishing to run custom firmware happy (the
>>>> 'L' allegedly stands for Linux).  It's a small thing, but I was quite
>>>> impressed when Linksys did this, as I expect that the number of people
>>>> who really loaded custom firmware (of which I am one) is an extremely
>>>> small part of their WRT54G customer base.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Christopher
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>> OLUG at olug.org
>>>> http://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug
>>>>
>>>>         
>>>
>>> --
>>> dynatron digital services
>>> box 191 - 68037
>>> www.dynatron.org
>>> dynatron at gmail.com
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>>       
>> i know what you mean Dynatron as i was a big fan of Linksys at one time.
>> Then i started to critically think about Cisco buying Linksys in 2003 as
>> buying companies and lawsuits are ways of controlling the market.  Cisco
>> would have us believe that cutting memory was to save money.  But memory is
>> cheap especially when you are talking about less than 16MB on a worldwide
>> distribution scale.  It has much more to do with the fact that open source
>> versions of the Linksys routers competed directly with Cisco's expensive
>> (several hundred dollars and more) wireless systems.   FON may not be the
>> best hardware but it is much much cheaper than any version of Linksys (would
>> really like to know exactly how much flash and ram comes inside a FON off
>> the top of my head).  Cisco bought Linksys to control the market - not to
>> help the consumer.   One of the best competitors to  Cisco Linksys when it
>> comes to FOSS seems to have been BuffaloTech.  But  http://www.buffalotech.com/products/wireless/
>> <http://www.buffalotech.com/products/wireless/>  still can't be sold in
>> the USA.  It is EXTREMELY interesting to me as it should be you that Cisco
>> Linksys is not on the list of companies that filed an amicus brief in
>> support of BuffaloTech.  Anyone truly interested in lower prices for the
>> consumer wireless has to ask why Cisco Linksys doesn't support BuffaloTech
>> in this lawsuit because potentially every wireless manufacturer may be
>> barred from selling in the US with the exception of Cisco of course.  Cisco
>> Linksys indirectly supporting the CSIRO lawsuit is almost the same tactic of
>> Microsoft supporting the SCO lawsuit.  If Cisco Linksys released an
>> 802.11N router with an open source download, then i might change my mind,
>> but i suspect they won't do that if they ever do till the others have been
>> buried.
>>
>>
>>     
>
>
> Well for a little more to munch on from csiro.au
>    website:  "That design, licensed to Australian company Radiata
> (subsequently acquired by Cisco for US$300 million in
> 2000<http://www.solve.csiro.au/0807/article14.htm>),
> led to the first demonstration of a chip implementing the standard IEEE
> 802.11a."  Governments and Companies working together can be a great thing
> and it often is, it can also be fascism.
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