[Battlemesh] New wifi products now already with locked firmware

[Linus Lüssing]

On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 12:21:46PM -0500, Ben West wrote:
> This is the thread start on the PRPL Foundation listserv discussing the
> appearance of wifi routers that now have locked stock firmware that
> prohibits flashing alternate firmware.  Yes, *before* the FCC's proposed
> rulemaking even gets approved!
> http://lists.prplfoundation.org/pipermail/fcc/2015-September/000339.html
> 
> This thread began at prompt of an Ars Technica writer, who just published
> this story:
> 
> FCC: Open source router software is still legal—under certain conditions
> Locking out OpenWRT and DD-WRT is the easiest way to comply with new FCC
> rules
> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/09/fcc-open-source-router-software-is-still-legal-under-certain-conditions/
> 
> These are the specific products mentioned in the thread where locked
> firmware was encountered:
> Rosewill RNX-N300RTv2
> TP-Link TL-WR841N v8.2
> Netgear WNDR4300
> 
> Some of these products were observed to not have locked firmware
> previously, even for the same hardware revision.
> 
> The TL-WR841N, for example, appears on the list of hardware potentially
> supported by Commotion, which evidently may change very soon.
> https://wiki.commotionwireless.net/doku.php/development_resources/router/hardware_compatibility_list

For Freifunk there are about 13000 TP-Link TL-WR841N(D) routers
currently up and running... (from about 21000 Freifunk nodes in
total)

(And the second prefered choice in Freifunk communities, the
TP-Link TL-WDR3600 or TL-WDR4300 aren't produced/sold by TP-Link
anymore)

Can someone confirm that an 841N v8.2 is locked?