[Battlemesh] New wifi products now already with locked firmware

[Ben West]

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

-- 
Ben West
ben at gowasabi.net
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