[Battlemesh] URGENT: BEREC wants to ban installing your own router

[Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli]

On Thu, 21 Nov 2019 11:56:42 +0100
Benjamin Henrion <zoobab at gmail.com> wrote:

Here's what I sent:


Begin forwarded message:

Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2019 13:58:17 +0100
From: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo at no-log.org>
To: NTP_Guidelines at berec.europa.eu
Subject: Freedom issue => Many practical issues


Hi,

Router and modem should be able to be under users control if users need
it.

Being able to control your own router and modem is an essential freedom
you shouldn't take away as depending on the hardware and software
configuration, that equipment is typically holding the public IPv4 IP
address of the user.

If the user equipment cannot hold the public IP addresses:
- It makes self hosting way harder or impossible: Many people still
  rely on IPv4, especially on cellular network access on smartphones.
  This would be totally unacceptable as it is a very serious attack on
  people freedom as freedom of expression also depends on that.
  It would force people to use centralized services like Google which
  are US companies that don't respect the European laws (like the RGPD
  for instance).
- Many ISPs that are part of the FFDN[1] don't provide any modem to
  the users. It's up to the users to buy a modem.
- It makes the software stack way more complex. This requires ways to
  traverse nat, requires stun and similar solutions. If the operator
  controls the equipment that does the NAT, operators could prevent
  that, leaving users with a completely broken internet. Some have
  enough market power to impose things like that.

Even if the modem doesn't hold the IP address, this still creates many
issues:
- Users can buy modems that can be upgraded[2]. Users buying and
  operating their modems typically care, directly or indirectly, about
  freedom and have an incentive to upgrade and maintain their modems.
  This means that such modems will get security updates, which prevents
  most attacks.
  Leaving modems prone to attack create issues like Mirai[3] where
  criminals managed to compromise many of such equipment to build a
  ddos attack tool that could reach more than 600GB/s.
  That blatant lack of security endanger the whole network.
  Companies (hardware manufacturers, ISPs) cannot be trusted to keep
  such equipment secure and up to date as many often try to lower down
  the cost of maintenance.
- Connectivity problems cannot be investigated and/or solved by users.
- It reduces users trust in technology as someone else is operating
  the equipment they have in their homes or offices.

References:
-----------
[1]https://www.ffdn.org/en
[2]https://openwrt.org/toh/netgear/dm200
[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirai_(malware)

Denis.
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