[AusNOG] "All your router devices are belong to us"

[Matthew Maxwell]

I am inclined to agree. This sort of covert move is setting a bad standard.

Once we even begin to accept such action on any level, consumer or
otherwise, it's the first step nuts first down a slippery slope.

It's interesting when other nations have pulled such stunts there has
been uproar, now an industry favorite pulls such a stunt without
consultation and people have the gall to even begin to defend it.

I've already boycotted Linksys and slowly been losing my desire to buy
Cisco due to increasing price combined with diminishing quality.

Sent from my iPhone.

On 30/06/2012, at 20:12, Heinz N <ausnog at equisoft.com.au> wrote:

> You do realise most ISPs maintain the ability to fork your data anyway as part of their lawful intercept requirements right?
>
> This just looks like managed CPE to me, at a lower price point.
>
> You don't have admin on your cable modem or Foxtel box :)
>

<tinfoil hat>

Yes, you _would_ expect your ISP to have access to your bytes. You
might also expect your ISP to administer your modem (Optus, Telstra).
That is all fine. You _know_ this and THEY (might) have supplied the
CPE. It is all part of the price you paid (and were hopefully informed
about).

BTW: I have 100% complete and utter control of my internet connected
devices. I insist that my clients also have this level of control: I
won't help them otherwise.

If you buy a third party product from an overseas supplier who is
subject to some certain (patriot act) laws, you don't want them to
have any level of access. You have a _right_ to expect that YOU can
administer your device and that you have COMPLETE access and control
of it. You have paid for that, after all.

Let's move the argument that most consumer end users are completely
clueless to one side. It is the job of _their_ ISP to help them, not
some unknow third party.

Why does that forgeign third party company have more flagrant access
to YOUR private internet traffic than your current ISP? Your current
ISP is bound by the laws of _this_ land. The forgeign supplier does
not care one little bit. In fact, those considered "aliens" by this
forgeign super power have no rights at all. And _you_ are paying the
bandwidth costs for them to exfiltrate your private data.

I find it personally disgusting that someone in some corporate
headquarters somewhere in the world can decide to arbitrarily reflash
YOUR device that you 100% paid for and then assume complete control of
it and decide to fork off YOUR personal private data to some three
letter named US government department. Even with completely free
internet and CPE, I would not agree to this.

Corporate users would not stand for this crap at all, and they would
vote with their dollars. (dumb) End users are like shooting fish in a
barrel. A much easier target. That is why the consumer end was
targetted. Don't forget that a lot of those end users also access
their (work) corporate networks from home. One end of the pipe is just
as good as the other if you want to exfiltrate data (or play
man-in-the-middle).

Now, what about the ISP engineers (or family friends) that need access
to the advanced features to fix some problem? They will also need to
go through this (100% completely reliable) overseas cloud (and be
monitored).

Methinks that something stinks. Where can I buy more tin foil? :-)

Regards,
Heinz N.

</tinfoil hat>

> </tinfoil hat>
>
> Macca
>
>
> On 30/06/2012, at 11:56 AM, Heinz N <ausnog at equisoft.com.au> wrote:
>
>> I just saw this on slashdot. Get the tin foil hats out.
>>
>> http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/06/29/1425210/cisco-pushing-cloud-connect-router-firmware-allows-web-history-tracking
>>
>> and
>>
>> http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/vptu9/linksys_just_pushed_and_installed_without_my
>>
>> Seems CISCO is disallowing local admin to their low end home/SOHO routers. Admin can apparently now only be done through their cloud (since when does a cloud ever fail!!?)...... Their conditions also state that they can monitor your traffic as they wish (and the "patriot act" NSA, FBI etc etc). No telling what the bandwidth implications of this are: and who will pay for the extra unauthorised traffic?
>>
>> You may want to rethink your equipment for SOHO clients.
>>
>> The whole issue with Telstra tracking HTTP traffic is just the start. How long before your new "trusted computing" motherboard reflashes itself and starts reporting all your stuff to Redmond (or China).
>>
>> I am happy to stick with my dumb bridged modem talking to a Linux router running iptables. Very cheap and with all the functionality of the most expensive routers and it doesn't report to some mothership cloud.
>>
>> Heinz N.
>> _______________________________________________
>> AusNOG mailing list
>> AusNOG at lists.ausnog.net
>> http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog
>
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