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Belkin To Offer Firmware Fix For Router Hijacking
L-Train8 writes "Belkin has an announcement at the bottom of their homepage about the spam router. They have decided to disable the 'feature' that hijacks a random http request every 8 hours and redirects to a webpage advertising their parental control system. This will require a firmware upgrade. The message says details will be forthcoming.
Interestingly, while I was preparing this submission, the message changed. Originally, it included a snippy remark about how what they were doing was not spam, despite what everyone on the internet says. The new version is much less testy."
Although they remove this feature, what other 'usage statistics'-logging-features are silently embedded?
My newer D-Link 604 router has some statistics and a thorough logging function (which is displayed in the web gui). - Is all of it really visible to the end user?
It's a good bet from the manufacturers that the device will be online all the time.
Perhaps one should install a box to surveil the router/firewall, if any connections are initiated from the router?
henc
...It involves a hatchet.
Seriously, Belkin's response to this has been utterly abysmal. First they tried to justify it, only now that it's blowing up in their face do they try to remedy it.
They've lost a great deal of trust that they will never regain.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
tbone fp?
Bad boys, bad boys, what ya gonna do
when Billy Gates starts using his money on you
MoFscker
"Important message from Belkin:
We at Belkin apologize for the recent trouble our customers have experienced with the wireless router/browser redirect issue. We will be offering firmware fixes available for download early next week. We do not have exact details yet but we can tell you now that each Router's firmware that incorporates Parental Control as an option will be changed.
Please expect more detailed information to follow early next week. Thank you."
If anyone has the testy version, post that too! I'm curious.
evil adrian
Kharma whoring for fun and profit....
cache here (as of 10 Nov 2003 20:43 EST):
Belkin is aware of some recent postings that claim that Belkin wireless routers are spamming users during the setup process and periodically thereafter. It is not now, nor has it ever been, the policy of Belkin to intentionally spam our customers or anyone else. Belkin offers a free trial of our parental control feature in our routers, and to make our customers aware of the feature itself and to give them the opportunity to take advantage of the free trial, we have tried to direct users to the information regarding the parental control features. However, since this has become a source of concern to our users, and it is Belkin policy to address the concerns of our users quickly, Belkin has decided to remove this function from the routers. Each router's firmware that incorporates parental control as an option will be changed.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
Half the time I don't risk upgrading the firmware on my devices cuz I don't trust the engineers didn't mess something up (and they're always labeled beta... but I give up...)... How the hell am I supposed to trust they won't implement some other backdoor feature in their firmware?
They've gone so far as to generate traffic to their homepage to advertise crap, what's keeping them from simply redirecting your Outgoing data to some IP address on their networks, for anonymous data collection or some other BS, which you agree to in their 4 million word EULA that you have to click yes to before installing this patch?
Anyone know where I can buy a tinfoil hat?
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
I was in the process of cutting and pasting Belkin's message into a story submission earlier today when it changed, so I have the original text. The message earlier today read:
Belkin is aware of some recent postings that claim that Belkin wireless routers are spamming users during the setup process and periodically thereafter. It is not now, nor has it ever been, the policy of Belkin to intentionally spam our customers or anyone else. Belkin offers a free trial of our parental control feature in our routers, and to make our customers aware of the feature itself and to give them the opportunity to take advantage of the free trial, we have tried to direct users to the information regarding the parental control features. However, since this has become a source of concern to our users, and it is Belkin policy to address the concerns of our users quickly, Belkin has decided to remove this function from the routers. Each router's firmware that incorporates parental control as an option will be changed.
Please expect more detailed information to follow early next week. Thank you.
Now we have the more concise and concilliatory
We at Belkin apologize for the recent trouble our customers have experienced with the wireless router/browser redirect issue. We will be offering firmware fixes available for download early next week. We do not have exact details yet
but we can tell you now that each Router's firmware that incorporates Parental Control as an option will be changed.
Please expect more detailed information to follow early next week. Thank you.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
Here's an article about it from about 7 hrs ago.
Here's an article about their stupid response.
Here's the original Slashdot article.
evil adrian
So now we can pay for them to track our activities and send us advertisement. Reminds me of how initially having a logo on an article of clothing seamed insane... now we are walking billboards.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
I am in the market for a small home DSL router and now that Belkin is completely out of the running, what would you choose? I would love one with SNMP monitoring. I currently have an old LinkSys 4 port-er. 802.11g would be nice to have on it. Any suggestions?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
"Feature"?... Dear lord. There must be some really, really fine crack going around in industry circles these days. Belkin sounds like they've taken a hit or two off the SCO crack pipe.
I wonder if they use their own products in-house. That would be a fitting punishment if it ever came down to a class-action suit.... Force Belkin to use their own products.
Bowie J. Poag
Old Comment:
-----
Important message from Belkin:
Belkin is aware of some recent postings that claim that Belkin wireless routers are spamming users during the setup process and periodically thereafter. It is not now, nor has it ever been, the policy of Belkin to intentionally spam our customers or anyone else. Belkin offers a free trial of our parental control feature in our routers, and to make our customers aware of the feature itself and to give them the opportunity to take advantage of the free trial, we have tried to direct users to the information regarding the parental control features. However, since this has become a source of concern to our users, and it is Belkin policy to address the concerns of our users quickly, Belkin has decided to remove this function from the routers. Each router's firmware that incorporates parental control as an option will be changed.
Please expect more detailed information to follow early next week. Thank you.
Current Comment:
-----
Important message from Belkin:
We at Belkin apologize for the recent trouble our customers have experienced with the wireless router/browser redirect issue. We will be offering firmware fixes available for download early next week. We do not have exact details yet but we can tell you now that each Router's firmware that incorporates Parental Control as an option will be changed.
Please expect more detailed information to follow early next week. Thank you.
Every 8 hours you get redirected to a page saying "Sorry, we won't do it again. Promise."
Forget it. I'm not using a Belkin product unless they can prove there's no hidden "features" in the firmware. Either they open their source code, or they pay an independent review agency to completely review the firmware, hardware, etc. Every single chip in that router should be examined for any hidden "features". This was a monumental clusterfuck. And now you tell me they actually had the stupidity to attempt to defend their actions? Morons.
Anyone want to do some testing on the new firmware to make sure it's clean?
I have a Belkin for my home. Upon setting up the equipment, the advert page was the first one I saw. I skipped it, but encountered it again about a (?) week later. That time I actually read it and realized I had to jump through a hoop to never see the page again. I can't imagine managing a computer lab and taking more than a day to notice the advert.
/. as a discussion topic. I accept it as the way companies act today, nothing unusual.
Yes, I was annoyed, but no more than from mandatory product registrations or e-mails I receive from e-tailers from whom I've bought something. In the grand scheme of things, I'm used to the abuse. Today's standard practice is to let the customer opt-out after the first annoying sales pitch.
I honestly was surprised to see this issue posted on
"We do not have exact details yet but we can tell you now that each Router's firmware that incorporates Parental Control as an option will be changed."
Hmm.. hopefully this doesn't mean they're going to do something even more nefarious, like only hijack sessions going to the websites of parental control software manufacturers...
I look forward to seeing how they wind up handling the fix, and what they have to say about the patch when it's released. Hopefully Belkin has learned that this was an incredibly bad idea and will do the right thing. However, only time will tell this.
Of course, it still won't convince me to buy Belkin products again. Trust lost to abuse takes a long time to regain.
-Matt
When you buy and install software, you usually get adverts the first time you run it telling you about new products etc. etc. typically you click the 'No thanks' button and it never pops up again.
I fail to see what the big deal is with Belkin. When I got my router the page popped up and I hit 'No' in response to their 'do you want our 3 month trial', and guess what - I haven't seen it since.
Now if you are a big enough twat to not figure out that hitting 'No' is going to make it go away, just like most advertising, then you probably shouldn't be owning a router and probably not a computer either. And people who are saying 'ooh, Belkin, evil company, never buy from them again!!', well they make good products and I'm certainly not going to stop buying them based on morons not being able to click a button.
Sorry if everyone's seen it already, just saw someone post it on another messageboard I read.
UserFriendly ad
I use an old Pentium computer as a Linux router for my cable modem; I was an early adopter of broadband, before these router devices were affordable.
:-( ), but after seeing this little stunt, no way. I won't trust any router that I can't program myself now. When my Packard Hell quits, I'm gonna just buy another old used computer and turn it into a Linux router.
;-)
I had considered switching over to one of these devices (I have periodic problems with the hard disk failing, and I am running out of small hard disk replacements for it
I would strongly urge anyone else savvy with Linux or even *BSD administration to strongly consider this route. Belkin just proved that you can't trust anyone to route your data with a "black box" solution. OK, maybe not Cisco, but are you gonna fork over $10k for a home router?
(Yes I know Cisco just bought Linksys; I still won't trust 'em)
Now they just need to do a press release naming the marketer that thought it up, saying that he was fired for cause. :)
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Trouble is, we buy products because it is good for us, not good for the manufacturer. They seem to have lost sight of it, although may have realised their mistake (or equally likely they haven't realised it, but it's just they dislike the bad publicity).
Either way, it speaks volumes of their corporate decision making. In my experience, corporate decision making is at best, of highly variable quality; managers try to come up with just slightly too clever schemes that try to raise profits at the (non financial) expense of the customer. These things add negative qualities to the product. Why would you ever want to do that?
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Then, either Saturday or Sunday, they changed it to the far less likable one, which was much closer to Eric Deming's original reply in the usenet thread (which, oddly enough, was deleted from google groups). The problem is that it seemed more that they were trying to spin than acknowledge the problem. Methinks that they went back to the first version because they realized that they couldn't spin it at all.
Maybe they changed it because it was long & boring. :P
"Important message from Belkin:
Belkin is aware of some recent postings that claim that Belkin wireless routers are spamming users during the setup process and periodically thereafter. It is not now, nor has it ever been, the policy of Belkin to intentionally spam our customers or anyone else. Belkin offers a free trial of our parental control feature in our routers, and to make our customers aware of the feature itself and to give them the opportunity to take advantage of the free trial, we have tried to direct users to the information regarding the parental control features. However, since this has become a source of concern to our users, and it is Belkin policy to address the concerns of our users quickly, Belkin has decided to remove this function from the routers. Each router's firmware that incorporates parental control as an option will be changed.
Please expect more detailed information to follow early next week. Thank you."
I'm now going to cringe everytime I see a product that has "New Features". I'm going to start buying products with no features at all. . .
YOU'RE WINNER !
Another lame blog
Disclaimer: This is my first and only router, and I haven't used any others!
Personally, I have a Microsoft "Wired Base Station" (i.e. router) model MN-110. It's pretty nice--there are no annoying redirects--but other things too.
The configuration screens are easy to use, but remember a few years ago when someone figured out that Microsoft browsers and servers collaborate in ignoring the TCP/IP protocol? Well, I have an inkling the router does so. When I view pages in Mozilla, they refresh a second time, showing "Content-type: text/html" in the upper-left corner. Either way, it's still easy to use, and pretty good feature-wise.
There are port-forwarding features, pretty simple, except you can't redirect to a different port, i.e. if you map external port 80 to a box, it has to go to that box's port 80. Not much of a problem. There's also application-triggered port forwarding, which opens certain inbound ports when an outbound connection is made. Personally, I don't see a point in this, since most users are too stupid to figure out port forwarding, and if they figure it out, maybe since their firewall software doesn't suck, why would they go to the trouble of figuring out what outbound port the app uses first? Anyway, it's also got rudimentary firewall features and a "Virtual DMZ," which is simply a default port-forwarding setting.
I have no complaints--of course, I will receive several Slashdot-generated emails pointing me to flame-replies about how Microsoft sucks, but it works. And it was $10 cheaper than the Linksys router next to it, and it looks cooler!
Tired of free iPod sigs? Subscribe to my blacklist
Belkin has lost my business, until they very aggressively do something to FIX the problems of the internet.
All that backing off here is doing, is admitting that they pushed a bit too hard. Nobody can tell me that the goal of Belkin has changed, or is any different from VeriSign's. They want to manipulate the infrastructure of the internet. They want control over my computer, and how it works.
Fuck 'em. They have to REALLY work hard to win back my business. Apologizing and issuing a firmware patch ain't good enough by half.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Now what it STILL doesn't answer... Will the router still be externally reconfigurable w/o the owner/user's knowledge. Big nasty now well publicized backdoor "feature" on a router that could end up in small medical offices or used by home transcriptionists. HIPPA regs are scary to the "little" folks who have to comply w/em. They're hellishly terrifying to large companies that could face sanction just because somebody working from home saved $5 on a router with known security issues.
Makes me want to double-check Belkin's integrity before getting a voice recorder for my iPod.
It doesn't really tell us anything new, except that Belkin seems to be missing the point entirely, defending their "feature" and not mentioning anything about any upcoming firmware fixes.
Corporate behavior like this drives me insane. The personal labor cost to fix their defective product exceeds the price of the product. But I'm sure the EULA is careful to explain that the product is not necessarily useful for anything and Belkin is liable for nothing beyond the price of the product.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
if you sell a widget to do thing x, just have it do that thing. don't collect stats. don't have it usually do thing x buf sometimes do thing y randomly.
even with this change the chances of me buying anything by belkin ever again are nil. until i see belkin publicly appoint an ethics officer who will vet marketing decisions like this (and with the power to block them) i will actively encourage people to avoid them as well.
i suspect i'm not alone in this opinion.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
I went shopping for a laptop bag yesterday. I really liked this Belkin one I found, but decided not to buy it solely because of their little router spamming escapade. I won't buy Belkin products anymore.
The sooner hardware manufacturers realize that pulling stunts like this results in some sort of backlash which affects their bottom line, the better.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
I accept it as the way companies act today, nothing unusual.
This is what is really bad, and why Belkin thought they could get away with this crap. We have become used to the abuse. We need to stand up and say, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!"
The incredibly onerous and annoying contracts that have become standard parts of software licenses are starting to creep out of the fine print of click-through EULA's that no one ever reads and into everyday life. I think hardware companies look enviously at software companies, with their "no responsiblity for the company/no rights for the user" legal disclaimers. They are increasingly trying to get the same kind of weasely deals for themselves.
But actual physical products are a different animal, and you can't hide how you're screwing the customer behind an "agree" button. If EULA's weren't such confusing legalese, and people actually bothered to understand what they are actually "agreeing" to, I believe we'd all make a bigger stink about it. Fortunately, it's more obvious when physical items try to act like virtual ones.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
Unfortuneately for Belkin, the damage has already been done. I already thought their routers were no good after I had a hell of a time getting one to work with a DLink wireless NIC. They've just run out of chances with me.
Chaos will always win out over order because chaos is more organized
From the parent post: "... average IQ of marketers
The average IQ of some marketers is less than zero. They are very intelligent in being destructive to their companies, meaning they have a high negative IQ. Deciding to include router hijacking is not something an ignorant person could do.
The router hijacking idea was a product of considerable creative thinking. And Belkin's router project manager Eric Deming made himself semi-famous on Slashdot. Not everyone could do that!
Think how this will look on Mr. Deming's resume, as he looks for a new job: "I significantly affected my company's profitability." This is honest because: (Truth in marketing) = - (Actual truth).
It's on Tools->Misc.
I just purchased a couple of Belkin UPS's. Not bad for the price.
.. and here's your stinking firmware upgrade.." isn't a good technique to get people to open up their wallets.
Would I buy a router from these folks? Hell no. Would I buy a Linksys router? Nope, they don't play well with GPL. I think Microsoft makes home network routers, but they have an even worse shot at getting any more of my money..:-) Maybe SCO will be the next slime organization to enter the home networking arena?
Perhaps Belkin's marketing department is calling too many technical shots? A router should just decide what to do with packets, not play nasty games with the upper level protocols.
Belkin's marketing droids can try to spin this any way they like... it's just as slimy and "spammy" as Windows Messenger popups.
One would think a small company (I believe privately held, even) would be responsive to their customers (or potential customers) and just suck it up, release a patch *and* an apology... but *no*! "We don't understand why you're whining about this being spam. Our marketing bozos don't consider this spam
Belkin: Open your eyes, listen to potential customers. Find all of the marketing idiots responsible for this and fire 'em. Get new marketing folk and have them write up a press release about their successors. Make sure marketing stays in their little sandbox of advertising and box art design. Leave technical things to technical people.
En14rge Ur Peenis is aaware of some receent pposting5 that c/laim that we 4re 5pamm1ng users with our pr0du6t. It is not now, nor has it ever been, the policy of En14rge Ur Peenis to intentionally spam our customers. En14rge Ur Peenis offers b35t ppeenis enla45gements, and to make our t1ny twiggy customers aware of the p0ssibi1ity in satisfying the1rr parttner, we have tried to d1rect udsers to thee inforasmation regarding en14rgeing ur p0ker.
peese t4k3 us 0ff1 ur sp4m l1st, we r ur s4vior, itz\\our c0onstituti90nal rightsl to anneoy da liv1ngs phsucks outsta u
Good thing I never thought about buying anything from Belkin, I would've chucked that damn thing at the marketing director so hard he would be dumb enough to respond to one of those spam emails
How about if every hour from now on they would mangle a http request such that you get some nice pr0n... wouldn't that be a way to repair the situation?
So now the real question...
What is the punishment lifecycle for this kind of abbuse? They fixed it pretty fast but it burned a hole in their credibility out here in user land.
How fast do we forgive? Do we forgive at all? How many releases will receive strict scruteny before Belkin regains "acceptable vendor" status? Are we now intent on scrubbing all their products for any exploit on the "fool me once" principle?
Quite a quandary.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Right! I always make sure UPNP is disabled on every XP box I set up. I can't really see good reasons for the service to be there - and I recall people complaining about the security holes it created back when it was first released to the public.
I'm just a little bit surprised routers are actually making use of it now. I guess it's all about pressure put on them to make it easier for people to run special services from multiple computers (since NAT firewalls make you redirect traffic to one specific IP otherwise).
Ultimately, it's a matter of convenience vs. security, and to me, UPNP compromises too much security for "ease of use". It's like setting your home alarm system up with an easy to remember code like 1-2-3, for the sake of convenience.
Belkin is aware of some recent postings, done by ill-tempered individuals, that claim that Belkin wireless routers are spamming users during the setup process and periodically thereafter. It is of our full understanding that this is crap. This feature was added in response to thousands upon thousands of requests to the Belkin Feature Department, and added in good faith to the benefit of our customers.
Furthermore, our R&D department took the utmost care in presenting the best material possible in the redirected HTTP requests. It is of general understanding that our Parental Control option ads are more visually appealing and interesting than any other site you may have wanted to view at that time. For that, dear customer, you are welcome.
Unfortunately, due to the pitifully small reproductory organs of the complaining Usenet posters, we will have to strip your routers of this feature. You will be missing information on our great products and will not be able to take advantage of our incredible 30-day free trial (a $9.95 value!!!) because of these people.
Expect more information and their full names and adresses later this week. Thank you.
True. But I'd say it's pretty secure if you
:)
1) Block untrusted hosts from controlling the router via UPNP
-and-
2) Don't run trojans
In case you would like to apply for Mr. Deming's job, it's available. (Scroll down to "Marketing Manager"). Or, just write careers@belkin.com.
Of course, Belkin won't accept just anyone. The "right candidate" must be able to "strategize, initiate, and execute". He or she must be able to "drive revenue" and "leverage knowledge" about "end-user sell-thru strategies" and must be able to "align resources" and "translate raw content".
This doesn't address the most important issue: did Belkin actually ship routers with the firmware including their "feature" installed? Are they planning a recall to flash the firmware for those who can't figure out how? And how many unwitting sysadmins will install one of these routers on a system where the only machines behind the router run automated scripts where they can't click "no thanks" on their ad?
Following is my revised email sig, part of which is stolen from a +5 rated message from the last story. Keep the pressure on folks. As Microsoft has so clearly demonstrated, preventing further harm from one specific act is not enough to dissuade new and more creative despicable acts by malicious corporations. Companies must realized that it is not enough to say you're sorry (particularly when you have your fingers crossed behind your back). We don't let criminals who have malice aforethought get away with "I'm Sorry". We should not be any more lenient with malicious corporations.
.com and .net TLDs."
0 5
.sig is to pay their pennance. Backing down is not enough, I require satisfaction. May I suggest a $100,000 donation to the EFF?
Belkin (verb) - To surreptitiously alter a product in such a fashion that legitimate use is hijacked to the benefit of the manufacturer or associated beneficiaries, usually in a crass self-promoting fashion.
"I installed topdesk and it belkined my browser."
"VeriSign's SiteFinder belkined the
Belkin products are broken as designed. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/07/17402
Belkin has recanted and claims they will issue a patch. Good. Now all they have to do for me to remove this
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Now it's just one disgruntled guy on Usenet, what horrible spin (and "to allay customers' worries", not "to fix our defective product"):
Important message from Belkin:
In response to a recent Usenet group posting stating that Belkin spams its customers through its routers, Belkin Corporation apologizes for the concern this has caused and is taking action to address the issue. To allay customers' worries, Belkin will offer a firmware upgrade that will be available via download from its website (www.belkin.com) on November 17, 2003. This upgrade will rid the redirect completely so that no additional browser windows will appear during the router's installation process. Questions can be directed to our dedicated networking customer support line at 877-736-5771 or e-mailed to kannynmc@belkin.com.
...the fact that if a sysadmin actually used a belkin router on a corp network he should ask for the money back on that "I.T. For Managers" seminar and go back to fouling things up as a PHB, the place they can do the least damage.
Belkin makes these things for home users wanting more than 1 computer to access the internet, not for corps looking to cut corners. Anyone who does that deserves for it to go pear-shaped.
I am NaN
That was the sound of Belkin getting a TREMENDOUS bitchslap from the Internet.
What astounds me is not that they did this in the first place (although I told a Marketing Director where I work about it, and his first reaction was "That's STUPID! What were they thinking!").
It's not that a product director at Belkin would respond to something like this in a public forum without vetting his response against Corporate Marketing/Communications and Legal (or, if he did, that they would approve this).
It's not that they corrected the problem within days - that was inevitable.
It's the fact that it took them TWO TRIES to get a proper response on their web site to this - one a snippy, spin'ny "We didn't do anything wrong, we're undoing it, and we won't do it again, you annoying freaks" and then the properly "We are sorry, we will make it right." response.
Now, the interesting question is, "Is the Eric Deming, the moron responsible for all this, still employed by Belkin?"
Anybody interested in seeing how long until his email bounces?
www.eFax.com are spammers
under the Tools tab, click Misc., disable UPNP settings
I guess I'll be the one guy who apreciates the fact that at least they had enough of a clue (conscience ?)to admit that maybe it was't the best idea.
At least they learn...
Some folks don't, that's worse.
-dzil
eleven plus two / twelve plus one
This is a device to route traffic.
If it is not routing traffic to its appropriate destination, then it is faulty!
If a car were to stop running every 8 miles and ask you if you'd like Onstar, you'd sue!
And you should.
I will NEVER buy a Belkin product again.
This is a sign that the marketing department has control over the tech side.
The ONLY way that this would be REMOTELY acceptable is if it were clearly stated on the outside packaging.
One last thing. You give money to a manufacturer for a product, NOT advertising.
And no, my clothing doesn't have labels.
I must have missed something.
Is it really that much easier to use/buy one of these routers than to just use an old 486 box with
linux?
Two ethernet cards and a minimal set of hardware
(33mhz 16 megs) seem to handle anything the DSL
line can put out.
Makes a nice firewall also.
Mike
To get the updated firmware you must click through the ads that they were going to send you in the first place, right?
Strive to make your client happy, not necessarly give them what they ask for
Recommend to friends & clients it's not to be bought. Figure out and communicate the alternative. Communicate simply & clearly why the alternative is better (avoiding histrionics). Let Belkin know why this is.
Let Belkins resellers (CompUSA, no?) know why you will not buy their stuff, and that you tell everyone who listens the same thing. Do this clearly & simply. Tell them what acceptable alternative are out there.
Eventually you'll get marketing people having conversations like "Hey...let's do ", "are you an idiot, Belkin did , and look where it got them". When it becomes financially painful, either the incumbents will change or new competitors will arise to give us what we want.
They must be using some special kind of pulp
It's akin to the phone companies deciding that every 5'th time you call your mother you get 1-900-DOITINGA
Wll maybe not but almost.
Help fight continental drift.
Why is it whenever a company that thinks of itself as reputable sends spam (unasked for advertising messages) to someone they deny it is spam? 'We did not spam our users. We had a product we thought they would be interested in so we directed their attention to the product.' In other words, you spammed. Busted by your own admission.
I've used Belkin products in the past. Never again. Trust shattered. Blame the marketing person at your company who came up with this idea.
And, AFAICT, they're correct. It wasn't really spam and ``everyone on the internet'' that called it that were wrong. What everyone on the internet should have called it is ``a broken router'' which should have been recalled or replaced free of charge. Gosh, isn't nice of them to offer a firmware fix. What happens when the fix isn't applied properly by the end-users? Well they're pretty much screwed as far as their internet access now aren't they? Belkin should do the right thing and ship everyone using one of these broken units a brand new router that properly routes.
Almost makes you wish for a certification process for any equipment that's connected to a public network. If it doesn't strictly adhere to IETF standards, it doesn't get connected. Just out of curiosity, what RFC specifies the manner by which a router is supposed to replace requests with preferred advertisers? Oh yah. The same one Verisign referred to when designing their SiteFinder atrocity.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Actually, yes. Particularly if they hosted it on their company servers and made sure all the .MOV and .AVI files were exploit-free. Excellent idea, and it would probably convince me to rush out and buy a Belkin router this instant.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I doubt we'll see much more hijacking from hardware vendors.
...such as LEAF. I've been running it for quite a while on my old P166. I've set mine up to boot from a hard drive, then use a hdparm -y to shut the hard drive down once it's up and running. Works like a charm!
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
I cannot express how disappointed this makes me.
As of 9:49 CST 11/10/03, this is it:
Important message from Belkin:
In response to a recent Usenet group posting stating that Belkin spams its customers through its routers, Belkin Corporation apologizes for the concern this has caused and is taking action to address the issue. To allay customers' worries, Belkin will offer a firmware upgrade that will be available via download from its website (www.belkin.com) on November 17, 2003. This upgrade will rid the redirect completely so that no additional browser windows will appear during the router's installation process. Questions can be directed to our dedicated networking customer support line at 877-736-5771 or e-mailed to kannynmc@belkin.com.
For reference, here is the orignal (from the Google cache:
Important message from Belkin:
Belkin is aware of some recent postings that claim that Belkin wireless routers are spamming users during the setup process and periodically thereafter. It is not now, nor has it ever been, the policy of Belkin to intentionally spam our customers or anyone else. Belkin offers a free trial of our parental control feature in our routers, and to make our customers aware of the feature itself and to give them the opportunity to take advantage of the free trial, we have tried to direct users to the information regarding the parental control features. However, since this has become a source of concern to our users, and it is Belkin policy to address the concerns of our users quickly, Belkin has decided to remove this function from the routers. Each router's firmware that incorporates parental control as an option will be changed.
sudo eat my shorts
Taking Belkin's advice, I sent this to kannynmc@belkin.com.
Hi,
I've read the apology on the Belkin home page and I just wanted to share a few edits with you.
1) "a recent Usenet group posting stating that Belkin spams its customers through its routers"
This really misrepresents both the scope of the problem and the scope of the bad publicity you are receiving.
Very few postings alleged that Belkin 'spammed' its users through the router; most of the concern is that the router does not act as a transparent network device, and will rewrite outgoing http requests to get pages from Belkin's own ad servers. This will create very challenging network issues when used in automated environments, where no user is present to click the opt-out request in the served advertisements. No network administrator would expect the router to be redirecting requests in this fashion, and it will lead to many lost man-hours of network debugging.
On the scope of the bad publicity: the post to usenet is the least of your problems, and was probably seen by only a few hundred people -- until the article was referred to by slashdot.org, the online community of computer enthusiasts. Also, you can be sure that RISKS, the Peter Neumann's international journal of computer failures, will publicize this breach as well. It seems likely that this story will spread to the print media. So, much as you may hope to keep this on usenet, I think that opportunity has passed.
2) Belkin "apologizes for the concern this has caused"
A subject (Belkin) can't apologize for the action (concern) of another.
Instead, how about "Our router would intentionally misroute packets every eight hours, which is unacceptable for a transparent network device."
This shows that you understand where you went wrong, not just that you are disappointed at the public reaction. It is important that your audience believe that you are not just trying to brush this problem aside. If Belkin wants to be taken seriously as a network device manufacturer -- I thought you only made mousepads and wrist rests, myself -- you're going to need to acknowledge where you went wrong, in the most frank and honest way possible. And your current home page is not even halfway to that point.
Dave Broske
Yeah, it's become a source of concern for their users... The damn thing breaks so many different functionalities it's not even funny .
SOAP.
XML-RPC.
Any other HTML derived protocol.
Turning off ads manually does NOT constitute configuring the thing, either. The topper's the fact that they plain flat don't understand that they've done a grotesquely boneheaded thing. The snippy and the current announcement indicate they still just don't get it.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
1) This is not software, nor did it need drivers to work. There should be no "No thanks" 'button'- period.
2) What if you're NOT using a browser for your applications? What if you're using SOAP or XML-RPC for something? In either of those cases, Belkin's little advert thing will BREAK things.
3) When I install software, I don't get ads about new products when I'm installing. This includes GAMES.
I don't care HOW you'd like to rationalize it- what Belkin did was way over the top stupid.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Its apparently due 'early december' (christmas sales?) Oh, and the prices on that page are in AUD.
Yay me!
Java. That's coffee, right?
...that what they did was a completely boneheaded thing to do, they might get back in good graces in time. Now, they're going to do good to get my cable and KVM business- they do not appear to be willing in the slightest to admit they screwed up royally on this. It'll stay that way (and I reccomend things to a LARGE number of people) until they change their tune.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Both of them do not address that there is really something fundamentally wrong with what they did- they make it sound like some of their customers had issues with what the router was doing by design and that they're changing it for that reason.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
That's what it is, regardless of Belkin's protestations.
Belkin has been banned at my location because of this. Even if they fix the spam/hijacking, the ban will remain in place because they tried, regardless of whether they actually fix their broken routers.
I have a belkin kvm switch for my servers. It will be the last belkin product I ever buy, even if they fire the dumbass suit who signed off on the spam/hijacking, and the dumbass suit who supervises the idiot who came up with this dumbass idea.
And there are hosts outside your network that you DO trust to control your router? Other than yourself, that is.
If the default is to allow hosts to control the router via UPnP, that's a bad thing.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
As consumers, we usually know what we don't want, but more often that not, we have no clue what we would like.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
If MSN Messenger requires UPNP support in a firewall please explain to me how I've been using MSN Messenger and MSN Messenger-like clients from clients inside my internal which sits behind an NAT'ing OpenBSD firewall. AFAIK OpenBSD doesn't support UPNP and from some of the comments I've read from the BSD crowd UPNP is considered a huge security risk since it allows clients to arbitrarily open holes in a firewall.
Yeah, Open Source so we can compile and install it ourselves.
Otherwise how do we know that *they* did not ship a clean unit to the inspector, and sell units that still have strange features?
I don't want to target just Belkin, like the comercial used to say " if it don't say sunkist on the outside, you don't know what's on the inside" - Well if it isn't open source on the outside, you can't be sure of what's on the inside.
They have decided to disable the 'feature' that hijacks a random http request every 8 hours and redirects to a webpage advertising their parental control system.
;P
No question about it - the product managers at Belkin are sharp!
1) John Q. Public goes to the uberGeeks for advice on what to buy.
2) John Q. Public then goes to the uberGeeks to get the stuff to work. Those who do not go to the uberGeeks then put in calls for support that cost way more the the $5 of profit Belkin is likely to make on these products.
Religion is the main cause of atheism.
They Belkinized their user connections, by breaking them up into different pieces...
Many a war was fought over the Belkins...
In AD 2003
War was beginning
Manager: What happen?
Sys Admin: Somebody set us up the router
User: We get page
Manager: What!
User: Main Monitor Turn On
Manager: Its you!
Belkin: How are you gentlemen?
Belkin: All your requests are belong to us
Belkin: You are on the way to destruction
Manager: What you say!!
Belkin: You have no chance to survive make your backup
Belkin: HA HA HA HA...
User: Boss!!
Manager: Take off every 'port'!!
Manager: You know what you doing
Manager: Move port
Manager: For great justice
I am Monkey, the Great Sage, equal of heaven!
- but this issue is WAY over-hyped.
Wrong. When a precedent is set it is always a huge deal; hijaaking HTTP requests for company-sponsored oh-yeah-I-guess-it-could-be-seen-as-an-ad spam breaks new ground. Lookit, people still cheer Chuck Yeager for breaking the sound barrier, Hank Aaron for his home runs, Armstrong for his one small step and we still jeer Robert Morris Jr.'s first Internet Worm, Amazon's One-Click patent, X10's pop-under ads (not the actual first, but many people's first in experience). Closer to home, you and everyone reading this remembers the first time they clicked a Slashdot troll's link to Goatse. Belkin will be remembered for bringing spam and censorship to the router long after others extend the breach further.-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Do you trust Belkin enough to install their new firmware?
I have known about this for a while, it confused me at first but i quickly realised how to turn it off....
Your Parental Control Subscription is NOT-ACTIVATED.
To stop PARENTAL CONTROL signup prompts, Click here:
The bit that worries me is the next part of the admin page.....
Reporting,
You are currently subscribed to reporting.
What the hell does that mean, what is it reporting and to whom?
open (SIG, "</dev/zero"); $sig = <SIG>; close SIG;
What's good about a router product, when it doesn't route correctly, because it ends up displaying advertisements?
I purchased another one of these Microsoft Wired Base Stations, which represents the first Microsoft product I've ever purchased. I actually wanted a switch, but I needed one ASAP, and this was the only thing handy at the local Radio Shack, so I grabbed it and kicked it into switch mode.
It was actually quite funny -- the only reason it was competitive was because it (and a whole line of other Microsoft Wired Base Stations) were at 50% off clearance. When I took the thing up to the counter to purchase it, the manager mumbled "Finally. I can't wait to get rid of these things so that I can actually put up something else. You want more? I've got plenty, all at 50% off clearance." This really blew my mind -- I mean, how *badly* do you have to sell in order to get a retail manager to be irritated enough to say something like that to a customer?
I use it as no more than a slightly expensive switch.
Unlike the Belkin switch downstairs, it hasn't gotten confused when the power started wavering (the Belkin barfed with a diagnostic display on its output lights).
May we never see th
The Belkin router had not only a non compliant routing algorithm, but it had also a backdoor. Remember, if you clicked on "No Thanks", then a flag INSIDE THE ROUTER would be modified to disallow the misbehavior. Namely CLICKING AN EXTERNAL WEBPAGE MODIFIED THE INSIDES OF YOUR ROUTER!!!!! Is Belkin fixing this security hole also?
I got this from their PR machinery yesterday on the topic. Should clear up any doubts on whether they deserve a second chance:
- cut here -
Dear Sir;
Thank you for your email to Eurosales@belkin.com
Further to your email below please note that we are aware of the rumours about our 54g routers and are currently working to rectify the situation. Please note that these are only rumours. Belkin does not condone spam and you will not see this type of advertising from Belkin anywhere and certainly not on our products.
I do hope you understand that occasionally companies such as ourselves can be subject to malice and I assure you this is one of those situations.....I have attached a pdf. detailing the situation for your information.
If you have any further questions or concerns about Belkin products, please contact myself directly.
Regards,
Liz Holland
PR & Trade Marketing Executive
Belkin Components
Tel: 01933 352152
Fax: 01933 312000
- cut here -
The PDF, although posted previously elsewhere, reads:
- cut again -
Does the Belkin Router send me Spam? NO.
Recently a group of privacy advocates have targeted Belkin Routers, claiming that Belkin Routers equipped with Parental Control send spam, unwanted advertisements and spyware to computers.
1. Belkin Parental Control Content Filtering is promoted on our 802.11g Wireless Router packages as an added value service included with purchase. Parental Control filtering enables our customers to block access from their network to specific websites; it is a content filter, nothing more.
2. During the installation process, the router produces a web page asking the owner of the router if they want to sign up for a free six-month trial of Belkin Parental Control, similar to common online product registration requests.
3. The Parental Control registration page is not spam, adware or spyware. It is part of the setup process of the router. It does not "hi-jack" the browser.
4. Belkin routers do not install spyware or adware, nor does Belkin have the ability to advertise to our customers using our routers as a conduit.
5. If a customer clicks "No Thanks" on the first prompt, the registration page for Parental Control signup will no longer appear.
Additional Information:
- The "No Thanks" button is not a trick button that will install spyware, etc. on the computer. If a customer is uneasy clicking "No Thanks" in the web page, to stop the reminder, you can navigate to the Internal web page of the Router, click on Parental Control and select "Don't Remind me Every 8 hours". This will stop the web page from ever being displayed again.
- If the browser window is closed without clicking "No Thanks", it will be displayed again after 8 hours has elapsed. Please note that this is not a browser pop-up, this means that the Parental Control web page will only be displayed if the user opens the browser. Again, clicking "No Thanks" will stop the web page from being displayed.
We sincerely hope that this information provides an explanation that meets your needs, if for any reason you would like to contact Belkin directly, please email your concerns to Kannynmc@belkin.com
Regards,
Kannyn MacRae
Business Unit Manager, Networking
Belkin Corporation
- cut here -
And if anyone missed the interesting stuff in Usenet NANAE, the "No thanks" button referenced above sent a signal FROM BELKIN TO THE ROUTER to reconfigure it to not show ads.
They have shown, and continue to show, an amazing lack of clue.
Take a straw poll of Belkin Engineers, and you'll probably find that most of them also think that this was a stupid idea. I'm sure its a Marketing decision - no real Engineer I know would sanction such a thing. I know that where I work we've had to do stupid things to keep Marketing happy - and it's always enjoyable when the shit comes back to hit the fan and Marketing takes it in face. This kind of Engineering sport is enjoyable
The other good thing is this: now that it's been so embarrasing for Belkin, we can be reasonably confident that no one else will repeat the idea. Any marketing person who wants to keep their job will make sure of this: delivering and supporting firmware upgrades is not cheap, nor is the loss of goodwill for your product.
Does anyone have time to tell whether any other Belkin products have similar bozo-features ? Or, can we watch Belkin in the next month or two to see whether any other firmware upgrades are released ?
Instant poll:
Who smoked the most crack in 2003?
(_) SCO
(_) Belkin
(_) Verisign
(_) CowboyNeal
(_) *A
(_) All of the above
Ceci n'est pas une signature
The stock photo on the Belkin front page is the same one that is used on PNCBank ATM Machines...
:)
I guess she gets around
Obviously UPNP is only available to hosts INSIDE the router.
This part of UPNP is a GOOD thing. It helps against the growing problem of the "the firewalled consumer" that thanks to NAT has created an A and B class of Internet citizens: those that can be connected to, and those that can't.
A good example of this is VoIP. VoIP phones are being sold that connect straight to the home router, and allow calling over the Internet. But 99% of all home routers do NAT, so without port forwards it will be impossible for two such phones to talk to one another. Since users can't really be expected to set this up manually, UPNP is a necessity. I think it is fantastic that routers are starting to support this!
I agree that it ought to be more configurable (which ports it will allow forwards to, etc) but in the end we cannot secure things by neutering the entire Internet. You shouldn't be running insecure services (consider that P2P applications like IM can be cracked straight through a NAT: they connect back to others at the request of the central server. and those back connections are just as vulnerable to buffer overflows and incoming (there is a worm for you!)).
This kind of incident will make sure that in future too many idiots in marketing will not comeup with such ideas.
I'm not saying such things will not repeat ... mankind has an uncanny ability to repeat its past mistakes.
I don't think, for eg., anyone is going to repeat the "activation features" tried by Intuit for TurboTax.
karma : former act as leading to inevitable results
"Steven J Sobol" <sjsobol@JustThe.net> wrote in message news:yMydnXbjyJr78jGiRVn-ig@lmi.net...
> http://stevesobol.com/belkin.txt
>
> --
> JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services
> 22674 Motnocab Road * Apple Valley, CA 92307-1950
> Steve Sobol, Proprietor
> 888.480.4NET (4638) * 248.724.4NET * sjsobol@JustThe.net
I'll paste it below. Eric is a biatch and I hope an elephant fucks
him up the poop shoot.
--------------------
From ericd@belkin.com Fri Nov 7 20:19:08 2003
Path: internal1.nntp.ash.giganews.com!border2.nntp.ash.g iganews.com!border1.nntp.ash.giganews.com!firehose 2!nntp4!intern1.nntp.aus1.giganews.com!border1.nnt p.aus1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!opentransit. net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.ed u!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail
From: ericd@belkin.com (Eric Deming)
Newsgroups: news.admin.net-abuse.email
Subject: Re: [OT-evil marketing] Belkin does Verislime one better -
router spam!
Date: 5 Nov 2003 15:25:28 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Lines: 70
Message-ID: <c91e821d.0311051525.70aa9920@posting.google.com>
References: <3FA87D03.E1C44EDE@DutchElmSt.invalid>
<wh-dnR5oc 5YJnDSiU-KYhA@giganews.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 67.98.73.254
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-Trace: posting.google.com 1068074728 22743 127.0.0.1 (5 Nov 2003
23:25:28 GMT)
X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com
NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 23:25:28 +0000 (UTC)
Xref: intern1.nntp.aus1.giganews.com
news.admin.net-abu se.email:1466982
"JerryMouse" <nospam@bisusa.com> wrote in message news:<wh-dnR5oc5YJnDSiU-KYhA@giganews.com>...
> ; Mr. Uh Clem wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> What does Belkin say when you complain?
>
> I'd make their life miserable until they removed the offending software from
> my machine.
>
> You did not conset to this aspect of your machine's modification - this is
> nothing less than malicious.
>
> Raise hell.
I was made aware of this posting by an e-mail that was sent to
Belkin's tech support e-mail box. Since I am a product manager for
Belkin's LAN products and was very involved with the development of
the Parental Control feature, I feel that I can shed some light on
this subject. Firstly, without trying to sound too stand-offish, we
are not talking about SPAM here. For me to clarify, an understanding
of the Parental Control service will really be needed.
Since Parental Control is a subscription service, Belkin wanted to
make registering for the service very easy. Since the router actually
will work in tandem with an outside server (Cerberian,
www.cerberian.com) registration information needs to be collected and
sent to Belkin and Cerberian to activate an account. Traditional
methods of registration, such as asking the user to go to a website or
navigate to the Router's internal Web page to enter information didn't
meet the ease-of-use goal. We elected to re-direct one http request to
the "Register Now" reminder page. (There is a link in a previous
posting if you want to see it) This page asks the user to register for
the service for a free 6 month trial. Now, granted this looks like an
ad. It should, it is intended to be informative and easy enough to
understand. At this point, the user can register or click "No Thanks".
Clicking "No Thanks" sets a flag in the Router to stop the Router from
re-directing every 8 hours to the reminder page. (Again remember, only
one http request every 8 hours). Admittedly, there is no controlling
which computer on the LAN this message will pop up on. If the user
just closes the window without clicking "No Thanks", then
Seriously, Belkin's response to this has been utterly abysmal.
You people are absolutely amazing. News of this hit the net on November 4. By Nov. 8, Belkin had already said that they would release new firmware and apologized.
First they tried to justify it, only now that it's blowing up in their face do they try to remedy it.
I guess it never occurred to you that they thought what they were doing was okay and then, after seeing the public response, changed their minds. Did you bitch like this about the fact that Internet Explorer's home page is MSN and remains that way unless you manually change it? Did you carp and whine about the fact that mistyped URL's in IE take you to Microsoft's MSN search site?
They've lost a great deal of trust that they will never regain.
Oh please! Stop with the melodramatic, somber proclamations.
When I first saw this story sensationalized on Slashdot, I was pretty damned pissed off. Then I read the real story. All that it took to stop the undesired behavior was clicking the button labelled "No thanks" and it would never happen again. Alternatively, should you be averse to pushing a "No thanks" button, a single checkbox in the web-based configuration would disable it.
I'm not saying that I like what they did, but it's hardly like they installed sypware in the router.
They're frequently not looking for a box they can simply get "out" of. They're looking to create an army of zombies; boxes that sit there listening on some random port. Upon receipt of the hackers' commands, the zombie army rises up and strikes at whatever the target du jour is. Sometimes the signal is simply to log onto an IRC channel and await further instructions from their puppet masters.
A firewall will prevent anything that doesn't already have an established outbound link from being so controlled. Punching holes through the firewalls would allow the task to listen silently until otherwise ordered from afar.
If they dialed home to look for instructions, well, that would pretty much tip off everyone who their controller is. If they sit there waiting for random UDP packets that can be inserted anywhere in the network then the hacker can call upon them from anywhere.
Finally, sometimes the hackers are looking to establish servers. Underground FTP servers that can function as storage and trade boxes for warez, IRC servers for controlling the aforementioned zombie armies, SMTP servers for control by spammers, HTTP servers for criminals looking for temporary boxes to host phony web pages for phishing expeditions or for quick-buck porn operations, the list is long and the hackers' desires are great.
And sometimes people have reasons we don't expect. Some people may simply want to arbitrarily disable other peoples' firewalls out of sheer perversity. So, there are lots of reasons hackers might want to have a program open up a firewall from the inside.
John
I sent pretty much the same message to their sales e-mail, and got back a PDF file with the snippy response. That didn't make me terribly happy, but I wasn't surprised either.
Until they realized just how many people aren't happy, they were going to defend their actions.
Now, they've realized their mistake and have taken some appropriate action to remove what harm they've done. I asked them to promise not to do it again, but that's not really a feasable thing to say on their public website. But as far as I'm concerned, they got the message.
I applaud them for not defending their mistake to the grave, admitting they were wrong, and doing what they could about it in the meantime.
Really, the problem was never with the broken router, the problem is that a company that you trusted would potentially compromise your network for a buck...
Fix the router or not, I'll never buy Belkin products again.
Snooze and you lose your sushi.
Important message from Belkin:
Belkin is aware of some recent postings that claim that Belkin wireless routers are spamming users during the setup process and periodically thereafter. It is not now, nor has it ever been, the policy of Belkin to intentionally spam our customers or anyone else. Belkin offers a free trial of our parental control feature in our routers, and to make our customers aware of the feature itself and to give them the opportunity to take advantage of the free trial, we have tried to direct users to the information regarding the parental control features. However, since this has become a source of concern to our users, and it is Belkin policy to address the concerns of our users quickly, Belkin has decided to remove this function from the routers. Each router's firmware that incorporates parental control as an option will be changed.
Please expect more detailed information to follow early next week. Thank you.
Google Cache
This space for rent.
Just like the snippy remark Deming posted on usenet which was later removed from google. Drives me nuts listening to this guy defend a defective product as helpful. Maybe he's right that it's not exactly spam, it's 100x worse. If he can't understand this yet, he doesn't belong where he is.
"In response to a recent Usenet group posting stating that Belkin spams its customers through its routers, Belkin Corporation apologizes for the concern this has caused and is taking action to address the issue"
translates to:
"Those Usenet-bastards, of which you (our ignorant customer who is just reading this) know nothing about, tried to make everybody think we are spamming the lot out of you through our routers. If this were really true (like duh!), we will apologize. Because we are such a nice company, we will take action to prevent it from being true, because it are actually only those usenet-bastards who feel really bad about this."
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
news.admin.net-abuse.email
The whole reason anyone got into this mess was because they blindly trusted non-free software. Don't make the same mistake twice. Get an inexpensive low-end PC and install a free software router on it. If you're technically savvy, help someone improve their distribution of a free software router (I'm sure there are many others) so novices can more easily use it. This is a great chance to contribute to a volunteer project and help people escape untrustworthy-by-default software.
Digital Citizen
Yes that is true, though it has not been a secret.
The 802.11G product line of Belkin is based on the same Broadcom model which Linksys used. Talked over many times before, but somehow it takes a while before Belkin's sourcecode is released just as Linksys did...
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
This whole thing has pissed me off to Belkin. I'm happy to say that my network is Belkin free.
Went to frys with some cash. Left with a Linksys wifi router. Very happy with it and no "misdirected" packets or inane advertisements.
The fact that they are correcting their mistake, after hundreds of unhappy emails noting that they will never buy their products again, is a good start for them.
But as far as I'm concerned, I'll never buy from them again. They have broken the link of trust. It isn't a matter of it being potentially annoying or that it is "just an ad" as some have put it. It is the fact that they have done it to begin with. Without regard for the quality of traffic of the people who are buying and using these devices. Or perhaps more accurately, with a weighed regard for their chance for profits vs the consumer's rights.
I own netgear switches and build my own secured wired and wireless networks. I need something I can trust to work with everything else in a predictable way. Them having done this once opens the door for them to do it again "once the complaining has died down". I can't depend on that and so I go with another vender.
In this case, I got a Linksys router.
Consumers who are not technically oriented have enough issues dealing with their ISPs and the telco providers. Having their routers screw with them just makes things that much worse, imho.
Winged Power Photography
Bah, yeah I meant trusted ones inside (since you could conceivably not want every internal machine to be able to change things). Naturally letting outside hosts mess with UPNP would typically be a bad thing.
Similar approaches can be used to boot from a flash memory device, but I have several old hard drives lying around.
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
Why will it take five days to simply NOP the subroutine that branches once per eight hours. The fix should take five minutes to release, not five days. Then they can worry about removing the code completely in the next bug-fix release.
"Population 1,656"