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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."
Sure, among uber-geeks and /.'ers. John Q. Public who purchased these Routers was doubtless annoyed by it, but John Q. Public who is still in the market and who (likely) hasn't heard about it will still consider buying Belken products.
Two questions/points would spring to mind:
1) I pity the poor Level 1 techs at Belken who are going to have to walk all the Mom & Pop users through flashing the firmware.
2) I wonder how many units are still sitting on store shelves with the old firmware in them? This could haunt Belken for quite some time yet.
Personally, I have experience with Linksys, Belken and Netgear NAT routers. I'll be sticking with my Duron based $250 Linux box and iptables :) So what if it uses 50+ kilowatt hours of power a month ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The problem is, you do accept it so willingly. You shouldn't have to deal with this. Nobody should have to.
Advertising shouldn't be on a product that is paid for. The router should do only one thing: route packets. Anything else, if it drops packets, rewrites packets (which it does), etc, then it doesn't work properly, and a complaint to Belkin is in order, along with a request for an RMA#. If the router is designed not to work properly (as it seems), then we need to file a report with the FTC.
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
It is really, really basic. It's a form of the Golden Rule. "Would this be acceptable to us if someone did it to us?" Or, "would our customers find this acceptable if another company did it?"
The marketing types responsible for this are demonstrably liabilities to Belkin and should be dismissed. As if...
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
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?