Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Bug Forces Android Devices Off Princeton Campus Network

Posted by Soulskill on from the your-computer-is-broadcasting-an-ip-address dept.

pmdubs writes "A major bug in the Android DHCP implementation has forced network administrators to (effectively) ban the use of such devices on the Princeton campus. In the last few months, Princeton has had to kick more than 400 Android devices off the campus network for using IP addresses well beyond the allotted DHCP lease (to the detriment of other users), sending invalid DHCPREQUEST messages after lease expiration, and a variety of other wacky behaviors. The link provides a clearly documented explanation of the buggy behavior, as does this largely neglected bug report. Without doubt, this buggy behavior is affecting other, less vigilant networks, and disrupting Wi-Fi traffic for Android and non-Android devices alike."

7 of 309 comments (clear)

  1. WTF? by killmenow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why in the name of all that is GNU would Android re-implement a DHCP client when every Linux system since forever has had good DHCP client support already there?

    Did Google decide to implement their own IP layer entirely?

    1. Re:WTF? by Swampash · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They haven't closed the source, they're delaying the source because they're worried about the user experience when it inevitably gets ported to a phone.

      So they've closed the source then?

      When it has been released THEN it will be open. Until then it's closed.

    2. Re:WTF? by asdfghjklqwertyuiop · · Score: 1, Insightful

      They just haven't opened it up yet

      So it's closed. Gotcha.

    3. Re:WTF? by inode_buddha · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I *know* that. Linus himself consulted with the FSF's lawyers on the matter. And no, the kernel is not a fundamental piece of the whole as long as it isn't directly linked into the resulting binary.

      If what you were saying was true then linux distros such as Red Hat would not be legally possible, let alone SuSE. Otherwise how do you think they manage to legally include all those closed-source drivers?

      What about running a closed-source Adobe reader on that kernel? Does the reader now need to be open?

      And excuse me but I've damn near memorized the GPL. I've been in this game since like 1996, including reading every single work on Groklaw. Literally.

      --
      C|N>K
  2. Wut? by somersault · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The last link points to a separate bug in iPhone's WiFi implementation, rather than an Android issue. Which kind of makes the rest of the summary look either very ill informed, or a poorly disguised attempt at trolling.

    --
    which is totally what she said
  3. A plea from a user to all you developers. by EasyTarget · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Please fix defects.. especially fix ones that affect other people. And fix them now. Ta.
    - You do realise that what you call 'bugs' are in fact 'defects'? dont you? and when you allow defects to exist in your code you are essentially saying 'I'm a low quality shit who cant be bothered to do it right'
    - And yes, I suppose I could learn how to program and then do and learn the DHCP code stuff and fix it myself, it would take some years but I could do it.. but that is a straw man; my dentist does not tell me to fix my own teeth.. nor does my hairdresser tell me to learn to cut my own hair.
    - But apparently programmers are a special type of person where quality is for low LOC loosers..

    --
    "Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
  4. Re:Hoax? by DavidRawling · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They do own princeton.edu. You'd expect someone with a 5-digit /. ID to know that. And to be able to figure out from the hundreds of similar past links in articles, that nyud.net is a distributed caching service.