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A Solution To the Security Guidelines Proposed By FCC For Home Routers (imgtec.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Back in March 2015, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a security document that included a series of provisions related to the use of wireless devices. In order to comply with these security guidelines, some manufacturers of home routers and other networking equipment decided to lock down the software powering these devices. This caused an outcry from the open source community who demanded that the FCC and manufacturers would not restrict the free use of the operating system and associated software running on their devices. Now Imagination Technologies is presenting a proof of concept demonstration that addresses the next-generation security requirements mandated by the FCC and other similar agencies. The demo makes use of a feature of MIPS Warrior CPUs called multi-domain, secure hardware virtualization. This technology allows developers to create system-wide, hardware-enforced trusted environments that are much secure compared to current solutions. The platform used for the demonstration runs three virtual machines (VMs) on a MIPS P-class CPU integrated in a router-type evaluation kit; this approach securely separates the OpenWrt operating system from the Wi-Fi driver, allowing them to co-exist in isolation and thus comply with the FCC guidelines.Ars Technica has more details.
As I see it, this non-solution is incompatible with open source. How about just simply shipping them with an OS that complies with the FCC rules and let it be the user's responsibility not to put software on it that doesn't comply with the FCC rules?
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"...system-wide, hardware-enforced trusted environments..."
Sounds expensive already...
Really? I thought reporting news was supposed to be unbiased.
since the summary explicitly mentions that one of the VMs is running OpenWRT, I'm unsure quite how you mean this. Can you explain?
you think there's a grammar and spell checking subsystem? You must be new here?
The FCC rules mandate that the end user isn't able to, in any practical manner, use Wi-Fi channels that aren't part of the unlicensed spectrum in the US. This whole thing came about precisely because people running open source software on their routers were using channels that are only legal in Europe and Japan, thus causing interference with other equipment that's licensed to use that spectrum in the US.
Essentially, they just need a way to make it so that radios shipped in the US aren't capable of hitting licensed spectrum, but that's not practical from an economies of scale perspective (I.e manufacturers save on cost by making the same chips for all markets, and then using software to disable different channels on a regional basis.)
In principle, I like the idea of making the radio subsystem be virtualized, and just have a software interface that controls the radio. This could actually improve open source compatibility because you don't even need to worry about i.e closed source broadcom drivers. Kind of like how running Linux or BSD in a virtual machine means you don't have to worry about whether or not your physical hardware is compatible with your chosen OS.
It seems a huge part of what the FCC doesn't like are people setting their radios to other regulatory areas and using the nice "clean" spectrum allocated for commercial/government use. None of their proposed solutions really solve the problem, as motivated individuals can just pick up a device next time they are out of the country and put it in their apartment building anyway. Given how low power wifi is already, its likely they would never catch you.
But all this is just BS, because running an out of spec wifi AP doesn't really solve anything. Its not like anyone is going to go to the trouble of modifying all their devices to talk to an AP using a licensed band, or can communicate back to a wifi device attached to an amplifier.
The FCC/congress though is the real problem. Their corprate first attitude, has basically sold/given all the spectrum to organizations which hate the idea of individuals not having to be locked into paying monthly extortion..
Just imagine what the US would be like if instead of selling the spectrum used for just one of the recent spectrum auctions (take wimax for starters) they had instead allowed unlicensed use... The explosion of technologies in the extremely limited ISM bands suggests at just how useful this spectrum could be, instead of sitting around mostly unused.
Maybe we should just stop looking for solutions and legislation to fix things that aren't a problem?
I mean it's not like the FCC is very good in enforcing the rules they have.
Does this address the problem of FCC licensed amateur operators that can legally operate on adjacent frequencies and higher power levels?
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
... was to lock down the radio while still allowing user-updates to the firmware? I seem to recall a recent slashdot article (don't have a link handy sorry) that announced that this is exactly what Linksys was choosing to do.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The problem I imagine (being only minimally aware of the field), is that the entire point of software-defined radio (SDR) is that you save tons of money by letting a cheap commodity computer handle all the signal processing instead of having hardware do it. Looking at this image as reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It appears that the software is probably completely responsible for generating a digitally encoded waveform that's then fed to the hardware - a simple D-to-A converter and amplifier driving the antenna. Not unlike the final steps of playing a digital audio file - essentially you've reduced the hardware to little more than a simple amplifier driving an antenna "speaker", and there's no way to then filter the allowed output without reintroducing a lot of the costly hardware you just managed to remove.
You could conceivably host the SDR in a separate CPU that implements whatever restrictions the jumpers indicate, but that's probably almost as expensive. The big draw of SDR is that you already have a high-power CPU doing all the "router" stuff, and can get the "radio" stuff done essentially for free by the same hardware.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
So one of the VMs can nicely include the NSA backdoor? How convenient.
Having a WiFi driver that the developer is locked out of repairing is no kind of solution. Having a WiFi driver that can't handle new features developed after the user gets the product is no solution either. And locking hams, who can legally use different frequencies and more power, out of the system is no solution either.
Bruce Perens.
Stop buying routers. Instead get a Raspi and USB wifi adapter capable of master mode. Put together a preconfigured "router" distro for it that can simply be loaded onto an SD card and configured via a web interface like a normal router.
This whole thing came about precisely because people running open source software on their routers were using channels that are only legal in Europe and Japan, thus causing interference with other equipment that's licensed to use that spectrum in the US.
The report originally cited by the FCC doesn't say anything about open source firmware. As far as we can tell, the interference was caused by devices running proprietary software that either was buggy or had been modified to not comply with the local regulation. If you know otherwise, please share your sources.
We tried that. Too many open source users can't be arsed to comply with the FCC rules, or expose every option possible and damn the rules (not their responsibility, as you suggest), so that now open source as a whole will pay the price.
Now you've lost open source access to Wi-Fi radios. Police your community or you can bet that software defined radios will go the same way.
The router is running a closed source unchangeable OS, that is running some VM's on it. A true open source solution would have all the software running on the router chosen by the owner, not just a subset.
Cheapo Mini-itx system that has on-board ethernet with a wireless card adaptor. That's what I have at my house.
FTFY.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Ah, gotcha. I had interpreted it as meaning "you can't put any open software on it". Barring hardware-only enforcement of the radio restrictions (unlikely for economic reasons) I don't see a solution that doesn't have some proprietary unchangeable software, but I see your point.
or had been modified to not comply with the local regulation.
And how, pray tell, was it modified? Be specific.