
Europe is going to kill free software Have you contacted your state's rep? - lolidaisuki
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/europe-going-kill-free-software-have-you-contacted-your-states-rep
======
vonklaus
I came here to say this was alarmist bullshit, but I wanted to read the
article first.

I was _very_ wrong. Locking router firmware down is maliscious & the coup de
grâce to an opened internet.

Today the http status code 451 was oficially added.

I really respect the EFF and this no way falls on them, but they (and all of
us) need to work harder. To some extent, it is pretty sad we have to work so
hard to just promote a message of freedom.

We like to say "it's the technology stupid", it isn't it's really the
_society_. They just don't care.

Our society is a reflection of consensus. To some extent there is friction
there, but by and large only a few people still give a fuck.

~~~
lolidaisuki
It's not just router firmware. Its firmware for ANYTHING that has radios.

------
Kristine1975
The European Union ("Europe") won't kill free software (if only because Apple
wouldn't be pleased if suddenly iOS and OS X were illegal in the EU[1]). At
most it will kill free software in Wifi routers.

More about the EU directive: [https://juliareda.eu/2015/10/dear-european-
governments-dont-...](https://juliareda.eu/2015/10/dear-european-governments-
dont-endanger-free-and-open-wifi-networks/)

[1] They use open source components

~~~
creshal
Much more likely, it will only require firmware blobs on the actual wifi chips
(not the general purpose CPU of the router/access point built around it) for
compliance.

Which is already the status quo for 90% of all wifi hardware.

~~~
wyager
>Which is already the status quo for 90% of all wifi hardware.

And they are killing the other 10%.

90+% of consumer PCs use a closed-source OS. Is it OK to ban the other <10%?

~~~
creshal
Realistically, no, they always have been walking dead.

Without special licenses, _it always was_ illegal to drive radio hardware out
of spec. It was just largely a grey area because of how incredibly hard it was
to enforce compliance.

While the hardware technically had shared-source firmware/drivers, you were
never legally able to use it modified outside of specially shielded
environments, so it's not "open" source in the true sense, and never was.
Claiming that the FCC "is killing it" is a red herring, they're just enforcing
laws that have been existing for longer than wifi.

Should the laws restricting radio broadcasting be abolished? Maybe.
(Accidentally jamming radars or EMT/police radios can be a huge risk.) Maybe
not. (If someone wants to jam EMT/police radio or radars on purpose, they can
build a better contraption without using off-the-shelf wifi hardware.) But
focusing on open versus closed software is a red herring.

------
aylons
The problem is a very important one, but oh god, it's so hard to parse this
page...

~~~
tootie
They're going to turn people off with a ridiculous headline. The actual story
is that they are killing open source router firmware. Not the entire open
source movement.

~~~
bkmartin
Which is insanity all by itself.

------
jkot
The device should not be capable of operating at some frequencies, that can be
done with hardware restrictions. Closing firmware is not really a solution,
since it can be decompiled and cracked.

~~~
wyager
>Closing firmware is not really a solution, since it can be decompiled and
cracked.

Presumably they will require cryptographic signatures on the firmware. This is
also not infallible, but it is substantially more inconvenient (and in many
cases it might as well be unbreakable) for people who like free software.

------
adamt
Sensationalist title and also misleading.

Most articles I can find on this say the US FCC already has laws in place that
ban this, so why is the title blaming Europe for doing what the FCC has
already done in the US?

Sources: [http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/tp-
lin...](http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/tp-link-blocks-
open-source-router-firmware-to-comply-with-new-fcc-rule/)

[http://www.pcworld.com/article/3044594/open-source-
tools/tp-...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/3044594/open-source-tools/tp-
link-blocks-open-source-router-firmware-to-comply-with-new-fcc-rules.html)

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/11/tplink_kills_plan_fo...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/11/tplink_kills_plan_for_open_routers/)

~~~
wyager
So every time an American agency does something shitty it's also acceptable
for a European agency to do the same? Is our moral standard based on the
lowest common denominator?

~~~
richmarr
When a headline says "Out-group X is doing BAD THING" when the in-group has
already done "BAD THING" it seems reasonable to assume it's an attempt to
leverage peoples irrational bias against out-groups.

------
swiley
I don't understand what these restrictions want to solve when it's so
incredibly easy to just fuck around with the WiFi cards in most normal PCs. I
never even buy off the shelf routers anymore since it's so easy to just grab
an old desktop no one wants for free (or nearly free) and run hostapd on it.

~~~
PinguTS
Your Wifi card in your PC is a locked down certified device.

What they want to solve?

Radio is a shared medium and everybody has to follow the rules. Especially
there are parts of the spectrum used by so-called first user like weather
radar, military use, and alike. Originally radio was seen and considered as an
somehow unlimited resource like IPv4 addresses. But then this this unlimited
resource became very limited like IPv4 addresses. So now, we have many radio
frequencies used twice by so-called secondary users. The secondary user can
use the spectrum as long as the first user do not use it. This is e.g. in the
5G with Wifi.

This legislation is to (hopefully) assure that everybody plays by the rules.
This realized by certifications. But the problematic nature of SDR is, that
software controls the behavior and software can be replaced easily. For that
reason none of those people, which govern the radio usage, like SDR. They want
to lock down the device, so that they are sure that every body plays by the
rules.

~~~
wyager
As you said, this law is immediately rendered pointless by the existence of
SDR. It doesn't matter what the regulators' pie-in-the-sky intentions are;
they are actively making life more inconvenient while accomplishing nothing.

Anyone who can replace a baseband firmware can also build or acquire hardware
that is capable of WiFi-range TX.

------
LukeB_UK
Am I being stupid or are there no actual sources listed for the claim in the
title?

~~~
vonklaus
I was skeptical. Type "router firmware" into google news.

Many articles about firmware lockdown

~~~
LukeB_UK
Free router firmware and free software aren't the same.

~~~
retrogradeorbit
Although I would note firmware is software. But yes, they are not banning Free
Software. This is more an issue with making the routers into treacherous
computing platforms [1].

[1]
[https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/drm.html](https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/drm.html)

------
teekert
It's very easy to turn a Raspberry Pi into a wifi Router, how are they going
to deal with that?

~~~
zanny
Routers are just computers with radio peripherals. You cannot lock them all
down, the problem is that overnight all consume router hardware will be stuck
on broken insecure defective proprietary firmware that never gets updated.

You can always build your own router, though.

But the FCC rulings might also apply to drivers for radios. Right now you can
get any ath-9k hardware and do almost anything you want to it with a Linux
kernel since all the driver infrastructure is open. With ath-10k, newer
Broadcom parts, and all Intel parts they include proprietary firmware blobs to
restrict what you can do now, though.

It is likely these rulings will push the OEMs of radios to start moving more
functionality into blob payloads, which will include future iterations of the
raspi.

This is why these kinds of decisions are incredibly ignorant and stupid on the
part of the FCC. They cannot retroactively lock down all existing radio
technology. Hell, they cannot reasonably expect to ever stop someone who wants
to use a radio to congest the RF bands of someone else from doing so - it is
trivial to assemble your own scrambler. This is simply an emotional response
to criticisms about the relatively open state of routers and radios in recent
years and how some bad actors have been taking advantage of that open access
to more easily harm networks.

~~~
teekert
I don't understand this, does this really mean I can't even buy an open
Chinese router for example, run my own/open firmware, comply and with all
regulations regarding power and frequencies, but it is still illegal?

So because I _can_ theoretically break the law if I intentionally alter the
firmware to broadcast on a forbidden frequency I am already punishable by law?

So.. what about knives and stabbing and all those types of arguments? I can
almost not believe this!

~~~
zanny
Under these new FCC terms the violation is giving you the ability to change
your radios power. That would apply to imported hardware from China - notice
how all that stuff has FCC approved labeling on it.

Of course this ruling makes no sense.

------
awinter-py
What does 'locked down' mean? That it requires signed drivers? Or just placing
limits on frequencies & signal power.

How does this affect SDR hardware?

~~~
awinter-py
The information from last year here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9959088](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9959088)
quotes the FCC saying:

    
    
      Manufacturers must implement security features ... so 
      that third parties are not able to reprogram the device 
      to operate outside the parameters for which the device 
      was certified.
    

Goes on to talk about signing but uses 'may' not 'must'.

------
fixermark
What is the purpose of locking the firmware? What threat is the FCC protecting
against?

(And why is the article headline "Europe" when the cited article in the news
story says TP is locking their stuff down due to an FCC ruling? The linked
news story is a word-salad).

~~~
lolidaisuki
Might be a chance that someone could go next to an airport and jam all of the
frequencies. It's not very likely scenario and this wouldn't even prevent them
from doing that. But that's I could think of.

The headline has Europe in it because they are now making similar rules as
those that FCC made.

------
fweespee_ch
Look, this just requires us to build our own routers.

The manufacturers are just lazy and that isn't the Governments fault. I find
it hilarious whenever the private sector says resolving X problem is
unprofitable, people blame the government at this point.

~~~
lolidaisuki
How do you build a wifi router without a radio? And there is no problem that
has to be solved. This restriction is completely useless and hurts everyone
except big companies.

~~~
fweespee_ch
The radio isn't the problem.

The router manufacturers [for end consumer units] found the cheapest route to
be locking out open source. That doesn't magically get rid of wifi cards on
linux/bsd

