[Cerowrt-devel] [bufferbloat-fcc-discuss] arstechnica confirmstp-link router lockdown

[David Lang]

On Mon, 14 Mar 2016, dpreed at reed.com wrote:

> But it will take working with both the FCC and the chip vendors, and the home 
> access point vendors with a common purpose and agenda. That agenda needs to be 
> to find the minimum lock that will satisfy the FCC, and a sufficiently cheap 
> implementation that, along with the cost saving on design certification, it is 
> cheaper to make a router that is otherwise open, than to make one whose 
> certification depends on review of all the code in the router.

This should never require review of all the code in the router. At most it 
should require review of the firmware code for the wifi chip.

Linux has had this sort of thing in the past, look at the ISDN code that 
required certification to operate.

> This is a common design pattern. The DAA for phones is now purchasable as a 
> single module, FCC precertified, so one can make any kind of cordless phone be 
> certifiable, merely by using that part. That part is more expensive than one I 
> could design myself, but it saves on certification cost, because the rest of 
> the phone or modem doesnt need certification, so one can innovate.

The problem is how much stuff gets stuffed in this certified component. Cell 
phones, with their 'baseband processor' are a good example of too much 
functionality being in the certified component.

We want to get more access to what's currently in the wifi chipset firmware, not 
have it all locked down more.

David Lang