Which dickhead at Cisco thought up this idea? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Agent24
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2012, 12:15:30 pm
content: http://boingboing.net/2012/07/03/cisco-locks-customers-out-of-t.html

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2012, 12:28:26 pm
content: wow, so this is what anti-piracy / anti-pornography?? acts are coming to...

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2012, 01:13:01 pm
content: Hi!Must been a very clever MBA ;-) In some countries that cloud service is completely illegal.Cisco is screwing up the high-end Linksys stuff anyway. For example they're removing some features from the Linksys ethernet switches, because they're afraid of loosing revenue in the classic Cisco SMB sector. But the clever MBA didn't consider other vendors selling low-price switches with the same features as the old Linksys ones. If a customer has budget restraints (who does not?) he will choose another vendor. No revenue for Cisco and a lost customer. Great strategy :-(Cheersmadires

author: RJSC
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2012, 01:24:57 pm
content: It's just a tiny part of the coming war on general purpose computing I've posted about, yet, no one seem to be interested...From now on, the most common thing will be that Big Companies will try to force the hardware you bought do what they want, an not what the user wants.Guess we better stick to generic, open, or no name brands while they're still on the market.

author: Ferroto
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2012, 02:24:46 pm
content: I'm feeling perty smug with my fedora 14 router and netgear switch right now

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2012, 02:58:41 pm
content: I simply would not buy a router that tied you to a cloud service for any reason, if I had a router and the manufacturers uploaded new firm ware that did so I would discontinue its use and buy another make. I do not want to download porn or pirated films, I just don't like to be told what I may or may not do if it is otherwise legal to do it.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2012, 03:01:42 pm
content: Actually this is a really great news for ... arrhmm... Huawei and some shady character standing behind them from China politbiro, and definitely with a big grin at his face.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2012, 03:21:28 pm
content: Hi!Quote from: RJSC on July 04, 2012, 01:24:57 pmThey're copying Apples walled garden because Apple is making tons of money. Also consumers don't complain about that. Give them shiny devices and make more money ;-)Cheersmadires

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2012, 03:36:42 pm
content: Ironically you can buy a Chinese made router of reasonable quality with none of these problems.Cisco went to shit on all fronts years ago. Screw them.

author: olsenn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2012, 03:41:43 pm
content: QuoteBullshit! We all know you are downloading pirated porn films right nowBut that's okay... I don't like being told what I may or may not do even if it's illegal! Screw em' and buy from a competitor.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2012, 04:06:28 pm
content: Quote from: AntiProtonBoy on July 04, 2012, 03:36:42 pmTaiwan is nothing like china ...But TP-Link proved worser than Linksys for me, only lasted 1 year for the wifidied way earlier than my aztech 3.5G full featured router (Tried using this router and it's wifi died at the same time ...)My linksys (that was on discount) router is still going strong after 1 year

author: saturation
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2012, 04:23:34 pm
content: This is pretty awful, but I have abandoned Cisco/Linksys years ago when they were unnecessarily obtuse to configure. Many cable and fiber optic modems come with only boot software, that requires full firmware be downloaded and registered to a specific user by say, Comcast or Verizon; stops theft or resale of modems, but also threatens privacy from the IP providers.We have 100s of Cisco routers maintained by Cisco on contract, I presume that's how they got this idea a similar task could be used for consumers.I recommend the Taiwan firm, Engenius, all the benefits but none of the quality control headaches of China. Chinese routers are firmware trim, cheaper, as well made, and easier to work with for small business and personal users. It goes by different brand names in Asia and EU, so check if the parent is Senao.http://www.engeniustech.com/networking/productsdatacom/home-networking/routers

author: RJSC
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2012, 04:35:57 pm
content: Quote from: madires on July 04, 2012, 03:21:28 pmThe typical apple buyer doesn't have the slightest idea about how a device can restrict or spy on them because they don't even know how to install third-party software/firmware on their device of fiddle with the configurations. They just want to buy something, power it on, and as long as it works, they don't even think if they can do something with it that the manufacturer didn't thought of, and as long as it works they don't even think if its spying on them or not.

author: M. András
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2012, 05:46:07 pm
content: haha i bought a linksys e3k router 1.5 years ago. in the first year i flashed it to a ddwrt firmware. fuck the cisco software on it and the connection thing on that. what i really like about the ddwrt fimrware on it, it has a full system information page no temps unfornatly but memory cpu usage etc access/processing times. and i dont like the idea of a product i buy its cant be controlled by me. and taken ower by the manufacturer. what i buy its mine and thats it. some peeps on a hungarian forum and tech site wrote this "we dont pay for 0,1,"aka for software or digital data like music or film, in response of a new law

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2012, 10:03:48 pm
content: This is quite a horrible privacy statement.The thing I ask myself, when does a user 'agree' to this user statement. When I get this router 2nd hand from a friend, apply power, plug in my network and let it do the configuration (trusting solely on routers firmware, oh yes!), when do I say "Yeah Cisco, this is your router"It sounds so contradicting to me, and really really strange. Luckily we also run modded firmwares on any of our router, except for the one provided by the ISP (which they can monitor and control if you call them up to complain the internet is not working AGAIN).

author: ampdoctor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2012, 11:36:15 pm
content: Time to get a subscription to a Swedish VPN and browsing the web with tor! It also begs the question as to whether or not the router gives somebody outside access to your filesystem irrespective of your firewall settings.

author: gtsili
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2012, 06:05:18 am
content: OpenWRT FTW

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2012, 06:15:22 am
content: Quote from: gtsili on July 05, 2012, 06:05:18 amBEST FIRMWARE EVER!

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2012, 08:20:57 am
content: FWIW, I think a lot of the people overreacting to this are misinterpreting the license and privacy agreement of the cloud service thing with the ones on the router itself. So the anti-porn and privacy stuff is probably about misusing your cloud account (and you probably agreed to something very similar in order to post here on EEVBLOG; it's pretty standard stuff), rather than download stuff through the router.Not that it isn't ambiguous, and not that THAT isn't cisco's fault too. I worked for cisco for a long time, and didn't see any reason to stick with the Linksys home routers (I miss IOS (cisco's "enterprise" router software), though... (which is too bad; I think one of the more stripped-down versions of IOS would run pretty nicely on modern home router hardware. No one in the target market would be able to USE it, but it would run OK!))

author: gtsili
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2012, 08:41:59 am
content: Running IOS on a home router? This is what we call overkill. It is not like you will ever need EIGRP on your home LAN.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2012, 10:40:25 am
content: Hi!Quote from: gtsili on July 05, 2012, 08:41:59 amI prefer IS-IS, since it converges faster in large networks :-)JunOS for DSL routers would be fine also, if the DSL router would have the same ASICs ;-)Cheersmadires

author: gtsili
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2012, 11:23:46 am
content: When I was living in Athens I was part of the Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network (AWMN) community. This is the only reason I can think of for someone on a home LAN to use any kind of dynamic routing (that and of course experimentation or plain masochism). The norm for a backbone node is to use BGP and in some cases, a group of people will form a ring of backbone nodes and use OSPF with mixed results. Groups have also experimented with OLSR and BATMAN. I do not doubt that EIGRP and IS-IS will converge faster, scale better and will deal with route flapping and multi-path situation a lot better but you will never need any of this, neither other features IOS or JunOS in a home environment.More info about AWMN:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Wireless_Metropolitan_NetworkNeuro, AWMN Node: #4260

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2012, 01:15:14 pm
content: Hi!Quote from: gtsili on July 05, 2012, 11:23:46 amI was just kidding. The average user doesn't need such features. The classic routing protocols aren't well suited for meshed WLAN networks anyway. You need something simple, lightweight, low mem, low CPU but fast. Otherwise the whole network would be pulled down by just processing routing updates. Such a protocol might be also interesting for semi-AI µC/bot stuff. But now I take a break, before we start a NEVblog :-)PS: It looks like Cisco understood the feedback.Cheersmadires

author: baljemmett
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 05, 2012, 02:57:37 pm
content: Quote from: gtsili on July 05, 2012, 08:41:59 amOh yes, but it is a lot of funMy home router is a SR520 I picked up on eBay for £30. Admittedly I did start out looking for a typical cheap plastic consumer router, but after discovering that HP discontinued the one I was looking for after they bought 3Com and spending ages researching the alternatives (which fell into two camps: don't do everything I want, or relatively expensive) I figured I'd take a punt on running some proper hardware. Brilliant stuff; the only disappointment has been the lack of IPv6 over WiFi (bizarre).[On the other hand, it can just be a silly idea: my project for the weekend is to build a little fan speed controller board to hack into the 2924 that's currently doing temporary switching duties in my AV stack. It's a far-too-noisy way to get extra Ethernet ports but the only other device I found in the pile o'spares was the VAXcluster's 10baseT/10base2 hub, and I'd hate to think how well that'd work for streaming media. If I can't quieten the fans down I guess it's time for a cheap plastic jobbie...]

author: gtsili
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2012, 05:33:15 pm
content: Ohhh well, it must be me and my Linux upbringing then. Everybody seems to prefer a Jaguar than a Subaru for going to the supermarket to buy milk.For fun and for simulations with IOS or JunOS I can always use GNS3http://www.gns3.net/

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2012, 06:33:45 pm
content: Quote from: westfw on July 05, 2012, 08:20:57 amBut the story says that Cisco will automatically update your installed hardware to the cloud service overnight and then ask you to agree to the conditions retrospectively before being allowed to continue using your device. If you don't like it you have to call their customer service and arrange to have your router put back the way it was.Isn't that evil?

author: StubbornGreek
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2012, 07:51:25 pm
content: Wow...I'm a bit stunned by this. Anyway, there are so many fantastic 'free' platforms that do so much more for you out there, I can't understand why anyone with any reasonable technical proficiency wouldn't be using one of them.The basic being Untangle, Astaro, Endian, Smoothwall, - too many to list but my personal favorite by a very large margin (and yes, I've tried almost all of them) is pfSense. Who doesn't have an old pc sitting in a corner somewhere? Load OS, set to reboot automatically in bios and voila...

author: baljemmett
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 05, 2012, 08:31:10 pm
content: Quote from: gtsili on July 05, 2012, 05:33:15 pmHeh, yes indeed; I would have had no objection to just slapping together a Linux router for home, and in fact that's what I set up for my student household at university ten years ago. (Memories of tracking down a USB ADSL modem that advertised Linux drivers only to find out they were vapourware and having to deal with USB sniffers and all sorts of crap to get it working, argh.) But the only suitable spare machines I had lying around were old laptops, which aren't ideal -- and buying a cheap plastic router only to replace the firmware with something competent seemed too much like rewarding cheap plastic router companies for producing hardware with unpleasant firmware... Plan B had I not got along with the IOS device was one of those little ~£100 SBC machines, tasty.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2012, 08:47:21 pm
content: Hi!Quote from: StubbornGreek on July 05, 2012, 07:51:25 pmpfSense is really great! And it offers a very nice feature all other firewall distris don't have: transparent mode with filtering.But there's still a very good reason to use dedicated DSL/WLAN routers. The router box uses about 10W while the old PC takes 50+W. You could go for a Mini-ITX with an Atom CPU (20W) but it will be much more expensive.Cheersmadires

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2012, 08:54:01 pm
content: Router boxes uses ARM cpu's so yeah not much power that is needed anywayI assume there's no need for FPU

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2012, 07:08:04 am
content: QuoteI miss the extensive raw data displays, debugging capabilities, and varied access lists. I miss the ability to sting together small unix-like bits (notably, the access-lists) with orthogonal features to make sensible configurations. I've been using DDWRT, and I keep wanting to do things that would have been easy in IOS. ("So, which external hosts is this particular internal host accessing, anyway?") Maybe I just haven't found the appropriate commands, since they tend to be real unix-isms hidden behind GUI menus...QuoteProbably, in fact almost certainly, it was merely stupid.

author: gtsili
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2012, 10:19:17 am
content: ACLs are really very powerful but so are iptables/netfilter and even more so since there are more filters available than you can think of and even if the existing one does not suit you, you can develop your own. Both are a pain in the butt and the more experienced you are the easier and more versatile those tools become. If nothing else, the open source universe is flooded with raw data display functionality and programs as well as debug capabilities. You just have to dig a bit deeper.There is however a huge trade off between cost of ownership, running cost, ease of use and manageability, richness of features, extensibility, heat dissipation and even space requirements and noise. I too want a huge data-center with top of the line telecommunications gear, a few petabyte of FC NAS and some supercomputers for good measure but I can't afford to buy that, even if it was a gift I couldn't power it up for long, it will take me a hell of a time to set it up, I will have to build a new house just to put them in and thinking about cooling it down and keeping it quite just gives me a headache. Worst of all, all that gear will be underutilized, it may be fancy and impressive but also a terrible waste of mater and energy.I know that the above is a terrible exaggeration to the point of flame bait but this was not my intention. My point is that it is best to go for the optimal solution given a specific situation. So my solution at the moment is the ADSL router my ISP provides and a dual core Atom with a bunch of SATA drives that runs Linux and fulfills a big number of roles quite happily (Firewall, DHCP/BOOTP, DNS, NFS4, Samba, FTP, SSH, NTP, etc.).A big issue I have omitted all together, is what someone, is comfortable using. If IOS is your cup of tea then all the arguments on the world can't change your mind and your are probably right. However, I would like to point out that: "When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail."P.S. I have no intention of starting a flame or playing it smart to other people. This is my professional opinion and I stand by it quite passionately. I apologize if anything I wrote come out wrong.Quote from: westfw on July 06, 2012, 07:08:04 am

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2012, 03:06:28 pm
content: ADSL router the Telecom supplies here is just useless. Nice Billion wireless router ( i bought one myself) but it is crippled, WAN admin turned on, with default username and password ( same on all of them), remote update turned on and unable to turn off ( so the thing reflashses itself once a day and reboots) and unable to change any admin passwords, as they go right back to default. Only way to turn wireless off is to unscrew the antenna.

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2012, 02:22:47 am
content: Oh, yeah, the real advantage of IOS was probably being able to pull a branch and add code to do whatever I wanted ("the ultimate debug capability"), which I can't do anymore anyway :-) I guess I could do that with one of the OS distributions too, after a bit of a learning curve.

author: HardBoot
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2012, 09:11:21 am
content: This why I ONLY run free software on my network equipment, no shady shit, if there's a security hole I can update from secure peer-reviewed servers.Cisco is shit in every respect, price, usability, reliability, features. Noone good uses their hardware, only cert monkeys and corps run by the technically incompetent.I've replaced a $1000 100Mbit Cisco switch with a $140 Gbit TP-Link switch and $60 Gbit wireless router running OpenWRT, faser and easy to use, soo cheap I could have parallel redundancy.