Technology

59993 readers

2216 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

266

US targets TP-Link with a potential ban on the Chinese routers (www.theverge.com)

submitted 22 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

92 comments fedilink hide all child comments

TP-link is reportedly being investigated over national security concerns linked to vulnerabilities in its very popular routers.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 8 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

They (FCC) forced firmwares being signed so nobody can install their own on the off chance it unlocks TX power or frequencies not allowed by FCC.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 14 hours ago

They should undo this and just prosecute people who abuse the firmware

[–] [email protected] 13 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Can't say I've ever seen an example of signed firmware that didn't exist to further exploit the working class.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

You've never used Linux?

Signed firmware just means you can prove a given key was used to sign something. Most Linux distributions sign their packages so you know one of the trusted keys from the maintainers was used to sign the packages (and yes, this includes firmware), which prevents a man-in-the-middle from modifying packages.

The only problem I have with signed firmware is if there's no way to change the acceptable keys. Signing itself is an important security feature, its only problematic if the user can't upload their own signed packages.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Requiring signed firmware is just a lock to keep poors out.

It's Never used for consumers benefit, not once, not ever.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 43 minutes ago

Signed firmware doesn't cost anything, so I'm not sure what you mean by "keep the poors out." Signed firmware has a very valid use case for preventing supply chain attacks. The only time I have an issue with it if there's no way to make your own signed package or bypass the requirement.