On Sat, Jul 25, 2015 at 5:18 PM, Mitar <mitar@tnode.com> wrote:

Hi!

>From Battlemesh V8 agenda (http://battlemesh.org/BattleMeshV8/Agenda):

The new FCC rules are in effect in the United States from June 2nd 2015
[1] for WiFi devices such as Access Points. They require to have the
firmware locked down so End-Users can't operate with non-compliant
parameters (channels/frequencies, transmit power, DFS, ...). In
response, WiFi access point vendors start to lock down firmwares to
prevent custom firmwares (such as OpenWRT) to be installed, using code
signing, etc. Since the same type of devices are often sold world wide,
this change does not only affect routers in the US, but also Europe, and
this will also effect wireless communities.
We would like to discuss:
* What are your experiences with recently certified WiFi Hardware
* How can we still keep OpenWRT on these devices
* What can we suggest to Hardware vendors so that they keep their
firmware open for community projects while still compliant with the FCC?

Fucking hell. I just sent emails to TP-Link and Ubiquiti stating that we rely on this for our organization and asking what they're planning to do.

Ubiquiti already locked down channel selection and made separate EU/US models so it's not unthinkable that they'll actually do the right thing. TP-Link also already has Chinese and US/EU versions of some routers. Maybe we can get the EFF to help launch a campaign for device freedom to make the manufacturers aware that this is important?

Hopefully we can scale quickly enough using current-generation gear that we'll be able to have our own routers FCC certified and mass produced before it becomes an issue. If need be we can create a meta-organization for all the world's mesh groups to make a few types of routers that we need.

Maybe we can convince the router manufacturers to interpret the FCC regulations such that opening the case on a router and soldering a connection is required to flash the router. That would be super easy for them to implement and very convenient for us. If we got EFF lawyers to interpret the new FCC regulations and issue a statement that they believe this is legal (they did something similar for their open wireless movement) then we could take that statement to all the relevant folks.

Or alternatively we do nothing now and bypass whatever security comes out, or start a router smuggling ring, but what a pain.

Better to be pro-active though and get in touch with all router manufacturers. Adrian and others on this list: If you have points of contacts that might serve as entry-points to getting in touch with the right people at relevant corporations then that would be much appreciated. We can start talking and tell them what we have in mind and that we'll do the leg-work as much as possible. We can offer them some community cred by hoisting them high on a page of "Proudly user-reflashable" devices (we'll have to come up with a nice marketable term like "open source", hm, "User controlled"? "Owner controlled"? I'm sure we can do better.

Anyway, just throwing some ideas out there. What you say?

marc/juul