- The new FCC rules are in effect in the United States from June 2nd 2015 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.
Yeaaah no that's not going to fly, for three reasons. First, there's the whole privacy thing. Locking down wireless access points, router or not, means that the consumer is stuck with the firmware that's on there. And quite often, it sucks. Not only does it suck, but if the customer can't do anything to it, it means they can safely slip in traffic surveillance or other "watchdogs" in there with everyone being powerless to do anything against it. Who needs to get traffic from ISPs when you can just get it from the constituents? Second, sure, it disallows using "illegal" settings. But most of these settings, AFAIK, were made illegal simply because at the 2.4 GHz frequency, it would interfere with some emergency radios if using the higher channels - which is simply a non-issue with 5GHz WiFi, which is slowly being adapted. Which means they have literally no reason to lock down that - at 5GHz, unless they put it on a mast, no matter how much power they pour into it or what channel they use, it's not going to interfere with anything, which means that this is most likely an entirely political move - we already suspect that they did something similar with the radio chip found in many cellphone manufacturers. And disallowing modification will also disallow hackerspace research into alternate WiFi - different frequencies and safe powers by modifying the firmware and hardware if necessary. Third, unless this affects only public WiFi hotspots, I am not even sure this is the FCC's domain (not an American and not a lawyer). The FCC can regulate how the devices interact, on what bands and at what power - but should have no say in what software can run on the devices. Otherwise, this regulation is much incomplete, and will start a shitstorm - because that means that, by virtue of being capable to act as such, they will need to make phone and tablet rooting/jailbreaking/alternate OSes illegal (though I think they might already have tried that), SEVERELY regulate WiFi software/firmware on the aforementioned devices. and completely outlaw computer-routers (I've done it before - even using Windows, it's possible that a computer with multiple network cards can act as a router, even a WiFi router if it has WiFi capabilities) because of simply how un-unmodifiable such a device is. Regardless, I foresee a complete shitstorm incoming.