"...I have this strange notion that routers should pass data unmolested by marketeers!"

[unixronin]

Another good reason not to buy a Belkin router.

This is one of the slimiest things I've heard in some time.  What'll you bet me they got the idea from Verisign?  If you can't trust your own router, what the hell can you trust?

I can see the marketing campaign now:  "Belkin Routers -- Pre-Compromised For Your Convenience!"

Now all it needs is for someone to get hold of a copy of Belkin's trojanned firmware and modify it slightly to alter its parameters for what traffic it reroutes where under what conditions, then start spoofing firmware updates... who needs zombied computers when you can have entire zombied networks?

Comments

[acpizza.livejournal.com]

Is this for real? Holy crap.

I smell a class-action lawsuit.

Like, anyone who has purchased said router, and updated it, should be given a full refund. If I were a lawyer, I'd be working up that class-action right lawsuit this minute, since the update does deliberately break the functionality of the router.

The lawsuit would have to focus not on the intrusion, but on the fact that it intercepts otherwise valid outgoing communication, with examples provided of how this can break many existing applications (automation with wget, or site mirroring, for example). Consumer protection from intrusive ads is limited, but consumer protection when it comes to deliberately breaking an otherwise functional product is quite good in most states.