[geeks] bridging networks with wireless

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 @ 22:38 +0200, Geoffrey S. Mendelson said:

> > Otherwise, hiding the chipset doesn't stop you from finding out just
> > by snooping your hardware or the driver that is running.
> 
> In the U.S. that might violate the DMCA. 

I can find my chipset by looking at the driver disk or looking at my
system information (in most cases), or I can use a PCI tools utility.

It would be hard to file a DMCA lawsuit to protect information you
freely published yourself.

> If you "hack" a driver to operate on illegal frequencies, use illegal
> power, or transmit a different type of signal, then it's on you, not
> the manufacturer.

Of course, and this is true wether they paint over the chipset or not.

> I did not say it would stop the abuse, it prevents a normal person
> from violating the law using normally available software.

Well, if *I* were going to prevent that, then I'd make sure the user
could not trivially get the chipset information.

All I'm questioning is painting the chipset and leaving the chipset out
of the documentation, mainly because it makes buying the cards a pain in
the ass, even for Windows use.

In other words, this stuff they do only prevents a user from knowing
what is in the card *BEFORE* he buys it. After that, it serves no
purpose, which is why I question it.

> It prevents someone from buying a card over the Internet, or in the
> U.S. on vacation and then taking it to somewhere else and operating it
> illegally.

The information obfuscation I'm talking about only lasts until you buy
the card.

Even if I'm a Windows user, I might want to avoid a particular chipset,
and it is maddening that you can't get the information before buying the
card.

This is often true of other cards too, but is far worse with wireless,
and I still say it serves no purpose.

> It would not surprise me that the driver developer's had a pile of broken
> printheads and HP decided that it was better to restrict the drivers than
> to expect people to write good ones. 

Then why do they not restrict information on other equipment, even
printers, where poorly written drivers could be just as destructive?

I think they did this either to cater to Microsoft soft (which HP has
done in the past), or they were being unecessarily paranoid.

Even in Windows, I often load alternate drivers because they are better
than the manufacturer drivers.

> > If you want to see real damage, look at all the real problems that have
> > been caused by the lack of hardware information and chipped cartridges.
> 
> How is that damage? No one was forced to buy an HP printer. If you did not
> like the support policies of HP, then you could buy a different brand.

Not everyone can choose their hardware, and not everyone is even aware
there are things like "drivers" under the hood. All they know is that
things either don't work or their printer is damaged.

I can't always just switch brands because of a stupid policy like this
in all cases. 

In the inkjet market in particular, there really aren't many alternative
choices.

> As for open source drivers, that does not make them good. 

No, but it does give people the opportunity to make them so, especially
given how incredibly bad a lot of manufacturer drivers are.

Case in point: many (most?) of the Linux and BSD drivers are *BETTER*
than the Windows drivers.

> There is a lot of really bad source code out there.

...both commercial and open source. At least with the open
specifications someone has the opportunity to do something about it.

> Some is open source, some is closed source. While Linus Torvalds
> exerts some control over what eventualy goes into the Linux kernel,
> some things just get stuck in other programs with no testing at all.

In other words, just like almost all software.

Basically you are stating that software has bugs, and the industry is
not very good at fixing or avoiding the problem.

Wether it is opened or closed is rarely relevant with one exception: if
the code or the specs are open, there is at least a chance someone else
can fix it.

-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["I want this Perl software checked for
viruses.  Use Norton Antivirus." -- Charlie Kirkpatrick]