Mozilla Debuts Implementation of WebThings Gateway Open Source Router Firmware (venturebeat.com) 57
An anonymous reader shares a report: For the better part of two years, the folks at Mozilla have been diligently chipping away at Mozilla WebThings, an open implementation of the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web of Things standard for monitoring and controlling connected devices. In April, it gained a number of powerful logging, alarm, and networking features, and this week, a revamped component of WebThings -- WebThings Gateway, a privacy- and security-focused software distribution for smart home gateways -- formally debuted. Experimental builds of WebThings Gateway 0.9 are available on GitHub for the Turris Omnia router, with expanded support for routers and developer boards to come down the line. (Separately, there's a new build compatible with the recently announced Raspberry Pi 4.) Mozilla notes that it currently only offers "extremely basic" router configuration and cautions against replacing existing firmware, but the company says that it's a noteworthy milestone in its path to creating a full software distribution for wireless routers.
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Not entirely sure why I'd replace LEDE with this.
Is there a compelling argument?
Another this-one-will-solve-it-all (Score:2)
Find me something in nature that works to repel invaders -- oh yeah, diversity.
I have loads of respect for yet-another-standard-security-package that's better than the no security that most people put in-place.
But when compared to a decent effort by an amateur -- one that is easily broken by a professional -- it simply sucks. It sucks because as a standard it's identical to every other user using it. It sucks because defeating it grants access to thousands or millions of systems all at once. It sucks beca
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Slashdot, get rid of AC posting already. This is getting fucking ridiculous.
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Without "detectportal.firefox.com", how would a web browser detect whether a particular network is connected to the Internet or to a private network that serves only a login page and nothing else?
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It matters because if you're behind a captive portal, such as that on most public hotspots, all of your HTTPS connections will fail. Captive portal detection allows the web browser to prompt the user to satisfy the captive portal before connecting to the Internet.
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And whats to stop you just manually accessing the captive portal, like you had to do before this feature was implemented?
This feature can also trigger false positives and get in the way.
Non-technical users and the push for HTTPS (Score:2)
And whats to stop you just manually accessing the captive portal, like you had to do before this feature was implemented?
The first of two things stopping a user from "just manually accessing the captive portal" is the inexperience of non-technical users. Non-technical users, who make up the majority of users on the Internet and presumably the majority of users of the majority of public hotspots, are less likely to know to try, nor know how to go about, "just manually accessing the captive portal."
The second is that before this feature was implemented, most websites were served using cleartext HTTP, which allowed the captive p
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Besides, captive portals are broken by design.
What non-broken mechanism fulfills the objective of gating Internet access through presentation and acceptance of terms of use? Or is this objective itself broken? And if this objective itself is broken, what does the operator of a hotspot need to do in order to avoid secondary liability for infringing or otherwise illegal use by users?
The more people complain to annoyed hotel and restaurant staff that the internet isn't working, the sooner the problem will be fixed.
Instead of complaining, they'll eat elsewhere or stay elsewhere.
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Software publishers use telemetry to determine which features are used, in order to determine which features are valuable to continue to maintain. Turning off telemetry tells Mozilla you're fine with Mozilla ceasing to support the features that you use but many others do not. Are you fine with losing features?
Software publishers use telemetry to determine where the program crashes in order to determine which defects to fix first. Turning off telemetry tells Mozilla you're fine with Mozilla not fixing any de
DD-WRT/Tomato Replacement? (Score:1)
I would love to re-flash my home router with open-source firmware from Mozilla.... especially if it supports OpenVPN!!!
RPi? (Score:2)
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