OT: which Linux for WRT54GL?

[Andras Simon]

On 2/19/07, Bruno Wolff III <bruno at wolff.to> wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 18, 2007 at 20:26:25 +0100,
>   Andras Simon <szajmi at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 2/18/07, Wade Hampton <wadehamptoniv at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >Slightly OT, but what version of firmware should I try on a WRT54GL? I
> > >see I have multiple choces including:
> > >
> > >Stock/Linksys -- not an option
> >
> > Why? (I've been using this for  a few weeks now, with no problem at all.)
>
> You can do more stuff (e.g. complicated traffic shaping) using the various
> open software firmware.

Fair enough. And I'll shop for a new firmware as soon as I feel the
limitations of the default one. But I was wondering about the reason
for the OP's outright refusal to go with the Linksys firmware.

>
> You might not trust the supplied firmware to not have a back door to allow
> snooping of your local network traffic. The FBI wanted a similar feature
> built into routers in the past (e.g. Private Doorbell), so it is not
> unreasonable to expect they have at least talked to home router
> manufacturers
> about building something into their routers.

I'm not losing too much sleep over this. Knowing next to nothing about
networking, I'm just guessing, but couldn't such a backdoor be found
out pretty easily? And if not, how about the hardware (of the
router/network card/adsl modem): can you inspect them all?

But then different folks have different concerns :-)

Andras