On 4/12/06, Steve Sobol <sjsobol@justthe.net> wrote:
On Tue, 11 Apr 2006, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
By the way, since we're talking about D-Link, it's instructive to read the warnings on their firmware update pages.
Do NOT upgrade firmware on any D-Link product over a wireless connection. Failure of the device may result. Use only hard-wired network connections.
Cisco/Linksys says the same thing.
Who here hasn't been burned at least once by changing packet filters, routes or interface configurations over the wire/air? Or maybe getting your userland and kernel out of sync on a *NIX machine? It's not really that surprising that they put that in there, other than maybe the fact that it's useful advice. And maybe it'll reduce support costs. Loading a new firmware is a risky operation - I don't know of too many consumer network widgets with a reflash safety protocol to prevent you from destroying the device with an aborted upload. Heck, that's still a pretty rare feature in pee-cees. Sure it's easy to implement such a thing, but that would cost money. I think this thread has done a good job of demonstrating that those who would choose the right (and maybe slightly more expensive up front) solution are outvoted by those who would just take a quick, cheap and easy hack. CK -- GDB has a 'break' feature; why doesn't it have 'fix' too?