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D-Link DIR-655 Firmware 1.21 Hijacks Your Internet Connection
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Nov 05, 2008 05:45 PM
from the not-polite dept.
from the not-polite dept.
chronopunk writes "Normally when you think of firmware updates for a router you would expect security updates and bug fixes. Would you ever expect the company that makes the product to try and sell you a subscription for security software using its firmware as a salesperson? I recently ran into this myself when trying to troubleshoot my router. I noticed when trying to go to Google that my router was hijacking DNS and sent me to a website trying to sell me a software subscription. After upgrading your D-link DIR-655 router to the latest firmware you'll see that D-link does this, and calls the hijacking a 'feature.'"
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Well.... (Score:5, Funny)
Please click here to renew subscription!
Huh? (Score:4, Informative)
I've been using rev1.21 for a few weeks now and I haven't seen this behavior at all.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008 5:51:22 PM
Firmware Version : 1.21, 2008/09/11
*shrug*
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Is there any kind of agreement? (Score:4, Informative)
Before installing the new firmware, are you asked if this is Okay? If not, do they make it clear how it can be disabled?
I am now reluctant to upgrade my DLink firmware. Is it's easy and clear that one can opt out.
Thank you! (Score:4, Insightful)
Thank you so much for the warning! I'll stay on 1.20 then and my next router certainly won't be a D-link.
Re:Thank you! (Score:5, Informative)
Replying to myself to add some info. Firmware v1.20 doesn't have the "Advanced -> Secure Spot" page they mention so it really seems to be be new in v1.21. The 1.20 firmware can still be downloaded from here [dlink.com.tw].
Parent
Ran across this just the other day... (Score:4, Insightful)
I helped my father-in-law purchase a wireless router for his home and set it up for him recently. I was rather surprised when I updated the firmware and was then greeted by spam upon opening a web browser. I have to say that I'm really disappointed by d-link on this one. Here's to hoping that the backlash is enough to make them reconsider doing this type of stuff again.
Generally speaking, I'm a fan of their networking equipment (own a dgl-4300 that I'm very happy with myself), but if this is the direction that they are going in, I won't be buying or recommending their stuff anymore. I plan on e-mailing them and telling them I am unhappy with their practices.
Cheers! (Score:4, Funny)
Won't be buying any more Dell hardware for a while!
Without SecureSpot 2.0 (Score:5, Informative)
Belkin has done this before (Score:5, Informative)
Back in 2003 Belkin introduced a router that periodically redirected HTTP connections to advertise its own software:
Help! my Belkin router is spamming me [theregister.co.uk]
Some commentary:
Ease-of-use or marketing-driven sabotage: Does your hardware's software do only what you expect of it? [ibm.com]
Just like Belkin back in 2003 (Score:5, Informative)
Here's [theregister.co.uk] an old article about Belkin doing a very similar thing:
Belkin, the consumer networking and connectivity firm, has promised customers a firmware upgrade to disable a controversial 'spamming' feature built into its routers.
As first reported on The Reg last week, the feature hijacks random HTTP requests every eight hours and redirects users to a page advertising Belkin's parental control software. There is an opt-out link but that failed to appease Net users who accused Belkin of creating a new mechanism for spam.
More reasons never to go consumer again (Score:5, Interesting)
After massive amounts of pain with consumer/prosumer-grade (many of the D-Link) routers in the past two years, I finally dropped real money for a real broadband router earlier this year. So far, I've had months and months of trouble-free service.
Now I start hearing crap like this. Makes me even MORE thankful I bit the bullet.
Also "you can turn it off!" apologists? WHY IT IS ON BY DEFAULT? Moreover, tell that to some luddite who barely understands how to boot his computer.
So much for D-Link (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if there's an option to disable this, the fact that it seems to be enabled by default is enough for me. D-Link from this point on will never be on my list of vendors when looking for networking gear.
Idiots... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently they didn't learn from the shitstorm that hit belkin when they did the exact same thing years ago.
Another vendor goes down the tubes...
Simple solution... (Score:5, Informative)
Only buy home routers that can run opensource firmwares. I'm quite happy with my WRT54GL, although the hardware is a bit antiquated at this point.
Google Should Sue (Score:5, Interesting)
Google should sue because they have lots of high-priced lawyers and can really make DLink regret this.
Absolutely, positively INFAMOUS (Score:5, Insightful)
Router Setup Page downloads Securespot version (Score:5, Informative)
Using FLOSS, without the decency to acknowledge it (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
That's the end of D-Link. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are marketing people allowed to destroy companies? Then they go to a new company and do it again.
Parent
Re:That's the end of D-Link. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's been a long time since I bought from DLink anyway. Their products are expensive, inconsistent, unreliable and plain ugly. I hate how they always use non standard names for things like port forwarding, making it hard to talk people through it over the phone.
This is a new low for DLink, and is further vindication of my strict no-DLink policy.
Parent
Re:That's the end of D-Link. (Score:5, Interesting)
There's also a difference between bad engineering and bad assembly.
The US automakers have learned this one the hard way - some of their cars have amazing engineering. But, all that engineering was let down by poor assembly quality (of both the component parts and of the car itself.)
Parent
Re:Why... (Score:5, Informative)
Still pretty hinky, though.
Parent
Re:Why... (Score:5, Interesting)
What's annoying with things like this (and others) is that it just gets in the way and obstructs your work.
I choose things based on their lack of snarkiness. I don't want a Windows PC full of crapware. I'd rather just pay the manufacturer a few extra bucks to cover the loss of crapware kickbacks. I used to run an AV, but occassionally, it would bring up a message telling me I wasn't fully protected because I wasn't running their antispam (despite running Thunderbird). When my renewal came up, I chose another company, and I told them that this was one of the reasons.
Parent
Re:Why... (Score:5, Funny)
whether or not we CAN disable it is moot - there's law regarding redirects without permission. I just can't find the damned thing, but I know it's there having read it here on slashdot.
Parent
Re:Why... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you RTFA, you'll see that you CAN disable it.
What are we becoming? Now every sleazy behaviour is ok as long as you can opt-out? That hasn't worked for spam for the past 20 years, has everyone suddenly got a learning disorder?
The default behaviour of absolutely everything that's not a requested feature has to be opt-in.
Opt-out is not good enough. I thought we'd learnt that by now.
Parent
Re:Why... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Why... (Score:5, Funny)
Just to point out, if you RTFP (post) mattytee doesn't say it's ok, he says it's "hinky." Which might NOT mean okay. I admit, I don't know what it ACTUALLY means, so it might mean "good."
It could be a typo for "kinky." Which, I can only imagine, would be included in the comprehensive list of fetishes [xkcd.com].
Parent
Re:Why... (Score:5, Interesting)
The only solution is to burn the place down or kill a few key people, then let them all know why. But no one is going to throw their life away on a bad router purchase.
Parent
Re:Why... (Score:5, Funny)
If only revolution was not such an outdated ideal.
Parent
Re:Why... (Score:5, Funny)
Damn, and I thought D-Link was one of the better companies to buy a router from.
Parent
Re:Why... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell NO. They're absolute garbage! I've seen more fried D-Link routers than every other brand combined. I'd sooner buy any other no-name brand for *more* money. Plus, they've been doing "evil" stuff like that for ages -- not long ago they were hammering a tier-1 NTP server with their firmware (and the poor guy was footing the bill for them on his own). Their garbage is best avoided.
You want a good router? Get a Linksys WRT54GL (that is NOT the G or GS). Then put tomato on it or DD-WRT (they're Linux distros). Then setup opendns and all that in it too. Best router you can get under $500 perhaps (short of a specialized/fancy cisco router that runs IOS and is easy to mis-configure, an expensive specialized routerboard, or power-hungry computer with moving parts...)
Parent
Re:Why... (Score:5, Funny)
The only solution is to burn the place down or kill a few key people, then let them all know why. But no one is going to throw their life away on a bad router purchase.
that's the problem with the youth today, no commitment to principles.
Parent
Re:Why... (Score:5, Funny)
I was out there with torches and pitchforks but these two old farts complained that I was making too much noise and had me removed.
Parent
Re:Why... (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Why... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow. Recent Netgear switches I've bought were doing the whole 70% packet loss thing (of the five white Netgear hubs I've dealt with, three have been completely worthless; haven't tried the blue metal ones lately), and now DLink moves right along with them onto my do-not-buy list. Linksys (won't work reliably with upstream switches) and Belkin (Wi-Fi routers crash constantly when passing wireless traffic) are both so buggy (to the point of being unusable) that they've been on my do-not-buy list for years. I've just about run out of networking hardware manufacturers....
Why can't just ONE SINGLE networking product company make a pledge to stop cutting corners on quality and looking for ways to make a quick buck off their users and just deliver decent hardware!?!?!?!?!?! Don't ANY of these companies' management chains have the SLIGHTEST bit of fiscal common sense?
Sheesh!
Parent
Linksys + alternative firmware (Score:5, Informative)
Linksys isn't so bad if you replace the firmware. Try dd-wrt [dd-wrt.com] if you want quick and easy, or OpenWRT [openwrt.org] if you want to customize. I guarantee you'll like 'em. (Get a WRT-54GL to try it on; they're cheap nowadays.)
Parent
Re:Linksys + alternative firmware (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't it nice when things just work?
Parent
Re:Why... (Score:5, Interesting)
I never said I was boycotting them in perpetuity. That said, these aren't isolated problems. Three out of five Netgear switches died, three out of three Netgear FA101/FA102 cards died within a couple of years, etc. It takes three bad experiences with a company's product to earn do-not-buy status unless one of those bad experiences is really serious (the Belkin USB-serial adapter that was shorted from the factory and nearly killed my computer, for example).
At least in this DLink case, it's just a political do-not-buy, which might go away if/when they clean up their act. Their gear seems to be electrically mostly solid. That's why this bugs me so much. They were the only one that I hadn't had a long string of horrible hardware faults from. :-)
Parent
Re:Why... (Score:5, Funny)
"I dunno. Why do most consumers run back to a company that cheated them like a battered woman to her abuser?"
Because the sex is terrific, and they really WANT to change!
Parent
Re:Why... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Slashdot Editors, Do Some Editing (Score:5, Informative)
Plus, upgrading your firmware "just because". Why?
Because router firmware upgrades often mean closing security holes.
Parent
Re:Slashdot Editors, Do Some Editing (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus, upgrading your firmware "just because". Why?
Because router firmware upgrades often mean closing security holes.
While one might think this at first, there's no evidence that this is the case for this incident. It's just as likely, without a firmware being released with specific notes about "holes" that it "plugged", that the update created more bugs.
In this case, it was "I felt like upgrading the firmware". The downfalls: User obviously didn't know how the feature set changed (because didn't do research before upgrading the firmware, just saw that one number was larger than the other) and there's always the possibility of bricking your router that is already working just peachy.
So, no, I don't accept your reasoning, even though it seems "sensible" at the start.
Parent
Re:Slashdot Editors, Do Some Editing (Score:5, Insightful)
We live in a world where we have to automatically upgrade adobe PDF, java, windows, iTunes, firewalls, antiviruses, antispam, smartphones, wmv codecs, xvid codecs, divx codecs, everything HP ever produced, video game consoles, etc. Of course people automatically update their routers: it's what we've been conditioned to do.
Parent
Re:Slashdot Editors, Do Some Editing (Score:5, Insightful)
there's a separate link at their firmware download page for the DIR-655 that says (in plain view, in a sensible spot): Click here for Firmware 1.21 WITHOUT SecureSpot 2.0
Well, I highly doubt that most customers know what "SecureSpot" is. So how are they supposed to know to download the non-annoying firmware update? Of course, you may say that this is the customer's problem: they should read up on all the features that are being installed in the firmware update, and be sure that this is really what they want, etc.
And, yes, in principle everyone should read every line of each and every EULA.
The fact is that any reasonable person would expect a firmware update to only fix bugs and security flaws. It would not be normal to expect entirely new features to be installed, and it is certainly abnormal for the new "feature" to actually include nagware that prompts you to pay for some new service.
The point here is that what they are doing is sleazy. The default configuration should have that redirect turned off. The link for a "without SecureSpot" firmware is nice, but the fact is that 99.9% of users will only notice that after they have already installed, and been annoyed by, the default update.
It's an annoying thing to do with a firmware update. And in that sense, it's a reason to not do business with them.
Parent
Re:Slashdot Editors, Do Some Editing (Score:5, Insightful)
From the goddamn article:
So, you can turn it off. Not only that, but as of 9/30 there's a separate link at their firmware download page for the DIR-655 [dlink.com] that says (in plain view, in a sensible spot): Click here for Firmware 1.21 WITHOUT SecureSpot 2.0
Plus, upgrading your firmware "just because". Why?
Double flame to you buddy.
1) I wouldn't call "WITHOUT SecureSpot 2.0" in plain view. It's not like SecureSpot means anything to me. It has the name Secure so it sounds like something I would want. Now if they named it KickInTheBalls 2.0 or maybe SlapInTheFace 3.2 I would know to avoid it. SecureSpot means nothing to me.
2) Upgrading firmware on a firewall/router why? Are you kidding me? You're going to be-little people who pro-actively secure their main entry point to the outside world. From now on you should lose your Slashdot posting privs.
Parent
Re:Slashdot Editors, Do Some Editing (Score:5, Insightful)
The non securespot version has been there since the firmware was released.
"without SecureSpot" certainly doesn't sound like "without spam". It much more sounds like that version is lacking a security feature, don't you think?
Either way, it asks you if you want to try it twice, and then leaves you alone.
So? It shouldn't even "ask" once. Remember that "ask" in this case means intercepting and manipulating traffic. I'm not familiar with applicable US law, but in the UK and Germany, where I know the law a little, this "feature" runs afoul of criminal laws.
Besides, what kind of attitude is that? It's ok to feel up your wife if I stop after being told twice not to?
Parent
Re:D-Link (Score:5, Insightful)
Consumer-grade shit is consumer-grade shit in every industry. But I think we can have some expectation that when we buy a router, even a cheap shitty one, that it makes a best effort to send the data we ask and not its own marketing message. To use a bad car analogy, I don't expect my car to corner like a race car, to tow a 16-wheel trailer, to be as comfortable as a Benz. But I do expect that it steers where I turn the wheel, and not to the nearest mall.
Lots of consumer-grade shit is ad-supported; we get cheaper shit in exchange for being coerced into buying more cheap shit. Maybe if a company is going to introduce an ad-supported business model to a class of products where it's generally unexpected they should be required to label it prominently.
Parent
Poster should not have posted (Score:5, Insightful)
If I buy a router, I wanted the router. I would not buy a router if I wanted a security stack; I would buy security software.
Parent