I’ve been getting messages for at least a couple of weeks now about the mysterious Six Apart developer network. And today there was a blog post about it. But these messages keep restating the same thing. They keep telling me that someday soon I’ll get an email telling me how I can sign up for this network. They tell me about the perks and discounts that I’ll get in somewhat unspecific terms. What’s a “developer discount for a free commercial license”? Why would you need a discount on something that’s being given as free? I know that the good people at 6A realize that they have had some communication issues in the recent past, but it’s about time they start fixing these problems. They are losing customers daily, and better communication is the only thing that is going to save them.
Here’s my message to Six Apart Ltd.: Get that developer program out the door ASAP. Your developers are your most important resource. They are the ones who will push your wares. If you don’t help them, Matt will gladly help them switch to WP.
Wi-Fi Net News made me aware of a security hole in the Linksys WRT54G wireless router yesterday. They say that the admin website can be accessed remotely even if remote admin is disabled.
Through my personal testing, I have not been able to access the admin page remotely except through the use of an ssh tunnel via a FreeBSD box behind the router. But since there may be something I’m missing here, I decided to go ahead and change my admin password anyway. And besides, default passwords are really stupid anyway. I should have changed it long ago.
An interesting piece of code came into my browser while I was changing my password. This is one that I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere. It seems that Linksys is using unpublished proprietary javascript code that belongs to another company in their interface. Here’s the license that was included:
<!--
*********************************************************
* Copyright 2003, CyberTAN Inc. All Rights Reserved *
*********************************************************
This is UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE of CyberTAN Inc.
the contents of this file may not be disclosed to third parties,
copied or duplicated in any form without the prior written
permission of CyberTAN Inc.
This software should be used as a reference only, and it not
intended for production use!
THIS SOFTWARE IS OFFERED "AS IS", AND CYBERTAN GRANTS NO WARRANTIES OF ANY
KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, BY STATUTE, COMMUNICATION OR OTHERWISE. CYBERTAN
SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS
FOR A SPECIFIC PURPOSE OR NONINFRINGEMENT CONCERNING THIS SOFTWARE
-->
Now we’ve all heard the stories about Linksys violating the GPL, but they’ve cleared that issue up and released the source. This has led to great projects such as EWRT. But this violation goes way beyond the GPL violation. Not only are they using code that isn’t theirs, but they include the license that says that they don’t have a right to use it. And if that were not bad enough, the license states that the code is not intended for production use.
Now I can’t wait to get EWRT installed on my WRT54G. I’d really rather not run Linksys’s shoddy software any longer.
Update: The remote admin vulnerability on the WRT54G only occurs when the firewall is disabled. By default, the firewall is enabled. This is not a big deal. If somebody disables the firewall on their router, they probably deserve to be exploited.
After about three years of using T-Mobile’s Hotspot service, I finally cancelled my account for good in April. I’ll be using the wonderful free service that’s available here in Austin for all of my local wireless needs. Finally, my favorite coffee shop has wireless, so I can stop supporting T-Mobile and Starbucks.
The cancellation of my T-Mobile account was not without frustration on my end and sneakiness on the part of T-Mobile, however. It started with the mention of a cancellation fee. The phone rep said, “You have completed your one year agreement, so there is no cancellation fee.” One year agreement? I never saw any agreement whatsoever. In fact, when T-Mobile bought out Mobilestar, I merely saw a different SSID at Starbucks and a different name on my credit card statement. Apparently T-Mobile had put me on a one year contract without my knowledge. Not good.
Since I had been using the unlimited T-Mobile service for 24 months, there was not really an issue with the contract. Had there been a fee charged, I would have been very angry. They got lucky with this one.
It was the billing, however, that was a problem. I was last billed for my monthly service on April 16. That was four days prior to my cancellation. When I asked the phone rep whether the account would be cancelled immediately, he said that it would. I then asked when I could expect to see the remaining part of my money refunded, and he responded with, “There is no proration. We have cancelled your account, and there is no money to refund.” So T-Mobile has decided that it wants to steal 26 days of service from me. That’s just not right.
If you’re thinking about signing up with T-Mobile’s monthly hotspot plan, think again. This is the most anti-customer organization I have dealt with in a long time.
