On Mon, Oct 5, 2015 at 11:39 AM, Rich Pieri <richard.pi...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 10/5/2015 3:20 AM, Bill Bogstad wrote: >> >> So what does it mean when the FCC's own documents suggest otherwise? >> For example, the document at: > > > What it means is that you are taking one document to be something it isn't. > > FCC guidelines are not rules. They are not requirements. They are not even > recommendations. They are suggestions as to what vendors can do to ensure > compliance -- even when they're laced with a lot of "MUST" clauses. > > The vendors know this. It's not a big deal for them; it's business as usual. > The ones that have been locking their devices all along will continue to do > so. The ones that have not will implement other mechanisms to ensure > compliance.
Vendors will take the path of least resistance. Tivo and others have already shown how to only allow signed firmware updates. Vendors don't want people to be able to replace the firmware on their products anyway as that just means people won't buy more expensive/newer products as often. The only reason all vendors haven't gone to requiring signed firmwares is the additional cost. If the least expensive way to fulfill FCC requirements is to lock down the hardware that's what they will do. They certainly won't spend extra money to continue to allow end users to update upper level software while at the same time locking down radio parameters. So while FCC rules might not mandate such a lockdown that is going to be the almost inevitable result of the compliance requirements. Bill Bogstad _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss