Why is the USRP FCC-legal, but wifi cards have closed source drivers?

Posted Sep 6, 2007 6:19 UTC (Thu) by shapr (subscriber, #9077)
Parent article: RF hacking with GNU Radio

So... if it's legal to purchase a GNU USRP, why isn't it legal to use my wifi card that's actually a software defined radio, as a software defined radio?

Doesn't make much sense to me.

I guess I should buy one so maybe they'll make a cigarette packet sized version.

Could this be used for wifi 802.11 frame injection? Would that require two 2.4MHz transceiver boards?

Why is the USRP FCC-legal, but wifi cards have closed source drivers?

Posted Sep 6, 2007 15:35 UTC (Thu) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] (4 responses)

I don't know what card you have, but chances are it was certified as a Part 15 device, not as an SDR. In any case, legality of selling something, legality of purchasing something and legality of using something are different things. And the copyright issue is completely separate from the FCC licensing.

Why is the USRP FCC-legal, but wifi cards have closed source drivers?

Posted Sep 6, 2007 16:58 UTC (Thu) by shapr (subscriber, #9077) [Link] (3 responses)

So, if vendors selling wifi cards licensed them as SDR, then they could be used for both wifi, SDR, and could have open source drivers?

Why don't they do that?

Why is the USRP FCC-legal, but wifi cards have closed source drivers?

Posted Sep 6, 2007 18:59 UTC (Thu) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] (2 responses)

I believe SDR certification takes more time and money. As for the open source drivers, I think chipset vendors just being too risk averse, and SDR certification won't change that.

Why is the USRP FCC-legal, but wifi cards have closed source drivers?

Posted Sep 7, 2007 22:49 UTC (Fri) by shapr (subscriber, #9077) [Link] (1 responses)

What's the risk?

Why is the USRP FCC-legal, but wifi cards have closed source drivers?

Posted Sep 8, 2007 14:30 UTC (Sat) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]

The risk is that FCC or another regulatory agency would consider the device non-compliant if there are drivers that make it easy to use the device beyond the allowed frequencies and power limits, especially if the device maker contributed any code or documentation to the driver.