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Was it documented?Was it documented?Posted Nov 13, 2003 19:26 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313)Parent article: The Belkin router fiasco Quite interesting "feature", I must say... But if it was explicitly documented (e.g. on the paper box containing the router), I don't see any problem - the device worked according to its specifications. However, I doubt that this "feature" was documented. I think we need regulations to control that these kind of "features" must be documented - or the vendor must pay compensation for the costumers. If a coffee machine is faulty and causes an electric shock, its manufacturer is liabale for the damage. But if an operating system (which costs 10 times more than the coffee machine) has remotely exploitable holes, the vendor is not liable...
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Was it documented? Posted Nov 15, 2003 1:02 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] I assume the box did not mention this feature.I'm quite certain existing law would permit a person to get his money back, and possibly incidental damages as well if he didn't like the redirection feature. Though the router doesn't come with detailed specifications, there is such a strong presumption that a router routes to the IP address you tell it to, as opposed to one of its own choosing, any court in the land would find this router does not meet its warranties. I suppose you might want to change the law to elevate this to a fraudulent deception, so Belkin could be punished, but probably not. Plenty of similar trade deceptions don't get this treatment. As for Belkin coming in and reconfiguring your router without you knowing, it seems to me that there is already a US anti-hacking criminal law against this. In any case, I reject the idea that a manufacturer should have to expose its implementation (source code) for something like this. It's enough that they specify the function. In this case, the mention of a few RFCs that describe routing would be enough.
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