[sf-lug] (forw) Re: SF-LUG meeting notes for Monday April 16th 2018

[Rick Moen]

Am guessing this was supposed to be posted.

----- Forwarded message from Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com> -----

Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2018 14:51:54 -0700
From: Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com>
To: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
Subject: Re: [sf-lug] SF-LUG meeting notes for Monday April 16th 2018
Reply-To: bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com
Organization: 0



On 04/18/2018 01:33 PM, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Bobbie Sellers (bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com):
> 
>> A few minutes later Aaron C. came in and had several items including
>> a modem Siemens SpeedStream 4100 ADSL+ which he has kindly loaned me.
>
> Definitely generous of Aaron -- but I'll repeat what I said about your
> now-security-compromised Netgear:  The Siemens SpeedStream 4100 is
> _not_ an ADSL modem.  It is an ADSL modem _and_ also does:

    Well Rick it has only a port for the filtered phone line and for
output to the computer or to the Netgear router and Wifi point that John
S. so generously gave me.
<https://www.cnet.com/products/siemens-speedstream-4100-dsl-modem/specs/>
and this has a nice picture.
<https://dsl-warehouse.com/siemens-speedstream-4100-adsl2-modem-pppoe-router-box-of-ten-10-p-316.html>

The router software may permit DSL over PPPoE but it is not
configurable as far as I can see.
    The price on these is $300/box of 100
    The router has been configured with new more complex passwords
and the same for my account at DSLExtreme.com.

    Having one problem in that I cannot figure out which how to change
the "admin" to some other user name.

> o  routing, including RIP version 1 & 2, Spanning Tree Protocol, IGMP
>    multicast, NAT, port forwarding, DHCP client and server, DDNS,
>     uPnP, and 802.1d transparent bridging
> o  PPPoE and PPPoA
> o  IPsec, L2TP, and PPTP VPN client functions
> o  stateful firewalling with claimed DoS/DDoS protection, some sort of IDS,
>     domain/URL and IP blocking, packet filtering, etc.
> o  SNMPv2, NTP
> o  Built-in administrative Web server
> 
> (Specs don't say anyting about it having WAP functionality.)
> 
> If it had been _just_ an ADSL modem, it would have had none of those
> other things built in.   As a reminder, the reason you got into trouble
> with your Netgear is that it _too_ had all of those sorts of extra
> functions, badly implemented with an embedded proprietary Linux
> distribution that you (apparently) did not maintain, exposed to attack
> from the public Internet.
> 
> As I said, getting a similar replacement 'ADSL modem' [sic] would IMO
> be just making the same mistake twice.
> 
>> A discussion ensued of which routers could use Open-Wrt or DD-Wrt
>> software or other efforts to replace the firmware of the routers with a
>> more secure version of Linux.
> 
> Here's a pretty important question, Bobbie:  Why are you seeking a
> router at all?  What are you doing that necessitates one?

    My printer is on Ethernet, so is the test bed Dell E6420 laptop
(while doing updates) that I usually bring to meetings. If I have the
energy I may take my Transformer tablet to bed and use the wireless once
I put the new password into it. And once my roomie figures out how to
use her new Samsung Galaxy 9 she will likely want to use it for
entertainment data.

> It's pretty much always a mistake to seek solutions before you
> understand what problem you're trying to solve, and why.

   The problem was that I had no Internet access and next week I will
have a Netgear Broadband ADSL2 Plus Modem (DM111PSP-100NAS) which is
supposed to be nothing but a modem.


----- End forwarded message -----