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TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

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Re: TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

#101

Post by alsetmusic »

Xylakant wrote: post #80
jlgaddis wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice referral links on your page. I see from your comment history that you've spammed HN with it several times in the past as well. --- Edit: To be clear, there's nothing inherently wrong with affiliate links. To me, though, it's the same as someone here mentioning their product or service in a comment without disclosing their affiliation. It's one thing to tell another person "The FooBar 9000 is a good router.". It'…

I fail to see the problem with affiliate links in that context. The site openly disclosed that they use affiliate links to amazon. The site provides a value, a ranked list of compatible devices. I might actually use it if I were shopping around for a device. Building and maintaining it probably takes some effort. It deserves to get paid. If you think that all for-profit pages should be banned from mention then this h…

> All in all your comment comes off as being jealous someone built something that provides a little income.

I don’t consider the comment as a display of jealousy. It appears (to me) that it originates from a dislike of self-promotion.

Note: I am not taking a position on the matter of self-promotion, but on the conclusion of jealousy.

Re: TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

#102

Post by bipson »

jlgaddis wrote: post #66
jml7c5 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The future of the project is uncertain, however. They may or may not be around much longer. Can you elaborate on this?

In a nutshell: OpenWRT existed. They kinda sorta pretty much stopped doing anything. LEDE sprang up as a fork, with several of the OpenWRT folks. Then they all decided to work together and joined back up. Now it's anybody's guess what will happen next, if anything, as nothing has really happened since.

That is not true in my experience, the LEDE site is quite active, spewing out builds very frequently, even fixing KRACK almost immediately. Don't know what you consider as "nothing has really happened"

Re: TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

#103

Post by shak77 »

herpderperator wrote: post #59

Don't bother with repeaters. Get normal access points, and install several of them if you need to disperse the range around a large area/building/complex. If the SSID and security passphrases match, clients will roam seamlessly between the different APs. I suspect the reason people buy repeaters is that they don't realise that this is possible, or they don't want additional cabling. Repeaters add latency and I can't…

Most normal access points I've used won't work as wifi repeaters because they can't be in master and managed mode at the same time.

Re: TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

#104

Post by unwind »

One silly thing that I hadn't thought of; the use of NTP for devices like this should mean that the NTP operators can gather pretty accurate statistics about each device's market share.

I guess the same folks who design software that spams things like this don't bother working too much on making it hard to fingerprint their devices, either. On the other hand, I haven't looked at the NTP protocol recently. Perhaps this isn't even possible due to the protocol's simplicity?

Re: TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

#105

Post by Xylakant »

alsetmusic wrote: post #101
Xylakant wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see the problem with affiliate links in that context. The site openly disclosed that they use affiliate links to amazon. The site provides a value, a ranked list of compatible devices. I might actually use it if I were shopping around for a device. Building and maintaining it probably takes some effort. It deserves to get paid. If you think that all for-profit pages should be banned from mention then this h…

> All in all your comment comes off as being jealous someone built something that provides a little income. I don’t consider the comment as a display of jealousy. It appears (to me) that it originates from a dislike of self-promotion. Note: I am not taking a position on the matter of self-promotion, but on the conclusion of jealousy.

I count single digit mentions in 1669 days that procotor is registered on HN. That would be lousy self promotion. I believe that proctor genuinely believes he built something useful and wants to share it. The snark in jlgaddis post rubs me the wrong way.

Re: TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

#106

Post by [deleted] »

mort96 wrote: post #91
ksec wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Airport is probably the best router I have ever owned. Not the fastest, but extremely Stable, based on NetBSD and from a company that makes money on my hardware rather then my Data. I really hope they will have an 802.11ax version once they iron out all the crap that is going on in there.

My biggest issue with Apple routers is that you _need_ an Apple device to do anything with them. I have an AirPort Extreme, and while I'm not opposed to having Apple devices, I also don't exclusively buy from them, but rather what I deem to be the best product for my purposes at the time of purchase. That currently means an iPhone, an iPad, and a Dell laptop running Linux, but has in the past included both Apple lapt…

[deleted]

Re: TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

#107

Post by technofiend »

w0utert wrote: post #93
herpderperator wrote: post #59

Don't bother with repeaters. Get normal access points, and install several of them if you need to disperse the range around a large area/building/complex. If the SSID and security passphrases match, clients will roam seamlessly between the different APs. I suspect the reason people buy repeaters is that they don't realise that this is possible, or they don't want additional cabling. Repeaters add latency and I can't…

>> Don't bother with repeaters. Get normal access points, and install several of them if you need to disperse the range around a large area/building/complex. Or better yet, buy a bunch of Ubiqity UniFi's, which were specifically made for this purpose and should provide the most seamless and efficient way to blanket your house in Wifi (provided you already have cabling to the access points). They are not cheap, but al…

>Or better yet, buy a bunch of Ubiqity UniFi's

Warning: do not follow this advice; Ubuiqiti products are like potato chips in that you can never eat just one.

Oh I'll get the AC PRO access point, you think. Five minutes later you've set it via quick QR code scan and the UniFi app. That was painless! No wonder people recommend these things.

Oh wait I need to make some more device tweaks but UniFi won't do it.. better get the cloud key thingy that manages the device. I'll have one of those.

A couple of months go by and you discover your Google Home device or NEST doesn't work with beam steering. Wait, you can manage the advanced AC PRO settings using their own software? Fine I'll build a small PC to run that since if you're going to do it may as well see the stats all the time.

Hmm... KRACK/sploit-du-jour is out, maybe I'll just get a new Edgerouter since it's already fixed there. Oh wait, there's a fringy area in my house I'll bet another AC PRO or maybe an AirMax repeater would be just the thing.

Oh dear, I seem to be running out of ports, better go ahead and get a nice POE switch since that'll declutter things a bit. Etc.

Re: TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

#108

Post by pjc50 »

w0utert wrote: post #93
herpderperator wrote: post #59

Don't bother with repeaters. Get normal access points, and install several of them if you need to disperse the range around a large area/building/complex. If the SSID and security passphrases match, clients will roam seamlessly between the different APs. I suspect the reason people buy repeaters is that they don't realise that this is possible, or they don't want additional cabling. Repeaters add latency and I can't…

>> Don't bother with repeaters. Get normal access points, and install several of them if you need to disperse the range around a large area/building/complex. Or better yet, buy a bunch of Ubiqity UniFi's, which were specifically made for this purpose and should provide the most seamless and efficient way to blanket your house in Wifi (provided you already have cabling to the access points). They are not cheap, but al…

UniFi devices are a bit unusual as wireless APs: not only do they not act as a DHCP server, they require you to have one somewhere else on the network. Generally your uplink router will do this, but it surprised me when I wanted to use one as a standalone AP.

Re: TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

#109

Post by mikerg87 »

Honest question. How would you begin discovering this kind of leakage? Do you need some sorry of tap that records protocols and Mac addresses? Do these firmware emplacements have this as a built in feature. With so many IOT devices being plugged in seems like this would be handy

Re: TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

#110

Post by flyinghamster »

snuxoll wrote: post #23
alpb wrote: post #4

My most recent frustration with TP-LINK was they they DO NOT provide their firmware updates over HTTPS. They do not provide checksums for their firmware files either. (When I asked for these things, their support weren't helpful on Twitter.) So you're expected to download some unsigned binary over an untrusted connection and trust that with all your traffic. Definitely not buying TP-LINK next time. Good to know this…

TP-Link does a pretty good job on basic Layer 3 Lite switches and desktop wireless cards, but the junky software on their routers and repeaters is enough to make me not use them. Unfortunately they do the same thing worth firmware upgrades for their switches as well, no signatures, no hashes, no TLS.

Good to know. While I've liked their dumb switches, if they can't be bothered to secure their firmware downloads, there's no way I'm buying one of their "smart" products.
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