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Yeeeah, no thanks. I don't want my hardware running automatic upgrades of any sort. I'd probably trust an open source team like OpenWRT's more than a shitbag company like my telco, or only-slightly-less-shitbaggy cableco, but as others have noted an open source effort likely won't ever have the resources to do it anyway. I deeply dislike the cableco's ability to push firmware files to my DOCSIS modem, and I'm certainly not letting them any further into my network than that. Sure, having your router get security updates is nice, but as a tradeoff for that, you're effectively giving your ISP a complete view into your home network. They could install firmware that gives them MAC addresses and then tags packet traffic by device, giving them a device-by-device, and hence person-by-person, packet-level (or at least connection-level, in the case of properly encrypted traffic) view of who is looking at what, all the time. With a more sophisticated beam-forming AP, they could physically track your devices (and thus people) around inside the house. That data would be phenomenally valuable, especially as ad-tracking systems get shut down. And they've realistically got at least a few years of absolutely bald-faced shut-up-and-bend-over abusive behavior before Congress would get around to regulating it, and that's given both the worst-case for their behavior and the best-case for regulators. Very likely they could do shit like that indefinitely, especially if they own the router hardware. Who knows -- maybe they already are? It's not like they'd have to tell anyone in the US if they were. I think I'd rather take my chances with random ransomware gangs than the guarantee of allowing a hostile actor -- my ISP -- into my private network. Those fuckers can stay where they belong, on the untrusted side of the firewall, pushing packets and nothing else. |