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Hardware

Journal CleverNickName's Journal: Belkin routers spam users 23

Journal by CleverNickName

I just read this Register UK article at bOINGbOING:

Belkin's new router firmware "upgrade" automatically redirects http sessions to a Belkin sell-page for some bullshit censorware filtering crap. That's some upgrade: from a router that routes packets to a router that pushes the antithesis of free expression.

I'd be furious if my router, that I purchased to enhance my internet experience, effectively siezed control of my connection to spam me. It's even worse because they're pushing censorware!

Belkin says that you just have to click an "opt out" button one time to be left alone, but that's one click too many for me. I'm sick to death of advertising that's shoved down my throat, and the marketing monkey at Belkin who came up with this should be pelted with balls of spam for 40 days.

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Belkin routers spam users More

Belkin routers spam users

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  • The internet interprets censorship as a money-making opportunity, and routes you to it.

  • Trust (Score:2)

    by pudge ( 3605 ) *
    It's not so much pushing ads or censorware that boggles my mind here. What boggles my mind is that a company that makes software designed to be relied on for your important data will treat your data so callously. What if the random HTTP connection it hijacked was a sell order on some stock, and you had to go back, and redo your order all over again, and lost out on the price you wanted? What if you have a monitoring page reloading every 30 seconds, and the page audibly alerts you if something is wrong, a
    • It's the same reason people buy hard drives - they have the assumption that those hard drives will accurately record data. If every thirteenth word in every word dociment you saved on your hard drive was WESTERN DIGITAL, you'd be pretty annoyed. This is similar, in that a product's function is being usurped for marketing purposes.

      People who want to trust their equipment will simply purchase other equipment, and the marketing gain Belkin may enjoy will be greatly offset by loss of business.
      • You quote Ossian Mills, and that's awesome, because he's a fraternity brother of mine (unless there's more than one =P).
        • Nope, just the one, and it appears we share him as a brother. It's funny, I've met more Sinfonians on Slashdot than I ever dreamed possible; guess we know where to congregate.

    • It's worse than you think. For two reasons:

      What boggles my mind is that a company that makes software designed to be relied on for your important data will treat your data so callously.

      First, it's actually the hardware not the software that's highjacking your connection. While in this case the behaviour starts after a firmware upgrade, the plan is for future routers to behave this way by default.

      Second, You can turn off this setting in your router by pressing the "No Thanks" button in the web page t

      • Second, You can turn off this setting in your router by pressing the "No Thanks" button in the web page to which it is highjacking you. Think about what it means that pressing a button on a web page is changing a setting in your router.

        Or the alternative, which is that all your HTTP traffic is *still* being sent through said web page, it just forwards you straight on now... so if the page goes down, you lose your internet access.
  • Will,

    Long time listener, first time caller.... I totally agree with your thoughts on this one, and have no trouble sympathizing with your other recent postings (man, I'd be livid too if someone trolled my wife). However, it's no longer enjoyable reading your posts because they are all so negative. You seemed like a good-natured, easy-going guy until a few months ago, and now the only thing you post on here are angry rants. What's up? Your website isn't nearly so negative. I'm almost starting to belie
  • I agree.

    However, this sounds extremely similar to the Square D extortion lawsuit recently mentioned on the main page (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/06/19542 24&mode=thread&tid=98&tid=99). Would the software they are selling fix the problem they caused?
  • "n response criticism, a Belkin product manager came forward this week to confirm the behaviour was designed into the products as a way to make it easier for consumers to sign up to a free trial of its parental control software."

    Yeah. Right. "FREE". Uh huh. Sure.

    Well, there is always Linksys. I'm happy with my router/firewall from them.

    Seems a lot of companies assume that users are stupid and go out of their way to "help" them. Maybe before buying a computer people should have to pass some sorta test to

  • Instead of pelting 'em with balls of spam, why not pelt them in the balls, with spam? :)

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