Download Torrents With Your PC Turned Off

Mr.Tweak writes to tell us that they have a review posted of a new wireless router from ASUS. What sets this router apart from others is that in addition to being a wireless router/gateway is that it also functions as a thin client system with a pre-installed 160 GB IDE drive (no SATA support sorry) and three USB 2.0 ports for peripherals. If you happen to use one of those USB ports for another drive the router will also support RAID 0 and 1, quite a bit more than the average router.

news?

[macadamia_harold]

This isn't anything new. According to the RIAA, you can download music without even owning a computer.

Re:news?

[Uruviel]

Let's not shoot ourself in the foot now. There are perfectly legitimate uses for torrents. Like downloading your favorite Linux distro. Which you could then install on your machine when finished with a wake-on-lan call from that very same router. See the possibilities are endless and all you think of is music.

Re:news?

[Mister Whirly]

Yeah, I'm relatively sure that 99% of torrent download ARE legitimate things like linux distros... Because terrabytes of distros are released EVERY DAY and that's what the majority of users are downloading...

I'm not denying that there aren't legitimate uses for torrents, but don't try to blow smoke up anyone's ass about what the majority are currently using it for.. I'm sure a few people will chime in and list their legitimate uses, but how many are going to chime in and admit they are violating (bullshit) copyright laws??

Re:

[hackstraw]

Yeah, I'm relatively sure that 99% of torrent download ARE legitimate things like linux distros..

99% of the torrents I download are legitimate things. Those that aren't are usually software that I want to try and then don't use because they are inferior to freely available alternatives.

Oh, and 99% of the legitimate 99% is music. Its just legal http://bt.etree.org/ [etree.org] and http://www.archive.org/audio [archive.org] for starts.

Law is a wonderful thing?

[tepples]

99% of the legitimate 99% is music. Its just legal http://bt.etree.org/ [etree.org] and http://www.archive.org/audio [archive.org] for starts.

How do you know that the independent music that you download is lawful? Heck, how do even the bands know that their music is lawful, given the subconscious copying doctrine [columbia.edu]?

Re:

[Achromatic1978]

Those that aren't are usually software that I want to try and then don't use because they are inferior to freely available alternatives.

Is that your variation of the "Test this for a while and if you like it, buy it!" .NFO files that are distributed with pirate software. That "justification" (as much as it ever was one) went out the door a long time ago. Most software comes with a trial version now. Stuff that doesn't tends to be more specialised, but you're equally likely to be able to call someone and th

Re:

[DesireCampbell]

"but how many are going to chime in and admit they are violating (bullshit) copyright laws??"

If by "bullshit" you mean "American" then I'm pretty sure you can find 35,000,000 people living just north of you who wouldn't mind saying it.

Re:

[Drooling Iguana]

The proper term is "Inuit."

And it's not polar bear porn. It's polar bear erotica.

Re:

[NineNine]

I just started seeding a full copy of "Loose Change" a few hours ago. Maybe it's starting to get used to spread information? It may not be all Brittney Spears MP3's yet. Bit Torrent is a bit too complicated to be used by the mouth breathers. It's not really all that mainstream outside of geeks yet. Outside of largely libertarian types. Ya' think?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

There are also legitimate uses for explosives. They're used in construction and demolition all the time. Yet I expect most people find restrictions on explosives to make perfect sense. Just because there are legitimate uses for something doesn't mean it shouldn't be regulated.

I'm not going as far as to say that BitTorrent should be regulated, but that legitimate uses aren't enough to mean it shouldn't be.

Re:

[aussie_a]

but that legitimate uses aren't enough to mean it shouldn't be.

It will help stop laws that are bought from passing through.... if we're lucky.

Re:

[TheDugong]

Torrents have never killed anyone.

Re:news?

[StoatBringer]

Only because Microsoft haven't released a torrent client yet.

Re:news?

[KDR_11k]

Explosives are restricted to those who have a legitimate use for them. Who has Bittorrent but no legitimate uses for it?

Re:

[Otto]

It's important to constantly remind of the legitemate uses becauses otherwise the RIAA will pass a law banning all torrents within America which will then be pressured onto Democracies who apparently have elected Bush to determine our laws.

There's so much wrong with that sentence...

a) The RIAA doesn't pass laws. They may buy lawmakers, but that's not the same thing.

b) You cannot "ban all torrents within America" or anywhere else by simply passing laws. It's already illegal, exactly how would making it "more

Re:

[aussie_a]

a) The RIAA doesn't pass laws. They may buy lawmakers, but that's not the same thing.

Difference is neglible (and not worth mentioning) when discussing something on the internet on a forum that commonly discusses the buying of lawmakers.

c) Everything after the word "America" in your sentence makes absolutely no sense and is just ranting against Bush for some reason.

You might not be aware but here in Australia we recently got a whole bunch of American laws passed because Bush wanted us to have them. Bush is a

Re:

[werewolf1031]

your government is -- forgive my terminology -- stupid enough to fabricate a belief that we'll attack Austrailia for not doing what we say.

You seem to be under the impression that the only source of power and coersion the U.S. has over other governments is military force. Please read up on economics when you have the chance, even a layman's understanding of economic workings will suffice. The bottom line is this: "If you want to do business with us, then you'll pass laws that protect OUR economic interests

Re:

[walt-sjc]

I would think that it would be VERY VERY difficult for the US government to do much to Australia economically. The government doesn't do importing / exporting - that's private business. One possibility would be to slap unreasonable tarrifs on things, but the WTO would step in in that case.

You give way too much credit to Bush's ability to shape AUS law. Time to look internally at the true source of your problems.

Re:

[Em Adespoton]

I would think that it would be VERY VERY difficult for the US government to do much to Australia economically. The government doesn't do importing / exporting - that's private business. One possibility would be to slap unreasonable tarrifs on things, but the WTO would step in in that case.

I hope you don't really believe this... the US virtually controls the WTO. If what you said was true, then the US would have stopped messing around with Canadian softwood lumber years ago. Governments don't import/ex

Re:

[jherekc]

The torrents Blizzard uses for updates to World of Warcraft are standard torrents. If you open up their updater executable you can find the torrent file and load it into a standard BitTorrent client.

Re:

[ArbitraryConstant]

"Let's not shoot ourself in the foot now. There are perfectly legitimate uses for torrents. Like downloading your favorite Linux distro"

Yes... the mirrors are frequently overloaded after a major release. Torrents are often the only way to get your favorite distro in a timely fashion.

Re:

[redalien]

Anon: Have you not considered buying your dead relatives computers? It is the information age you know!

Re:

[Loconut1389]

This just in, the RIAA has proof: There is life after death- refuses to share details. Film at 11.

Re:That's nothing!

[AoT]

Yeah, but it is just because they hate sharing so much.

Why not just use a computer?

[WilliamSChips]

It seems like a full computer would be better than this in just about every aspect--price, power consumption, etc.

Re:Why not just use a computer?

[TommydCat]

In this page-and-a-half-spread-out-to-69-pages review, I didn't actually see the price listed, though it was listed as one of the cons. What is the price of this device?

I personally am not stirred by this as I have a set of linux servers set up to do the same functionality with much more speed and efficiency, but I can see this as a neat black-box turn-key solution for someone who can't deal with that level of complexity but can deal with a straight-forward UI.

What I'd like to see in a review like this is what throughput can the SAMBA server give among multiple clients, how many connections the bit-torrent client can handle before melting, what types of printers it can serve (Jetdirect, USB, real Centronics, etc)... you know, useful information I can use to make an informed decision.

Oh well...

Re:Why not just use a computer?

[livewire98801]

$260 on newegg
linky [newegg.com]

Re:Why not just use a computer--Or another SBC?

[AndroidCat]

For $200, I was thinking of getting an OmniFlash board and kit from J&K Microsystem [jkmicro.com] for a lot of my "PC off" needs. I haven't thought of doing torrents with it, so I'm not sure if it has enough ram for the job. (No big fat GUI to feed; it might work.)

I don't really like the idea of piling more tasks on top of a wireless router. All I want from a wireless router is to be solid and secure. I'll add the bells and whistles to something less critical, thanks...

Re:

[nine-times]

I personally am not stirred by this as I have a set of linux servers set up to do the same functionality with much more speed and efficiency, but I can see this as a neat black-box turn-key solution for someone who can't deal with that level of complexity but can deal with a straight-forward UI.

Well I'm kind of jazzed about the idea, even if not the implementation. The reason is this: I don't have the money or space for a set of Linux servers. I've been expecting for some time that someone would start

Re:

[djrogers]

* a web server
* E-mail (SMTP, IMAP) server
* DNS server
* a file server (SMB, AFP) for internal (with a big hard drive)
* ssh access
* complete headless setup and configuration
* very small (Mac mini sized or smaller)
* maybe a print server
* wireless access point
* maybe VPN from the outside, or site-to-site tunnels
* some means to back the whole thing up (easily)

2 suggestions spring to mind - a KuroBox [kurobox.com] for about $150, or if you'd like it with a drive already installed, a Buffalo Linkstati [newegg.com]

Re:

[nine-times]

huh... both of these look pretty interesting. But the deal is that KuroBox is more open? How tricky is it to reflash? Is there a real risk of bricking the thing?

Last-mile duopoly says upgrade to business class

[tepples]

I've been expecting for some time that someone would start making "home servers"

Under the policies of many last-mile duopoly ISPs, you don't have the legal right to expose your "home servers" to the Internet over their privately owned network unless you upgrade from residential Internet service to business Internet service. Worse yet, through the tying practices that cities let the telcos get away with, this may entail an upgrade from residential wire-line phone service to business wire-line phone service

Re:Last-mile duopoly says upgrade to business clas

[nine-times]

True enough, and that is quite a shame. However, I hate the idea that I need to store things on someone else's server (and therefore lose control of it) in order to have access to it over the internet. Along with everything else, a good, easy to set up, home server might start showing people why ISPs closing off ports is a bad thing. As it is, I think ISPs get away with it because most of their customers have no idea it's happening, and wouldn't know how to set up their own web server if they had port 80

Re:

[nine-times]

Any advice for a simple/small case? Not rackmount, since I certainly don't have room for a rack. I want something I can stick anywhere in my small 1 br (hence the "small like Mac mini" requirement).

Anyway, part of my point was that if someone would provide these sorts of boxes with Debian pre-installed (maybe with a basic web interface pre-installed as well), they'd probably have at least one customer right here.

Re:Why not just use a computer?

[ForestGrump]

Because I'm afraid of having my data compromised.

I use the router to interface with the interweb for what I need.

Firstly, I script what I want the router to send/get. then I disconnect my computer, connect the wAN side of the router to the interweb. When the script is done, I disconnect the WAN side of the router, connect my computer to the router and copy off the router HDD. Sure it's a pain in the butt, but what am I to do? live without the interweb?

Grump.

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This message uploaded to you by ASUS WL-700gE router using Interweb interface 3.02

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Re:

[SynapseLapse]

That's pretty hardcore geeking to set that up, but cool nonetheless. I'm curious, does that hurt your latency/bandwidth very much? And, what kind of script is it? Python, etc?

Re:

[ForestGrump]

bandwidth? not really. I mean, you're buying a 3 meg connection, but reality is that it sits idle most of the time. If you script your send/fetch web stuff, even dialup is no problem (unless you're doing something stupid like downloading videos.) As for latency, it's a matter of how fast I can get the script to send/receive what I need. Once that's done, it's almost instantenous between the router and the dot matrix printer (monitors cause cancer and LCDs don't have enough contrast).

And scripting langua

Re:

[WilliamSChips]

It would seem much easier to buy a real computer as a firewall.

Re:

[pboulang]

Instant Messages give me blisters! :)

Re:Why not just use a computer?

[xQx]

All your script are belong to us.

It does take a painfully long time to hack your computer tho, I'm like:

CD \windows
dir
[wait for you to disconnect from the web, plug the modem into the PC, run 0wned script, plug back into the net]
cd system32
dir
[again...]

Well, that's where I'm up to anyway...

Re:

[abb3w]

Use "CD %SYSTEMDRIVE%" and "CD %SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM32" instead. Otherwise you may run into problems on systems using (say) D:\WINXP as the system drive & folder. On my system, C:\WINNT and C:\WINDOWS are decoys.

Why not just use a geek?

[Anonymous Coward]

"It seems like a full computer would be better than this in just about every aspect--price, power consumption, etc."

Heat! Time! Remember not everyone's a geek, and shouldn't have to be to get some of the offered features.

Re:

[TubeSteak]

Heat?

If this router isn't pumping out thousands of BTUs, how am I supposed to keep my room warm in the winter?

And I don't even live in the basement!

Re:

[Kadin2048]

That's what Pentium 4s or PPC970s (your choice) are for.

Me personally, I have a dual-proc PPC970-based system and a P4-based Linux workstation. It gets cold in the winter.

Re:

[JorDan Clock]

Why not use a full computer? Because this is smaller, easier to set up, and it's probably cheaper, lower power, and it Just Works©.

Everytime something new comes along, there's atleast one person that says "Why not just use $existingTech?" Maybe because the existing method isn't as efficient as it seems?

Why use wireless when you can just use CAT5? Why store files on another machine when you can just add another hard drive to your current one? Why not just use an abacus?

Re:

[spicyjeff]

[quote]Because this is smaller, easier to set up,[...] lower power, and it Just Works©[/quote]

Just use a Mac mini and your existing router and get a whole lot more with everything you wanted above.

Re:

[JorDan Clock]

At a much higher cost. A Mac Mini starts at $600. A WRT54GL is $70 at Newegg. We'll leave out the fact that at most a stock Mac Mini comes with a 120GB hard drive, according to the Apple Store. But what about this handy device? $260 on Newegg. Sure, you could do more with a Mac Mini, but you could also do more with a Mac Pro, so why stop at a Mac Mini?

Re:

[aussie_a]

Of course we would. Don't confuse "why not just use the just-as-efficient existing method" over "why not just use current technology."

Re:

[Schemat1c]

It seems like a full computer would be better than this in just about every aspect--price, power consumption, etc.

I use the Kuro box [kurobox.com] for my always on bittorrent box. It is very small, cheap and only uses about 40 watts of power.

In case your wondering...

[LiquidCoooled]

Yes, it does run linux.

Natural extension

[Bromskloss]

Wow, now let's put into it _all_ functionality we expect from a computer! ;-)

Re:Natural extension

[evilviper]

Wow, now let's put into it _all_ functionality we expect from a computer! ;-)

If they can do it in a tiny package, very inexpensively, fanless, and all with a fraction the power of a notebook computer, I say more power to them.

Great

[paulius_g]

This is good news, but I wonder if it's web interface, stability and value is up to par with other networking routers. I hope that they won't be using a stupid mini OS that will crash every once it receives too many connections. Even better, could people boot Linux on it?

I know this is a bit off-topic, but does it provide sufficent cooling? I've been using many routers throughout the years and most of them have processors without heatsinks which heat up A LOT. In fact, I install a fan on every switch that I

Re:

[Pete Brubaker]

Well, I know it's a pain, but if you read the _whole_ article, it did say that it was shipped with Linux.

Where is TheTorrent?

[junglee_iitk]

What's with not using the word torrent in the whole summary?

Here is the part of the article:
"Applications lets you enable/disable the router's inbuilt applications - Download Master, Download Daemon, Download Share, Photo Album and Media Server, as well as do some basic configuration like specifying the port range and default seeding time for the BitTorrent client, and the default web server port. You can also configure the settings for an attached USB webcam, enabling to run via a web interface, and even turning it into a security camera controlled by the router, which can enable motion detection and email alerts. And finally, locally-attached USB printers can be configured and shared out - ready for connection from UPnP-enabled clients."

And here is the link :)
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/939/5/page_5_syst em_features_configuration/index.html [tweaktown.com]

Power consumption?

[slapyslapslap]

I have to assume that power consumption is going to go up to power this thing. If I was turning off my PC to save power, I don't think I'd want this thing.

Re:

[darkmeridian]

This router isn't running a GPU or an Intel Pentium IV Extreme just to route packets and download torrents. I haven't looked yet, but Asus engineers probably have dedicated chips doing all that stuff.

Smoothwall anyone?

[Vrejakti]

What's so new about this? http://smoothwall.org/ [smoothwall.org], http://ipcop.org/ [ipcop.org] and http://m0n0.ch/wall/ [m0n0.ch] could easily be custimized to perform a similar function. Easy as installing a bittorrent application, and using SSH.

By the way, these 3 options happen to be free and upgradable.

Re:Smoothwall anyone?

[NetRAVEN5000]

How do you install any of those on a ROUTER?

The beauty of this ROUTER is that you don't need to leave a PC on for your downloads anymore. Or, at least you can leave your PC's cycles to do something else, be it gaming, Folding@Home, or whatever else.

Not only that, but now you don't need to run your fileserver AND your Web server, since it's got a built-in fileserver and Web server. It also has a print server if you've got PCs dedicated for that.

Your router needs to be on anyways, so. . .

Re:

[chill]

How do you install any of those on a ROUTER?

With OpenWRT and any of a number of compatible routers.

http://openwrt.org/ [openwrt.org]

Re:

[EvanED]

But now you have probably a much larger box (unless you go with MiniATX, which can get even more expensive) that costs more (unless you pull it from old computers you no longer use), requires you to install the software yourself, get a switch unless you want to put multiple NICs in the computer, and probably eats up a lot more power. Compare that to a nearly plug-and-play cable modem router that you can go grab for $40. (In this case, $260; but this is still less than a full-blown PC.)

Sure, there are plenty

Re:

[SScorpio]

Yes it costs more than the KuroBox, but it supports more out of the box. The KuroBox is $150, a 160GB HD is ~$50-60, 10/100 4 port switch will run ~$25, WAP ~$50. You come out ahead with this router and everything should just work out of the box without all of th esetup needed for the Kuro.

Re:

[LurkerXXX]

The two main points in favor of this type unit over an old PC?

1) Space
2) Electric bill

Raid over usb?

[Joe The Dragon]

That seem like a bad choice as usb has a lot of cpu over head firewire or e-sata wound of been better.

It also only has a basic BitTorrent client.

I wonder how it stands up under a full raid and bitTorrent load.

But it needs......

[ericdano]

It needs more than the ability to run Bittorrent. You need something like Peer Guardian running to filter out all those "bad" IP Addresses.

It's more of a NAS meets Wireless router. Which is cool, but....yeah....so?

Re:

[mattgreen]

But everyone knows that BitTorrent is primarily used for people seeding Linux ISOs and other highly legal things, so what sort of bad IP addresses are you referring to? I haven't ever had a problem with a client sending me malformed portions of the newest Ubuntu ISO.

Brilliant for retail

[Nefarious Wheel]

Just saw this last week. In retail grocery we pump a lot of data back and forth between head office, store back office, and the lanes. Anything -- and I mean anything that keeps us from having to lay another cable or put another piece of bulky hardware under the sales counter is a bonus. I could see these things used in the C racks at the front to stage price changes, etc. and being retail the fact that they are utterly dirt cheap will have a broad appeal.

This one's a winner, I think.

Re:

[Ruie]

Just saw this last week. In retail grocery we pump a lot of data back and forth between head office, store back office, and the lanes. Anything -- and I mean anything that keeps us from having to lay another cable or put another piece of bulky hardware under the sales counter is a bonus. I could see these things used in the C racks at the front to stage price changes, etc. and being retail the fact that they are utterly dirt cheap will have a broad appeal.

How much is "a lot" ? I am asking because it is no

Is it vocab or grammar nazi?

[ArcherB]

from TFA:

There's a rapidly-expanding section of the home electronics market which revolves around "devices". The reason for the parentheses is that it's difficult to know how to label these gadgets, because they don't fit easily into any pre-defined categories.

Isn't a parentheses one of these ( )?
And aren't these " " called quotation marks?

Sorry, but it's hard to take an article seriously when the author doesn't know the difference.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to break this to you, but I know some people who are world-class experts in their (smallish) scientific fields who use grammar from their native languages in English, or who spell at about the level of 13 year-olds (despite being a native speaker). I like good spelling and grammar too, but their absence doesn't automatically invalidate the content of an article.

Re:

[way2trivial]

I'm not GP poster, but I don't quite agree with you in this particular case.

a REVIEWER better use words the way I and the subject audience expect them to be used.

to describe an object to which I am unfamiliar, with poor english skills, does mean the reviewer fails in their task.

the purpose of the tech review is to use words with which I am familar, to describe something that I am not familar with.

Let's say the review includes the use of the word orange to describe the case.. if it was in fact blue wouldn't

Re:

[g0at]

Isn't a parentheses one of these ( )?

And aren't these " " called quotation marks?

Pretty close... one of those curved things is a parenthesis. Two of them are parentheses. Your thinking is in the right place though.

-b

This morning I saw that HIV was cured

[pHatidic]

And I thought wow, this is by far the best news of the day. Then I saw that there is a new drug just like morphine, only non-addictive. And then I thought, wow, I thought AIDs being cured was a big deal, but that's nothing compared to this. And now I see that I can download porno movies without even turning on my computer. God I love /.

Re:

[miro f]

And now I see that I can download porno movies without even turning on my computer.

unfortunately, not. You have to turn on your computer in order to tell the router to download your porno. Then you can turn it off while you wait for the porn. Then your sister uses it to download the second season of Buffy and notices all the stuff you've downloaded.

Meanwhile I've always just used TorrentFlux [torrentflux.com] installed on my linux server, works fine for me. (still doesn't hide my downloads from other users, however)

Re:

[eclectro]

(still doesn't hide my downloads from other users, however)

Isn't that the point of a torrent - not being a one way leech. Am I missing something?

Thin Client

[DeathElk]

Why does a thin client need 160GB?

Re:

[ttldkns]

yeah i know
totally the wrong use of the term "thin client". I was expecting it to provide or use some sort of terminal server functionality. Now that would be pointless!

Re:

[Ruie]

Why does a thin client need 160GB?

To cache data from 160TB server. What kind of question is that ?

ASUS Builds Full-Blown PC Without Video Card...

[ivan256]

...Video at 11:00.

Re:

[StikyPad]

Unfortunately, those of you with the new ASUS PCs will not be able to see it.

Security Ramifications

[duplo1]

I find it crazy that people are running more and more applications directly on their Internet router. The more applications and services there are running, the more likely a serious security flaw will be found in the device. Do they really think this through? This is just going to be another attack vector for script kiddies to own peoples' networks. Several months after they release this, another vendor will be releasing a seperate firewall/router to protect this device.

Re:

[cpghost]

Right; esp. when people are novices. But for experienced sysadmins, a "fat router" is quite useful, especially at home where you want to keep your electricity bill unter control.

A typical setup on any low-power 24/7 device, like some routers, or general purpose boards a la net4801 [soekris.com] includes OpenBSD or FreeBSD with userland-ppp, pf and BIND, plus, if needed, postfix, lighttpd, cyrus-imap, etc...; all running tightly within their jail(8)s and closely monitored.

This would be the maximum, and from a security

Re:

[John Hasler]

> But for experienced sysadmins, a "fat router" is quite useful, especially at
> home where you want to keep your electricity bill unter control.

Experienced admins should know better than to run services on a router.

Re:

[cpghost]

Experienced admins should know better than to run services on a router.

Correct. But experienced admins would also use professional equipment; and it's impossible to run apps on IOS etc...

Fat routers do have their uses though in very special situations. From a security POV, if you're the only user of a router (say, you're sitting at the end of a cable or adsl line) with a tiny home-LAN; the "fat router" is nothing more than two physical machines folded into one. If a cracker were able to break into the

Re:

[Crayon Kid]

Personally, I'm more interested by the fact that small power devices can do more and more when it comes to Internet connectivity. Will they eventually delegate all such functionality to separate devices?

This device needs a killer app: Skype

[Dr. Spork]

Seriously, I'm sure the processor in that router is strong enough to handle Skype. Just put a radio transmitter on it and bundle two wireless handsets , and you get what lots of people wish for: Skype without a running computer! (Maybe it should also plug into a regular phone socket so you can use your old phones.)

Here's why it makes sense to do this on a router:

For one thing, everyone's router is always on, so there is nothing extra in the house sucking power. Maybe more relevant: The router, when Skype is being used, can be set to automatically throttle back the up/down bandwith that it's passing to connected computers (or using for its own bittorrent). This helps prevent degradation of Skype quality. And third, this would be totally simple - just plug in the router, tell it your Skype login/pass, and all your contacts are imported (Skype itself stores those things).

The effect with SkypeIn would essentially be: Vonage without the fees (or for $30/year for SkypeIn)... no, better, because Vonage sounds like crap when I'm using unthrotteled bittorrent. This would justify the price of the hardware, and if the manufacturer could keep the costs low, it would also be very good for Skype/eBay and its userbase. Maybe Ebay could subsidize the costs a bit, and offer free SkypeIn for a year, since anyone who buys this will also probably buy SkypeOut minutes eventually.

Re:

[massysett]

Good idea, but the Skype Wi-Fi Phone [skype.com] has this pretty much covered. Not available yet though. Even if it were, I wouldn't buy it because I wouldn't pay hundreds of bucks for a phone that's locked into somebody's proprietary protocol. If it were an open protocol I'd buy it in a second.

Re:

[StikyPad]

Gigabit would be nice too. Why push the envelope with everything except speed, especially since people will need to transfer those torrents off the router once they're done?

Re:

[Deliveranc3]

Killer App Followup:

Teleco's auto lawsuit, everytime someone stops using phone service they sue your company.

Next "Device": Auto legal, program in legal filings to respond to outside legal attacks... It's the new Legal Firewall (I'm seriously copywriting that don't get any ideas).

Coming soon: The legal/legal/legal/legal firewall buster buster buster. (It busts the other guy's Legal Brief Who's Briefing your breif!).

Botnets

[DigitAl56K]

This is a great idea, _but_ imagine the possibilities for rooting these devices. With a harddrive so large, and a processor at least powerful enough to handle BitTorrent, imagine the possibilities for a remote user to install malware on it. Mail relays, fake websites, even packet sniffers to capture your login as you use online banking.

Worse still, you can run various anti-malware and anti-virus tools on your desktop, but how do you plan to even detect your router being rooted, let alone repair it? (and no,

The old joke

[dbIII]

This is linux malware. Please switch user to root and install it.

To be serious - there are rootkits out there that script kiddies use, but they need a way in first. If the router is not running much and has the admin tools all restricted to only work through the internal ethernet interface then there really are not very many ways in. I've seen a linux box that got rooted - after it had been sitting unpatched for a couple of years somebody decided it was a good idea to give all email users an executable

I already do this with...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

...my NSLU2 [nslu2-linux.org].

Missing something

[kahrytan]

This type of router would be much more functional if it had a proxy server capabilities with builtin virus scanner.

  Though, Asus is starting something Linksys, Dlink and Netgear will probably jump on.

Re:

[hacker]

My Linksys WRT54G [wikipedia.org] (not GS) is a transparent Squid [squid-cache.org] proxy already. I don't see why this ASUS machine can't do the same.

It points to a secondary FreeBSD [freebsd.org] machine for that, because I have a 5GiB cache on the Squid [squid-cache.org] side. Everything is anonymized through Privoxy [privoxy.org] + Tor [eff.org], with no configuration changes on the client side.

Users don't even know (or care) that their traffic is being proxied or anonymized at all.

For user data stored on the FreeBSD machine, I also use [gnu-designs.com] rsnapshot [rsnapshot.org] to do backups of another disk slice tha

Why is the page full of Linksys WAP54G stuff?

[assassinator42]

Why do they have a picture of a Linksys WAP54G on every page and list prices for them when the article is talking about a different router? Their other articles seem to have ads targeted at the subject of the article.

The perfect gift for a total cheapass.

[supabeast!]

So now people too cheap to pay for books, movies, cable TV, music, and software no longer have to pay to keep their 350 watt power supplies running all day either? What's the chance someone that cheap would actually pay for the router?

Use Kurobox

[kylehase]

I use the Kurobox [kurobox.com] for this. The kurobox is basically a modified version of the Buffalo link station but it is designed to be reloaded with a custom linux. Some pre-configured images are available and include tons of apps for torrent, dyndns, LAMP, e-donkey, samba and all kinds of other stuff. It has a USB port which you could use for another hard drive or USB NIC to turn it into a firewall or router although I'm sure most slashdot readers already have pretty good routers. I think linksys made a hackable NAS too but I haven't tried that one.

Not so happy

[citro]

I bought Asus WL500G Premium (wl500gp), a lighter version of the router from TFA. The hype is similar - Download with the PC turned off. The main difference is that wl500gp does not have a storage unit included and the user must attach one if wants to enjoy computerless leeching.

Bottomline:
- nice router - I live in an apartment, and I have all around coverage: 18MBps WLAN connection through a couple of walls, 1 - 1 1/2 feet thick each;
- buggy firmware - (e.g. the only way to set the date and time on router is to use the included and non-functional NTP client, no way to set or check the number of simultaneous NAT connections, no way to modify radio power)
- the Download Master does not work (the torrents fail to start)
- lame online support

I hope that the alternative firmware OSS projects (such as http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/index.php [dd-wrt.com] or http://www.wl500g.info/ [wl500g.info] or http://www.openwrt.org/ [openwrt.org] will provide a stable alternative.

Linksys WRTSL54GL ....

[b0s0z0ku]

Cost $120 6 mo. ago and had most of the same functionality, apart from the internal drive. An external drive can be hooked up via USB 2.0 however. And, yes, it runs Linux - in fact, it's meant to be hackable.

So move along here - nothing new to see, really...

-b.

Re:

[grolschie]

If you were downloading a file from bit torrent that contained a virus or spyware that affected the OS that shipped with the router, would that mean that not only your router, but every computer connected to that router would become infected?

Unlikely. If the router was running Windows XP and actually opened or ran the infected files that it downloads, then perhaps a virus might spread to other Windows XP clients on your network by exploiting some vulnerability. This would require firewalls to be turned