Topic: Hardware

It seems many of you cannot get your fix of hardware reviews - such that we've had a few more submitted to the site over the past few days.

Recently added include ...
Asus WL-550gE,
ZyXEL PL-100 Powerline Ethernet adaptor,
NetGear DG834PN,
D-Link DSL-G624M &
Linksys WAG54GX2.

Many other reviews can be found at the Reviews Index.

Coming up over the next couple of weeks includes long term tests of ISPs including UKOnline and Bulldog Broadband, plus more hardware reviews, including the much acclaimed XTE-2005 Master Socket Filter from ADSLNation.

Enjoy, and remember, if you'd like a review appear on the site, simply submit them yourself here.

Routers: they’re in a kind of limbo. Stable technology waiting for the Godot that 802.11n technology has become. During their wait various proprietary standards have appeared, some gaining such a following they almost threaten to eclipse g wireless’ long overdue successor. Yet nothing gets true acceptance until laptops implement it on a wide scale, so for the most part routers have become stable, well behaved, even boring beasts that no longer excite like they did 12 months ago. So praise be to Netgear for producing a product in this currently docile category which serves to wake up from our slumber.

You can read the full review of the Netgear DG834PN in the Review section.

ADSL Nation have released their new filtered faceplate based on the popular XF-1e inline microfilter.

The XTE-2005 has both filtered and unfiltered terminals for running separate ADSL & Voice extensions. The faceplate fits on the BT NTE5 master socket instead of using plug-in filters on all the extensions, and the manufacturer claim that because the internal wiring is isolated at the master socket the SNR margin is usually better than using microfilters. The XTE-2005 costs £12 & P+P.

ADSLNation's other modified BT version faceplate has thus been reduced from £15.99 to £9.99.

SMC has always tried to make its broadband routers stand out with extra features and its latest Barricade VOICE ADSL Router does just that. This sleek plastic slab adheres to SMC’s new design philosophy and brings together an integral ADSL modem, four-port Fast Ethernet switch, 802.11b/g wireless access point and support for VoIP (Voice over IP) operations.

Click here for the full review.

Only last month owners of 3Com OfficeConnect ADSL Wireless 11g Firewall Routers were advised of both a DoS (DoS (Denial of Service) and information disclosure threat.

Now security firm Secunia has announce another vulnerability, this time another DoS expliot which can  crash a vulnerable network device.
The vulnerability is caused due to an unspecified error within the handling of UDP traffic and can be exploited by generating a large amount of UDP traffic.

Owners are advised to update to firmware version 1.02.15.

It's been a bad day for 3Com OfficeConnect Wireless 11g routers, first there was a list of three vulnerabilities, and now a new one has been found!

This new vulnerability is far more serious, as it potentially can allow the attacker to gain sensitive information held on the router.
The problem is when accessing the app_sta.stm page directly users are not authenticated in the usual way, allowing access to any connection. Information held on this page includes the ISP's username and connection.

Users are advised to restrict access to the web interface to prevent this.

Owners of  3Com OfficeConnect Wireless 11g routers have been warned of multiple vulnerabilities.
Secunia, the security website, has announced the problem with an advisory detailing the problems.

Two of the vulnerabilities have an unknown impact and the last can be exploited to cause a DoS (Denial of Service).

1. An unspecified security issue with an unknown impact may cause duplicate login IPs to be displayed.
2. An unspecified error with an unknown impact exists in the DHCP service.
3. An unspecified boundary error can be exploited to reboot a vulnerable device.

Details on how these vulnerabilities occur haven't been released yet.

Owners are advised to update to firmware version 1.27

Everyone is all too well aware of the problems of being too far from an ADSL enabled exchange. However, what about those who are too close?

BTWholesale have recently released an firmware update to the network owners previous router of choice - the Efficient Networks 5861. The update to v5.8.131 provides new functionality in a couple of areas, but by far the most interesting is one that is "designed to resolve intermittent connection issues experienced by a small number of customers operating in close proximity to their exchange." Can you see the irony ?

Quite how many subscribers are affected from "operating in close proximty" remains a mystery, as does whether the cause of the connection issue is really global or limited just to en5861 users, via a defect or incompatability in a previous release.

The full list of fixes are

• Login screen based reboot
• Enhanced security functions, specifically in the light of MSBlaster
• Ability to set a default VPN following reboot
• Help files for VPN

... and of course, lest we forget

• Resolution of intermittent connection problems for users too close to an exchange

Our resident 5861 madman Eusty (author of the infamous 5861 Guides which has amassed over 60,000 views just on their own!) is already on the case and testing the latest release, but if your running this latest version from BT (v5.3.181), we'd love to hear from you, so please do use our forum. We've decided to hold off with the instructions on how to update your 5861 until we've been through the process ourselves and ironed out any pain that exists.

Consumer and business router manufacturer Netgear have announced their intention to launch converged devices which will offer not only shared broadband connectivity sharing, but also telephone calls over broadband..

Initally, joining forces with American VoIP provider Vonage, Netgear's first (US only) units will be a voice-enabled 802.11g wireless router followed by a wired two-port telephone adapter/router. No confirmation has been made with regards to any UK availability, but theres no reason to expect Netgear to miss out on the UK's relative 'boom' of VoB/VoIP.

A 'moderately critical' vunerability in the Linksys WRT54G broadband router has been found, potentially revealing the Administration console to malicious internet users, despite the facility being disabled.

Its not entirely clear exactly which firmware revision is affected by this vunerability, or if in fact only the WRT54G is affected. Indeed some WRT54G users are reporting that their Administration console is not available on the WAN (Internet) side of their network. The vunerability lists ports 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTP via SSL).

For complete piece of mind, we would advise that all Linksys router owners have a quick scan to see what ports are open on their network. The Gibson Research Center has one of the best scanning sites available on the internet, providing a quick and accurate assesment of potential vunerabilities on a network.

You can read more about the vunerability here.