BT accused of providing a backdoor in modems to govenment agencies

[Gary]

BT has been accused of hiding a government back-door in modems provided to broadband customers by a team of researchers who claim the company is not alone in providing such access to supposedly-private home networks.


http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2013/12/17/bt-back-door/1

[Steve]

I understand no evidence whatsoever has been provided, more here!  FUD

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2013/12/confusion-alleged-gchq-nsa-backdoor-bt-fttc-modems.html

[Technical Ben]

Well, could be worse. The Orange* box backdoor was login in as "Admin" password "admin". Oh, and for security it only worked with external IPs, so dangerous home users could not accidently change settings.


*I forget who, but Orange is c easiest to type on my keyboard and most deserving of some slack. I'd google for the real info if I had the time.

[pctech]

Careful you don't bandy that around too much Ben, they could have you for libel.

While I'd agree at this stage Steve it wouldn't surprise if this turned out to be true.

In my experience most ISP 'free'  hardware is complete cr*p anyway, I had a 1 port router some years ago I got free with a connection that ran so hot you could probably fry an egg on its circuit board, I used to switch it off at night as I was always worried it might burst into flames.

[Simon]

Why not just put "Another box..."?

[Steve]

Are we not forgetting that we have no control over the exchange DSLAM or the FTTC cabinets where all our data passes through, if they want to watch us they can, so I won't worry about it and leave BT free to update my modem as they choose, unless of course we revert to PAYGO.

[Technical Ben]

Careful you don't bandy that around too much Ben, they could have you for libel.

While I'd agree at this stage Steve it wouldn't surprise if this turned out to be true.

In my experience most ISP 'free'  hardware is complete cr*p anyway, I had a 1 port router some years ago I got free with a connection that ran so hot you could probably fry an egg on its circuit board, I used to switch it off at night as I was always worried it might burst into flames.

As said, I'm sure it was news worthy at the time, just cannot find it right now. It was a full access option for the supplier, but they never changed the passwords, so it was "admin:admin" for anyone trying to log in externally. Recent routers will be set up correctly though.