Earthlink releases hacked firmware for Linksys routers

THE RESEARCH ARM of the american ISP giant Earthlink, has released experimental firmware for the popular Linksys WRT54G routers (currently selling for $59 greenbacks), modified by them to add IPv6 support. This removes the need for "NAT" translation and can in fact make every device in your home have a public IPv6 address (if such devices and computers support IPv6).

This is the first time - to my knowledge - that a major ISP toys with the idea of releasing value-added firmware to their subscribers, joining the ranks of firmware-hackers SveaSoft and the open source project "OpenWrt". And this is possible due to Linksys' flexible licensing of their firmware under the Free Software Foundation's GPL licence, as we reported late last year. In other words, anybody can take linksys' source code and use that as a foundation to build on.

The company says its research division is giving users "a glimpse of the future of home networking by reworking the open source firmware of the popular Linksys model WRT54G™ home gateway" which by implementing IPv6 support "lifts the NAT tax". In other words, this firmware "rework" enables the routers to acquire a publicly routeable /64 IPv6 prefix, and also to provide IPv6 addresses to hosts on the user's "home network", finally, it also routes IPv6 "home network" traffic to the "IPv6 Internet". While provided "as is" and not an officially EarthLink or Linksys product, it shows the kind of innovation one can see due to the freedoms given by the GPL licence (try that with a Xbox or PSX firmware without paying big bucks to the respective corporations... then watch rabid lawyers parachuting over your backyard).

Earthlink also makes it clear that the firmware mod "does not affect the ability of the WRT54G to support IPv4 traffic as it was designed to do. IPv4 and IPv6 traffic coexist on the home network side by side without interfering with each other. This dual IPv4/IPv6 support makes the WRT54G with the added IPv6 functionality a perfect model IPv6 transition device".

Find the Earthlink-hacked firmware here. µ