Posted 10/21/09 at 01:45:16 PM by Michael Brown

By launching a full line of music-streaming products, including the Director DMC250 reviewed here, Cisco clearly has the Sonos Digital Music System in its sights; unfortunately, it’s fallen well short of the target.

Our biggest complaint has to do with the convoluted setup process, which includes installing Cisco’s LELA (Linksys EasyLink Advisor) on at least one PC. LELA isn’t a bad utility—if you’re completely terrified by the prospect of setting up a home network. If you’re an old hand, it’s a waste of computer resources.

The default installation also forces you to set up a user account on Cisco’s website. A spokesperson tells us this is because Cisco needs to act as an intermediary between you and Rhapsody. Really? What if you already have an account with Rhapsody? What if you decide you don’t want anything to do with it? There’s apparently some way of installing the Cisco media server software without LELA or divulging your email address to Cisco, but the documentation doesn’t mention it.

Continue reading this review after the jump.

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Posted 08/03/09 at 09:43:49 AM by Paul Lilly

Two security researchers on Saturday have warned that if you use cPanel to administer your website or certain Linksys or Netgear routers, you're leaving yourself open to web-based attacks that could potentially take control of your systems.

The attacks are based on CSRF, or cross-site request forgery, which can be exploited simply by surfing to the 'wrong' website, say Russ McRee of HolisticInfoSec.org and Mike Bailey of Skeptikal.org.

"CSRF is bad stuff," Bailey said at the Defcon hacker conference in Las Vegas. "It's a very under-appreciated vulnerability, and it's all over the place. Because it usually gets rated as a pretty minimal issue, it almost never gets fixed, and that means we have these kinds of holes all over."

When visiting a malicous website while logged in to the program, the attack is able to trick cPanel into carrying out sensitive commands by duping the device into thinking they came from the victim. And it doesn't look like this will be fixed anytime soon. 

"The response I got from cPanel was we can't fix this because it's a feature," Bailey said. "Apparently, they're worried it's going to break integration with third party billing software, so they can't fix this."

Much more info here.

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Posted 02/18/09 at 12:45:48 PM by Paul Lilly

Safe surfing remains the best defense against internet-borne attacks, but it won't provide you that warm fuzzy feeling that an additional layer of protection offers should you slip up. And if you share your PC, your safe computing regime goes straight out the window if your roommate wanders haphazardly across the web.

In an attempt to beef up security, Linksys announced it is teaming up with Trend Micro to integrate the latter's Home Network Defender internet security software into its routers to help block malicious sites from doing harm. Previously offered as a software application, Home Network Defender will be integrated with the Linksys WRT310N and WRT610N routers, offering protection to any computers connected to the network.

The software integration is meant to deny access to sites it deems unsafe with user-adjustable sensitivity controls, as well as embed parental controls and user-activity reporting into the above mentioned routers. What it won't do is offer anti-virus protection, however Linksys says that four licenses of Trend Micro Antivirus plus AntiSpyware will come included as part of the deal.

Existing WRT310N and WRT610N have the option of upgrading their router's firmware for the new software integration, which will carry a 30-day complimentary trial. After that, the service runs $60/year.

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Posted 01/07/09 at 01:07:24 PM by Paul Lilly

Cisco's making its presence known at CES with three new sleek looking web-enabled Media Hub NAS boxes. Adding to the sex appeal is a front-panel LCD and 6-in-1 media card reader found on the NMH405 (500GB, $400) and NMH410 (1TB, $430), while the 500GB NMH305 trades in those extras for a cheaper price tag ($350). All three versions ship with a single drive setup with the ability to accommodate a second drive configured as JBOD or in a RAID 1 array.

One of the main selling points looks to be the slick user interface accessible through any web browser equipped with Flash 9 or later. From within the UI, users can drag-and-drop files and folders or choose to upload them instead using the File Browser feature (doesn't support folders). Other goodies include a Media Importer application designed to automatically scan local and network shares and copy them to the Media Hub, and the ability to stream to any UPnP AV / DLNA device, as well as iTunes streaming.

According to SmallNetBuilder.com, who has been playing with one of the NAS boxes, Cisco managed to make the remote access feature stupid simple, bypassing the need to play around with your router's settings or setting up and configuring a dynamic DNS account.

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Posted 12/11/08 at 07:30:21 PM by David Murphy

The Free Software Foundation filed suit in U.S. District Court today, alleging that networking giant Cisco violated FSF copyrights by not giving its users the ability to share and modify the open-source software it uses as the basis for some of its hardware.  That's a mouthful, so here's what happened: According FSF, the company found that Cisco was using a GNU-licensed version of Linux to power its firmware.  Only, Cisco wasn't giving its customers the full access to the source code that the GNU license specifies as a condition of use!

Click the link to see how things got worse...

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Posted 03/07/08 at 07:59:09 PM by Michael Brown

We’ve been waiting for media-streaming devices to catch up to 802.11n, and the Linksys DMA2200 does it in style—geek style, that is. The box isn’t particularly attractive, but we dig the dual-band Wi-Fi radio inside that’s capable of operating on either the 2.4GHz or 5GHz frequency bands.

Click Read More for more. 

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Posted 03/07/08 at 07:58:43 PM by Michael Brown

The Linksys WRT600N is the first 802.11n draft 2.0 router we’ve tested that can operate on both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequency bands simultaneously. It’s also the most expensive Wi-Fi router we’ve ever tested.

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Posted 11/28/07 at 02:55:05 AM by Michael Brown

You can never have too much speed or too much storage, and the Linksys WRT350N makes it easy to have both. This router took first place while running in 802.11n-only mode and second place while running in mixed 802.11b/g/n mode. And its Storage Link feature enables you to plug in any USB storage device to add NAS functionality—the only router in this roundup to offer such a feature.

Click Read More for more. 

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