Can't trust Asus or RMerlin firmware anymore!

[RMerlin]

Plus, if it's done at the ISP level, the end users will never know about it. If done at your router's level however, anyone can spot it through an additional firewall + traffic capture.

 

[mromero]

The NSA has a lot better ways to take care of business than invading home routers. They can use AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and others and get the data in the big closets. Why in heaven's name would they care about home routers when they have the bigger networks that data flows through?

You missed the Wired article?

Here it is again:

NSA Laughs at PCs, Prefers Hacking Routers and Switches

"This included not only installing covert “implants” in foreign desktop computers but also on routers and firewalls — tens of thousands of machines every year in all. According to the Post, the government planned to expand the program to cover millions of additional foreign machines in the future and preferred hacking routers to individual PCs because it gave agencies access to data from entire networks of computers instead of just individual machines."

http://www.wired.com/2013/09/nsa-router-hacking/

Governments are getting smarter and blocking the NSA spying at the ISP level, brave whistle blowers such as Mr. Snowden have blown their cover, Google and others are apparently angry at the NSA hoovering up their data, other countries are planing alternative cables to cut the U.S. out of the loop and make it more difficult for them to place prisms at termination points; (they need to infiltrate the cables undersea) really it makes sense to attack SOHO and enterprise routers to try and cover their dwindling bases.

Cows will know the weak fence and jump over it

 

[toor]

 

[mromero]

If done at your router's level however, anyone can spot it through an additional firewall + traffic capture.

Merlin, what is your definition of "anyone"?

Would it be the Average Joe that likely makes up 90% of the Asus SOHO wireless routers customer base?

Some more good reads here from the EFF:

"Last year, researchers at ISE found that a staggering 100% of SOHO routers they evaluated were vulnerable to remote attacks. And a recent study found that 80% of Amazon's top 25 best-selling SOHO wireless routers had security issues. Vulnerabilities revealed in these devices ranged from blatantly obvious issues to absurdly inappropriate back doors. The "moon worm" and several other notable exploits of SOHO routers demonstrate that these issues are not only interesting on a theoretical level, but are appearing in the wild and directly affecting consumers. In some cases, the vulnerabilities exploited were the very same that were discovered and reported months earlier—while the router manufacturer had issued a patch, the issues remained in some router models.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/your-wireless-router-broken-help-us-fix-it-def-con

But there is hope. Only Netgear is currently supported at this time, but we can all help make a difference with donations to get this going to other routers such as our beloved Asus.

"As part of our Open Wireless Movement, we set out to create router software that would make it easier for people to safely and smartly share part of their wireless network. Protecting hosts, so their security is not compromised because they offer open networks, is one of the goals of the router software we released. However, as research published by Independent Security Evaluators (ISE) and others has shown, almost every popular home router has serious security flaws."