I was wondering if our Australian friends are concerned as us about the dumping of useable kit ?.
Salvageable
The volunteer I emailed with and who asked to remain anonymous due to privacy concerns noted that the whiteboxes run a custom version of OpenWRT, an open source, Linux-based operating system for embedded devices. This means the devices “can easily be reflashed into normal Wi-Fi routers with very decent performance,” they said.
The volunteer added:
I personally reflashed my own device (an operation that requires a soldering iron when you do it without company support), and it is now working great as a Wi-Fi router running OpenWRT. So everything already exists to do this …
Are we in the UK in touch with our aussie friends ?.
Just noticed your email this morning. I was not already aware of this. Have seen nothing on Australian news sites about this (not surprising).
I’ve alerted the shop staff to look out for these in donations. And I’ve told someone who does electrical repairs at our other site about this as well. I’ll get out there next week because they have an e-waste collection Wednesday afternoons - and electrical repairs Thursday afternoon. I’ll look to alert the local council people here as well for their e-waste collection.
The model should be the attached image. Unlike routers like the big WatchGuard boxes - it seems these don’t work well with OPNsense or pfSense. They only have lightweight ARM chips. It’s sounds a bit fiddly to flash a new OpenWRT to them - but once setup - you could do it ‘production line’ style.
