Quick and dirty- I have an article running at Network Computing about Tanaza and Cucumber Tony, two companies that promise to breath cloud-managed functionality into cheap Wi-Fi gear. Their web sites:
I’d love to hear opinions on the paradigm, and whether you’d ever give this sort of software/management/hotspot capability a try.
Thanks for reading!
wirednot 
Initial thought…. Cucumber Tony is intriguing but not Tanaza at this time…
Here’s my hesitation….. There are far too many ignorant individuals in lofty positions in IT who believe wireless is in the Constitution and that everyone should have access to wireless (some still want “open” wireless *shudder*). Those in IT who know better (keep up with the tech, and the threats) already have a hard enough time explaining why an “enterprise” quality AP costs 5-10x what a good SOHO router costs. Now suddenly a lot of the bells and whistles one would pay a premium for, are possible on “off the shelf” SOHO routers. I can picture a number of lofty individuals who literally would ask (one has asked) why we can’t just run to the nearest big box store and buy 100x $70.00 router/APs and use those in the Enterprise.
No one in management is going to care to hear about how vulnerable SOHO routers are even when you think you have them (the router/ap) locked down. SOHO router manufacturers have crap for firmware and you’re lucky if they even acknowledge vulnerabilities once researchers have found and notified said manufactures let a lone push out a fix. Their cost is so little to make these SOHO routers that they’re not worried about it or they’ll fix it in the next hardware revision (thanks).
I’m intrigued by Cucumber Tony and the possibility of pushing some custom firmware to a SOHO or older Enterprise Router/AP (a la open wrt) and am curious to see what they can do with SOHO routers and if they’re able to eliminate many of the vulnerabilities found (many recently) in so many SOHO devices.
I’m not against the idea as I think it would be great if it can be pulled off while addressing the various issues with SOHO hardware.
Thanks for the comment, John. And thanks for sharing your concerns. I’m hoping to actually play with a device or two using Cucumber Tony service in the next couple of weeks and will do a follow on blog, will see if I can address any of your concerns as I play.
Hello John,
I agree with you: most SOHO Wi-Fi routers manufacturers do not focus on providing a secure and well-mantained firmware. In some extreme cases it could also be defined as “crap”. Off-the-shelf hardware has great potential to satisfy the needs of cost-concerned customers, such as ISPs in developing countries, or even MSPs serving SMB customers. It just needs a good firmware.
We brought our cloud-platform (the one that did not intrigue you back in 2015) to the next level.
Our current new platform is based on TanazaOS, a Linux distribution built with Buildroot and leveraging the most recent Linux (LTS) version, maintained by our team with fast releases, improvements and security patches. Why? To deliver a firmware that is optimized for cloud-management and is production-ready. Because as you do, we do believe that there is space to improve off-the-shelf APs’ firmware.
I’d love to know what you think about it, particularly if you’ll give it a try ( os.tanaza.com ).
Ciao!