[Tfug] Need advice - consumer fraud caught on a WiFi adapter

[Jim March]

Guys, this is a wild one...

So I'm still trying to find a WiFi adapter that can "broadcast" and
thus share my cellmodem connection.  The Broadcom B43 is a failure, I
know the various Intel chips fail too, so it's now time to try and
find something Atheros-based, pref. on a USB port.

At the Fry's Electronics on Baseline in Phoenix, I set up my laptop
with cellmodem and start doing research on a pile of adapters
(googling part numbers for specs and people's experiences).  I find an
N-class USB device from Airlink101 (part number AWLL6070) that's
listed as Atheros-based in at least one database:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HardwareSupportComponentsWirelessNetworkCardsAirlink101

I ask right there at Fry's permission to unwrap it, plug it in and see
what's up.  While Fedora 10 doesn't auto-detect it to a "plug and
play" level, I did lsusb and got:

---
[jim at critter ~]$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 14b2:3c27 Atheros Communications Inc
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 002: ID 046d:c404 Logitech, Inc. TrackMan Wheel
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0c88:180a Kyocera Wireless Corp.
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
[jim at critter ~]$
---

So I figure with some gyrations to get either MadWiFi or Ath5k up,
I'll get her running.  It's on sale for about $20.  Kewl.

Get it to where I'm staying tonight in Phoenix, I try various things
to get Atheros drivers up.  Nothing doing...card appears flat dead
other than responding to lsusb.  Ohhhkay...maybe it's an oddball
Atheros chipset?

So I google "Fedora 10" with the device ID: "14b2:3c27"...and I get
links like this:

http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Fedora/2008-07/msg01914.html

...telling me that the device ID refers to an rt2870 chipset - which
in turn can't broadcast.

Wait, what?

So I get to terminal as root and do:

yum install rt2870

Sure enough, after a reboot the card works - right there in Network
Manager, it displays itself as being "Atheros".  I try and share my
cellmodem through it via Network Manager 7 and it fails bigtime.  Run
iwconfig and get:

---
jim at critter ~]$ iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

ra0       RT2870 Wireless  ESSID:""  Nickname:"RT2870STA"
          Mode:Auto  Frequency=2.462 GHz  Access Point: 00:18:02:78:B3:F3
          Bit Rate=150 Mb/s
          RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Link Quality=70/100  Signal level:-88 dBm  Noise level:-97 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

pan0      no wireless extensions.

ppp0      no wireless extensions.

[jim at critter ~]$
---

Uh huh.  OK.  What we have here is fraud.  A Netgear USB WiFi device
that says right on the box "Atheros" was $50.  Somebody set up this
cheapo card to be a fake Atheros device.  It's not like I was the only
one taken in: the Ubuntu WiFi listed above has the false info.

I'll be showing this to the Fry's manager tomorrow night, and will
prep a letter to Atheros on this Monday.  Anybody know what else I
should do?

On another note: Ubuntu (at least Hardy or Intrepid) would have likely
auto-detected the RT2870 driver and it would have been a bit harder to
sort this out, at least until I ran iwconfig.

Jim