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[buck32]

Hi there,
           
             This is my first post but im having doubts about dd-wrt hopefully someone can put me straight on the matter. I recently flashed dd-wrt to my 615 dlink wireless router. Having done so everything seems fine but i have one concern. I use my htc hd desire to connect through the router and when i use google maps on my mobile my wireless location it puts me in Hemel Hempstead London approximately 250 miles away from where I live (I live in North East of England!) I was recently scammed of £650 from someone in Germany.  Luckily my bank reimbursed me because of fraud. So i decided to take dd-wrt off and put my original dlink firmware back on. Thus doing so my location is now back to where I live and not £250 miles away! Am I being paranoid bout dd-wrt? My findings were strange if theres a reason for this please help me out as i find using dd-wrt a very good experience (miles better than original dlink firmware). Hopefully theres a perfectly explanation for this. As i may put dd-wrt back on. Any help would be appreciated in putting this matter straight.

Many thanks.

[Skello]

I'm not sure what you are implying. What would be the connection between DD-WRT allegedly causing your location to be wrongfully reported and you getting scammed? What type of scam was it?

Did someone steal your credit card details? If yes, there could be a LOT of ways that could happen, with or without your intervention. Here are a few:

1. Phishing attack.
2. Malware infection (man-in-the-browser attack).
3. Insecure wireless network (none, WEP or WPA) + attacker sniffing traffic on the network.
4. Data lifted from a compromised online store that has your credit card information on file.
5. Payment processor breach (more rare but not unheard of).
6. PayPal account hacking.
7. ATM skimmer.
8. Tampered card swipes at retail stores (a variation of 7).

I'll stop for now, but there are more. I don't see a connection to DD-WRT. Never heard of a fraud attack involving DD-WRT and it's kind of my job to know about such attacks. I work in cyber security.

Also, there are tens of thousands of people using DD-WRT around the world and the code is open source so it can be reviewed by anyone. If there would be some kind of backdoor in it, someone would have picked it up until now.

Not sure about the location thing though. I'll have to look into how google maps determines location. If you decide to put DD-WRT back, see if the location issue reappears.

[buck32]

Thank you for your advice Skello, it was probably more of a location  issue than fraud after reading your comments, they didn't hack my account number just my card number.  If u could look into the location side of things it would be much appreciated. Hopefully u have a mobile phone that could check Google maps for me. I will try dd-wrt again to check if location is correct. Is it possible u could send me a link for a dlink 615 dd-wrt D2  firmware just in case I've downloaded some  rogue firmware. Although I did get this through the dlink 615 guide section on this forum website.  In the meantime I will try flashing the dd-wrt firmware I've downloaded just to check the location side if things again. I'll let u know my findings. Thanks again for your informative advice.

[Skello]

If you're flashing from the D-Link firmware or the Emergency Room interface, use: ftp://dd-wrt.com/others/eko/BrainSlayer-V24-preSP2/2011/02-17-11-r16214/dlink-dir615d/dlink-dir615d-factory-webflash.bin

If you already have DD-WRT installed, update from the interface using: ftp://dd-wrt.com/others/eko/BrainSlayer-V24-preSP2/2011/02-17-11-r16214/dlink-dir615d/dir615d-ddwrt-webflash.bin

These are the latest builds for your model, released earlier this month.

[buck32]

Thanks Skello will try flashing dd-wrt tonight. 

[Hard Harry]

I think I might have a simple answer about your Google maps thing.This is just off the top of my head though, so if anyone knows the specifics, feel free to correct me. There are two methods google maps uses to find your location. First is by GPS, and this was likly used when it gave the accurate location. The second is cellular network triangulation. This is used when it can't get a GPS signal or you have GPS off (as part of your power saving scheme). network triangulation uses signal strength to judge relative distance from 2-3 points(cell towers) to find your location. The thing is, if phone is only locked onto 1 tower, it will give your location as that tower. Or if it only has two, it will guess a distant in-between the two.

So yea, unless it can use wi-fi to find your location somehow, I cant see it having anything to do at all with your router's firmware. If anything maybe your router was interfering with the GPS signal which was making it resort to the less accurate triangulation, but even that is a stretch. I think it is more likely just to be a coincidence. Sorry you got hacked though. Good luck.

[buck32]

Thanks for the feed back guys, after reinstalling dd-wrt all is well. Location is now bout 100 yrds from my home which isn't bad. Im still a little bemused as to why it showed me in hemel hempstead and as to why the location was exactly in the same road every time I used google maps. But when I used it on my brothers wifi living only a couple of mile  away from me it showed the exact spot why I was. But no complaints so far with location and the firmware is excellent. Thanks Skello/Hard Harry

[Skello]

You're welcome.

[buck32]

UPDATE - Its back after one day, I'm back in Hemel Hempstead! Im kinda thinking it could be one of the  settings in dd-wrt. As location works fine on dlink firmware. Any more answers to this scenario would be appreciated.

After a reboot of cable modem  and wireless router I'm back to my  location again but who knows how long it'll last. Just frustrating that's all    

Hemel hempstead after 15 mins later hmmm ,  think I'll move there 

[Hard Harry]

Turn off your Wifi and just go Cellular and see if your location immediately changes. If not, rules out router completly.

If it doesn't, my guess is it could be a couple things. On desktops, Google can and usually does use a Geolocation feature. We have all probably seen a form of this from adds that "know" your town. Here is a example. It could be your using a different DNS with dd-wrt that is routing your google traffic differently, and thus going through a different server that the service is seeing when it back traces. Or you could be hoping on some one elses wifi on another ISP who's server is in a different location. Or maybe the channel the firmware uses by default is hindering your GPS. Who knows. Either way I think you can turn that feature off and just go off of GPS. Also, I really don't see ANYWAY this related to CC fraud.

[buck32]

Cheers Harry for that. The problem seems to have disappeared for now. When i had the problem and i changed to using cellular and my location did correct itself (was this a router fault??)  But when i reverted back to wireless my location was miles out. Ever since reflashing dd-wrt my wireless locaton was ok for a day then it came back. So i rebooted my wireless router and cable modem and my location has been ok for days  so hopefully it'll stay that way. Im not using gps in my home as i cant get a signal (only outside). Thanks for all your input Harry you've eased my mind on the fraud situation.