Afternoon all! We appear to have made it through Friday the 13th, back to the wonderful alternate reality the planet has recently wormholed into. It's not been without minor drama this end though - this is the third time I've tried to write this post because my browser keeps binning the cookies and thus each of my drafts. Which means....I need to pick your brains again (before the zombie hordes do). I was going to try and have a clearout and get rid of my old ISP-provided routers (Plusnet, BT, NowTV etc.) but it occurred to me that most of these come with your login details hardcoded. I managed to get my current ones off using Wireshark so I can transfer them to my own router, but I was wondering, if I were to sell/give these away: can anyone read my details from a reset router? I'm assuming they can just Wireshark them the way I did does it really matter if they have them? All of my personal device passwords and logins etc. should disappear with the reset and since the routers are older, those broadband accounts likely don't exist anymore can I flash them completely bare somehow, or should I even bother (if the answer to the above two are No)? does anyone have a use for any old kit like this? I used to use them as repeaters/bridges - if so, let me know, otherwise I'll stick 'em on a popular auction site If I've missed any additional considerations, do let me know, otherwise grateful for any input as always!
I think you're overthinking this. If they're ISP provided and therefore cost you nothing, then just recycle them with a lump hammer. Your email address/login details are far easier to harvest from the www though, so I wouldn't be concerned about techno tramps pulling it off the rubbish dump to recover a username and a couple of MAC/IP addresses.
Yeah, I do tend to do that. It was more born of a desire not to smash up stuff that works fine (bit of an eco thing, hate wasting resource).
I know, me too. The thing with ISP supplied routers is that every customer of that ISP gets one, so there's little call for resale or gifting and you might as well return them to ISP or recycle.
