HackerReposA FIELD GUIDE TO OPEN SOURCE
ProSponsor the shelf♧ 0
← Back to top all-time
seemoo-lab
mobisys2018_nexmon_software_defined_radio
Shell2018–2022
seemoo-lab / mobisys2018_nexmon_software_defined_radio

mobisys2018_nexmon_software_defined_radio

Proof of concept project for operating Broadcom Wi-Fi chips as arbitrary signal transmitters similar to software-defined radios (SDRs)

Hardware & Embedded
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
7Distinct people
7Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
800GitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Proof of concept project for operating Broadcom Wi-Fi chips as arbitrary signal transmitters similar to software-defined radios (SDRs)

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year7 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2018-03-15 00:58:01 UTC to 2022-01-15 19:33:50 UTC.

012342018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 1 submissions, 3 comments20182019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments20202021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2022

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC413
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202

What Hacker News says

7 sources
colechristensen·Jan 15, 2022
It has been done because wifi/bluetooth chipsets are mostly software defined radios but the software is in proprietary pretty well locked down firmware environments. The hardware of the radios will also usually be specified for very specific bands and will have less general purpose uses. Also note that it’s easy to break FCC regulations and generally be disruptive if you mess around with this stuff and don’t know what you’re doing, and the FCC happily hands out five digit fines. https://github.com/seemoo-lab/mobisys2018_nexmon_software_de...
In GNU Radio
RF_Savage·Jan 15, 2022
Due to it being a radio licenced by rule, the firmware in wifi devices is locked down tight. If it ware wide open FCC would revoke it's type acceptance. The only project that so far has managed to even partially use wifi hardware as a more generic SDR is nexmon[1] and even that is rather involved. Really cool project but not much heard since 2018. For just experimenting with modems across a noisy path one could just use the built in microphone and speakers. 1. https://github.com/seemoo-lab/mobisys2018_nexmon_software_de...
In GNU Radio
bringtheaction·Mar 15, 2018
The license is MIT but not MIT. It’s the MIT license with two additional conditions imposed; - The one you mentioned about citation. - “The Software is not used by, in cooperation with, or on behalf of any armed forces, intelligence agencies, reconnaissance agencies, defense agencies, offense agencies or any supplier, contractor, or research associated.” https://github.com/seemoo-lab/mobisys2018_nexmon_software_de... Even just the one about citation is problematic but IMO the condition about armed forces and so on is even worse. I kind of see where they are coming from but I wish people just used standard MIT and acknowledged that yes your software might end up being used for something that you do not agree with morally. And if they are going to impose such restrictions, why stop there? Why not also say that you cannot use the software to
Read the rest
transmit for example child pornography? And how about saying that you cannot use it to spread false information, fake news etc? I would be exaggerating, but not much, if I were to say that as soon as you introduce one or more moral restrictions into a software license, you are implicitly saying that any moral concern not mentioned is ok. How about terrorism? They didn’t say anything about terrorism so I guess using their software for terror is fine as long as the terrorists are not an “armed force”, an intelligence agency etc. Technology has infitinite uses, a whole host of which are good, probably as many that are bad, and likewise an uncountable amount of uses that are either neither or both, and very many that will be one thing for some people and the other for other people. It should in my opinion not be the job of a software license to pass moral judgement. Either you release your software for anyone to use for any purpose under the terms of an unmodified license accepted by the community or you might as well not bother trying to be open source at all.
In Operating Broadcom Wi-Fi Chips as Arbitrary Signal Transmitters, Like SDRs

MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME

A few shortcuts

/
Search the collection
?
Open this guide
Esc
Close dialogs and navigation

Your saved repositories and interests stay in this browser.