Does America even make any consumer routers?
Probably not. The goal isn’t to sell American routers.
The goal is to sell routers to Americans with government back doors built-in.
Any companies with approval will be providing that back door.
Lol nope
This has pay-to-play written all over it. It’s also opening a door to US companies capturing a market, which you know is going to mean the US government gets a big ol’ backdoor. Suddenly Meta is in the router market… 💀
To be honest, this is probably justified. My knee-jerk reaction was "oh look, USA in antagonizing everyone else again", but consumer routers are a really significant security junction which historically has always been somewhat neglected. I only read a few sentences before the paywall stopped me, but sounds like they'll whitelist any foreign manufacturers that are legitimate.
Yes, it's gonna have corruption and bribes all over it.. But on paper, it's justified.
The vulnerability is coming from inside the house
What? Because companies from other countries are evil? What makes you think that companies in your own country are better?
Why does the country even matter?
It's just another routine fascist strategy:
"All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state."
"When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will"
I'm not from the US. And I think the way they're trying to tackle it is stupid, roughly for the reasons you say. But on a surface level it's good that there is some action taken on this matter.
The country does matter. It allows oversight and regulation to a greater extent. And if it turns out that there's a backdoor in a router, if it's made locally there will be someone to criminally charge, whereas if it's made in China or wherever, that would be impossible.
Then again, it's the US, so they'd probably charge some random worker instead of the CEO who demanded the back door be implemented.
What kind of oversight are you talking about? Locally produced items do not need to fulfill more regulations.
If this was about cyber security there would be a mandatory certification (like there is for emc, like the FCC). But blanket statements like „foreign company bad!“ don’t do anything for increasing cyber security
Yeah, items are licensed according to where they’re sold, not made. “More oversight” makes no sense.
I hope things like hardware made by/for openwrt remain available, but it sounds like they will cease to be?
My first thought was the risk of the us demanding us manufacturers include a backdoor
It sounds like the exemption for foreign companies is an option while they create plans for american manufacturing
I hope things like hardware made by/for openwrt remain available, but it sounds like they will cease to be?
It seems like professional equipment will not be affected:
While the FCC’s Covered List makes it sound like the US is banning all “routers produced in a foreign country,” it’s defined a bit more narrowly than that. It’s specifically banning “consumer-grade routers” as defined in NIST Internal Report 8425A, which refers to ones “intended for residential use and can be installed by the customer.”
That's not reassuring. It sounds like they don't want home users to be able to get any router they could manage themselves.
nail ~~on~~ in the head
I'm not sure their like bananapi based router would be considered professional. More home tinkerer
I'm not sure what that'll mean for the impact of this change, but I guess we'll see 🤷🏻♂️
but consumer routers are a really significant security junction which historically has always been somewhat neglected.
You're right, but simply shifting the production from overseas to US doesn't inherently make the routers more secure. The article mentions the lack of software updates for discontinued products as a big threat that has been exploited in the past.
I only read a few sentences before the paywall stopped me,
Fortunately, there is no paywall for me. Here is the article on archive.org.
but sounds like they'll whitelist any foreign manufacturers that are legitimate.
No, the article mentions only one exception:
Now, router makers need to A) secure a “conditional approval” that lets them keep getting new products cleared for US entry while they work to convince the government that they’ll open up manufacturing in the US, or B) make the decision to skip selling future products in the US, like dronemaker DJI already did.
Yay more slip sliding into technocratic control
Just when I was about to upgrade my router, too. Fuck.
Routers are incredibly simple. You can run your own using openwrt or opnsense. Then some dumb switches and access points and you're good to go.
Upvoting this, you can turn any computer into a router as well. You can have control of your own hardware.
The problem is that this is not targeting the <1% that would just build their own router. Surveilance and control of the other 99% is sufficient.
It only applies to router models that aren't approved by FCC yet. I.e., you will be ~~able~~ allowed to buy those (current and future) models who already have an FCC approval.
It sounds like you should still be able to buy stuff, I don't believe it takes active effect immediately
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.