The US bans all new foreign-made network routers
https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/the-us-bans-all-new-foreign-made-network-routers-223622966.htmlOpen linkView original on lemmy.world684
Comments153https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/the-us-bans-all-new-foreign-made-network-routers-223622966.htmlOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
Just to spell out what many comments already hint at:
There are no US-made routers. "Made" here refers to companies, not where the stuff is actually made. Even if the plastic housing happened to be made in the US for one or two products, the components are still from far away.
Those few US companies paid MAGA for this.
This is corruption pure and simple.
And also I'm SURE there will be no backdoors installed in these routers. This was a mutual deal to control information, not just a financial one
It's okay when it's OUR backdoor, it's not okay when it's their speculative backdoor.
Almost certainly not just a money thing. They very likely also made deals for government access to and control of their devices. This isn't just corruption. It is fascism.
Are there actually any US-made consumer network routers on the market? All the brands I can think of are pretty much made in Asia these days.
Ubiquiti is an American company, not sure if the tech is really MADE here though, seems like that'd be weird considering the components are all made outside the US anyway.
Ubiquiti may not be considered consumer with regards to this, but it’s pretty unclear so it’s a bit of a gamble.
Yeah, it's all so ambiguous. I switched to them because they were better made and cheaper than the Netgear I was forced to replace after 1.5yrs. It'll be interesting to see where this ends up. Probably lawsuits. Glad I'm already set for a while, I guess.
It would be funny if, like, the UniFi line got banned but the EdgeOS line didn’t just based on target audience
Functionally no. This will force most users to use whatever their ISP provides.
Those can’t be imported either lol. This ruling will never stand up in court.
Nah, "conditional approval" is written into the regulation. You might know this wording better as "pay us a large sum and we'll give you approval."
Exactly, since nothing is made in the US, only the ISP routers on the government list will be legal.
Based on the regulation as written, approval is granted only if the company:
It's not a ruling, the FCC
was ordereddecided that they're not going to certify any new foreign made home routing equipment. No certification means the radios won't be legal for consumers to operateThis isn't a law or judicial ruling, it's policy
The FCC is a commission that decides things. It’s a ruling in every sense of the word. And they can be sued for really anything. Here the fcc is getting sued for approving something. https://www.freepress.net/news/public-interest-coalition-sues-fcc-unlawful-approval-largest-broadcast-merger-history
I mean, you can sue pretty much anyone for anything, but fair... It is technically a ruling
It's still just a policy though, which means it's easy to change or to do unofficially if the courts reject it (which seems unlikely right now, but I'd love to see it happen)
It's incredible how every day in this country continues to be unimaginably dumber than the last.
It's really amazing how this country just ran on word and vibes up to this point. Turns out you could just do whatever and nobody would have the cajones to stop you
The rent for your ISP provided hardware is about to go up by x10. Also you will get a letter saying you don't have an approved router installed.
So consumer grade routers are a security risk, but not ISP switches or server routers? That's the opposite of what a state level actor would look for.
Brother it is class war so
I mean, it’s kind of old news that these consumer routers make up the majority of bot nets, although I doubt requiring them to be US-made will change much.
As I read it, they are scared of the Chinese Communist Party having an "official" back door built in. Not run-of-the-mill criminal bot-nets.
Isn't Huawei already banned?
Is it? Because I just saw them available on Amazon and Alibaba. I think I even saw it on Walmart a few weeks ago too.
He is talking about ISP grade hw.
Be ready to get shut out of the global internet and only use Trumpernet.
Seriously though, they'll block yalls internet access in a few years.
The Great Firewall of
ChinaFREEDOMThe Great (again) Firewall of
ChinaFREEDOMGlad Australia is finally getting some decent fiber links up through Singapore.
SEA-ME-WE3 is a joke and before IndigoWest and ASC, almost all of our international transit was via US.
The only slight problem with this is that there are no routers made in the USA.
Well, you can run your own router on your own hardware but other than that, agreed.
Is that hardware also made in the US ><
My point was mostly that the concept of a router can be executed by any computer with more than one NIC.
Trump isn’t disallowing computers from outside the US, surely, only stuff that looks like routers. They’ll have a hard time defining what a router is.
Yeah, I wonder how the dumbasses licking his boots will feel about brands like Qotom/etc making high interface mini pcs- whether they consider them "routers" under this. I hope we don't have to go back to what I did 10 years ago- cheap intel desktops with 3-4 nics.
But where is that hardware made
get iron from local mine and go make some relays
But where were those tools made?
well, Trump has a worryingly faint and ever-changing idea of where the USA borders end...
All it needs is a bribe from Cisco, and it's no problem anymore. Probably.
New business venture: sell computers that totally aren't routers, pinky promise, but just randomly happen to run OpenWrt perfectly and have all the needed hardware.
So... all network routers?
Yes.
Great, so zero network products can be sold, and we have to dispose of any existing ones in a couple years.
I guess the US won't have any Internet anymore.
Perhaps it’s a fallback plan in case the universal Internet ID thing doesn’t work out. Gotta keep the masses stupid and uncoordinated.
Based on the language, it would seem to exclude ISP provided routers as those are not “designed to be installed by the consumer”. It also excludes anything not SoHo.
I haven't seen an ISP offer tech installation on anything in years unless the home wasn't pre-wired. Self installation kits are the norm these days.
Seems like a great opportunity for ISP to start charging whatever they want to install their crap. Don't want to pay for the installation and use their router? No internet for you!
Where did it say we have to dispose of existing ones? It doesn’t say that no products can be sold, and the article specifically says models that have already been approved can continue to be sold. I also think it’s dumb, but it’s important to be accurate.
I guess it depends on what this means here. It COULD mean that you won't get software updates (security updates) next year.
Lol i love how something so massive was just given an arbitrary 1 year date. We all know it's because nobody dealing with this has any clue what the impact is, and any that do don't care because it will probably be making them more money... no way this all happens within a year, and if it does it's gonna be a shit show.
Look Vlad, I'm doing it too!
Something is happening, first the age verification and now this. They're setting up to verify identities online I presume?
The fascists always attack free speech, and our first amendment rights have been under attack from many directions.
I'm more wondering that if all consumer network routers have to be made in the US (e.g. forcing people to use the ISP-provided one), it makes it easier for them to utilise the ISP's backdoors for monitoring of people's LANs. If that's actually the goal, then the next logical step would be to deny anyone access using a third-party router or ISP-provided router that didn't have their firmware.
To track online activities.
To ensure nobody is doing anything the government (or its corporate funders) don't like.
Look at the Project2025 manifesto and see how much they want people's activities to be controlled.
You can of course run your own router.
I’m so glad they’re focusing on this instead of how shitty and expensive our home internet is.
You'll be able to save so much money once private households wont have internet anymore!
Mandatory Triple play packages by xfinity is coming BACK! Yay… I forgot what it was like to over pay for my internet with 2 additional services I don’t want. Can’t wait.
/s
What's the play here? Something isn't making sense.
With the Trump administration, the only thing you can be sure of is that the stated reason isn't the real reason. Somebody's got to be getting a payday from this.
It’s a money grab. About the only networking companies that build in the us are like Cisco and juniper. Which odds are, you aren’t running at home. This is without a doubt a money grab. Google and Amazon will gladly pay the exemption fee. Some others will as well. This isn’t about security or “pay American”. It’s a money grab.
Same play as always. Bullies countries and corps to get what he wants. As long as it serves him that's all he cares about.
There will be some meetings with oems, and gold things dropped on his desk, and the exceptions will start being handed out. Same as always.
Starlink devices are currently the only approved ones.
So at what point do they ban all new computers not made domestically?
FTFY. It's the same thing.
well pricing them out of reach of the population wasn't working, so soon
The next step is government approved routers with NSA backdoors.
Yep, marketed as very safe, meeting "standards" .
Next? https://securityaffairs.com/179577/security/cisco-removed-the-backdoor-account-from-its-unified-communications-manager.html
This is a good time to remind everyone to avoid any of the major manufacturers. Get pre-built OPEN boxes and install OpenWRT. You performance and capabilities will beat the shit out of any of the other stuff anyway.
Sadly, there were a few great foreign-made manufacturers who had great hardware for this. Technically they aren't "network routers" and just blank hardware, so probably don't fall into the idiotic language put forth here.
I’ve got a GLiNet router with OpenWRT, running adguard on it. Best router experience I’ve ever had. I wonder how quick this ruling takes effect, might be smart to buy another while I can lol
YUP. I've deployed hundreds of these. They make good hardware, their developers and hardware engineers are quick to respond to customers, and they just make a good product. They even share their board designs, because why not?
Sucks they're going to be caught in the crossfire here.
Thanks for this recommendation! I just bought one! :-]
Can't believe this isn't the top comment.
And open software will probably have the ability to show up as a "correct" router when that day comes.
any recommended resources to learn more? Is this a lay person accessible option?
You can still get GL.inet routers even on Amazon as of right now, and they're on sale (for obvious reasons).
There's the OpenWRT One router that is basically just a Banana Pi board.
There's lots. Just search around.
This is so stupid that I can barely even think of a nefarious reason to do it.
It's so they can more reliably distribute their own backdoors.
But how? America doesn’t make routers. There’s no American routers to put backdoors in!
That'll be part of the "concessions" that foreign made routers make to get approval.
Why the fuck else would the department of defense need to weigh in?
It also allows the DoD and DHS to collect application fees which gives them dark money to play with outside the oversight of Congress.
Doesn't have to be a hardware backdoor. Router manufacturers can easily push software updates that contain said "backdoor" for the low, low price of licking Trump's backdoor.
The few "usa made" routers companies lobbying your president to forbid their competition?
It would seem to exclude ISP provided routers =/
You can install router software on any computer
https://opnsense.org/
On Linux you can just turn the kernel into a router with a few commands. Its actually very cool.
Damn, that IS cool.
It’s also true for every mainstream operating system.
For anyone looking into this, I recommend picking up a “network appliance” PC. They’re low-spec, often fanless, and come with 4 Ethernet ports. You can often get them for roughly the same price as a router. You will need to provide your own WiFi AP with this method.
Hmmm... so if you install a router os on a pc that's made outside the US, will that make you a criminal?
Cisco is made in China. Ubiquiti, Vietnam or Thailand I think.
How is this going to work?
If we see a reversal of the policy soon then it was a standard playbook policy announcement to receive corrupt bribery money from some big manufacturers and importers. If we don't, it may very well have been with no takers anyway.
We've seen it plenty before (within the last year). Like tarrifs, then exclusions, etc.
Smuggling? Setting up a factory in Florida that reboxes routers and slaps "Made In America" stickers on them? Resale/referb router prices going through the roof?
Take your pick.
Protectionism at its finest! What should the rest of the world make of US consumer routers? All good? No backdoors letting friendly people in?
I'll let you know when they actually make one
What the fuck are they doing?
Taking a huge payment from Comcast and Verizon would be my guess. The language appears to exclude ISP-owned routers.
It's the implementation part of ending net neutrality, the legal framework was put in during Trump's last administration. Goal is to make your home network entirely managed and visible to your ISP, who has huge incentives (financial and otherwise) to comply with government requests for information and censorship.
Spying on citizens at best. Manipulating content at worst.
All the thrift stores here throw them away. I've got dozens of them, variety of all types piled up in the closet because why the fuck the not? Fucking knew they'd come after them eventually.
In theory, you would have better things to do with your real estate.
But I guess I'm the idiot who threw my kit out six months ago to make the house a little less cluttered.
If I were a network packet, I would get very confused by so much routing.
You need to start a museum lol
Quick question. What would happen if China decided to get angry about this, and stop selling 100% of their goods to American companies unless they allowed 100% of their goods to be sold without restrictions?
Global economic collapse.
Oh so nothing would change then. Good to know.
Well, faster now.
Still less of an impact than whatever the fuck trump is doing.
So this is horseshit, right?
First of all, ALL routers from ANY country are a security risk? Every single other nation is trying to make Spyware for the average American consumer? Doubt.
Second, they are extremely concerned with all consumers' security from foreign actors to the point it needs an outright ban on hardware to protect us. God forbid I buy an AVM router from Germany and open up my home networking to German Spies. What if they find out I sometimes visit porn websites and yourube!?
Third, that the US government, themselves, are trustworthy and wont force backdoors into systems to allow them unfettered access into private networks, something that they HAVE TRIED TO AND SUCCEEDED TO DO IN THE PAST. And also something that they are very clearly opening the door for with all of these legal pushes toward requiring age verification software and OS's. They want to ban foreign routers so that you have to buy routers from companies that they can control. They can ask, coerce and force them to give them access behind the scenes for some bullshit excuse ("protect the kiddies", "law enforcement", "national security", "terrorism"), force them to not tell the public, and then "secretly" monitor every device in the entire country. They are almost certainly already doing this with a significant number of US manufacturers and software developers.
Fuck these fascists.
I find it unlikely to be about security. Either it is about control or about money (pressure to induce bribery for lifting), or a combination of both.
It is entirely true that all models from all manufacturers are compromised by spy agencies. However the worst offender by far is Cisco even though they’re “American”.
I think there's a little bit of space between "spy agencies employ systems professionals that know the guts of a component's security and tricks to bypass it" and "every device firmware has a double super secret protocol for sidestepping all of its security features".
Sure. I'm willing to believe that Cisco, specifically, has relationships with the Five Eyes network such that they make monitoring their traffic easier. Even then, there's limits. One thing to say techniques exist to bypass security. Another entirely to know what those techniques are and whether they're practical for application at universal scale.
One of the more chronic problems that big spy agencies have is sifting through all the spam and bullshit and empty chatter. Decryption takes time. And you can't monitor everything, everywhere, all at once. The bigger sins of Cisco are in how they expedite access on behalf of their agency partners, not that they fail to produce perfectly hack-proof hardware.
I think you guy are forgetting Occam Razor… the most likely scenario (least assumptions) here is that some inept appointee from the orange pedo thought this would be a good idea and pushed it with the research, planning and preparation we all put at farting after eating Taco Bell
There's a line about "... unless they have a waiver."
That's the razor, it's gatekeeping for who can get your special permit.
I guarantee the routers your ISP wants you to rent from them will have that waiver.
Where's the Kalshi bet for that?
Get them pitchforks ready.
And guillotines.
Figures, make it difficult and expensive for consumers to get routers. Make it so people must pay 5 times as much for a lower quality "US made" router in 4-5 years once the factories are built; or people just stop using the internet at home like the administration wants.
The US does not make many electronics, and when we do, they are ALWAYS made with imported components. So this is once again a threat to companies to move production to the US, but with ZERO incentive for the companies to do so.
No wonder our economy is tanking so hard under these nazi's. They are so incompetent, it hurts.
From another article about this topic:
So new smartphones are banned too?
They wouldn't be forwarding packets between networked systems unless you're using one as a hotspot. And even then I don't know if the term "networked systems" would include a single computer or if they intend it to mean an area network of some kind.
I’m thinking exempt based on the FCC language of “designed to be installed by the consumer”. ISP provided routers are usually hooked up by the installer tech. Which makes me wonder which ISP chortled orange man’s balls to get this passed.
lmfao. apparently the way this was originally written would have prevented non-exempt routers from getting security updates. you know, the alleged reason this ruling even exists. somebody at the FCC office of engineering and technology must have noticed because they issued a temporary waiver (PDF file).
I'll stick with my pfsense... Just rebuilt it yesterday to upgrade it a bit.
I upgraded mine last year. Went from a core 2 duo with 4gig of ram to a fifth generation I5 with 16 gig of ram. Installed pfblockerNG and now I don't need any other device to have a decent filter.
What does this mean for the ISP supplied units?
I’m thinking exempt based on the FCC language of “designed to be installed by the consumer”. ISP provided routers are usually hooked up by the installer tech. Which makes me wonder which ISP chortled orange man’s balls to get this passed.
At least round here if there’s no wiring to be done the ISP just couriers the boxes and lets the customer plug them in.
They’re always rentals though, correct? It’ll be interesting to see which way it swings, for sure. Stupid stupid rule either way.
I set up service in a new state last year with Comcast and was shocked that there was NOT a rental fee for the router/modem any longer. But idk if that's them being forced to compete more than they had to in my previous area, or if they cut the fee across the board.
So basically just like... the internet is banned?
You will have the same type of net as China, walled off from the rest of us
I don’t think there was a lot of research into where these things come from to begin with.
What a surprise.
Raspberry pi?
You would need an expansion module or two... or how many wires you need... I am sitting on on a 16 slot switch... and thinking I might need more...
Constructing the pillars of the bigly yuge firewall of america
Land of the free? Freedom just keeps slipping away.....
So uh, OPNSense?
Been on it for years, but reminds me that it desperately needs a hardware upgrade. Seems like now is the right time.
Anyone have any good suggestions? I’m still running an old pcengines apu2.
So everything
What does this mean for enterprise hardware, specifically Cisco?
Nothing, because laws are only for wealthy entities that can afford to pay the tedious fines. Us proletariat poors have to comply with this shit while they look down at us.
Only consumer products are covered
everything with this admin is just to boost artificial scarcity.. even with IP routers
I wonder if this means the rest of the world gets cheap routers for a while, or whether prices go up because the demand isn’t there to make them available at volume anymore.
Just a series of tubes
This must mean the ones already in our homes and offices are perfectly safe.
Could not be happier to have a UDM pro right now.
People here: "Hahha, I'm so smart, I'm going to flash openwrt/opnsense and use whatever PC as a router"
They want you to do that. This law exists for a reason, to decrease use of foreign proprietary, potentially unsafe software in critical infrastructure.
By using openwrt you're doing what lawmakers want you to do.