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.
From another article about this topic:
This leads to the question of what exactly the FCC means by consumer-grade routers.
In September 2024, NIST submitted proposals to strengthen the – undeniably modest – IT security of routers (NIST IR 8425A). It states: “Routers forward data packets, most commonly Internet Protocol (IP) packets, between networked systems.”
This encompasses a wide range of devices, from WLAN repeaters to smartphones
So new smartphones are banned too?
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.
I don’t think there was a lot of research into where these things come from to begin with.
What a surprise.
So everything
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.
The next step is government approved routers with NSA backdoors.
Yep, marketed as very safe, meeting “standards” .
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.
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.
You need to start a museum lol
because why the fuck the not?
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 can install router software on any computer
On Linux you can just turn the kernel into a router with a few commands. Its actually very cool.
Damn, that IS cool.
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.
The only slight problem with this is that there are no routers made in the USA.
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.
All it needs is a bribe from Cisco, and it’s no problem anymore. Probably.
Well, you can run your own router on your own hardware but other than that, agreed.
Is that hardware also made in the US ><
But where is that hardware made
get iron from local mine and go make some relays
well, Trump has a worryingly faint and ever-changing idea of where the USA borders end…
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?
designating all consumer routers manufactured outside the U.S. as a security risk
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”.
It is entirely true that all models from all manufacturers are compromised by spy agencies.
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”.
However the worst offender by far is Cisco even though they’re “American”.
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.
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.
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…
