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The FCC decided that all foreign-made consumer-grade Internet routers are prohibited from receiving FCC authorization and are therefore prohibited from being imported for use or sale in the US. (infosec.exchange)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 76 points 7 months ago (16 children)

The excuse that it's for security reasons just immediately falls apart when you get to this part of the article:

The notice from the FCC states that companies can apply for conditional approval for new products from the Department of War or the Department of Homeland Security. However, that requires the businesses to provide a plan for shifting at least some of their manufacturing to the US in order to receive that conditional approval.

So it's fine to supposedly threaten national security if you do some more manufacturing in the US? Uh-huh. How does that balance out exactly?

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago (12 children)

    I hate to say anything that would defend any of this, but cheap Chinese routers are very prone to security issues. There's a guy that has a youtube channel built arond taking apart and reverse engineering all kids of electroncis. He's found some pretty bad stuff in generic routers, static logins, telemetry sent home, remote executable code in the admin portal while not logged in.

    I agree there's a lot more here they hope to gain, and that those gains are their primary objective, but there are some real issues from consumer network electronics.

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  • [–] 12 points 7 months ago*

    That may be true and is certainly a well known concern …. Yet given the US government’s recent history, I have a hard time believing much of what they say

    Cheap Chinese routers as a risk being true doesn’t prevent it from also being true that the current us administration is full of shit and likely more concerned about enriching someone connected to them, or tilt at windmills

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (4 children)

    There's better ways to do it then, EU don't have that problem for example, and we buy plenty from China.

    We just have safety and security standards enshrined into law, and don't deal with anyone that doesn't agree to follow them.

    It's why some products have the C€ symbol on them, which is "this has been imported, and meets all legal requirement", and all shops are not allowed to sell anything without that cert if imported.

    (Though this don't apply to direct-to-consumer delivery from other nations, so it's not bulletproof)

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  • [–] 0 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    That's kinda what's going on. They're pulling the FCC logo and making it illegal to resell without authorization. Hopefully, (but not assuredly) part of that authorization will be to make sure they comply with security.

    Though I'm absolutely certain those 'agreements' cost a pretty penny and it's lining someone's pocket as well.

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  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Ah but the C€ don't require you to manufacture some or all parts in the country though, or to pay a fee for the courtesy of dodging the law

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    If I read this right it goes beyond the cheap no-name Chinese stuff that we hopefully all know to avoid by now. This would prevent US companies from outsourcing manufacture to foreign countries, which pretty much all companies do at this point

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    That would keep routers.ca from reselling Temu routers, net win.

    I just hope that part of this doesn't include mandatory backdoors for US agencies. This might be the start of the great firewall of the US

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    it will

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    if that ends up being the case, us linux nuts can start making and selling our own routers!

    Side Hustle!

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    In the Age of Technology and AI, it does make sense to have any manufacturing operations in house than overseas. Ofc if there were countries we could trust that would be onpar as well, but the U.S. pretty much shit the bed on alliances.

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago*

    Sounds like it's just a modern version of Indulgences to me.

    You have all sinned against God America, but if you pay the donation to the church government then you will be given access to heaven America

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