this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
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[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 9 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I went ahead and bought some new internet hardware. It sucks to spend money before my gear has died of natural causes, but this might be the last real opportunity to upgrade before backdoors become the norm. If they aren't already.

[–] teyrnon@sh.itjust.works 4 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Wait we did what? Cisco, the Food Distribution Company?

[–] HopeCraft@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Sysco is food, Cisco, as in San Fran_cisco_, is the tech company.

[–] teyrnon@sh.itjust.works 4 points 6 days ago

San Francisco really let us down from there days of the hippies.

Now being the harbingers of Destruction and what do you call it, slavery.

[–] OneWomanCreamTeam@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

No, it's that guy from Deep Space Nine.

[–] Dozzi92@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

No, it's that thong th-thong thong thong guy.

[–] Kaerkob@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

No, the FCC no longer allows the import of music by Sisqó.

[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 3 points 6 days ago

What? No, Cisco Systems, the company that makes routers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisco

[–] brokenwing@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Isnt tp link or Deco a US company?

[–] T156@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

TP-Link is Chinese.

[–] CobraChicken3000@lemmy.ca 225 points 1 week ago (3 children)

It's the US. Anyone surprised?

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 99 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Well no, they tend to copy a lot from China these days.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 43 points 1 week ago (4 children)
[–] Goferking0@ttrpg.network 23 points 1 week ago

Or don't even try too. Wish they tried to copy infrastructure improvements or high speed rail. All we get is more money to corporations to do absolutely nothing

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[–] 4am@lemmy.zip 23 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I’m starting to believe a lot of the bad we hear about China is at best overblown and at worst completely fucking made up.

Remember all the articles predicting their doom because they built “ghost cities” and “trains to nowhere” and now they’re all actual cities with employed populations and there is high speed rail everywhere?

Yeah since 9/11 we’ve only had liars in charge seeing how much they can milk all of us, and apparently America really does have great ties because they’re still honkin and we’re still letting em.

Anyway since we can’t tell what’s true and what’s a lie thanks to the “state dept” propaganda I’m just gonna go ahead and say that the most advanced country on earth is probably way ahead of the USA.

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

It‘s a dictatorship without basic human rights. If you really think ICE is bad then imagine ICE 10 times bigger and several decades older and more refined. That‘s the Chinese state for you. The US is on it‘s way there. That‘s why we criticize them.

I also don‘t see a single aspect where China is ahead of literally everyone else. They have quantity and more and more often people seem to think that means innovation. Like „Sure, university X has the most advanced robots but China is producing 20 different models on a larger scale that are almost as good!“. But they‘re not better, though. China has quality too, yes. But nothing no one else has. Really, I cannot think of a single technology where some institute on the globe isn‘t at least on par with what China is doing. Being the world factory they are often the first to have things largely available to the global market but they‘re never the first to do something.

There is a reason everyone is afraid of industrial espionage from China. It’s because they don‘t really innovate but they will mass produce your innovation before you know it.

[–] Tja@programming.dev 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There are also ghost cities that basically got demolished, like dozens of skyscrapers one after the other.

Two counties can be bad at the same time, not everything has to be nalck and white. China can suck also when the US sucks. China can even suck despite doing a lot of cool things.

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[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

With our current dotard leadership it's surprising they haven't banned routers completely.

[–] XTL@sopuli.xyz 1 points 6 days ago

Even they probably realize they need them for porn.

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[–] REDACTED@infosec.pub 77 points 1 week ago (3 children)

There are routers made in US?

[–] halcyoncmdr@piefed.social 109 points 1 week ago (2 children)

No. Which is the point. Everything has to be approved manually with no specific criteria so they can arbitrarily make the decisions they want.

[–] Munkisquisher@lemmy.nz 55 points 1 week ago (3 children)

And in the trump economy, that includes paying a hefty bribe for approval

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[–] ClipperDefiance@lemmy.world 46 points 1 week ago

According to the BBC, the one exception is the newer Starlink Wi-Fi router, which the company says is manufactured in Texas.

This is exasperating.

[–] FE80@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago

Cisco, Juniper, and Arista are US companies. The actual manufacturing is doubtlessly somewhere in Asia though.

[–] nonentity@sh.itjust.works 73 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This tells me any equipment that is classified as acceptable by these requirements is immediately suspect, and should not be permitted to connect to, or communicate with, equipment you need to trust.

[–] Shirasho@lemmings.world 58 points 1 week ago (6 children)

What happened to small government?

[–] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 47 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I live in probably one of the reddest states, and it's always been hypocrisy. Republicans are lying out of their lower lie holes every fucking time they open their mouths.

Every single Republican politician and voter is a purely evil person.

[–] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 23 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Politician, sure. But people are easily duped, especially when they're uneducated. That doesn't make them evil, especially when there's a multi-billion dollar disinformation network constantly trying to mislead them.

[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 1 week ago (1 children)

At what point does ignorance cross into willful ignorance? And at what point does willful ignorance become malicious? It’s a blurry line, to be sure.

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[–] DupaCycki@lemmy.world 47 points 1 week ago

Of course they're banning foreign routers. They want all Americans to have only routers with government backdoors. At this point, backdoor-free routers are a threat to 'national security'.

[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 44 points 1 week ago (2 children)

This is why open source and open hardware is so important.

[–] Phoenix3875@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

And open firmware, especially for routers.

[–] XTL@sopuli.xyz 1 points 6 days ago

This does essentially mean no Wi-Fi or mobile radios as they're pretty much all binary blobs.

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[–] cmhe@lemmy.world 44 points 1 week ago

Every accusation of them is an admission of guilt.

So stop buying any US made hardware.

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 43 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

There is an exemption for products that the Department of Defense or the Department of Homeland Security have granted "Conditional Approval" after finding these devices do not pose such unacceptable risks. Router makers can apply to the FCC to get on the approved list.

Wow, what an insane coincidence it's exactly those two departments and no one else. Golly, I wonder why. (Edit: To clarify, if you're going to do this stupid, posturing bullshit, I "get" the DoD because of the NSA, and DHS has CISA. Just really no one else? Seems like consolidating more control.)

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 16 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I mean... supply chain hardening has been a concern for most of the three letter agencies (and governments around the world) for years. There are very serious concerns over how basically every NIC comes out of a factory in China and what the implications of that are.

If DoD actually do have a list of vetted and hardened products, that WOULD be a very good baseline for if you care about security at all. Less so from the US government, but that can then be compared against similar lists from other countries.

And considering that basically every TLA has the same concerns, if those orgs are willing to spend their budget? DoE and the like ain't gonna complain.

[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 days ago

If DoD actually do have a list of vetted and hardened products, that WOULD be a very good baseline for if you care about security at all.

Only if there's independent verification that they are actually hardened and not backdoored. Certain US TLAs have been known to lie about these matters-- consider NSA's attempts to slip backdoors into some crypto standards a few years ago.

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I do care about cybersecurity, but I'm well past a point with the Trump administration where it's possible to take even the few good-sounding things coming out of it at face value. I don't believe for a second Trump or anyone in his cabinet values cybersecurity over: jingoistic "Made in America" posturing to his audience, enforcing a monopoly on spying on US citizens, giving as much power as possible to the two departments he's most heavily and illegally abusing, and using this as more "trade war" bullshit where multinational corporations can personally bribe him to get whitelisted.

I might celebrate this if we had a POTUS who hadn't demonstrated over and over for a decade that everything they do is a ploy to turn the US into a kleptofascist hellscape.

I agree with you; your concerns are rational. I don't think you or I share them with the Trump administration.

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[–] grue@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Welp, so much for OpenWRT on cheap devices designed for routing (even though flashing the firmware to install it probably got rid of any backdoors anyway); now we'll have to resort to OPNSense on overkill PC hardware.

[–] nymnympseudonym@piefed.social 24 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Came here to say... US (and everyone else) would be way more secure if it mandated routers use OpenWRT and funded a few red/blue security engineers to work on it full time

[–] f3nyx@lemmy.ml 26 points 1 week ago

almost like its not about security

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 19 points 1 week ago (2 children)
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[–] toiletobserver@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago
[–] BigTurkeyLove@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

So like what router should I be using that isn't going to be spying on me? Been feeling it's time for an upgrade my current ASUS router was a higher end model when I bought it but it is like 8 or 9 years old now

[–] quick_snail@feddit.nl 23 points 1 week ago (6 children)
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