Consumer grade.
Because if they try and ban cisco they'll collapse
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Consumer grade.
Because if they try and ban cisco they'll collapse
Cisco is an American company though.
Not manufactured in the US
But in fact USA and Israel are the countries that spy on anyone. I am more concern about USA and Israel spying than from India and China. In this point in history USA and Israel are the enemy of the world.
All countries spy on each other.
I definitely agree about being more worried about the US spying than China though.
The only reasonable stance in 2026 is any government entity is just as much of a threat to an individual's well-being and livelihood as a criminal organization.
No one should be spying on you. Not the CCP. Not the US NSA/CIA, not Mossad, not anyone.
Manufactured probable cause.
i dont even know how this is going to work out in practice - who's going to start making routers in the US?
VPNs? I don't understand your question.
so wrote too soon i meant routers. no one physically makes them here
Next up, foreign VPNs and shortwave radios are illegal to use.
Then phone calls are restricted.
Then international mail has to be inspected and censored.
All hail Chairman Trump!
USA USA 👊🇺🇸🔥
https://www.ic3.gov/PSA/2026/PSA260312
Compromised devices already comprise what amounts to a foothold within US network infrastructure that makes attribution of actors and defense of critical infrastructure impossible.
It's actually a really good situation for China since they have access to millions of these compromised devices in police stations, fire stations, hospitals, within critical infrastructure networks etc.
Also, the equivalent of mail censorship is already being done by more subtle means.
The US is more fucked than you know. I just hope the US doesn't piss china off too much. The asymmetric warfare will claim more lives of civilians than combatants.
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?
The unwritten part is where Trump gets a free gold plated golf cart or some other stupid shit to sweeten the deal.
Its grift allllll the way down.
I can understand the FTC being involved because trade. But the FCC? Maybe regulatory authority over WiFi? But this seems like massive over reach.
Remember when conservatives claimed to support smaller government?
Remember when conservatives claimed to support smaller government?
I only remember when conservatives lied everytime they opened their mouths.
Yeah, Reagan was always talking about small government, and then he blew up the deficit with unchecked spending. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
How about the bit where they say home routers have to be approved by the DHS or the "Department of War"? This is not normal.
I mean... "Small government" Republicans were always demonstrably lying, as far back as any of them have been alive. Every one of them just wanted to shift money from things that support people to the pockets of their donors.
This is just their way of saying they want state sponsored backdoors into all private home networks.
Or, guess what, the next thing will be that all new domestically produced routers will require ID verification before they'll connect.
The only explanation that makes sense to me is that this is a law to:
Yes, everything trump does is a request for a bribe.
Unintentionally shutting down ai data centers. Lol, we know this will only be selectively enforced!
Well it does say consumer-grade. Not sure what the reasoning there is, as backdoors in enterprise equipment would be much worse for national security
Producers of consumer-grade routers that receive Conditional Approval from DoW or DHS can continue to receive FCC equipment authorizations. Interested applicants are encouraged to submit applications to conditional-approvals@fcc.gov
A very speculative, cynical interpretation: something of value will be exchanged for the privilege of conditional approval.
… does America even manufacture routers?
We don't lol
Electronics manufacture of any kind has been heavily outsourced since at least 1995.
This only applies to routers.
It's not widely known outside the ham radio community, but part of the 2.4GHz wifi band overlaps the 13cm amateur radio band. If you turn off 5GHz wifi and lock the 2.4GHz AP to Channel 1, it qualifies as a ham radio, and can be sold as a ham radio instead of an AP/Router. You do need a ham radio license to operate it as a Ham AP, but you do not need a license to buy a Ham AP.
If the end user wants to turn on 5GHz after the fact, there is not a damn thing the FCC can do about it.
Even more isolationism. Knowing how the usa works, they discovered the equipment was set up for spying on their people and they want all of that "spying on their own people" power for themselves.
Use openwrt.
Build your own open WRT router or get one of theirs. It's the best way to go and you don't get dragged through the monthly fee wringer for stupid child security or other stuff that is not well designed.
If foreign made routers pose a severe cybersecurity risk then why would you let the current ones on the market stay? If they were truly a problem you'd remove them from the market, not grandfather them.
But like everything with this capricious administration the real reason they're doing this is probably because someone greased their palms.
Awesome. So what used to be a $50 router is about to be a $150 router. Great.