NCTA seeks waiver from foreign-router ban, citing memory and substrate shortages.
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Cable lobby warns of chaos if FCC doesn’t relax ban on foreign routers
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
I think our fuckwit leaders misspelled "great". They really meant "grate". Them being not too bright, they probably didn't know the difference.
After all, most of them are very anti homonyms....
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I don't know why the NSA and FBI don't just come out and say this is so they can have back doors put in. The ENTIRE IT infrastructure of the government and its fascist tech-bro fanbase has moved to pure surveillance and mass data gathering. They have the technology for total information awareness now. By getting effortless access to home networks, they'll be able to easily exploit not just the web traffic, but countless Windows vulnerabilities to spy on pretty much everyone in real time.
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It's hard to see the FCC's rule to ban essentially all consumer network infrastructure devices as anything less than a demand of control to the entire industry. What types of concessions are businesses making to the federal government to let them still be able to do business in the United States? With the current administration, it can't be anything good for the citizens or network product consumers.
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So now the NCTA cares about the reach of Broadband as an essential service? DaFuq?
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Plausible deniability.
Also, FCC this shit. FCC all the corruption that has been going on
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If I'm a router manufacturer, I'm going to pivot to "Professional / Small-Business" marketing and sell the exact same components in a differently labeled box.
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Oh but this has a simple solution to it. Just get the router companies to stump up more... ahem... donations to Trumps campaigns and the problem goes away... allegedly.
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Ignoring the dumb for a moment.
Would an OpenWrt One device fall under this? And how would they even prevent it if it is based in many countries, some of which do not fall under the restrictions? Similar question for other devices. What is to stop the manufacturer from continuing to provide update on their corporate support site that a user can download and use to upgrade?
I do not see how the restrictions for updates will be possible to enforce other than to take away ease of use via auto-updating or [Click Here To Update] being disabled? Yes, it will stop updates for most and be a security catastrophe for consumers in general, but for the technical I do not see anything preventing further use. Or even purchasing via an externally based vendor and shipping it here.
Would an OpenWrt One device fall under this? And how would they even prevent it if it is based in many countries, some of which do not fall under the restrictions? Similar question for other devices. What is to stop the manufacturer from continuing to provide update on their corporate support site that a user can download and use to upgrade?
I do not see how the restrictions for updates will be possible to enforce other than to take away ease of use via auto-updating or [Click Here To Update] being disabled? Yes, it will stop updates for most and be a security catastrophe for consumers in general, but for the technical I do not see anything preventing further use. Or even purchasing via an externally based vendor and shipping it here.
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This new "layer of bureaucracy" enables Orange and his cabal to extract "concessions," donations, baubles and crypto on a company by company basis. These champions of deregulation seem to strive for fascistic control over private companies in certain industries.
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I mean, that's the lie put out by the US government, sure. But they're the ones actively starting wars around the world and murdering their citizens in the streets. As a US citizen, I don't worry about the Chinese government hurting me in any way whatsoever. Ours? I worry about getting killed going to a protest.
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If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. If the home electronic industry had not unbolted the stable door, in return for next quarter bonuses, maybe the horses would not have bolted. Bolting horses are difficult to ride regardless of the status of one's beggardom.
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Next up ... outlaw FOSS.
You laugh. Just wait. The fucktwits are heading there.
You laugh. Just wait. The fucktwits are heading there.
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Damn. The FCC under Carr is some kind of fucked up, but to agree with the cable industry on something makes parts of me twitch very uncomfortably.
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Gern Blaanston
Ars Scholae Palatinae
The only thing that accomplished is it gave AT&T's suppliers another year to do nothing. When the waiver expires they will ask for another. And another.
If you are actually serious about returning manufacturing to the U.S. then you stand firm and don't grant exemptions. Because if you do, the requests for exemptions will never stop.
But we already know -- this administration isn't serious about anything.
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Government mandated backdoors are absolutely a thing in America; the 23/24 Salt Typhoon hacks targetted the government mandated backdoors in telecoms equipment, which turned out to be not particularly well secured backdoors.
I'm also reminded of the time that Huawei let the UK spy agencies poke around in their telecoms source code/hardware to look for backdoors (sometime around 2013, I think?). The conclusion of the UK was that there were no backdoors, but that they were recommending against the use of Huawei equipment because the software was full of security vulnerabilities and Huawei didn't seem to have any processes to fix things. And unfortunately, my impression is that most of the router companies are like this, regardless of nationality. Especially with older hardware, where the companies would much rather people buy something new.
The moral? Just buy routers that you can put something like OpenWRT on. I don't think any of the router companies can be trusted to secure the front door, let alone any possible government backdoor.
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I didn't think the FCC could get any worse than with Ajit Pai running it....
Be careful what you don't wish for.
Be careful what you don't wish for.
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Behold the Trump Router, proudly painted gold in the US! And coming Real Soon Now.
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Got to give those illegal alien detainees something useful to do. USA! USA! It will make me soooo proud.
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Incorrect. This administration is in fact very serious about the grift and corruption. The cash must flow into Trump’s coffers; anything that stands in the way of this must be taken down.
Everything else is in service to that core goal.
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Ah ... Personally, I think that the best we can do now is... nothing. Don't rally against the ban. Do not try to make things work. Just let it go miserably wrong.
Why? Else we put tremendous effort in softening the consequences of their idiot decisions. Result? We get called out for being hysterical as it did not turn out as dramatic as we predicted. We're just a bunch of snowflakes!
Nope. Let it all cave in and let them clean up the mess.
It may hurt us though. Take care!
Why? Else we put tremendous effort in softening the consequences of their idiot decisions. Result? We get called out for being hysterical as it did not turn out as dramatic as we predicted. We're just a bunch of snowflakes!
Nope. Let it all cave in and let them clean up the mess.
It may hurt us though. Take care!
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They will wake up one day and realize that Fox News is on cable and they wil drop all of this nonsense.
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Hardly surprising. Isn’t the goal of the current American administration to cause chaos?
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Oh, the government has been keen on back doors in people’s secure communications for decades:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip
“The Clipper chip was a chipset that was developed and promoted by the United States National Security Agency(NSA) as an encryption device that secured "voice and data messages" with a built-in backdoor that was intended to "allow Federal, State, and local law enforcement officials the ability to decode intercepted voice and data transmissions." It was intended to be adopted by telecommunications companies for voice transmission. Introduced in 1993, it was entirely defunct by 1996.”
The Clipper Chip may have died, but the backdoor dream will never die.
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I mean, you're technically right, and a lot of people who spend time here probably can roll their own if they're so inclined. Our neighbors and extended family that don't have access to all the networking knowledge do depend on appliance routers, though.
Also, for those of us who have the knowledge to set up a home network on a high quality software router and small-medium office grade switches and APs, the authorities can still kick in the physical door and use the old $5 wrench attack if they really want access.
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acetothermus
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
I'm shocked that a knee jerk ill informed reactionary law has wide spread ramifications that were entirely predictable. SHOCKED!
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You do realize this story is about an administration policy, right? A particularly derpy one?
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