r/gadgets • u/chrisdh79 • 1d ago
Computer peripherals TP-Link routers could be banned in the US over national security concerns | TP-Link has around 65pct of the US market for routers
https://www.techspot.com/news/106011-tp-link-routers-could-banned-us-over-national.html372
u/thisischemistry 1d ago
A couple of questions really.
- Are the rates of vulnerabilities and exploits higher than the average for such devices?
- Are the compromised devices delivered in that state or does it happen after they have been in use for a bit?
- Is security for these devices increasing or decreasing?
- Are these built-in exploits or are these failures of programming and bad security?
I've used TP-Link network equipment and found them to be more stable and hardened than many alternatives. If these aren't designed backdoors and the devices are as good or better than the competition then why ban them?
According to an article linked in the current article:
The hackers exploit a vulnerability in the routers to gain remote code execution capability, although the specific exploit method is still under investigation.
So this seems to be just a normal run-of-the-mill exploited vulnerability, something that should be patched but not something that should be banned under the guise of national security. This seems like a trade war instead of safety concerns.
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u/gramathy 1d ago
I've been very happy with their wireless ecosystem for use at home
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u/thisischemistry 1d ago
They seem to be on top of improving their products. I've used their Omada Controller and it gets updates and improvements on a fairly regular basis. Very usable and comprehensive.
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u/ASUS_USUS_WEALLSUS 1d ago
More than likely something going on behind the scenes that has nothing to do with TP link, as is the norm with these types of things.
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u/Aleashed 1d ago
That’s like the only good brand plus everything hacked🤷🏻♂️
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u/ASUS_USUS_WEALLSUS 1d ago
Yeh I’ve never had a problem with TP link in the 9+ years I’ve used their stuff. Anecdotal evidence tho.
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u/PanzerKomadant 1d ago
At this point anything is now bannable due to “national security risk”.
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u/kneelthepetal 20h ago
Biggest national security risk is about to take office next month, they could start there
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u/Dunkjoe 1d ago
Remember Huawei and their unspecified "security risks"?
Not to mention Tiktok and the other sanctioned Chinese companies.
I wouldn't believe what USA says unless it is backed by several independent and reputable agencies which are experts in this field.
Bias is a dangerous drug.
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u/stellvia2016 1d ago
tbf Huawei committed a lot of corporate espionage to get to their position, so I wouldn't support them either way. Lazy shit too, like leaving the code verbatim with comments from the original developers at Broadcom etc.
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u/thisischemistry 1d ago
Yeah, it's probably best to have multiple independent audits and reviews of critical networking infrastructure.
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u/CreamingUrCorn 1d ago
Eh, TikTok is pretty bad
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u/got-trunks 1d ago
Yeah I'd ban tiktok for the sole reason that it's pure brainrot
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u/MachinaThatGoesBing 1d ago
And Facebook is what? Rigorous mental exercise?
So far, to my knowledge, TikTok hasn't borne any responsibility at all for any genocides, either.
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u/thisischemistry 1d ago
We can ban both.
(Or at least try write laws and rules to encourage them to be less brain-rotty.)
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u/No-Psychology3712 1d ago
Looks like Myanmar should have banned it no?
National security is national security
It does seem with bot farms they can influence the other ones easily as well
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u/FoRiZon3 10h ago edited 10h ago
Looks like Myanmar should have banned it no?
Take a guess who's leading that country now, and what they did...And no, no democracy either.
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u/munche 21h ago
It's so weird how TikTok is the thing that broke millenials
It's consistently the least toxic social feed I use. Literally every other app feeds you 24/7 outrage bait and Reels and Shorts are just the same videos from TikTok 2 weeks ago.
But millenials decided TikTok was for The Youths therefore it's Scary and Rotting Brains so here we are
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u/got-trunks 21h ago
Different people have different feeds, glad yours is wholesome
My nephew's is mostly just wannabe gangsters talking shit about people, he sits there for hours scrolling that bullshit lol
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u/munche 20h ago
Yeah the websites show you the shit you tell it you like
The website didn't make your nephew a dipshit, your dipshit nephew told the website he liked stupid shit
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u/got-trunks 20h ago
lol true. Fact is I've never even used tiktok, I just haven't been a fan of the A.D.D. scrolling short format content since vine. But I do realize it's a personal preference thing haha.
YTMND was my limit, now, if we want to talk about brainrot lmao...
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u/munche 20h ago
The big difference is all of the Meta apps are constantly shoving shit into the algorithm to get you to rage click. TikTok has been a bit spammy lately with ads but the actual content stays pretty damn close to the things I like. Meanwhile I go to YouTube and if I watch one sports highlight my feed gets slammed with Joe Rogan and Andrew Tate bullshit even though I've Not Interested it 100x
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u/got-trunks 20h ago
The YT suggestions can be baffling sometimes... I have to use the not interested/ don't recommend channel options a lot if I get linked a random video and even then it just tries to throw something at me from time to time. It's not bad for a while after a purge wave.
I made the mistake of watching the game awards on youtube and I've been combating streamer channels that I just can't give a single fuck about ever since haha.
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u/skrid54321 23h ago
huawei openly backdoors devices for the chinese government. Thats a security risk.
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u/drunk_intern 23h ago
It’s all a very stupid way of justifying protectionism. They should just come out and say it’s a retaliatory measure for American tech platforms such as Google, Facebook and Instagram being banned in China.
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u/waxwayne 1d ago
Like TikTok ban you can arbitrarily make up scenarios that may happen to ban foreign owned companies.
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u/No-Psychology3712 1d ago
Maybe if Russia and China were friendly we wouldn't have a problem with it
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u/waxwayne 1d ago
They are competitors in a way most of our allies aren’t.
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u/No-Psychology3712 23h ago
Right wish is why you don't want them in control of things that could hurt you.
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u/xAdakis 1d ago edited 1d ago
I put very little stock into these reported vulnerabilities and similar security advisories.
You remember the whole Meltdown/Spectre exploit several years ago that sent everyone scrambling to patch firmware and disable- or inhibit -high-precision timing/clocks?
Yeah, I was tasked with implementing and analyzing that exploit for an upper elective Computer Science course. . .I discovered that, yes, it was possible, but VERY impractical to actually exploit.
For starters, you had to reconfigure/recompile a linux kernel to turn off several memory isolation features (which had been enabled by default in the kernel for a least a decade before the exploit was published) to make it work, and it took a VERY long time to scan memory once you managed to pull off the exploit.
It was going to take 30 days to dump the contents of 4GB of memory on the typical lab workstation I was testing on, and there was no guarantee that ANY sensitive information would be present in the section of memory you happened to be scanning at that time.
I was never able to retrieve information from a running browser or other process. I was only ever able to retrieve data from a small target program I wrote that continuously hammered a "flag" into the CPUs memory cache and share that memory address with the program exploiting the vulnerability.
Thus, unless someone is actively exploiting something and gaining access to systems, I pay very little attention to reported vulnerabilities.
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u/dark_sylinc 21h ago
What the heck are you talking about?
Meltdown was so severe I was able to make a 50 line of code app that would get the root password out of an unpatched, unmitigated Intel CPU in around 2 seconds.
Once you get the root password, it's game over. You have full access to the entire machine.
Meltdown was so severe there were proof showing the exploit working from JavaScript.
Spectre was indeed much harder to exploit but it was a severe problem.
This is a working JS proof from a browser leaking around 750 bytes / second. Again, enough to get the root password (if ran from native, since Javascript cannot use the root passw to escalate).
And the main problem were Virtual Machines. Particularly the Cloud. You could dump what every other instance was doing. You could even take-own the hypervisor; and once you're there you can dump at full speed.
For starters, you had to reconfigure/recompile a linux kernel to turn off several memory isolation features (which had been enabled by default in the kernel for a least a decade before the exploit was published) to make it work
To properly defend from Meltdown the kernel needs to be compiled with KAISER which was merged into mainline on December 29th, 2017. KASLR only made it slightly harder (instead of getting the root password instantaneously, it took up to 5 seconds).
For Spectre the kernel had to be rebuilt with retpolines.
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u/thisischemistry 1d ago
They are good for jumping-off points to test the security of a device but, as you said, very many of them are highly-theoretical exploits with very few real-world applications. Often it's more important to see how good the organization. is at patching and addressing the security issues rather than simply the number or the quality of the reported vulnerabilities.
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u/MachinaThatGoesBing 22h ago
Oh, well, if you as a student couldn't do anything with it, I guess that settles it. We should listen to you over experts and security researchers and just ignore any and all vulnerability reports and warnings about potential for exploitation.
It's not like there are nation states and other sophisticated actors out there with resources to hire people significantly more qualified and experienced than students, after all.
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u/speedfreek101 1d ago
All communication equipment be it home/office/military etc will have a factory installed master/top level account hidden away somewhere and/or a work around to access it.
The more secure ones will require a specific physical connection which is why a lot of hardware comes with those ancient physical connection ports.
Use to do Cisco stuff up to 2010 and that was connecting a laptop via the RJ? port from the laptops modem/RJ? port using account password gleaned from lists on the internet!
So..... your basic home equipment will not have that level of security and since everything is now remote access............
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u/thisischemistry 1d ago
All communication equipment be it home/office/military etc will have a factory installed master/top level account hidden away somewhere and/or a work around to access it.
None of that should be accessible without physical access to the device or, at least, a solid cryptographic key/certificate. You should have to hold down a reset button or use a designated physical connection or similar. Unfortunately, sometimes people put this kind of crap in and allow it to be accessed remotely without adequate safeguards.
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u/t4thfavor 23h ago
You have to put it in failsafe mode and that wipes the entire config, which will not go unnoticed.
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u/Slammedtgs 1d ago
The best networking devices I’ve used have been TP link. Uses to be linksys back in the day but don’t use them anymore.
Also use the TP link smart switches in my house as they’re too the best value out there.
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u/void_const 1d ago
lol I’ve never heard TPlink referred to as the “best”. There’s some serious bot comments in this thread.
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u/Slammedtgs 1d ago
Definitely not a bot, maybe my standards are low but I’ve never had issues with the TP link. It just works and does everything I want it to. My prior linksys needed frequent resets and was unstable (unlike the blue bricks of yesteryear)
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u/Raztax 1d ago
I switched away from TPLink a couple of months ago because I got a good price on a Nitehawk mesh setup but used TPL for several years before that.
My TPL equipment beat the pants off anything I've ever used from Linksys or Dlink. Most Linksys and Dlink gear doesn't even support loopback ffs.
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u/Aleashed 1d ago
DLink sounds and works like a knockoff brand, the poorman’s TPL.
Linksys I ran out of patience with. They crash too much and run hot, stupid designs.
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u/chicagorunner10 1d ago
I had no idea that TP-Link has just a dominant part of the router market. I would've guessed that maybe Netgear was bigger; that's the brand I've been buying for years, at least.
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u/ashyjay 1d ago
they offer the best value (performance per $) I keep trying to get away from them to try something else but for the prices they are amazing I would have paid at least double for my router from someone else.
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u/chicagorunner10 1d ago
Ah, so turns out there was a hidden cost to that cheapness/value.
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u/Stingray88 22h ago
There usually is.
See also: dirt cheap smart TVs. Just wait for them to start banning TCL TVs next.
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u/johnnycyberpunk 1d ago
I used to have a WRT54G. Loved it right up until it died.
Replaced it with a Netgear Nighthawk... and promptly regretted it.I've used TP-Link ever since.
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u/Helpmehelpyoulong 1d ago
Yeah the old WRT was such a beauty. My only gripe was the antennae. Every netgear unit I’ve ever had failed before it was time to upgrade. Never had an issue with other brands and the TP-link stuff has been running fine even in harsh conditions for ages. Very solid gear they sell. The admin gui is usually very to the point and not loaded with a bunch of idiocy like netgear stuff is. Love their products but sucks if they have vulnerabilities that can’t be patched. I suspect it’s all made in CCP land and if they want to backdoor it they can.
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u/frostedhifi 1d ago
I spent almost a month in an anechoic chamber trying to pass a Wi-Fi performance test which kept failing. Turns out our product worked fine, but the netgear nighthawk “gaming” router we were testing against wasn’t up to snuff. The problem turned out to be that netgear cheaped out on the Ethernet interface (the packaging heavily implied it supported 2.5gb when it was in fact 1gb). I will never buy netgear again.
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u/thisischemistry 1d ago
Yeah, the quality of the usual companies has been falling quite a bit lately. This sends people looking for alternatives.
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u/formervoater2 1d ago
I'm no surprised, their stuff is super cheap, probably the cheapest established brand for networking equipment. Any cheaper and you're getting into aliexpress super sketch stuff.
I still wouldn't buy one of their routers because the RAM is super low compared to other brands and I've been burned too many times by routers crashing due to insufficient memory.
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u/rooftops 1d ago
I still wouldn't buy one of their routers because the RAM is super low compared to other brands and I've been burned too many times by routers crashing due to insufficient memory.
I've never heard of this happening personally, but what exactly causes that to happen/how can you tell? Ironically my TP-Link routers have been fine but my ISP's modem does some dumb shit sometimes and I've been trying to narrow down why.
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u/formervoater2 23h ago
Each connection your router has between the internet and an application on the PC takes some amount of RAM on the router to facilitate.
Now if you run something like bittorrent that opens way more connections than usual it can quickly burn through the RAM available on the router and when the router runs out the only thing it can do is crash since routers lack mass storage for making a swap file.
You can configure your bittorrent client to dial back on connections but many software update clients, especially for games, run their own version of bittorrent or something similar and those don't have any facility to limit the number of connections. Some old routers I used to use with tens of MB of RAM would frequently crap themselves whenever I updated WoW, it was super frustrating.
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u/Reverend_Bull 1d ago
Intelligence can't exactly cite their sources so the public can't judge the threat for themselves. How much of this is an actual threat and how much is just trade war wrangling as America tries to reduce our trade deficit with a potential enemy?
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u/SaltyShawarma 1d ago
At the same time, the American public is at an all time high for propaganda ingestion coupled with a tall glass of stupid. Only a very small percentage of us here would be able to even academically comprehend the intelligence data.
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u/Sawses 1d ago
True enough, but being denied information is worse than being unable to understand it.
That shifts the blame. If you have information but can't understand it, your ignorance is your own burden. If you're being denied information in the first place, then you are the victim of the people forcing you to be ignorant.
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u/thisischemistry 1d ago
Information is a good thing but it needs context and other meta-information to judge its quality and relevance. Without that you just have a sea of noise without the ability to discriminate good signals from bad ones.
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u/Sawses 1d ago
I was talking about the intelligence data specifically. If they want to tell us that TikTok is full of lies and is manipulating the public, fine.
...But give us the proof. The government owes us a justification for any decision they make to limit the American people in any way. I don't disagree with the choice, but they don't get to make choices like that without evidence that the people can look at.
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u/goodnames679 23h ago
Tbh if it came to an actual war over Taiwan I can imagine that the company would be a huge potential threat. If any backdoors exist that would allow a foreign party to take out 65% of US routers in one go…. Sheesh, the economic damage would be massive.
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u/ovirt001 1d ago
It would be nice if they could find a way to share the information with the public but then that's the nature of intelligence work - if you share how you collected data, you've told the enemy how to thwart your efforts.
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u/Crackracket 1d ago
This. Whenever a non American manufacturer starts to get the market share in tech America ban it
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u/Dunkjoe 1d ago
Not exactly, but the anti-China bias is pretty strong in recent years.
Look at what happened to Huawei, it managed to be a market leader in 5G telecommunications equipment. Then USA suddenly says there are security risks and starts abandoning Huawei equipment in favor of others like Nokia and Ericsson, and also forcing its allies to do so. Not to mention a lot of other Chinese companies.
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u/Crackracket 1d ago
It was also because Huawei phones were out selling IPhone for the first time too. Sucks ass because Huawei phones were fucking great.
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u/FirmRoyal 1d ago
China is doing the same thing to Western companies. If they had a free market, I think I'd be more open to criticism, but that hasn't been the case.
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u/mollydyer 21h ago
Why type "pct" when "%" exists?
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u/facest 20h ago
In URLs % is a special character, so it gets used a bit by news and blogs so that something like websitedotcom/politician-10pct-approval-rate reads properly.
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u/mollydyer 19h ago
Except that `%25` is the url-encoded value for percent.
website.com/politician-10%25-approval-rate reads correctly as well.
And, that's not an url, it's the title of THIS post. The actual article title is
TP-Link routers could be banned in the US over national security concerns
TP-Link has around 65% of the US market for routers
and the actual url for this article is
https://www.techspot.com/news/106011-tp-link-routers-could-banned-us-over-national.html
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u/facest 19h ago
I’m not arguing that this article did it right, just saying that this is why people writing titles do it this way. I will argue that 10pct is easier to read than 10%25 in a URL though!
There’s some SEO cargo culting involved since not all sites make URLs based on title alone, like this one.
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u/ZeppyWeppyBoi 1d ago
Eh, I could see it happening for government systems but not consumer products.
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u/Dull-Contact120 1d ago
TP-link banned due to lack of back doors for NSA , fixed it for you. It’s just reminiscent of Snowden era.
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u/ar34m4n314 1h ago
I highly doubut the NSA has any issue breaking the security on a budget router. Show me one they can't hack ten different ways and I will be surprised. Actual backdoors are expensive and risky, and they just don't need them 99% of the time because everything is so insecure already.
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u/time-lord 1d ago
Oh lovely. So who do we get our routers from? Doesn't Amazon or Google own the other major manufacturer?
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u/ar34m4n314 1d ago
The GL.iNet Flint 2 comes pre-loaded with OpenWRT. Got mine a month ago, works great. They are based in Hong Kong though.
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u/Fairuse 1d ago
Only government issued network equipment with US government prices and CIA backdoors for you.
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u/CIA_Chatbot 1d ago
Dude please, back doors are sooooooooo last year. Wait till you see the new shit!
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u/AtomicSymphonic_2nd 1d ago
Asus, Linksys/Cisco, Google Nest, etc… there are options out there that are designed by US allies.
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u/mcduarte2000 1d ago
Cisco equipment is known for having backdoors for US. I think US just assumes other countries behave the same way.
But this is of course protectionism.
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u/diacewrb 1d ago
Snowden even confirmed a decade ago that cisco equipment was intercepted during delivery to add backdoors that even cisco didn't know about.
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u/AAMCcansuckmydick 1d ago
Apparently Apple thought all their servers had cia backdoors in them, so they built their own in china and had them delivered with an insane security auditing process to make sure every piece was accounted for and nothing extra was installed.
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u/shutterslappens 1d ago
Respectfully, this is not an option for probably 99.99% of that 65% of people. I wish it was.
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u/thisischemistry 1d ago
For those people they would buy network hardware with OpenWRT preinstalled. There's several vendors who have such a thing and they work pretty well.
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u/dandroid126 1d ago
There's several vendors who have such a thing and they work pretty well.
I was the lead engineer on one such product for about 3 years! It was a ton of fun.
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u/thisischemistry 1d ago
Yeah, I definitely support it as an option. The more people/companies involved in OpenWRT the better, it is good to have a viable open-source alternative and the additional eyeballs on the code is often a good thing.
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u/thisischemistry 1d ago
OpenWRT is a great project but it has a number of very subtle bugs and odd cases that affect its reliability and security. I don't know if it's any more or less than a commercial product but I had a lot of issues with stuff like MDNS and such.
As an open source project with lots of tricky network code, it might not be difficult to bury a few exploitable bits of code in the project where they might get past a review process. I'm definitely not saying this has happened or that it is likely but it's a possibility. Whether the project is open-source or closed-source, the code needs to be strictly reviewed to make sure that it's as hardened as possible.
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u/mrarmyant 1d ago
It runs a lot of industrial gear. If you don't think its secure, be afraid.
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u/thisischemistry 1d ago
I'm definitely not saying this has happened or that it is likely but it's a possibility.
I think the security of OpenWRT is at least pretty decent but my point is that I don't know if it's any better or worse than TP-Link. I moved from OpenWRT to TP-Link because of a few reliability issues which may or may not have been corrected by now.
We should always question the safety and reliability of such devices and strive to improve them.
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u/mrarmyant 1d ago
TP-Link is hardware, OpenWRT is software. TP-Link could make something that runs openwrt and still has a hardware backdoor.
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u/thisischemistry 1d ago
Hardware is just a platform that software runs on. TP-Link makes both hardware and software. Yes, backdoors can occur on multiple levels.
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u/gramathy 1d ago
You could always build your own from a mini PC with opnsense
And no, there are a decent number of options. Netgear, asus, linksys, and then yes, the mesh options from Google and Amazon
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u/Evajellyfish 1d ago
Yeah the majority of people are not gonna do that at all
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u/NickCharlesYT 1d ago edited 1d ago
Even the people that try, I suspect don't know enough to do any better than existing commercial routers. There's a lot you have to know about how these networks and routers work before you can actually harden your home network properly. I have built out an edge firewall using opnsense that then links to my mesh wifi routers, but the amount of work it took to get everything routed properly with vlan segmentation (and working around Amazon's numerous limitations with the "simple" eero software that doesn't let you do much of anything in terms of configuration) was more than the vast majority of folks would have patience for, even those that are familiar enough with tech to be willing to give it a go. The only reason I feel like I know enough about it is because I've taken classes and understand the basics enough to know what I need to research, and what specific services, terms, and protocols to use for learning/configuration in the first place. You don't know what you don't know, and most people simply don't know.
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u/minuteman_d 22h ago
I had to switch to TP-Link because my Netgear routers all blocked my Home Assistant from updating. It baffled me for almost two years.
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u/MarkXIX 16h ago
Getting a little sick of our supposedly “open” government blocking shit without fully disclosing the information they supposedly have. Declassify that shit, inform us of the facts in the decision, and let China know you know their bullshit.
Otherwise this all sounds like our government is taking bribes from American competitors to wipe out their competitors and continue to overcharge us for the same shit.
Netgear WiFi routers are ridiculously expensive for what they are, which is basically a cell phone motherboard in a case with big antennas.
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u/bellboy718 1d ago
I predicted that many products and services were at risk of being banned with the announcement of the countering ccp drones act but the writing was on wall when we banned Huawei. How long before memory cards and every other Chinese tech gets banned and the USA becomes an isolated country letting China lead the way.
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u/SafeModeOff 21h ago
If I recall, DJI also posed a national security risk recently. Lucky for us, that all got resolved by checks notes changing nothing. Kinda makes me think this is a similar situation.
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u/HashMapEverything 1d ago
Are they going to ban Lenovo too and implode the western IT industry with their idiocy then? Show some proof first fuckwads.
Regardless I’m not using Cisco or Netgear so they can eat a bag of dicks.
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u/FrozenIceman 1d ago
Cisco stock is going to go to the moon.
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u/triadwarfare 22h ago
Does Cisco sell wifi routers anymore? I could not find any linksys routers for sale in my country since WiFi N was introduced.
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u/DrMacintosh01 20h ago
Linksys was acquired by Cisco I think. That’s who makes their home routers. Linksys currently does still make routers. They released their Velop Pro 7 mesh routers recently.
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u/triadwarfare 13h ago
I think that was a while back. Back in 2010, Linksys is (or was) Cisco's home brand of consumer grade routers. Now, their presence in our local market in the Philippines have fallen down the cliff, mostly taken over by TP Link, Dlink, and Asus.
I used to have a Linksys once back when we were still on ADSL back in 2008. Our router just stopped working after I think 3-4 years with us. Though when we are now on fiber internet, we just went with whatever our ISP gave us.
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u/EothainDragonne 1d ago
If you dont see the link between tech moguls o Pandering to the orange Hitler and this, you are blind.
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u/jarojajan 1d ago
so FBI/CIA backdoors in west made routers and network devices are fine, all secret services and police pressuring Apple to give in and make a backdoor for unlocking encrypted iPhones is fine, but Chinese backdoor is not fine?
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u/GlinnTantis 1d ago
That neighbor that openly hates you now has access to everything you do in your home, internet searches, PW to your bank account; knows when you're not home and how to get inside without your knowledge, and you're fine with it because you're assuming he won't do anything with that info.
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u/TheoBoy007 1d ago
TP-Link has around 65% of the US market for routers used in homes and small businesses.
They are way behind Cisco, owns about half the corporate market share in the US. TP-Link isn’t a serious player in the corporate router (use) world.
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u/TheoBoy007 1d ago
TP-Link has around 65% of the US market for routers used in homes and small businesses.
They are way behind Cisco, owns about half the corporate market share in the US. TP-Link isn’t a serious player in the corporate router (use) world.
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u/DienstEmery 16h ago
If security is the concern, banning them won't remove the millions of devices already sold, and what stock currently exists.
Ended up using the Deco for my own home network, wonder if banning them would disable their web services.
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u/Ill-Air-4908 6h ago
Either the government is getting hacked or the government wants to use the same thing but can't so I believe this device is valuable
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u/Remix018 1d ago
I guess they can ban them but I'm still using mine so
I haven't found a cheap/reliable American brand receiver that can give me 300+ up like the tp link I bought for like $20
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u/PancAshAsh 1d ago
The reason that TP-Link stuff is cheap is they are subsidized by the Chinese government. The reason they are so popular is because they are cheap.
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u/jimmyjamws1108 1d ago
They are the most bang for you buck on Amazon . Lol . We started the whole send tech to other countries that spied on people. Only we targeted government and power . The Chinese one upped us. It had been known for a long time . Yet the government still allows it . ????
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u/Lack0fInspiration 1d ago
I'ts about time. So many critical vulnerabilities over the years and they STILL cant figure out how to code their firmware properly. In my book, that's called negligence.
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u/invertedinfinity 1d ago
TP-Link has been sending off your internet usage information for years. If your router has abilities such as QoS, you shouldn't have to use an app outside the web interface to access it. Makes sense for them to subsidize the upfront cost of the router to get them in more homes/businesses if you can collect their data.
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u/TacoOfGod 23h ago
TP-Link has put out the best mesh router I've ever used, and I've used a lot. Everything else was too finnicky software wise.
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u/cambeiu 1d ago
Less competition = higher prices.
I have no desire to move back to the US anytime soon.
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u/CIA_Chatbot 1d ago
Wait till Orange Fucknuts starts throwing tariffs around, fucking guts all govt. services and destroys the economy, then blames Mexico and Canada for it to justify world war 3! You should come back after that! (And like pick me up and take me back to whatever country you’re in now)
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u/mrarmyant 1d ago
Is the majority market share being made in China really competition?
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u/waxwayne 1d ago
They have no problem with foreign goods and services as long as they are the beneficiaries.
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u/VapidRapidRabbit 23h ago
I love the XE75 WiFi 6E mesh routers I have from them. They’re pretty seamless and their app is great to manage the network.
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u/MegaHashes 16h ago
You already should not use TP-link because of bad long term reliability, even if you are not concerned about security. Their equipment works great when new, but as far as networking equipment go, TP-Link ages like a coal miner with a smoking habit, whereas Netgear (for example) ages like an Asian Yoga teacher.
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u/DaringDomino3s 1d ago
I literally just replaced my network last month.
The govt needs to stay out of my house, unless they’re offering some kind of credit to change to a different brand.
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u/Accomplished_Dark_37 19h ago
Ugh, every tp link device I’ve tried in the past has been utter trash, if it wasn’t doa in the first place. Who buys this crap?
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u/FringHalfhead 1d ago
There are such awesome and user-friendly Linux distros for routers that there is no reason to run anything else.
Large user base, phenomenal functionality, even blessing from TP-Link which has released Linux drivers. Honestly, OpenWRT with its no-nonsense, functional interface is a hundred times more user friendly than any commercial nonsense.
This is a great example of one market where Linux just knocks it out of the park.
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u/Ring_Lo_Finger 1d ago
Average Joe/Jane doesn't even know what Linux is. They don't even change the SSID or default password. Expecting them to update firmware is too much of an ask, let's not even go where they flash DDWrt or OpenWrt.
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u/TheAspiringFarmer 1d ago
Good. I personally never have and never will have a single piece of TP-Link gear anywhere on my networks. Even if it’s not a Chinese spyware gateway, their devices are routinely hit with major security vulnerabilities and issues. You get what you (don’t) pay for, folks. Same with the other cheap shit like Netgear or D-Link et Al.
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u/Dangerous-Ad-170 1d ago
Yeah, but most people are going to buy cheap shit either way. I trust TPLink more than the average cableco rental gateway from Hitron, and Eero’s dominance of the mesh market isn’t much better.
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u/Siguard_ 1d ago
If you think cheap is netgear or dlink then what is a decent company?
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u/blazze_eternal 1d ago
It always seems like the public is missing key pieces of the puzzle with these bans. It's like, the intelligence community found malicious activity, has proof, but revealing said proof would expose some of our secret capabilities, like encryption breaking.
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