FCC Grants Netgear Conditional Approval For Routers (pcmag.com) 63
The FCC has granted (PDF) Netgear the first exemption from its foreign-made router ban, allowing the company to keep selling new consumer router models made outside the U.S. through Oct. 1, 2027. PCMag reports: The Defense Department reviewed Netgear's application for an exemption and found that its products "do not pose risks to US national security." The FCC's order doesn't elaborate on why. Netgear is based in San Jose, California, although its products are made in Asia. The exemption, known as a conditional approval, lasts until Oct. 1, 2027. It covers a large range of future Wi-Fi models from Netgear, spanning the R, RAX, RAXE, RS, MK, MR, M, and MH series, the Orbi consumer mesh, mobile, and standalone routers under the RBK, RBE, RBR, RBRE, LBR, LBK, and CBK series, as well as cable gateways and cable modems under the CAX and CM series.
The exemption isn't a full green light for the future product models from Netgear. The FCC says the company still needs to go through the normal Commission-regulated equipment authorization process for each device. The Oct. 1, 2027 date effectively amounts to a deadline for Netgear to receive FCC certification for the router models; each certification is also permanent, enabling the product to be sold in the US on an ongoing basis. This also suggests that Netgear has an 18-month period to receive FCC certifications for future products.
The exemption isn't a full green light for the future product models from Netgear. The FCC says the company still needs to go through the normal Commission-regulated equipment authorization process for each device. The Oct. 1, 2027 date effectively amounts to a deadline for Netgear to receive FCC certification for the router models; each certification is also permanent, enabling the product to be sold in the US on an ongoing basis. This also suggests that Netgear has an 18-month period to receive FCC certifications for future products.
NSA Backdoors? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:NSA Backdoors? (Score:5, Insightful)
Mista Puhtaddah head! (Score:2)
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If "NSA Backdoor" is innuendo for "wrote a big check" then yea, probably.
With a small closet full of “those customers” hardware mounted beside every major trunk router in the US, the FUCK makes anyone assume the NSA is still bothering with network monitoring that requires consumer participation beyond their internet addiction?
Hacking home routers is what those massive botnets the NSA likes to re-use after capture, is for.
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It is if you want to capture the data before encryption.
Right now there are two routers on the market - the ISP provided gateway and now Netgear. Ba
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>"Right now there are two routers on the market - the ISP provided gateway and now Netgear. Basically everything else is off the market."
Incorrect. Ubiquiti Unifi is doing just fine. There are probably others, as well.
https://store.ui.com/us/en/cat... [ui.com]
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Why can't both be true?
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Checks are traceable. These days the bribes are generally crypto of some sort. At least that's what I've heard...
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nobody is trying to hide the graft anymore. it is publicly celebrated
Re:NSA Backdoors? (Score:5, Insightful)
No it means the check cleared. I checked his shitcoins but no activity today besides that long decline.
Re: NSA Backdoors? (Score:2)
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Nah, that's paranoia. These days, the FCC just requires a FSB backdoor.
Netgear lobbied for this (Score:5, Informative)
It's only fair they'd be the first ones to profit from it: https://www.nasdaq.com/article... [nasdaq.com]
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It's only fair they'd be the first ones to profit from it: https://www.nasdaq.com/article... [nasdaq.com]
Reading about a whopping $60K worth of lobbying, makes me assume Netgear was merely paying their DC bar tab.
For a company that size? That’s a joke, not a bribe.
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You don't understand what is being said here, that's $60k of lobbying on a single issue. That's actually fairly standard on a per issue basis. The difference is how frequently companies raise issues. E.g. Microsoft (quite an infamous lobbyist) spends around $30k-60k on each issue as well. They do however disclose on a quarterly basis $2.5m which bulk all the other non-previously disclosed issues.
Netgear disclose some $300k/year on lobbying the US government, not out of the ordinary for a company that size w
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yes and the other element of this that people who don't work for/with/at/in/against organizations that play this game is the repeat business aspect.
A politician more or less agrees to stake out a position as a service and perhaps introduce some legislative language the company helped draft. In addition to the direct donation the lobby group will pass money through a network of related entities to first propogandize the recipients district that whatever is actually an issue worth considering at the voting b
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I wonder how many bribes are getting paid (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure Papa Nurgel will get his cut but I wonder who else is going to get in on the action.
Assuming we managed to get rid of the Republican party the way the hungarians managed to get rid of Victor orban we are going to have so many years of cleaning up this mess. And the worst thing is is the majority of old farts that put us in this mess are going to drop dead before they have to deal with the consequences.
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it comes and goes in waves. i've just assumed it was a specific troll/bot group during specific periods of agenda pushing vs the general consensus of the public.
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Depends on who is making the post and how many sockpuppet accounts they have to mod themselves up.
I wonder how many golden ballrooms it cost them? (Score:3, Insightful)
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According to the link in r1348's post [slashdot.org] above, it only cost them $60k, which is a bargain, really.
Re:I wonder how many golden ballrooms it cost them (Score:4, Insightful)
That's just the part we know about. We don't know how much cuckocurrency they bought.
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No that was their lobbying expense for that piece of legislation. It has nothing to do with their exemption right now which would not be disclosed the same way.
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So about 14 square feet of ballroom then.
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The ballroom is a lovely tribute to his dearly departed good friend Jeffry Epstein though. Nice of Trump to build a permanent monument to the guy who introduced him to so many beautiful young ladies.
Not really, no. (Score:3)
The Department of War was responsible for that authorization. The FCC just passed along their rubber stamp. Only the DoW and the DHS can authorize these waivers, the FCC is just a front for them now.
Re:Not really, no. (Score:5, Insightful)
The Department of War was responsible for that authorization. The FCC just passed along their rubber stamp. Only the DoW and the DHS can authorize these waivers, the FCC is just a front for them now.
It was clear from the start this is primarily a move to put Trump's goons in DOD (legally there still is no Department of War, that's just Hegseth's cosplay) and DHS, the parent of ICE, in charge of parts of the economy they have no constitutional or statutory authority over. It's all power grab pure and simple.
The money grift part goes without saying. Anything Trump does is grift. Just like any time his lips move, he's lying.
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Yeah, it's still the DOD, but the order about this named it as the DoW so I thought I'd emphasize that. Guess I should have called it out directly.
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How long until the FCC is renamed the Department of Truth?
Re: Not really, no. (Score:2)
Protection for the oligopoly (Score:4, Interesting)
Existing router manufacturers will get exemptions, which will prevent them from challenging the law in court. Would-be newcomers will not get exemptions and thus be out of luck, because they won't have the resources to challenge the law.
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Would-be newcomers that manufacture their equipment stateside can bypass restrictions entirely.
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And not sell any routers because to have a sufficiently American supply chain they'd cost 4-10x as much and be unavailable in quantity (the domestic suppliers for the relevant components are pretty low-volume because they only exist to support the military)
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Never said it'd be cheap. But let's be honest, how much longer do you think we can get away with pawning off tech manufacturing to other countries before they either raise prices or it bites us in the ass?
Loopholes and bribes (Score:2)
If NetGear devices are banned, the price of approved products would sky-rocket, people would buy black-market devices that don't contain NSA back-doors.
No need for black market. (Score:2)
Used routers that can run FOSS router software abound because factory firmware updates ended though many are amply fast for their real use case. I just flashed my old 6700v3 with FreshTomato which is simple to do. I'd upgraded but kept the 6700v3 as a ready backup. (I don't believe in being one-deep on comm gear including computers.)
Of course any PC with two or more NICs can route and there are plenty available. "Home lab" enthusiasts make all sorts of interesting appliances from tiny PCs with ethernet and
Wonder how much the kickback was (Score:2, Troll)
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Just an agreement to only pass packets that are signed with a key issued by a biometric-identified account on a walled-garden closed-source platform with a key-escrow style TPM-like opaque crypto module.
When the time cones to flip that switch.
Google has been told to prevent people from installing their own software on Android. It's ramping up slowly but the control grid also requires that no open source phone platform can get transit.
Is this really for National Security? (Score:3)
They Said... (Score:5, Interesting)
we couldn't have net neutrality because "that would lead to the FCC having to regulate everything you plug in to the internet"
and now...republicans are in fact...regulating what we plug in to the internet.
This is not about security, it's about control. It's about finding ways of breaking the free and open internet by one of locked down devices.
The only national security this is protecting is the free spread of speech by starting to lock it behind walls.
This FCC....does not work for us. It does not represent the people.
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The bribery angle is possibly true, but are you really complaining about an administration finally recognizing that consumer routers are full of backdoors and at least playing at securing them? We've needed to address security vulnerabilities in consumer AND professional networking equipment for some time now.
Re: They Said... (Score:3)
Re: They Said... (Score:2)
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The why. (Score:2)
The FCC's order doesn't elaborate on why. Netgear is based in San Jose, California, although its products are made in Asia..
If by Asia they mean not China, then yes. They did in fact elaborate.
Re: The why. (Score:3)
No great surprise. (Score:2)
Regulation in the modern US is not about a level playing field, it is about corrupt businesses and corrupt officials using regulations as an excuse to persecute competitors.
What's The Difference Between TP-Link and NetGear (Score:2)
What's the difference between TP-Link and NetGear?
One paid tallage and the other was sacrificed to make an example.
For a small donation... (Score:2)
Thanks for the warning, time to ditch Netgear (Score:2)
Well, time to get rid of my Netgear equipment. I'm too suspicious they agreed on some backdoor deal, possibly including information on possible exploits in both firmware and hardware flaws. Either that or they are supporting the administration financially in a conflict of interest. Both are warning signs.
Arbitrary and Capricious (Score:2)
There is a serious lack of transparency on the part of the FCC here. Without key details, it is going to keep many people guessing about what a "Secure Router" really means.
There needs to be a FOIA request, and if that doesn't work, a lawsuit to get to the bottom of this nonsense.