FCC's Foreign-Made Router Ban Expands To Portable Wi-Fi Hotspot Devices 51
The FCC has expanded its foreign-made router ban to also cover consumer Wi-Fi hotspots and LTE/5G home-internet devices, though existing products and phones with hotspot features are not affected. PCMag reports: On Wednesday, the FCC updated its FAQ on the ban, clarifying which consumer-grade routers are subject to the restrictions. Portable Wi-Fi hotspots are usually considered a separate category from Wi-Fi home routers. Both offer internet access, but portable Wi-Fi hotspots use a SIM card to connect to a cellular network rather than an Ethernet cable inside a residence. However, the FCC's FAQ now specifies that "consumer-grade portable or mobile MiFi Wi-Fi or hotspot devices for residential use" are covered under the ban.
The ban also affects "LTE/5G CPE devices for residential use," which are installed for fixed wireless access and use a carrier's cellular network to deliver home internet. The FCC didn't immediately respond to a request for comment about the changes. In the meantime, the FAQ reiterates that the foreign-made router ban only applies to consumer-grade devices, not enterprise products. The document also notes that mobile phones with hotspot features remain outside the restrictions. In addition, the ban only affects new router models that vendors plan to sell, not existing models, as T-Mobile emphasized to PCMag.
The ban also affects "LTE/5G CPE devices for residential use," which are installed for fixed wireless access and use a carrier's cellular network to deliver home internet. The FCC didn't immediately respond to a request for comment about the changes. In the meantime, the FAQ reiterates that the foreign-made router ban only applies to consumer-grade devices, not enterprise products. The document also notes that mobile phones with hotspot features remain outside the restrictions. In addition, the ban only affects new router models that vendors plan to sell, not existing models, as T-Mobile emphasized to PCMag.
brick all phones (Score:2, Redundant)
I imagine the USA makes very few home/business routers/extenders/gateway hot-spots: Whoever does, has a duopoly, now. But it makes zero mobile phones: Demanding made-in-USA equipment would brick every phone in the country, even the iPhone. It's also unnecessary, since modern phones contain emergency transponders under the network provider's control and the NSA can copy all packets to/from a mobile phone.
Re: brick all phones (Score:5, Informative)
"The document also notes that mobile phones with hotspot features remain outside the restrictions."
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It's like an onion of stupid. You peel back one layer of stupid, and there's another, more pungent layer of stupid underneath.
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what if it isn't a scam.
What if the scam has in fact been as many suggest decades of de-industrialization of American through policy bought and paid for by small 'international-class' that lined their pockets at the expense of opportunity and security of their fellow citizens.
What if these actions are being taking by those who correctly recognize the problem, but either don't appreciate the complexity or cost of the required solutions?
What if they do appreciate the cost and complexity but this is the best t
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What if these actions are being taking by those who correctly recognize the problem, but either don't appreciate the complexity or cost of the required solutions?
Name one person in this administration capable of making this assessment.
Re:Trump Administration extorting bribes (Score:5, Interesting)
Ha, try last 3-6 administrations. These folks don't understand the technology and when they do, their goals are never freedom based. Been this way for decades and just continues to pick up steam.
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If it isn't a scam, then the weird exceptions (e.g. enterprise equipment and phones) will soon be removed, the president will announce that he'll no longer accept bribes and is therefore shutting down all the bribery-focused projects (e.g. the ballroom, Trumpcoin) so that manufacturers no longer have any way to get themselves exempted through backdoor processes, and the president will remove any government-imposed trade barriers that interfere with US router manufacturers acquiring o
Re: Trump Administration extorting bribes (Score:2)
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If only there was a way to find out. A huge communication network that brings all the knowledge of humanity to our fingertips perhaps. If only.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/se... [stlouisfed.org]
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The document also notes that mobile phones with hotspot features remain outside the restrictions.
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It is just an extortion scam. Nothing new for this bunch of people.
Re: Coercive control (Score:2)
Re: Coercive control (Score:3)
But they're also more likely to be controlled by professional IT departments, who know what to watch for in case of attack and can fix things if they get hacked. The average American user of consumer-grade hardware isn't gonna realize they've been hacked.
Do American made devices even exist? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I would say this is the only explanation that makes sense at this point. I mean, Donnie is already selling pardons and other stuff.
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I was going to say the Trump Phone but that claim has quietly disappeared.
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That...
and to ensure all routers in the hands of consumers have government mandated monitoring.
Can we have even more meaningless distinctions ... (Score:2)
... without a difference? If anything phones are worse both for unindented security issues as they commonly run tons of large attack surface user space programs (browser, mail, IM, etc.) and more problematic in case they get breached (or have backdoors in the first place). Taking over a router is of course bad, but for most people that don't have much of an infrastructure behind it's like using a random public wifi, not so great but also decently safe with 99% of the things we run nowadays over SSL. Having
more nonsense from this administration (Score:5, Insightful)
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More like because Cisco and IBM and other "enterprise" stuff has had vulnerability after vulnerability in the last few years and would all need to be banned. This administration thinks it can stomp on the little people all day long. And so far their "success" still proves them right.
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More like because Cisco and IBM have NSA-sponsored back doors.
We only know for sure this is true of Cisco... But who wouldn't suspect IBM?
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Indeed.
But do we have actual hard evidence for Cisco by now? I mean, it is absolutely clear this is happening, but I thought they managed to keep the actual attack activity hidden so far?
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A number of clearly intentional back doors have been found in Cisco products over the years. Do we absolutely know they were planted by TLAs instead of smartasses? I don't think we do. But let's not be naive...
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I am not suggesting being naive. I was just wondering whether I missed something.
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It’s the same reason the feminist picks the bear.
It's funny you mention this. I had no idea what this was referencing until about two weeks ago. My coworker mentioned this phrase "Not every man but always a man" and then mentioned that some random tiktok video polled women about feeling safer in a room with a bear or a stranger that's a male. No surprise, the majority watching this channel said the bear.
I smiled at my coworker, then proceeded to point out ALL the most recent crimes committed by women. Same stuff as men of course, but seems to women are em
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Create writing 101.
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You really think I made that up? Why? It's literally a true story. What do I get for making up that story? Oh well, believe what you want but that's something that really just happened within the past couple weeks.
I wasn't even going to respond but I'm kind of baffled 3 of you (two ACs hardly count but someone took the time) think it's a lie.
Brendan Carr Is A Dummy (Score:2)
It's the podcast within a podcast, but it's also true.
So, where do people get the Amerikan replacements (Score:2)
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Meant to post "ban something", but my brain skipped a few teeth again...
Re:So, where do people get the Amerikan replacemen (Score:4, Funny)
You know where this is heading. The Trump Freedom Router!
With simulated gold finish and software that filters woke content as to not upset your fragile views.
Pre order now!
Fine print:
*Actual product will be a re-badged TP-LINK router made in China
Flash FOSS firmware on used hardware. (Score:5, Interesting)
Many owners don't scrap replaced routers but sell them instead for next to nothing. Many of those are supported by OpenWrt, FreshTomato, OPNsense etc. Even if you replace an EOL router you can flash your previous hardware as a ready spare or do other useful tasks with it
For example I was satisfied by my old Netgear R6700v3 but bought a new GL-MT6000 out of curiosity, then flashed the Netgear with FreshTomato have a ready spare on the wall next to it. The only hassle was the buggy stock Netgear firmware demanded multiple login attempts which FreshTomato solved nicely.
You can go DIY with a wide variety of hardware including formerly expensive EOL network appliances, industrial PCs, used or new tiny form factor desktops and thin clients.
Rolling your own router/appliance has been easy since the single-floppy Linux router era at the turn of the century. Those enabled tasks like sharing my dialup connection using an old P75 with a Linux-compatible "hardware" modem before "Winmodems" were supported.
Same and different (Score:2)
FCC has no justification to enforce net neutrality (Score:2)
The FCC has no authority to mandate and enforce net neutrality yet they do have authority to ban imports of routers. Very interesting.
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The FCC has no authority to mandate and enforce net neutrality yet they do have authority to ban imports of routers. Very interesting.
They are not banning imports of routers they are preventing compliance certification. It isn't clear to me where if anywhere that authority comes from. Shit like the SNA applies to telecom service providers not end users.
"In the EA Security R&O and FNPRM, the Commission established several new rules to prohibit authorization of equipment identified on the Commission's Covered List developed pursuant to the Secure Networks Act. In particular, the Commission adopted several revisions to its part 2 rules
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They Didn't Want Net Neutrality (Score:2)
"Oh no...we can't regulate anything when it helps consumers. Do you want the FCC to approve everything you plug in? That would be a total over-reach of the government and that's not what we can allow. We not only need to prevent that; but keep the FCC out of it entirely"
Where are those fuckers now? Doing the same fucking thing now that it has a chance to fuck people over.
It's not about safety...it's about fucking control. About fucking over as many people as possible while gaslighting them about safety.
Pret
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While you're right in principle, as an AT&T customer that's already basically been the situation I'm stuck in for several decades now, and most their competition is no better. The only thing that's changed is now presumably Trump gets some kickbacks out of the situation.
My car has a built in wifi hotspot! (Score:3)
\o/ (Score:2)
So any device which might allow USAnians freedom to have unmonitored and uncensored internet, is banned.