Thread 107082469

US Government Urges Total Ban of Our Most Popular Wi-Fi Router
>Cybersecurity experts say that all routers hold surveillance and data collection risks. Here's how to protect yourself.
>The news first broke in December of last year, when The Wall Street Journal reported that investigators at the Departments of Commerce, Defense and Justice had all opened probes into the company due to national security risks stemming from its ties to China. (Learn how to protect yourself below.) Since then, news on the TP-Link front has been relatively quiet.
>Now, the proposal has gained interagency approval.
>"Commerce officials concluded TP-Link Systems products pose a risk because the US-based company's products handle sensitive American data and because the officials believe it remains subject to jurisdiction or influence by the Chinese government," the Washington Post reports.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/us-government-urges-total-ban-of-our-most-popular-router/

WTF

I have a TP-Link router and I never even knew it's a chinese company.

I don't understand why the US gov uses any chinese shit at all

Ah, so this surely is the chance to push for more open hardware, right? right?

>>107082469 (OP)
It's just protectionist bullshit
TP-Link is popular because they sell a little cheaper than mainstream brands.
This is fucking bad of course because everything in the US is treated as a grift and dear god you sell hardware with normal hardware margins

>>107082469 (OP)
I literally just bought a TP-Link dongle last week. It's not my fault that their linux drivers are better than the competition.

>>107082469 (OP)
>US government bans TP Link routers because of surveillance and data collection risks
Why can't the people ban the government for the same reasons?

>>107082469 (OP)
It's ok. They will sell the same shit under Mercusys brand.

I'd rather pay $30 for a chinese router and be spied on by chinks than pay an American company $100 just for the same hardware/speeds.

I am in charge of IT for my company, and I saved the company thousands by buying TP-Link routers, switches, and repeaters over buying American.

on the american alternative(s) it is possible for the user to install openwrt or similar, right?

>>107082501
>I have a TP-Link router and I never even knew it's a chinese company.
Where do you think they are made? Detroit?

>>107082727
… and be spied on by the american government who can easily reach out and physically touch you.

>>107082553
You're a naive idiot.

>>107082825
I'm speechless, this must be bait.

>>107082469 (OP)
Americans are only able to ban things, they can't manufacture shit LMAO.

>>107082826
That's why I'd rather pay $30. No way I'm paying an American company $100 for the same router I can pay a chinese company $30 for.

>>107082553
I read this (correctly) as "it's just projectionist bullshit"

>>107082469 (OP)
>>107082553
>>107082555
if you read the article, it mentions "four cybersecurity experts"
>When the news first broke last December, I asked four cybersecurity experts whether they would still use a TP-Link router. One gave a strong "no." Another said there is "risk for a consumer." And two declined to answer the question directly.

if you click the article linked in that paragraph, you'll see that an american-Pajeet is behind this campaign:
>It's not every day a humble Wi-Fi router makes an appearance in the halls of Congress. But that's exactly what happened on March 5 when Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat from Illinois, held up a TP-Link router and said, “Don’t use this.”
>Krishnamoorthi has been urging a ban of the routers for months in response to several China-backed cyberattacks last year. Investigators at the Commerce, Defense and Justice departments all opened probes into TP-Link routers in 2024 due to ties to Chinese cyberattacks.
(from https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/tp-link-is-under-investigation-for-predatory-pricing-should-you-replace-your-router/)

in fact, they give the actual reason right there in the title of that article:
>TP-Link Is Under Investigation for Predatory Pricing. Should You Replace Your Router?
>prosecutors in the Justice Department’s antitrust division are investigating whether TP-Link engaged in predatory pricing tactics

>>107082469 (OP)
>>107083192
none of these "cybersecurity experts" actually said "no" or believes there is anything specific to this brand:
>"Vulnerabilities in embedded devices are not unique to any one manufacturer or country of origin," said Sonu Shankar, chief product officer at Phosphorus Cybersecurity. "Nation-state actors frequently exploit weaknesses in devices from vendors worldwide, including those sold by American manufacturers."

>Several of the cybersecurity experts I spoke with believe it’s likely that intelligence agencies have found something with TP-Link that warrants a ban.
>“I think this comes from a deeper intelligence within the US government. Usually this happens before the information becomes public,” Guido Patanella, senior vice president of engineering at Lansweeper, told CNET.
>"I think it's beyond political," Patanella added. "It could be either an intentionally set hardware flaw or it could be from a firmware point of view. This is usually a black box analysis and it usually doesn't get shared, as happened with Huawei."

>Pace, the NetRise CEO, told me he thinks it’s likely that there’s a “zero-day” vulnerability in TP-Link devices -- a term that refers to a hidden flaw in which there have been zero days to fix it -- but he was quick to point out that there’s no evidence to back that up.

>"We've analyzed an astonishing amount of TP-Link firmware. We find stuff, but we find stuff in everything," said Thomas Pace, CEO of cybersecurity firm NetRise and former security contractor for the Department of Energy.

>In May 2023, Check Point Research also identified a firmware implant in TP-Link routers linked to a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group. In this case, the campaign targeted European foreign affairs entities. Still, the researchers emphasized that the attack was written in a “firmware-agnostic manner” and wasn’t designed to exploit TP-Link specifically.

in short, this is motivated by politics and economics, just like with Huawei.

>>107082469 (OP)
>STOP using network gear subject to Chinese jurisdiction!!!!
>START using network gear subject to NSA jurisdiction!!!
Thanks you Mr. Glowie man I will take you advice into consideration.

>>107082862
>they can't manufacture shit
That's actually more or less the one thing they CAN manufacture.

>>107082825

Considering GM is continuing CarPlay in 2028 for their cars? It’s not the craziest thing out there.

>>107083232
>Pace, the NetRise CEO, told me he thinks it’s likely that there’s a “zero-day” vulnerability in TP-Link devices -- a term that refers to a hidden flaw in which there have been zero days to fix it -- but he was quick to point out that there’s no evidence to back that up.
>"We've analyzed an astonishing amount of TP-Link firmware. We find stuff, but we find stuff in everything," said Thomas Pace, CEO of cybersecurity firm NetRise and former security contractor for the Department of Energy.
everyone knows only chinese companies ignore 0-days and only chinese networking companies have vulnerabilities
thats why i buy ubiquiti and palo alto!

My TP-Link TL-WR841N has DD-WRT installed, what are these assclowns on about

Every other router in the market overheats like crazy and drops connections or restarts constantly

>>107083509
>Every other router in the market overheats like crazy and drops connections or restarts constantly
meds. a router is solved technology.

>>107082736
I've done multiple installs with tp-link omada gear, which is their attempt to fill the same market niche as unifi gear. Largest facility we did with omada had over 300 access points across multiple buildings and several dozen switches with redundant 10G links in a mesh. Zero problems.

TP-link still doesn't have decent directional/outdoor APs, and unifi still has considerably better selections of high end switches (as well as poe passthrough switches like their flex line), but you can buy omada on amazon without worrying about inventory issues, and it works just fine.

The customer support is nonexistent, but for a 150 dollar AP, just buy another one and move on (or hell, keep a couple of spares on hand).

GL.iNet chads win again
OpenWRT straight from China

every router thread I get reminded that the keyboard market lagged behind on open sauce adoption
like, how the fuck

Mikrotik chads we rise
Buy European

>>107082553
>>107083232
Why don't they just slap a tariff on it then?
Oh, because then they would have to admit Orange Man good.

>>107083554
ISPs can pretty easily unsolve it with their dogshit proprietary paperweights they call routers.

>>107082469 (OP)
>chinks forced to read my winne the pooh memes, download falung gong pdfs, and tianamen square massacre posters
>no party van outside reading my anime collection
how is this a bad thing?

>>107083852
>Why don't they just slap a tariff on it then?
because they want to ban the company?

>Oh, because then they would have to admit Orange Man good.
who is they? and what the fuck is this retarded logic?

>>107083906
Yeah I don't know why I should care more about China stealing my data than the FBI. Only one of those would break my door down for streaming an episode of Kitchen Nightmares.

>>107083863
okay, that's fair. But it's not accurate to say that every router on the market is severely broken, when in reality almost any cheapo router from a reputable company will most likely be fine.

>>107083848
Hello, I switched from TP-Link to Mikrotik it is comfy.

Remember earlier this year when they supposedly found a backdoor on a Chinese bluetooth chip and it turned out to be the frontdoor?
This smearing campaign against China certainly does not have the intent of making people distrust Chinese democracy, because no one thinks China is a democracy.
It has the intent of making up for all of the cybersecurity hazards being pumped into the world's systems by the USA.

>>107083568
GL.iNet = AmneziaWG + Shadowsocks out of box
FU FEDS

>>107083381
>intel has provided a backdoor to the NSA since at least 2008
>amd has done the same since at least 2013
>the US has the right to ask any employee of any tech company to leak all of their information to the government and then quietly implement their desired changes so as to allow for a backdoor; telling anyone about it or refusing to do so is literally a crime
>US has hired Palantir to make a database of people and their beliefs
Yeah tell me more about how fearful I should be of China.

>>107082469 (OP)
Make way for the thinking man router.

Those Sinophobic faggots legislated all our hardware to China in the first place

>>107084199
TP-Link is trash, I don't understand why people buy them. Literally the worst possible chipsets, the buggiest firmware, and the shortest support duration of all manufacturers.
This being said, Mikrotik is a whole new price bracket of garbage, at least TP-Link don't put fake PoE on their devices.

>>107082469 (OP)
>data the US government could use to punish you is sent to China instead
ok, seems like pure upside for the average /g/tard

Buy D-Link instead. Taiwan #1.

>>107085530
>Mikrotik is a whole new price bracket of garbage,
I remember them being super hyped a few years ago
Was it all astroturfing?

What is the best router to use if you don't want to get added to a botnet?

>>107082511
the hell else are they going to use? american made routers? lmfao

>>107082469 (OP)
>handle sensitive American data
Why doesn't government infrastructure run on proprietary and classified hardware and software?

Still using a TP-Link TL-WN722N V1 with atheros AR9271 chip that I got around a decade ago for $20 cad
Still rock solid

less of a threat than swiss cheese firmware mikrotik garbage

>>107085673
probably refers to how russia and ukraine have bot nets in each others' country that are used to triangulate drone location if the regular signal is disturbed by the enemy

>>107085894
less of a threat than fucking Cisco and Palo Alto with their constant vulns and backdoors and default passwords

>>107085925
which company doesnt have constant CVEs? it's just highly exposed and very lucrative.
first quesiton was serious though, i dont know that much about routers

>>107085952
the point is that some of the vulns found in the routers of american companies are fucking blatant

now, if you care about security, replace their firmware with openwrt, harden it as much as possible and keep your shit updated. that's all you need.

>>107086020
>harden
as in what? compile with hardening flags?
i have openwrt (buggy piece of shit btw 5ghz antenna disconnects constantly) on my router and i dont see a reason for it to be more secure than other types of firmware outside of security by obscurity even though openwrt is base of many proprietary OSes

>>107086049
anon, you can google what "hardening" means
also, next time you will install openwrt on a router, make sure to check the table of hardware and the forums before even buying.

>>107082469 (OP)
All consumer router gear is buggy trash that has tons of CVEs every year. TP-Link is no better or worse than them. I have a TP-Link switch. Should it get banned even though it's a dumb device that never faces the internet? This is just attempted protection of other brands because TP-Link is cheaper and still works just as well. If they ban TP-Link they need to buy all routers produced in China--including those "US" and "European" brands. If the Chinese are flashing the routers at the factory the risk is the same.

>>107086196
xiaomi mi4a, literally one of the most popular ones easily top 5

>>107086373
ok, and?
did you miss my point? buy a well supported router. popular or not, doesn't matter. support has nothing to do with popularity, it's a technical thing.

Didn't they did the same some years ago to another company?
People have try hacking those modems following the documentation provided and it doesn't works. It was all made up larp.

>>107085673
You now need to equip all government sites, including every post office, with that expensive custom hardware. And cut taxes too.

>>107086442
>Didn't they did the same some years ago to another company?
Huawei

>>107082469 (OP)
Please do the needful and buy Indian routers instead, sir.

>>107082511
Are there any electronics made in America?

>>107082469 (OP)
Honestly TP-link is the cheap shit to begin with.
But it's 100% just Yanks being protectionist so their companies can milk their ever squeezed consumer more.

>>107082469 (OP)
Basic FUD to drum up some excuse to ban a harmless product. Land of the free etc. Probably benefits some jeet CEOs in SV to have the competition gone.

>>107086704
There is Foxconn, Quanta, Flextronics and Kingston that operate factories in the US.
Those are just who I know of when I was contracted at Google.

It was interesting to see some Foxconn pallets with made in China with others made in USA

>>107082469 (OP)
Yessss! Finally Chink shit gets BTFO.

Boycott Chinese products if you give any fucks at all about quality. They need to target all the BTBDJG YQYYD Amazon Chinkshit spam brands next. Temu. Just shut it down.

>>107082469 (OP)
I was gonna get a new router this week.
TpLink it is.

>>107082553
not even that, looks like some companies are lobbying against tp-link

>>107086020
after working in tech i've come to realize that so many people developing stuff are straight up incompetent. not intentionally or maliciously. they just are lazy or ignorant.
critical systems using HTTP. using protocols that have been long deprecated. truly heinous design choices.

i think it's probably the case everywhere because i see it everywhere. maybe china's version of mossad is backdooring your router, but i could also believe that Dong Wang just doesn't care to harden the firmware when it already works fine.
i trust basically nothing. everyone is retarded. every developer is retarded, me included. no one has ever made a secure product and they never will.

>>107086831
>looks like some companies are lobbying against tp-link
Same shit really
US government only acts because entrenched companies are pissing and shitting themselves.

>>107085530
>fake PoE on their devices
???
>>107085624
ive been using tik products for years and its truly set and forget
but im also not a networking enthusiast so idk

>>107082501
Nigga they all chinese!

>>107086765
Foxconn sounds like it's from MGS. Quanta and Flextronics frankly sound made up, like a kid though them up. Kingston is ok, I guess, but they fucked me over with their ssd dying in less than a year so they can fuck off too.

>>107082469 (OP)
>Cybersecurity experts say that all routers hold surveillance and data collection risks
Mikrotik doesn't have this problem

>>107082469 (OP)
Use TP-Link Switch at work
kek, it just works and no issues with it

>>107087343
>trusting closed source routerOS

commie chinks bad
island chinks good

>>107086918
as a router autist i can tell you that tp-link has some of the worst oem firmware of any router company. terrible ux and very slow to update and fix vulns. also, they're chinese so it's assumed the shit could be backdoored at the bootloader or whatever else

>>107086020
i don't know if openwrt is as secure as billion dollar corporations' products. i honestly doubt it is. i use openwrt and it's great, but i've noticed it's brittle in some ways that i'd assume proper enterprise grade oem firmware isn't.

>>107088061
I hate this shit like you wouldn't believe.
Island chinks used to just be the better china but the past decade they've just turned into western-lite and gets special privileges.
Except it's even worse then that because western companies will alteast atone for their garbage when it breaks, the island jews are too fucking prideful for that

man i just got a tp link 2 months ago wtf

>>107088111
>i don't know if openwrt is as secure as billion dollar corporations' products. i honestly doubt it is
anon... if you only knew. lol

>>107087261
>their ssd dying in less than a year
What model?

>>107086926
Buying TP-Link now :^)

>>107086926
WTF I love TP-Link now.

>>107082469 (OP)
A country in a trade war does this, how very convenient.

>nooo consoomers can't be allowed to modify their router firmware, they might illegally boost the power output or something, better create an entire ecosystem of retarded RP-SMA connections and antennas to prevent something that can easily be done with a $0.20 aliexpress adapter part
>nooo we can't trust closed source chinky firmware either, imagine the backdoors and security holes
yeah i guess consoomers better buy and configure some $1000 cisco router or enterprise wireless access point product. or more realistically buy a google or amazon mesh wifi that's totally not spying on you too.

>>107082553
>be me
>chink babycam and security cam maker
>ccp wants to watch naked blond women masturbating
>they give me 1B to cur my prices to a quarter of what the American competition is selling at
>my cameras start flooding their homes
>ccp can jerk off to everything in america live
>big nose americans get cameras
win win

>>107083192
>>TP-Link Is Under Investigation for Predatory Pricing
So their crime is charging a proper price instead of artificially gouging customers.
Okay.

>>107088155
is it really that bad? i mean i know even etremely expensive gear can have vulns, but do you think it's less secure than openwrt, a linux distro that specifically targets consumer shitboxes? again openwrt is an amazing project and it's great to use

>>107082469 (OP)
>let us protect you from evil chinese with these 3 times more expensive backdoored freedom routers
>let us upload all your data and photos on the cloud we need to protect from paedophiles
>let us build fingerprinting into your hardware and send it to the cloud so we can protect you
i'm so glad nsa takes such a good care, i never felt more protected from china and iran

Wait wait wait, so does that mean TP-Link doesn't have american backdoor?

>>107089354
Stop being an antisemite

>>107082736
But if every company is doing that arent you just keeping level footing wth them while devaluing your currency?

>>107082511
You'd be surprised where your retarded military and MICs buy raw materials for weapons making.

>>107082832
Same to you. Have you tried looking into the mirror? Maybe your glowies could do the same thing.

>>107088455
Based

>>107082469 (OP)
You can always buy a cisco router for twice the price. I mean nobody is stopping you.

>>107090087
Government budgeting, it'll be 20x the price. They were already paying 10x the price for tp-link

>>107082469 (OP)
what is the alternative to tp link? No way im paying 200$ for a fritz!box that has the same performance as a 50$ from tplink

>>107090502
You're like the third anon asking, yet no one has an answer. Not even openwrt people are chiming in these days. Weird.

does this affect network switches or just routers

>>107090502
use some old hardware and throw pfsense on it baby

So which wifi mesh system am I supposed to buy then?
I don't care if it's just glowies and commies that have access to the back door desu

>>107082511
> why doesn’t US make its own tech?
Why doesn’t Zimbabwe?

>>107082826
As a US citizen, I feel safer with the chinese govt than the American

>>107091234
/thread.

>>107088501
Basically antisemitism.

>>107082605
Because it's bad when China does it but based when our ZOG does it.
Note: I think both are bad outcomes. Yep, world's not black and white.

Last tp-link router i had was a buggy piece of shit that kept dropping connection.
I bought a different brand for my new router.