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Drilling down on Uncle Sam's proposed TP-Link ban
- ddtaylor 1y ago> The company says it researches, designs, develops and manufactures everything except its chipsets in-house. So, the plastic bits?
- hdgvhicv 1y agoPresumably the software, the boards, connectors, antenna design, etc.
- tliltocatl 1y ago> connectors, antenna design And also passives like SMD resistors. They are also refining copper and iron from raw ore. /s
- thfuran 1y agoThey actually make their own iron in the heart of a dying star.
- R_D_Olivaw 1y agoThey actually manufacture a synthetic star from which they gather their elements.
- ehnto 1y agoThat is an excellent scifi plot point, I would read that book.
- seizethecheese 1y agoAs a hardware founder, low quality plastic is not rocket science. On trips to China I’ve heard similar things about other companies, specifically that Foxconn makes everything it uses, including things like coolant or plastic for prototype production.
- permo-w 1y agoI don't think they were saying the plastic bits are rocket science, proverbally or not
- MomsAVoxell 1y agoDoes anyone know what their chips are doing? Do you, really? Until we have desk side silicon fabrication/placement, with accompanying tunnelling microscope features, we simply cannot trust our silicon in any way other than through utterly peaceful means, which is to say, through systems of human trustworthiness. Technology never allows us humans to advance sufficiently well to do without it .. unless it is evenly distributed. Right now we are all at the mercy of the masters of silicon. This is no joke!
- BobbyTables2 1y agoEven with desk-side silicon fabrication, one would have to hope the hardware/software with the design tools wasn’t already backdoor-ed…
- Meneth 1y agoReflections on trusting trust...
- matheusmoreira 1y agoAbsolutely. We'll never be 100% free until we can fabricate computers at home, just like we can write our own software at home.
- ungreased0675 1y agoYou can measure input and output with commodity equipment. That will give a good, but admittedly incomplete picture of what the chips are doing.
- vjvjvjvjghv 1y agoIf only there were US manufacturers that could produce things at a decent price and didn't actively hate their customers.
- hdgvhicv 1y agoI’m sure there’s some way to inject advertising - otherwise it’s just leaving money on the table.
- ZeroConcerns 1y agoI'm old enough to remember most cable modems and set-top boxes being manufactured in the US. They were... not great...
- blitzar 1y agoI am pretty sure the companies that made those, had a monopoly on them and charged $500 a piece went bankrupt too.
- system2 1y agoThere is, but corporate greed doesn't allow it.
- silisili 1y agoEero used to be pretty close. Years ago, I used to stalk the subreddit despite never owning an Eero just because the (US based) devs would often drop knowledge bombs. AFAIK they wrote the entire software stack in house. I have no idea if that's still the case, especially post AMZ, but worth looking into if so.
- havaloc 1y agoI miss the insider information. Some Redditors were not nice and they all left Reddit and their insider information stopped flowing, it's a shame, it was cool to see behind the development veil.
- baggachipz 1y ago
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ZeroConcerns 1y agoI don't have any particular opinion on TP-Link (never used their products), but the idea that a low-cost vendor targeting home and SMB users is somehow a state-level agent trying to compromise those users... needs evidence. I mean, in the case of actors like Huawei, you can at least credibly make the argument that the continued access of their support staff to internal provider networks is a significant risk, but that vector is entirely absent here. Sure, embedded firmware has been, is, and will continue to be a tire fire prone to embarrassing compromises, but containing those is mostly about notification and containment by government agencies (which the current US administration is doing their utmost best to kneecap) and/or large ISPs (which in the US have traditionally never cared). Forcing "foreign" products off the market in favor of "domestic" replacements with the exact same, if not worse, flaws won't fix a thing, unless you put some pretty significant controls into place that nobody is willing to enforce or even outline.
- thfuran 1y agoBut it does provide ample opportunity to profit personally, and that’s much more of a priority for the current federal administration than fixing anything.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- hekkle 1y ago^^^THIS 100%. They are manufacturing low-cost products for home users. That is, if these claims are true, they have neglected a poignant question, why would they bother? They are targeting poor people's personal data, not businesses, not high-profile people, not government bodies.
- riskable 1y agoThe real lesson here: If you're successful, don't skimp on security/software! Also, don't abandon software/firmware security support for your products so quickly. If I was in charge over at TP-Link, getting news that tens of thousands of MY company's routers were compromised would have me furious! I'd be freaking out, making sure that we take immediate steps to improve software/firmware quality and to make sure we're in a constant state of trying to compromise our own hardware... To ensure no one else finds vulnerabilities before we do. Instead, TP-Link seems to have just laughed and focused strictly on profit margins.
- stldev 1y agoOr maybe, don't capture 50% market share in a country that's decided your country of origin is the threat of the decade.
- hekkle 1y agoTP-Link's Headquarters are in California, they have a branch in Singapore and they manufacture in Vietnam, which of those were the threat exactly? This whole thing is reminiscent of the TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi - "But, I'm Singaporean, Senator".
- sarchertech 1y agoIt was a completely Chinese company until last year. Then it split in 2. The US headquartered half has 11,000 employees in mainland China and 500 in the US based on what I could find when I googled it. It’s solely owned by the founder of the original company and his wife who are Chinese citizens. I don’t know whether it’s worth banning them or not, but putting your hands up and saying “what Chinese company?” is just absurd.
- hekkle 1y ago1. The company was founded Zhao Jianjun and Zhao Jiaxing who are brothers, I don't know where you got the husband/wife sole ownership from. 2. As you admitted, they have completely separated into 2 separate companies, claiming that it is still Chinese is akin to saying "tea is Chinese", that's completely absurd, yes, it was at some point in history, that point is not now.
- WheatMillington 1y ago[flagged]
- avalys 1y ago[flagged]
- TheBicPen 1y agoNo. But which nation claims to be all about freedom, and which is known for restricting individual liberties for (whatever the people in charge consider to be) the greater good?
- philipallstar 1y agoIt's really silly to judge nations on their claims rather than their outcomes.
- dc96 1y agoYou're comparing apples to oranges here. The USA is supposed to be capitalistic, free market, yada yada. China doesn't make that claim. The main point the comment you replied to is trying to make is that the US doesn't put their money where their mouth is.
- maxglute 1y agoPRC restricts guns ownership, but to make your example less stupid, PRC shooting ranges has access to western pattern arms vs US where civies has more freedom to own guns but you know... not sanctioned Chinese origin guns. So even on muh 2nd amendment grounds, PRC within their right to play with guns (again not own), still less protectionist than US. Which mirrors how you know, almost every major US tech brands operated in PRC with reasonable controls/oversight but not vice versa.
- kotaKat 1y agoI'm so glad there's other American drone manufacturers that cater to the consumer market, like Skydi-oh right, they stopped making consumer drones after the successes in forcing DJI out of the market.
- bethekidyouwant 1y agoI don’t get the end game here D-link isn’t any better. Are we heading for isp enforced hardware in our homes?
- cflewis 1y agoI've been really happy with the TP-Link smart plugs. I keep upgrading them as The Latest Standard That's Definitely The Real One This Time Trust Us Bro comes out, and the Matter ones are excellent. Getting an instant response from them is really nice. I see no reason to buy others. I would buy only Hue but that's because I have more money than sense, and they don't actually make smart plugs last time I looked, they make plugs but label them all as lights in the app, which is more annoying than it sounds. The real problem to solve ditching TP-Link _routers_ is that all routers are uniformly fucking awful, and all you are doing is choosing your particular poison. This is especially true after Apple exited the game so long ago. I use Google Wifi because it mostly works most of the time, but that's not glowing praise. But the world has become trained that rebooting a router once a week and praying that it works when it comes back is a perfectly normal state of affairs and we couldn't possibly do this any better.
- iamacyborg 1y agoEve smart plugs are solid and don’t have any unnecessary cloud stuff.
- add-sub-mul-div 1y agoI have some TP-Link smart plugs and was happy with them for a long time because their app could be used without an account. Then I recently got the new version of the app and it forces an account, there's no more guest mode. I'm done with TP-Link now.
- mrspuratic 1y agoThe whole Tapo/Kasa interop thing was badly handled too a few years back. Put me right off, when most were dangling the seamless integration carrot to distract you from the vendor lock-in.
- microtonal 1y agoI would buy only Hue but that's because I have more money than sense, and they don't actually make smart plugs last time I looked, Ikea makes Zigbee smart plugs with power monitoring (Inspelning) that are ~10 Euro here (probably $10 in the US). Also Zigbee does not have all the security issues, since it is purely local and will talk with whatever hub/bridge you choose, e.g. Homey, Hubitat, or if you want to go free software Home Assistant or zigbee2mqtt. It's somewhat insane to me that people use WiFi plugs for actuating things that actuate real-life electrical devices. Even more from companies that have a bad security reputation. Zigbee or Z-Wave all the way or possibly Matter over Thread, but the only Matter device that I had (an upgraded Eve Energy plug) has been a pain. The real problem to solve ditching TP-Link _routers_ is that all routers are uniformly fucking awful, and all you are doing is choosing your particular poison. This is especially true after Apple exited the game so long ago. I switched to Unifi gear (Cloud Gateway Max, two of their U7 access points, and a bunch of their managed switches) and they are a dream to set up. Making VLANs, associating VLANs with SSIDs, etc. is so easy. I had a TP Link managed switch and the interface was a huge pile of crap and I saved it several times after misconfiguration by virtue of it having a serial console. I only used it for two months or so because it was so frustrating.
- chatmasta 1y agoTP-Link makes really solid products, and if you don’t want to use their firmware then almost all of them can easily flash OpenWRT. In fact most of their routers are built from OpenWRT anyway. I installed their mesh Wi-Fi system for my parents recently and was really impressed how seamless the process was. It did involve making a cloud account which I wasn’t thrilled about, however.
- forinti 1y agoTP-Link let me down twice. I bought a cellphone from them many years ago and they never really supported it and I couldn't even buy a replacement battery. Recently I bought a router with the firm intent of installing OpenWRT, but I received a newer revision that had a different CPU, less RAM, and less flash memory. These events left a bad impression, but they do make affordable stuff with reasonable quality.
- mbreese 1y ago> Recently I bought a router with the firm intent of installing OpenWRT, but I received a newer revision that had a different CPU, less RAM, and less flash memory. This also happened many years ago with Linksys (prior to Cisco). It’s not that uncommon for manufacturers to release new revisions of hardware without necessarily making it clear to the purchaser. If their purpose is to deliver a router and they can shave a few cents off the BOM with less RAM, but it still works with their software, why would they care. And once new revisions have been released into the supply chain, it can be hard to know exactly what version you are buying. In the Linksys case, IIRC they eventually re-released the first revision WRT54G as the WRT54GL (for Linux), so that people who wanted different firmware could get the exact hardware they wanted.
- myself248 1y agoWouldn't it be nice if that was illegal? Sell whatever, but label it accurately, it's different hardware so it needs to have a different version label in the listing or something. We see this all the time with SSDs, where a high-spec model is released to reviewers, then a low-spec model is mass-produced and sold under the same model number. That's fraud, isn't it? Shouldn't it be?
- imagetic 1y agoI have TP-Link Deco's for our WiFi, sitting behind a Firewalla Gold. This has been by far the nicest, simplest at home setup I've ever deployed. Do I love that I chose TP-Link? No. But price to purpose it was the best product available to me at the time. If TP-Link gets banned, my concern is what that means for the massive market share in the US. Warranty? Software updates? Or maybe that action is what turns them into an agent of the state. Or do you horde all the hardware until its valuable like DJI parts are today?
- ndiddy 1y agoMy guess is they’ll be forced to sell their US division to whatever company gives the government the most money (sort of like the Oracle-Tiktok deal).
- hollerith 1y agoI thought it was the Chinese owner of Tiktok that got paid money. What is your evidence that the US government was paid any money as part of that deal (over and above any taxes that would have been incurred by any sale of any business).
- cyanydeez 1y agoHe's referring to whoever paid in America to be gifted the largest propaganda platform. I'm sure money also went to Chinese owners.
- hollerith 1y ago"Gifted" would be misleading if (as I suspect) the entity that ended up with American Tiktok is the entity that won a bidding war to make the most attractive offer to the Chinese owner.
- deaux 1y ago> whatever company gives the government the most money If only! Unfortunately it's whatever makes the Party leadership the most money.
- ComplexSystems 1y agoI don't get what to make of this. Is it all just security theater? The idea of having consumer networking hardware that isn't riddled with security vulnerabilities seems to be a ship that sailed long ago. I doubt this move will prevent major nation states from hacking into whatever they want.
- abridgett 1y agoI'll just leave this little NSA intercepting Cisco products reminder here: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa...
- misiek08 1y agoBut Sir! We are talking here between USA <eagle sound> versus rest of the world that’s unsafe and all the time attacking USA people privacy. Cisco is India based, not American! disclaimer: not connected in any way with Cisco, just disappointed business customer.
- NoGravitas 1y agoReminder that <eagle sound> is actually the call of a red-tailed hawk, and that the actual call of the bald eagle is far less impressive.
- kotaKat 1y agoSSL added and removed here! :)
- hulitu 1y ago> NSA intercepting Cisco products They could have searched on the internet for the backdoor password. /s
- SilverElfin 1y agoI don’t like that TP Link routers regularly force you to accept new terms of service within their app. If you don’t, then you can’t access much of their configuration options. Basically you get locked out of your own device. I feel like these dark patterns should be illegal.
- nickpsecurity 1y ago"TP-Link Systems told The Post it has sole ownership of some engineering, design and manufacturing capabilities in China that were once part of China-based TP-Link Technologies, and that it operates them without Chinese government supervision." Is that even possible? Or do you always have to be on good terms with the Chinese government to own engineering, design, and manufacturing capabilities in China?
- BobbyTables2 1y agoVirtually every home router and a whole lot of small business routers should be considered “national security risks”. TP-Link may be sore for getting singled out but they are certainly not unique.
- ncr100 1y agoThere are many many risks. If TP-Link is pathologically creating unsecure products -- through incorporation of enemy government backdoors or through other improperly handled security vulnerabilities, they deserve to be singled out as making the problem worse and imposing potentially wild cost of risk-mitigation on others. Similarly, AI (just speaking about current AI), and the reasonably-predictable future AGI / super-intelligences (remember: more than one!) will present humanity with Enormous risk, and we'll (humanity) have no choice but spend the unbounded cost to mitigate that risk.
- froh 1y agoGerman avm fritz! is quite good at security maintenance. are there us equivalents to them?
- burnt-resistor 1y agoPer company government acquisition "bans" are stupid for PR and security reasons. Brand-specific banlists are whackamole when the same hardware and software will be immediately duplicated with another cat-walks-on-keyboard brand name that will disappear within a year. Instead, there should be in-depth, enforced audit, compliance, and evaluation standards for gear for particular purposes. If it doesn't meet particular standard(s), then it can't be purchased or used.
- rs186 1y ago> the U.S.-based company’s products handle sensitive American data and because the officials believe it remains subject to jurisdiction or influence by the Chinese government. These cowards have not yet finished banning TikTok
- noitpmeder 1y agoBecause Jeff Yass asked Trump not to
- shmerl 1y agoOpenWRT is the way to go. If it doesn't run on it, I'd skip such router.
- dangus 1y agoOPNSense on a dual NIC mini PC, the your WiFi comes from dumb APs. Separating routing from WiFi has been the best thing I’ve ever done for my network.
- shmerl 1y agoOPNsense is decent too. Problem is that running anything open on those AP will still be a mess unless they support something like OpenWRT ;) Separating router from the AP was something I considered too for building a 10 Gbps network, since I haven't found any WiFi router that could also handle 10 Gbps wired without some accelerator chip requiring non upstream mess to work.
- wiredpancake 1y ago[dead]
- 0xbadcafebee 1y agoChina isn't the major threat for consumer routers; it's crappy firmware. Millions of networks have been compromised from non-state actor attacks on crappy consumer routers. You wanna protect America? Impose a software building code on critical network infrastructure (which should include consumer routers and modems). But they aren't gonna do that, because they're just trying to score cheap political points and put pressure on China for trade concessions.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 1y agoSeemingly every year there is yet another Cisco vulnerability because of hard coded passwords. One as recently as July 2025. The entire network industry seems to YOLO the code running the world. [0] https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-cucm-ssh-m4UBdpE7 https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/Cisc...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- sublimefire 1y agoIt would be great to use this moment and do something like Cyber Resilience Act CRA to force companies to deal with the cybersecurity issues.
- Waterluvian 1y agoThe U.S. is the bigger threat anyways. This just feels like America is coming online as a mafia state and wants their cut and their backdoors in things, otherwise they’ll destroy your business.
- PeaceTed 1y agoAn empire in every way except name.
- hekkle 1y agoTo be fair, I think this is most countries, they just don't have as much political power as the US. The UK's Online Safety Act is a good example. My country (Australia) tried to legislate in 2016 that no one is allowed to use encryption, and if they were required to, for other obvious reasons like for medical data, then they were required to code in a back-door for law enforcement.
- BLKNSLVR 1y agoPrime Minister (at the time) Malcolm Turnbull announcing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i326eNOa6Us https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i326eNOa6Us The above is just the announcement and doesn't include answering media questions wherein we would have heard dear Malcolm's famous quote: “Well the laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that. The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia" Very quiet audio of the last half of the above quote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VB3uQHa14g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VB3uQHa14g Political understanding of mathematics and encryption has not progressed in the intervening 9 years, much the same as the thirty years prior. Regulating internet security is forming a similarly unfortunate trajectory.
- giantg2 1y agoRegardless of what TP-Link says, the damage is done. I was recently looking for a bigger switch. I went with a use switch instead of buying a new TP-Link because I don't trust them. Now I just need more projects to fill my extra ports on the 24 port switch haha
- garganzol 1y agoAn unmanaged switch is not going to realistically have exploitable vulnerabilities, the chances of that are dim. A router, a managed switch or something having an OS is another story.
- giantg2 1y agoIt's managed. I don't know, but I would bet that unmanaged switches have vulnerabilities too. Maybe they just aren't targeted.
- paulnpace 1y agoThey aren't usually accessible until the network is compromised. TP-Link cheap consumer configurable switches used to have, IIRC, a VLAN permanently available on all physical ports, giving access to everything going through a switch. After many complaints, they "upgraded" the firmware to support disabling the VLAN from the GUI, though it remained default enabled, and included a note with something like "we only had it that way because customers demanded it".
- simoncion 1y agoBy "a VLAN permanently available" do you mean something like "all frames traversing the switch got a VLAN tag (whose ID was hard-coded) slapped onto them"? If not, I'm not sure what you mean, as a cheapass dumbswitch always allows access to everything going through a switch. It's been my experience that any dumbswitch that can handle jumbo frames will fail to act on VLAN-tagged frames and just pass them through unmolested. (Ones that cannot handle jumbo frames might drop "large" VLAN-tagged frames on the floor.)
- shanecp 1y agoThis is a very one sided article. Shouldn't there be a comparison with TP-Link and all other brands available in-terms of security? Otherwise they're just targeting a company for political reasons.
- Johnny555 1y agoThe article is in response to a very one-sided government ban (well, reported ban) on TP-Link products. The company is being targeted for what appears to be political reasons, the article even said so in the first paragraph: Experts say while the proposed ban may have more to do with TP-Link’s ties to China than any specific technical threats
- m000 1y agoIt's a very lukewarm response TBH. I would expect a more authoritative opinion instead of rehashing what "experts say". YOU are the security expert Brian, so stop writing like CNN Tech.
- hulitu 1y ago> Shouldn't there be a comparison with TP-Link and all other brands available in-terms of security? No. Regards, Cisco
- jwsteigerwalt 1y agoWe are unfortunately getting to the point where the only option for non-power users will be to create an online account to run local hardware you own; just like Windows 11. I run OPNsense with a collection of Unifi radios (local controller) with great success.
- garganzol 1y agoTP-Link produces solid and affordable network equipment. A great value for the money, which makes their products a popular choice for many customers around the world. But as almost all hardware vendors out there, TP-Link has weaknesses in their software. In a way, they are victims of their own success and popularity. I wish them to get their software security act together. Banning such a bright tech company is totally unwarranted, unless there are proofs of their intentional wrongdoings.
- neuroelectron 1y agoSeems hard to overestimate their market when if you go to Walmart 75% of the routers they have in stock are TP link
- stefangordon 1y agoPeople worried about routers, meanwhile nearly every damn employee at Intel from the CEO to the janitor is Chinese. The Intel ME chip is running its own OS on every single Intel chipset, even when the computer or laptop is shut down, and accessible directly through attached Intel WiFi or network cards. With full memory access, with no way to turn it off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine The totality of reassurance we have about it is intel’s promise that they won’t put a backdoor in.
- ncr100 1y agoAsking: Chinese the ethnicity, or Chinese the nationality? And, why exaggerate? I get the sense of concern for strategic vulnerabilities - I feel that is a valid, and a separate topic to ascribing cause / blame / hypothetical bases for solution-making.
- nwellinghoff 1y agoWow. Where are the actual details about the threat, what models are affected etc? How to mitigate the threat? Totally useless.
- hulitu 1y ago> Where are the actual details about the threat, I think the Chinese do not want American backdoors in their products.
- cratermoon 1y agoI don't see anything here that suggests TP-Link is especially bad at security. What I do see is anti-China fearmongering by GOP officials.
- BLKNSLVR 1y agoTP-Link bribe/lobbying in 3, 2, 1... I recently bought a TP-Link Omada ceiling mountable access point, which has been working great. My Ubiqiti APs are due for an upgrade and the Omada (for a separate network), at half the price of roughly equivalent Ubiqiti APs, is impressing me so far. (The Ubiqiti's have been rock solid for years though, no complaints whoatsoever). Netgear (US) and D-Link (Taiwan) were consistently disappointmenting enough that I swore off them many years ago, and buyers-remorse-PTSD prevents me from reconsidering them ever again.
- amarant 1y agoI've found the ubiquiti devices to be somewhat overly complex and generally overkill for all home-networks I've ever used them for. All the graphs and stuff tickles a nerdy nerve somewhere in me, but honestly I can get equally stable networks for less than a quarter of the price, but without all the fancy bells and whistles that I only enjoy four about 2 hours after installing anyway
- BLKNSLVR 1y agoThe ones i have were purchased back when Ubiquiti was trying to gain market share and get their name out there, so it didn't have the more premium price tag it enjoys now. The setup was complex, but I'm a bit masochistic like that, but I also needed device roaming to work properly and, however Ubiquiti achieved it, it has worked really well for me for a long time. I only just logged in to the controller interface yesterday again after probably six months or so, when I was checking in to see if there were firmware updates. Once it's setup there's very little maintenance, but the initial setup can be intimidating.
- EdwardDiego 1y agoI was thinking - wonder if anyone in Trump's inner circle took at short position on TP-Link before this? There's a lot of people who seem to have amazing insights into policy positions the US government is about to take.
- hyruo 1y agoIt's just another TikTok.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- caconym_ 1y agoFirst DJI, now TP-Link. What is the endgame here? What will the American consumer technology market look like after all the best and cheapest products have been banned because they are Chinese, or have alleged links to the Chinese government? What will be the impact on the next generation of American engineers and scientists after growing up in an environment deprived of tech the rest of the developed world freely enjoys?
- dyauspitr 1y agoIt will probably look like our EV car industry, where the tech is somewhat on par and ahead in some places, but very overpriced and missing out on key innovations ie battery technology in the case of EV’s
- lpln3452 1y agoThe large number of Chinese products currently permitted in the U.S. demonstrates that the bans were imposed not because of their nationality, but because confirmed security risks were identified. The company's issue is not its country of origin, but its history of installing backdoors and its public declaration to abandon fixing security flaws for numerous devices still in use. The issue started to be pointed out by numerous independent tech news outlets and communities far more than a year ago. Do you have a basis to argue otherwise?
- caconym_ 1y ago> its history of installing backdoors If TP-Link is known to have intentionally installed backdoors in its products, that is news to me. Can you provide a source for that claim? Vulnerabilities have been found, of course, but that is hardly unique to TP-Link, and the existence of a vulnerability does not imply that it was put there intentionally. > its public declaration to abandon fixing security flaws for numerous devices still in use I have several machines that are still running Windows 10 and are (according to the Windows software) not eligible to upgrade to Windows 11, let alone for free. The Microsoft software informs me that I will no longer receive security updates on these machines. When will the US government ban Microsoft products from sale in the US? --- Still, I have much more context on the DJI ban. The law that will place DJI on the FCC's "covered list" states that if DJI is not audited by a (unspecified) US government agency, DJI products will be placed on the covered list and so be ineligible for FCC certification starting (IIRC) Jan 1 2026. In other words, the law was cleverly written such that nobody actually needs to do an audit to determine what nasty things DJI is actually getting up to; if nobody raises their hand, the ban will happen automatically. --- Do not take me for an enthusiastic supporter of DJI, TP-Link, other Chinese companies, or the way America's political and business leaders have generally pissed away our technological advantage over China in the name of enriching themselves in the present (now past). I am, in fact, livid. But we will not dig ourselves out of this hole by becoming a backwater where Americans' relationship with consumer technology is as if they are living in a sanctioned country.
- LoLFactor 1y agoI don't understand why people say there are no firmware updates. Between my house, my parents' house and my girlfriend's parents' house, I have set up 4 different types of TP-Link routers. To my surprise, all of them continue to receive firmware updates years after launch. Most recently last month on some models. I don't get the hate. They're cheap, they work and they have SOME security features which make them more than adequate for home use. They're not perfect, but then again, for the price point, what do people expect?
- Angostura 1y agoYeh, I was going to say. My m4R is at least 15 years old and got a firmware update last month
- bayindirh 1y agoSame here. Running a small fleet of TP-Link gear across three homes. They all get firmware updates regularly.
- 0manrho 1y agoAgreed. Are TP-Link the bastion of advanced security/tech/features and futureproofing? No. But they do what they say they do on the box, and do it reliably which unfortunately is more than you can say for a lot of things these days, no matter the price/payment model. If you just need a basic ass device for simple non-critical shit without a bunch of proprietary bullshit and dark patterns, it's hard to beat TPLink for the money. The fact that they still get support/updates long passed the typical lifespan of competing devices several times their price point is just icing on the cake.
- sysguest 1y ago> But they do what they say they do on the box fuk no their spec is overbloated SHT. I've never seen a router crawl like 300kbps on a 1.2gbps line (simply changing that to a no-named cheap generic one got me 880mbps) fck I don't even care about backdoors -- even if you put them, just fking at least make them up-to-spec
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- aneutron 1y agoSo let me get this straight: The US government directly buying stakes in Intel is A-OK, but any involvement from the CCP in any form in any company is Not Good ? If the only issue at hand was indeed security vulnerabilities, then I can see many ways that can constructively address that (e.g. Since a large number of SKUs deployed in the US are managed by the Telcos, then force them to finance the support for continued firmware updates). The US will probably be collecting the reciprocity of their actions, and they won't like it ... It's a very childish game they're playing and it will hurt them in 15 years time ...
- usef- 1y agoDo you think it's childish in the other direction too? They have been limiting many US products for similar reasons for many years now.
- watwut 1y agoTo be entirely honest, yes, American leadership is currently very childish while Chinese one is everything but childish. And the simple observable consequence is that China is winning whatever pissing contest is going on while America is busy shooting itself into own foot, applying bandage and then claiming it won cause it is not bleeding anymore.
- kortilla 1y ago> The US government directly buying stakes in Intel is A-OK, but any involvement from the CCP in any form in any company is Not Good ? Yes, it’s the US government. Of course it thinks advancing US gov controlled technology is good and CCP influence in the US is bad. That’s a completely rational stance and it’s not even hypocritical until the CCP bans some US product and the US gov complains.
- whatever1 1y agoI don’t even know what my software/hardware can (be exploited to) do (given that they are not formally verified). Does it mean that I am an enemy of the state?
- Havoc 1y agoIf we throw out everything that is a vector for a Chinese supply chain attack / supports them economically then there won’t be any tech in the West This feels like the painkiller autism thing. Some crazies theory became law
- almaight 1y agoThe US government is becoming another Soviet Union.
- paulnpace 1y agoI've largely given up on trying to secure networks for people when they just run overt compromises. What does this really matter when everyone is running agentic AIs on all of their devices? Installing "apps" that have access to everything on a device? Those same "apps" record everything around the device and upload that to the "cloud"? For the average user, security doesn't even matter any more. I used to say people are running around in plain text mode, but it looks like that has been degraded to broadcast mode.
- tonyhart7 1y agopeople in comment is missing a point this is a political move, if we apply the reason of security concern to anything. it would affect 80% of things US consume since its directly and indirectly come back to china as a part of supply chain
- tapper 1y agoOpenWRT for the win!
- axpvms 1y agoIt's kind of curious that any topic on HN that involves China seems to devolve into how terrible and bad America is.
- jrochkind1 1y agoI guess it's another one that depends on your perspective, cause i was just thinking how any HN topic that involves China seems to devolve into how terrible and bad China is!
- mumber_typhoon 1y agoOne more thing to note about TP-Link today is that they don't just abandon firmware updates but also switch chips and hardware. For example, They will call some device Deco / Archer ABC with a Qualcomm chip that's latest and greatest. They might sell it for 499$ for example and then let reviewers do their thing to review these products everywhere with 5 stars. Great! Six months or maybe a year down the road when the product starts getting traction as people start buying new WiFi standards like 6/6E/7 etc. they will swap out the chips inside and launch a v2 of that same product with either mediatek chips or a slower Qualcomm SOC. This affects performance and stability and it also drives down the pricing with cheaper hardware. This has been done a lot with Deco units. Reviews are for original v1 hardware but what's being sold is a different hardware completely. Not only is this a firmware problem but keep in mind such practices really show lack of trust. Great example of how to lose trust in a brand.
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- ChoGGi 1y agoTrump is getting a golden router isn't he?
- garganzol 1y agoTP-Gold router with polished surface so that the greatness could be fully reflected to its radiant carrier. Amen
- mehdibl 1y agoPrevious report blaming TPlink slow to patch a CVE were already outdated as the CVE got patched. Yes TPlink are recieving updates if the products are not EOL. And even US products when EOL are vulnerable. Seem more heavy lobbying to get their US marketshare here rathar than looking for secure products. Also the report from checkpoint over firmware used to attache EU, the malware is firmware agnostic. As it can be used for other hardware.
- Zigurd 1y agoIt's a bit of a racist trope to see the Chinese as more sophisticated in the way they handle international relations, especially compared to what's currently going on in the US. The Chinese are totally capable of being boorish and loud and offensive. They even had a name for this trend: "Wolf Warrior Diplomacy." You might think that's something Pete Hegseth invented. Salt Typhoon is a serious ongoing attack on lawful intercept systems in telecom networks. There's nothing any individual can do to protect themselves from this, and it's probably deployed everywhere that US style lawful intercept specifications are implemented in telecom networks. Of course the irony is that domestic surveillance is the attack surface for this exploit. I would like to be able to weigh the risk of a TP link router being a national security threat against something like Salt Typhoon. But there's a lack of transparency that makes that impossible.
- lpcvoid 1y agoI am surprised at the amount of people on HN who don't use OpenWRT. I thought this was hacker news!
- jrochkind1 1y agoI was about to upgrade my router. Should I buy it now before it's banned, or not buy one that's about to be banned cause support/updates will be difficult? tp-link routers are consistently the wirecutter consumer pick. They've always done me fine, although it's time to upgrade my 6-year-old one. (which prob demonstrates i'm not a router power user).
- roody15 1y agoThis is unfortunate and another sign that perhaps the "West" is unable to compete. TP Link for what it is... is a great product for home use and maybe even small office. Performance and price is unmatched and I have found they hold up over time pretty well. The price point of LinkSys/Netgear products is not even close. To ban the products under some bogus "security" concerns just leads me to believe on this side of the world a slow decline is in full effect.
- chemotaxis 1y agoThe problem is that you just don't know. Some of these bans are a matter of political operatives stoking vague fears for personal or ideological gain. That was almost certainly the story about the TikTok ban. And some of it is actual intel that will get declassified in 50 years. That may be the story behind Huawei. Given that this administration likes to use the threat of bans and tariffs pretty liberally, it's probably the former, but look at it this way: the US govt is known to have shipped backdoored networked hardware to overseas customers they wanted to snoop on. In China, the govt is more authoritarian and more integrated in the industrial supply chain; I'm sure they do that shit too, because why wouldn't they.
- seanicus 1y ago>>In China, the govt is more authoritarian Gonna need a citation on that one
- computerfriend 1y agohttps://freedomhouse.org/country/scores https://freedomhouse.org/country/scores
- mafuy 1y agoI think there is no real doubt that the fact is true. What you perhaps refer to is the rate of change, and I'd agree with you that the US is doing far worse in that regard.
- doctorpangloss 1y ago
- BeFlatXIII 1y agoI'm hoping this encourages grey-market imports from Canada and Mexico. Become Brazil and smuggle in orders for all your friends and family when returning from your next vacation.
- Ms-J 1y agoTry to only use open source networking equipment. It's also possible to piece it together rather than buy closed source, vulnerable hardware. Librecmc/Openwrt is great for security and privacy. With Librecmc, it doesn't contain non-free blobs and uses a Linux libre kernel. https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Librecmc https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Librecmc
- gunalx 1y agoThe mai reason I 2ill never buy any tplink consumer shit again, was that I could not setup the router without having direct internet access.(No way to SRT it up as lan only) And buying stuff that depends on internet services that shoudnt need to is a hard no for me.