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The North American Network Operators' Group discusses fundamental Internet infrastructure issues such as routing, IP address allocation, and containing malicious activity.

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Re: FCC issues new rules about foreign made routers Owen DeLong via NANOG (Mar 25)
It’s a “national security” matter, so they probably found some level of exception to the APA by calling it that.

I agree that it’s a blatant attempt at extortion against manufacturers of networking equipment and I would hope to see
multiple legal challenges against it. Unfortunately my faith in the US courts is greatly eroded by some of the recent
shadow docket rulings by the Supreme Court , so time will tell, but I suspect this is...

Re: FCC issues new rules about foreign made routers Mukund Sivaraman via NANOG (Mar 25)
What relation does speaking in Mandarin have with injecting code for
money?

Mukund

Re: FCC issues new rules about foreign made routers Saku Ytti via NANOG (Mar 25)
Aren they mostly Taiwanese and eastern European developers?

Someone mentioned India and AFAIK India does have domestic
capabilities. Tejas Networks contracts some of their manufacturing to
Optiemus Electronics, but silicon likely still comes from Taiwan and
Korea.

Of course all of this is ridiculous posturing, it doesn't matter where
the developer sits, it doesn't make them lower or higher risk. Silicon
Valley bigtech has teams who...

Re: FCC issues new rules about foreign made routers virendra rode via NANOG (Mar 24)
———-
I believe this was aimed at Chinese vendors specially during border tensions in 2020. If anything India has gone lot
more stringent, citing cyber security threat to the nation. Government wants access to the underlying code (vetting) of
equipment including smartphones. Vendors are having a fit, calling it intellectual property risk. cisco & apple are not
happy because DOT wants to get inside their skivvies ;-)

Some do but...

Re: FCC issues new rules about foreign made routers John R. Levine via NANOG (Mar 24)
In the documents I don't see any provision for waivers other than
conditional approval. People more familiar with FCC process than me say
the same, there's no realistic way to get anything approved.

Oh, absolutely, the software is awful and there's a lot we can and should
do about it. But that's unrelated to where the box is physically
assembled. I have a Ubiquiti Edgerouter which as far as I know is
designed in the...

Re: FCC issues new rules about foreign made routers Tom Beecher via NANOG (Mar 24)
All they are doing here is :

- Creating a conditional approval process they could extort
companies into paying for fast tracking.
- Forcing companies to apply for conditional approval to commit to
onshoring manufacturing of said devices within 5 years, so they can bleat
about 'deals reached to return manufacturing to the US.

Nothing is actually being requested which actually improves security
posture of these devices. It is...

Re: FCC issues new rules about foreign made routers Jared Mauch via NANOG (Mar 24)
I suspect this is why the waiver is really the method, at least for the foreseeable future. Much of this is existing
and predates the current administration for those of us who have been watching this space. There’s quite a bit of
problems out there with these embedded systems and how they are managed and maintained.

The number of people who don’t want to upgrade firmware because of worries of new problems vs those who really should...

Re: FCC issues new rules about foreign made routers cosmo via NANOG (Mar 24)
Yessir!

It definitely takes a village, and NANOG is mostly certainly that village!

Re: FCC issues new rules about foreign made routers Scott Fisher via NANOG (Mar 24)
The takedown was also due to the help of network operators, many of whom are on this list. Huzzah!

Thanks,
Scott

Re: FCC issues new rules about foreign made routers cosmo via NANOG (Mar 24)
The news is likely a response to recent events. Props go to the FBI Alaska
field office!

District of Alaska | Authorities disrupt world’s largest IoT DDoS botnets
responsible for record breaking attacks targeting victims worldwide |
United States Department of Justice https://share.google/oNBQGeRtp05TtSbMI

On Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 10:05 AM John Levine via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>
wrote:

Re: FCC issues new rules about foreign made routers John Levine via NANOG (Mar 24)
It appears that Saku Ytti via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org> said:

As far as I know, the answer is none. There are plenty of routers designed in the
US but they're all built offshore. It would make sense to ask where the software is
written, but they don't do that.

The conditional approval procedure is absurd. It requires the vendor
to commit to manufacture in the U.S.

R's,
John

RE: [External Sender] Re: FCC issues new rules about foreign made routers Matt Rienzo via NANOG (Mar 24)
Is adding equipment to the covered list considered rule making? The FCC could also use the excuse of The Good Cause
Exception. It would have to go to court for either to be clarified.

From: Mike Lewinski via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 24, 2026 7:41 AM
To: nanog () lists nanog org
Cc: Mike Lewinski <mlewinski () massivenetworks com>
Subject: [External Sender] Re: FCC issues new rules about foreign made...

Re: FCC issues new rules about foreign made routers Christopher Morrow via NANOG (Mar 24)
Library fund note aside, didn't India attempt a similar
lockdown/process for equipment
used to operate networks in India ~7 yr back? Whatever happened to
that I wonder?

Re: FCC issues new rules about foreign made routers Mike Lewinski via NANOG (Mar 24)
Normal rulemaking goes through a comment period, as required by the
Administrative Procedures Act. The end goal of the APA is to prevent
"arbitrary and capricious" regulations.

Given that we are hearing about this now, and not when the comment
period notice was issued, I expect an injunction shortly, and eventual
rulings that this violates APA.

Re: FCC issues new rules about foreign made routers Saku Ytti via NANOG (Mar 24)
1) O-1 to get Taiwanese employees
2) Assemble TP-Link in US
3) Spray paint with gold and stencil 'Patriot Router' on top
4) Pro^WSecurity

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