Re: FCC issues new rules about foreign made routers

["John R. Levine via NANOG" <nanog () lists nanog org>]

On Tue, 24 Mar 2026, Jared Mauch wrote:
> > The conditional approval procedure is absurd. It requires the vendor
> > to commit to manufacture in the U.S.
>
> 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.

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.

> The number of people who don’t want to upgrade firmware because of worries of new problems vs those who really should 
> upgrade because the embedded solution is based on a very old and already exploitable software suite is quite large.  I 
> discovered this during a lot of the research into open resolvers done quite some time ago.  The number of these 
> embedded platforms that did something odd or were broken was quite big.
>
> With the advancements in tools where you can take something like binwalk and a software image to find exploits by using 
> an AI toolset, plus you get the really difficult to patch situations such as this:

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 US, and runs software written in the US, but it's 
assembled in China so it's lucky I already have one.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl () taugh com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly
_______________________________________________
NANOG mailing list 
https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog () lists nanog org/message/UMT6VUWHP3QPOYQVSX2IWLSK3MSSPSPC/