Amazon Gets Exemption From Trump FCC Router (Extortion) Ban, Doesn’t Say How
from the cybersecurity-shakedown dept
Late last month we noted how the Trump FCC under Brendan Carr announced a new “ban” on all routers made overseas (which means pretty much all of them). At the time, we also noted how this was less of a ban and more of a shakedown, with router manufacturers required to beg the Trump FCC for conditional waivers (fees, favors, whatever) to continue doing business in the States.
Not long after, Netgear, which does a lot of work with the U.S. government, announced it had received an exemption from the Trump FCC, though neither Netgear or the government transparently indicated what Netgear had to do to get the exemption. Pay a bribe? Host Brendan Carr for a game of golf? Install a surreptitious backdoor for CIA and ICE access? Nobody knows.
Now Amazon is the latest to get an exemption for both its Eero consumer routers and its Leo low Earth orbit (LEO) routers. Amazon showed up on the exemption list, but again there’s absolutely no indication of what the company had to actually do to get it, or the standards the Trump FCC is using to determine what hardware can be trusted. An Amazon announcement is painfully vague:
“We’re pleased to share that the U.S. government has recognized eero as a trusted and secure provider of routers.”
How did this happen? Does anybody trust the Trump administration to make this determination? Are there concerns about backdoors in exchange for being allowed to continue to do business? Nobody knows, though the FCC has indicated the ban has been expanded to include personal hotspots.
This would all likely be less alarming if the Trump administration wasn’t aggressively transactional, unethical, and authoritarian. Little to nothing Brendan Carr and Donald Trump do is genuinely for the public interest; and while this ban is being proposed as an act to protect national security, with their other hand they’ve taken countless steps to ensure consumers are less secure than ever.
That’s ranged from firing of officials responsible for online election security and investigating hacks, or to the relentless “deregulation” (real, the elimination of corporate oversight) of a U.S. telecom sector that was just the target of one of the worst cybersecurity incidents in U.S. history (in large part because telecom executives failed to change default router admin passwords).
Most press coverage of this new router ban acts as if the Trump FCC is still a trusted actor when it comes to the public interest, but that’s a pretty broad assumption given all the dodgy, unethical, and illegal behavior we’ve seen from the agency and administration more generally.
I don’t think most U.S. journalism is journalism. It’s some weird simulacrum designed to not offend. Why would you not at least include one sentence or paragraph on how nothing about this is transparent? Or that the administration has a bad track record on ethics and transparency?
Similarly, no outlets have been inclined to mention that the Trump administration’s open corruption and mindless dismantling of corporate oversight and consumer protection have most certainly endangered national security and consumer cybersecurity and privacy in ways we’ve not yet begun to calculate. “You can trust us on this,” isn’t something anybody, especially media outlets, should be accepting as an answer.
Filed Under: backdoors, cybersecurity, extortion, fcc, hardware, hotspots, privacy, routers
Companies: amazon
Comments on “Amazon Gets Exemption From Trump FCC Router (Extortion) Ban, Doesn’t Say How”
Honestly, I was surprised when Netgear got exempted.
I guess the USG had to rough up Amazon and its cash cow moreso than the
budgetdefault option“How did this happen?”
That’s not difficult to figure out: Bezos got down on his knees and begged to service Trump: Jeff Bezos Bends the Knee to Trump as Amazon Plans Hefty Donation
A boat load children, an oath of their undying fealty to the king of trumpland, and a giant monetary trade in the form of gold toilets.
I’m only half joking.
Also you forgot that the department of war not the fcc is the one overseeing enforcement.
I hope people realize that paying bribes is just as criminal as soliciting them. Sooner or later, the music is going to stop, and a whole lotta people are going to jail.
Ballroom?
A sizeable donation to a ballroom was the likely catalyst for this result. Prove me wrong.
This free market conservatives have been championing is really something
That Melania movie is paying off then.
Two things to keep in mind:
That should eliminate or minimize the “backdoor” possibility. The “bribe” possibility is the company’s problem.
Re:
It’s kind of depressing, though, to go into a Best Buy or Walmart and realize how many are Broadcom platforms and thus may never get OpenWrt support. Especially when looking for something with an SFP slot. There’re gonna be a lot of these in e-waste bins and thrift stores in 5 to 10 years.
Re: Re:
I never buy any computer gear without first checking that it has some viable Open Source alternative firmware or operating system — whether or not I plan on taking advantage of that option. Even my printers and my graphics cards need to be Linux compatible.
Oddly enough (or perhaps not so oddly) this also results in me reliably acquiring good quality hardware.
Re: Re: Re:
Okay, but you’re not running an “Open Source alternative firmware or operating system” on them, are you? If you are, I want that printer, because I’ve said before that they should have some kind of OpenWrt equivalent. (Then we could get rid of the tracking dots, the hostaging of the ink and banning of third-party supplies, and the years-old wireless stacks probably full of vulnerabilities.)
Essentially all the routers on store shelves are as compatible with Linux as the printers are, even if they’ll never run OpenWrt.
I’ve been keeping my eyes open lately for a good and modern OpenWrt router, but have been unable to find one locally. The next generation looks promising for MediaTek-based routers, but so far the shelves are mostly full of Broadcom. Except, oddly, Amazon’s Eero routers, which are listed as ideal hardware for OpenWrt and, according to rumor, were initially touted as being designed for OpenWrt—but they’re still not supported (and also lack SFP+; a media converter could work for that, but they’re not sold locally either).
Do you remember the old days, when nobody could casually experiment with Linux or BSD, because the hardware was unlikely to work unless one had specifically bought it with those uses in mind? It’s good that you, me, and AmySox are scouring the router compatibility lists, but it’s not particularly helping the masses. And even OpenWrt itself has gone somewhat user-hostile with the anti-bot shit on its website.
Re:
I’m just gonna stick with an SMB network in my home. Let the lowest common denominator deal with the Trump-fucked consumer garbage.
Exemptions from Trump are easy. Pay via Trumpcoin.
Backdoors ahoy
Well heck, I guess I now have to assume that my eeros have US government backdoors in them. sigh.
Re:
People have been saying since the 1990s that computer networks, in general, should be assumed to be compromised. And with plenty of evidence: ECHELON, room 641A, the Snowden and Shadow Broker leaks. So, sure, you should assume it “now”, but also “then”.
Besides, when has any consumer product that connects to the Internet not been shit? Intentional backdoors are largely indistinguishable from unintentional vulnerabilities, which any router is likely to have.
“I don’t think most U.S. journalism is journalism.”
I mean, yeah. Most U.S. “journalism” is from outlets owned by the billionaire oligarch class. That class does not want a well-informed public, and so the news outlets they own do not do proper journalism (except a little bit, as a treat, so they can point at the occasional story and say “look, we do real journalism!” while the rest of their output is a torrent of propaganda).
Get your news from independent sources. It’s easier than it sounds.