- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
TP-link is reportedly being investigated over national security concerns linked to vulnerabilities in its very popular routers.
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When your router’s chips are made in China, flashed in China with closed source firmware and the money you pay goes to Chinese companies, then it’s backdoored.
When your router’s chips are made in China, flashed in China with closed source firmware and the money you pay goes to American companies, it’s bulletproof.
Just open your “secure” “American” router and look where they are made and flashed. I bet it’s not USA.
maybe the us should try actually investing in their own infrastructure instead of just relying on rabid xenophobia and sinophobia
Makes sense.
Insert meme: Throws out of the window~
We have this really great approach to security where we allow the adversary to infiltrate a huge portion of our infrastructure for years and at many different levels, and then we say “hm, maybe we shouldn’t be allowing this?”
Almost like it has less to do with security and more to do with securitization of economic competition.
If you really think this is just about economic competition, you’re very wrong.
The FBI didn’t recommend using encrypted messaging apps because our infrastructure being compromised is no biggie.
These are computers manufactured by and in a foreign country that’s expressed mutual hostility to the US. Computers follow instructions and manufacturers are in the best positioning to add custom instructions like “if you receive this instruction, brick yourself.”
After the cyber attacks in the last decade people should realize crypto scammers aren’t the only one’s that have an interest in shutting down important infrastructure.
This comment of yours immediately evokes the idea of the right hand that doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.
The right hand is the security theatre that the west is showing its citizens against foreign adversaries who hack their devices and introduce vulnerabilities.
Meanwhile the left hand has been doing mass layoffs and moving manufacturing off-shore ever since the 60s and 70s and trying to fuck over it’s own labour forces to make exponential profits.
Whats funny here is that you guys are bitching about “foreign adversaries” while also handing over the blueprints of your entire infrastructure to said adversaries without giving them anything valuable in return for their cheap labour cost and weak laws.
What did you expect to happen?
The right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing; that’s just it you’re right.
There’s no conspiracy where the left and right hand have carefully coordinated this system or conspiracy to protect companies from their legitimate competition. We’re not saying this about Taiwan or European devices (even though many of them are better than the Chinese and American devices) and that’s kind of “case and point” that it’s about more than the economy.
Basically the politicians just screwed up and didn’t think through their decisions and effects of trusting a foreign power to do all this manufacturing for important pieces of infrastructure that “think” … and now there’s a problem.
Yes, this is what a capitalist, non-centrally-planned economy does. There are multiple hands and the hand of the capitalist class is often the strongest and it will do all the things you mentioned, while the gov’t hand is trying to do damage control, but only able to the point where it hurts capitalists.
Does it matter now? The alternatives are either Chinese companies, made in China, or filled with Chinese parts.
I’ll give China credit, they’ve stitched everyone else right up, and we slurped it down because we’re a sucker for cheap shit.
You can buy plenty of American made routers and other hardware that isn’t quite as shady. But like you said, we love our cheap shit here, and don’t give its malicious intent a second thought.
And no, it does not matter now, that’s sort of my point. Pandora’s box has been opened.
Well its just natural for coubtries to do this at this point when they dont like each other
In an off topic, I often prefer a open hardware router like raspberry pi router as it gives me control! For me it’s safer to use as documentation is open like pfsense and openwrt.
I don’t understand why doesn’t Raspberry Pi make a router when they’ve ideas like the 500 🤦🏻♂️
There’s already OpenWrt for Pi. All you need is to add a switch or a USB ethernet adapter.
I mean as a direct product that average people can directly buy instead of TP-Link.
OpenWRT did
If anyone at the user level is concerned about backdoors, the OpenWrt One comes straight from AliExpress. 😂 With that said there’s probably magnitudes less risk of something nefarious going on with a low volume machine built by Banana Pi than TP-Link.
Along with Turris Omnia
And now am asking Raspberry Pi itself like GL.iNet have~
law that prohibits attempts at monopolies
Why hasn’t this law been used before for so many other things, like all cash burn tech startups such as Uber, etc? Genuine question not being sarcastic…
Well in my country uber isn’t a monopoly because it eexists indrive and others also actually I think there’s a healthy competition
So who tf is left who makes good wireless routers? When I bought my tp-link it was top rated and recommended by everyone.
Yeah, most of those sites end up recommending the same brands over and over, which causes people to buy them and talk about them. I don’t want to say, a scam, but it feels… scummy.
They never talk about other brands like Ubiquiti. Which isn’t a perfect brand either, but I’ve never seen it compared. Or even a low end Netgate. It’s always TP-Link, Asus, Netgear, Linksys, or D-Link… the same brands that have existed for the last 20 years offering crap. But Ubiquiti, Hawking, Belkin, etc. you basically never see.
I just googled it. Top 3 sites were wired.com, pcmag.com, and reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking (with a top comment pointing to cnet.com and nytime.com). And if you guessed TP-Link was recommended no.1 on all of them, you’d be right. To me, with the absolute garbage reviews on all of them, and the stupidity small sample size, it feels like TP-Link just buys the reviews because customers will read the reviews and buy their garbage. There was a mattress company that did something very similar years ago. The deck is stacked against customers.
And especially scummy, is TP-Link offers some cheaply made, highly marked up garbage that underperforms. They also are notorious for not delivering consistent updates to their routers. Maybe one or two updates, and they certainly don’t care if all the features don’t work. Just looked up one I bought from them before I wised up, the Archer C5400. 2 updates on a $200 router, that came highly recommended. Checked the v2, and also just 2 updates. I doubt it’ll ever see another.
On top of their terrible support and pathetic hardware… they also moved to a cloud SaaS config model. They want you to sign up for an account and use TP-Link Tether. Here’s something written up 3 years ago on [reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/tbthjj/psa_newer_tplink_routers_send_all_your_web/}
My general suggestion for most people who want something that just works and is easy to use… the Ubiquiti Dream router isn’t a bad option. It’s not the best, but if you don’t want to really get into how networking works, it’s a good option.
I’m a techie, but I’m past the point where I want to tinker and mess with my stuff for hours or days to get it up and running. I’m sure the enterprise grade options are better, but I just want some plug and play option that at least allows me access to the more detailed stuff if needed. This looks like a solid recommend.
Here’s a recommendation: GL•iNet
I gave up on TP-Link. I will never purchase any consumer router from them again. Little to no updates, connection issues that were made worse with an update, features REMOVED with an update, settings wouldn’t always stick, which results in a factory reset to get it to do anything. WPA3 just doesn’t work. It even would “mysteriously” turn it’s DHCP server back on, no matter how many times I turned it off, when it was in AP mode. Friend had the same model and most of the same issues.
I have had better luck with the other brands, but I feel like most of them suck or cost way more than they should.
Just get an enterprise grade router (e.g. Mikrotik) and a separate AP (e.g. Ubiquiti).
“just”
That’s not an option for most people. They’re either not savvy enough to manage everything at that level or don’t care to and they will likely spend more money doing it this way.
They actually made a great suggestion with mikrotik…granted I come from a networking background but those can be as simple as you want or as complex as you need. Their products are resilient and prices are a chefs kiss for what you get. Now if they had recommended just some juniper or cisco gear I’d agree with you but mikrotik makes great products at great prices.
Exactly. They have three interface options:
- Quick Set - similar to most residential routers
- Web Fig (what I use) - access to more features, closer to OpenWRT
- Terminal - what pros use
If you only have one Ubiquiti AP, you can use their app (simple) and if you have more, you can use their cloud SW. I use their local SW because I like control, but it’s not for everyone (need to maintain a Mongo DB).
Total cost is about $200 ($70-80 for a decent router, $100 for an AP), but you could probably go down to $150 if you’re okay with more basic gear.
And yet, grandpa or that weird uncle everyone has could just pop onto amazon and buy a normal tp-link router on sale right now for all of about $40 that has wifi built in.
Anyone who’s tech-savvy should put themselves into the shoes of their non-tech-savvy parents or grandparents in a situation where they don’t have you around to help. That’s who the main audience is; not someone willing to go even slightly down into the stack with this idea.
What audience? I’m talking about people here on Lemmy reading this article.
Well, they’re more likely to put OpenWRT in a Raspberry Pi tbf~
Is there actually anything to maintain with the mongoDB for ubiquiti network controller? I set it up using a script on a VM, adopted my APs, shut down the VM and promptly forgot about it. I still have the image to spin up whenever, but I was under the impression it wasn’t necessary.
No, but initial installation is annoying since many Linux distributions don’t have a package for it due to the license.
Beyond that, you also need to make sure the computer it’s installed on doesn’t change IP because your AP(s) get tied to it.
The whole setup is really annoying IMO.
Totally agree, it’s a bit of a shit show to get running.
Good to know - will make sure I set that VM’s IP as static.
Why not? They have a super user-friendly “Quick Set” UI that’s literally one screen with:
- WAN port and IP
- LAN network (subnet)
- VPN (optional)
WiFi is a little more complicated since it’s a separate unit, but Ubiquitis instructions are extremely straightforward if you use their app (single AP only) or their cloud management service.
I’m no IT pro, and I got it set up quickly. I’ve since added a bunch more to my setup and learned a ton, but basic setup is pretty approachable. If you know enough to understand the issues in the article, you’ll be 100% fine.
Now consider your average parent or grandparent and tell me that they’ll be 100% fine on their own and actually want to do this. Most would not. Often-times, the marketing itself is enough to scare these folks off of that kind of tech. They worry about things you probably don’t and don’t generally want to worry. Hell, even the fact that you’d have to purchase two completely separate items to get what you can currently purchase in a single unit is enough to not get many of them to do it.
I’m talking to the average Lemmy user, who could certainly set this up for themselves or their parents/grandparents. If they run some cable, it can be a much better setup than any consumer grade router, but it’ll still be competitive if you just leave it on the floor like a regular router (I do).
Ubiquiti
Overpriced trash, the opposite of Mikrotik.
What do you prefer instead?
The US government is just upset because it’s harder to place back doors in non-US hardware. It’s a US national security concern to NOT have US back doors in devices.
That’s not all. The US government exists to look out for the interests of wealthy americans.
Every dollar spent on a different nation is a dollar that could’ve been spent on them, in their eyes.
American business owners know that China is competitive because they can provide better products at cheaper prices. Americans would need to invest in making their products better or lower prices to compete with China. Both result in lower profits for owners.
This is why we will never stop seeing FUD against products that offer us a better deal than those looking to exploit us further. It’s more profitable to convince useful idiots to “buy american” than it is to actually sell them products worth buying at competitive prices.
Countries like China, Germany, Taiwan, etc. have competitive exports because they have direct and indirect subsidies to their manufacturing sectors at the expense of their household sector.
Some of these subsidies include a weak currency relative to their economy, weakened labour laws, preferential interest rates, capital controls, labour movement restrictions, etc.
China uses all of these. Germany primarily used the Hartz “reforms” which basically decoupled wage growth from productivity and GDP growth.
The reduces the household share of national income and they cannot afford to consume the production of their manufacturing sector and therefore the excess production must be exported.
This comment is suspicious to me. It’s been companies like Apple that have pioneered using Chinese labor to increase their profits. Moving jobs to the USA won’t help make them any richer. It makes economic sense but not strategic sense
I don’t think it makes economic sense. Bringing production back here creates jobs, but we have low unemployment so we don’t really need more manufacturing jobs here.
It makes sense for national security though.
And China probably also installs backdoors
I’d personally hope they just force open sourcing their firmwares if they want to stay in the market. I really like my Omada stuff, ubiquiti is just a tough pill to swallow on price.
They (FCC) forced firmwares being signed so nobody can install their own on the off chance it unlocks TX power or frequencies not allowed by FCC.
Can’t say I’ve ever seen an example of signed firmware that didn’t exist to further exploit the working class.
You’ve never used Linux?
Signed firmware just means you can prove a given key was used to sign something. Most Linux distributions sign their packages so you know one of the trusted keys from the maintainers was used to sign the packages (and yes, this includes firmware), which prevents a man-in-the-middle from modifying packages.
The only problem I have with signed firmware is if there’s no way to change the acceptable keys. Signing itself is an important security feature, its only problematic if the user can’t upload their own signed packages.
Requiring signed firmware is just a lock to keep poors out.
It’s Never used for consumers benefit, not once, not ever.
Signed firmware doesn’t cost anything, so I’m not sure what you mean by “keep the poors out.” Signed firmware has a very valid use case for preventing supply chain attacks. The only time I have an issue with it if there’s no way to make your own signed package or bypass the requirement.
It costs the ability to flash your own firmware.
The only time I have an issue with it if there’s no way to make your own signed package or bypass the requirement.
That’s 100% of all signed firmware implementations.
These checks are usually at the application level, so flashing via telnet/SSH still works. It’s generally not like TPM where the boot will be blocked if the signature doesn’t match, and in many cases, systems with those protections have a way to set your own keys (e.g. like with GrapheneOS on Pixel phones).
I don’t think you know what firmware is.
Maybe you don’t. Here’s a list of firmware packages in Debian. Signing for router packages follows the same logic as those Debian packages.
I rest my case.
They should undo this and just prosecute people who abuse the firmware
I honestly like the GL.iNet approach in terms of software which is kinda like Android.
I recently bought their Flint 2 (GL-MT6000) based on multiple recommendations online when looking for a router that supports OpenWRT. That’s preinstalled, with AdGuard Home and WireGuard VPN on top of it. I’m looking forward to set it up and play around with it.
What do you exactly mean when you describe their approach in software as Android-like? That it’s easy to install services in OpenWRT?
It’s OpenWRT as you said but with their own skin and added features instead of completely spinning it off from the ground just because one has a feature to add as an idea like the native AdGuard Home home you mentioned, this makes sure it’s either continually supported because of OpenWRT or anyone can install the vanilla OpenWRT if support is no longer carried by the manufacturer.
Running OpenWRT is generally a good idea. I’m not gonna lie and say it’s easy to setup. But it’s worth it.
It’s a good idea, but there’s going to be firmware at lower levels (roughly the BIOS) that could still be compromised. It’s best to just not buy Chinese hardware designed and manufactured by a Chinese company with no western involvement when you can avoid it.
This didn’t even occur to me when I bought my new router recently. I just went with one of the best-reviewed models that had all the features and speed I needed.
Did you get a TP Link?
Last time I was in the market, they were a top pick.
Sure did. The Archer BE1100 Pro.
Out of curiosity, what would happen with older models. Also other devices, like I don’t have a TPlink router but I do have a TPlink Ethernet to power to Ethernet I bought when I lived in an appartment and didn’t want to drill holes in the walls. (Wifi ran from center of house, but outed it to a 110 in the wall and hardwired to a PC into a RAP for work in bedroom at the time.
Older devices stop getting software/firmware updates.
But usually simpler things like USB to Ethernet adapters and switches don’t have much going on update wise. If anything at all. Switches often do, adapters rarely do.
The best you can do is keep an eye on updates for the devices, if any. Keep an ear out for reported vulnerabilities, and then retire devices when they are no longer maintained.
But all of that is quite a burden for a device most people set up and forget about. At some scale, and in some senses, there is no good answer. New vulnerabilities are found all the time in hardware/software.
If you just mean “will old devices stop working”? No. This would just impact new sales.
Eh, something like a dumb switch or PoE injector shouldn’t cause any problems since they don’t really have any exploitable logic, and they’re behind a router anyway.
Really not sure how much tech they have in them. I’m more familiar with PoE and switches. The Ethernet to 110 to Ethernet I guess is just pulses being sent to transmit the data over power lines within the residence, but yeah I agree it is behind the router. That doesn’t say someone couldnt hack say a smart fridge and pick data off the same power and then transmit that data back through a backdoor. But then again that fridge would be behind the router as well. Idk, havent spent much time looking at any of it. It would have to mimic the sync signal used by the receiver though, not sure what security protocols are there.
Unless you’re operating a military base or something, you’ll be fine with anything that’s not “smart.” I don’t trust most “smart” devices unless I can self-host them (e.g. block them from phoning home).
Yeah! I only want my own government spying on me and screwing with me!
My router comes from Latvia. I’ll only be worried if they get invaded by Russia.
I’m not sure, but with routers, I think OpenWRT installs/flashes at the firmware level. There could be hardware level vulnerabilities I suppose.
In the case of Lenovo laptops used in Iraq (2004), China had additional hardware chips snooping and sending data back via Ethernet cable.
An even better way is to leave vulnerable pieces in all parts of the firmware / software stack. E.g. old version of SSH with a known vulnerability or two, old web server, etc. Then just exploit as needed.
The examples you gave are all at the OS level and installing OpenWRT would fix them. The firmware/BIOS level is much more custom and can be susceptible to attacks the OS is completely unaware of (effectively pre-installed rootkits). Hence why I mentioned it may not be enough to install OpenWRT.
You are talking about the boot loader, but even that is pretty standard. There could be hardware exploits in place, sure, but we are mostly talking about a very low margin product and the volume of data that you’d need to retrieve and process to sift out anything useful would be massive and obvious so in general I think this is mostly conspiracy level thinking. Any shenanigans is going to be done in small targeted batches if it’s done at all to try to infiltrate specific targets and reduce risk of some curious researcher or enthusiast accidentally stumbling across it and ruining it.
but we are mostly talking about a very low margin product and the volume of data that you’d need to retrieve and process to sift out anything useful would be massive and obvious so in general I think this is mostly conspiracy level thinking
Bold of you to assume they actually need to make money on these.
They also don’t need to sort through data to be problematic; they just need to be able to be remotely disabled or remotely given the order to start sniffing if they are one of the higher end systems that would be used in major infrastructure (that could process at volume).
Sure a researcher could stumble upon something… But closed source, embedded deep in the hardware, etc the number of researchers working at that level is not all that high AFAIK. The research is also from my understanding very very difficult at that level. It would be borderline equivalent to reverse engineering the Intel remote management engine or something.
Yes of course, you’re right. The point I’m making is that wherever you’re putting in backdoors, instead of backdoors, you can just leave unlatched vulnerabilities. Gives you solid plausible deniability.
Wait until they hear where all electronics come from. Are they gonna ban Apple?
Apple has been slowly shifting production to India for years now, and the software is made domestically.
More importantly, the hardware is designed and inspected by Apple’s engineers. Security vulnerabilities would be Apple’s failure regardless of the origin of the parts.
Also Vietnam, there is a lot of Apple hardware made there now.
I am from India actually, long way to go honestly.
If that happens and the factory layoffs come, those nets are gonna be full
Someone in the comment section posted a good question. Which specific routers that TP-Link makes are the issue?
Is it all routers that they make or is this just because they are selling inexpensive routers that have become a large part of the US market?
Does someone have an article that isn’t biased one way or the other that gives a list of effected routers ?
Which specific routers that TP-Link makes are the issue?
They are presumably talking about CovertNetwork-1658 and the reason there’s no list of routers is because no one has publicly described the vulnerability that is being leveraged.
My guess is that the vulnerability is present on most of their routers. I’m basing that opinion on the fact that previous CVEs issues against TP-LINK have impacted their most popular product lines like Archer and Deco.
It’s possible that this is related to CVE-2024-21833 which was open in January of 2024, update in July of 2024, then updated again in late November of 2024.
Does someone have an article that isn’t biased one way or the other
We’re literally inside an imperial core.
that gives a list of effected routers ?
If there was a list of effected routers, TP-Link would most likely have patched them.
Most likely old routers still sold on Amazon instead of the latest WiFi 7 models on the website~
Why would you assume that? They probably all use the same base.
TP-Link is popular because of their cheap options while easy-to-setup for average joe families.
Right, but I’m not seeing a reason that only the older routers would have these vulnerabilities. I’m guessing the base OS for all of them is quite similar.
Well, they also don’t offer more than 2 updates on their proprietary software… so you can just categorise them as vintage or out of service like Apple especially for even older hardware that’s $20 or less like Tenda which is also another Chinese brand.
They don’t care. They want to ban TP-Link as a company, routers are just an excuse.
This is the same people that keep blocking US gdpr legislation, so we know for a fact they don’t care about us, they just care about not being able to spy themselves.
Why so late ? Of course this should have been zone before. It’s a question of sécurité.
Damn, maybe we should have some kind of privacy law that could have prevented this behavior from ever being allowed in the first place.
So they’re going to flush the TP?
I feel sorry for D-Link, they’re probably going to get caught in the crossfire via people thinking they’re the same company.
So you’re saying that D-Link’s reputation will increase as a result?
Oof, fair 😅
D-Link already sucks
That’s also true, they’re like the Dell of home routers~
Dell actually has a decent professional line.
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Just that their names are so similar… It’s literally “-Link” with a character or two in front.
Sorry, I replied to the wrong post, that was meant for the rather downvoted claim about Joe Biden.
So many MSPs are gonna panic if tplink is banned
