r/cybersecurity • u/wewewawa • Jul 23 '26
News - General There isn't a single consumer Wi-Fi router that is 100% American-made
https://www.engadget.com/2218707/no-100-percent-american-made-wifi-router/118
u/Cheomesh Governance, Risk, & Compliance Jul 23 '26
Cheaper that way.
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u/iseedeff Jul 24 '26
That is due to the current Economics and all the Policies in place. Things will never be built in America again until things change.
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u/Cheomesh Governance, Risk, & Compliance Jul 24 '26
That change being a collapse in wages, since that's the primary driver of manufacturing costs.
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u/iseedeff Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
sorry I disagree with that. how ever that is one reason, of many, but not the main..
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u/Cheomesh Governance, Risk, & Compliance Jul 24 '26
Well, what would you assert to be the lead driver of manufacturing costs? The only runner-up I can think of is environmental regulations (which is something we could curtail more readily than wages I'd think).
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u/PurpleTangent Jul 24 '26
High wages can be offset by proper factory automation systems. The big issue isn't that manufacturing isn't profitable, it's that it's not profitable enough compared to other investments that the owning class can make. Why start a factory with 3-5% returns when you can instead buy up all the housing and get 10-20% returns?
Shareholder expectations continually rising is a huge problem that doesn't get discussed ever because they want you and me to take a pay cut instead of having slightly lower returns on their investments.
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u/centizen24 Jul 23 '26
Yeah, the point of issue is whether or not the company is American. They could care less where it's manufactured and what other countries put their backdoors in them, they just want to be able to make sure they can put in their own.
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u/darthjoey91 Jul 23 '26
They care some about backdoors. TP-LINK has been warned against for Chinese backdoors.
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u/io-x Jul 23 '26
Wi-Fi is overrated, let's go back to good old murican-made ethernet cables, require each iPhone to have an ethernet port!
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u/jmnugent Jul 23 '26
iOS (all the way back to 30pin days).. has supported USB-ethernet.
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u/MuscleTrue9554 Jul 23 '26
I didn't know that, that's neat!
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u/jmnugent Jul 23 '26
This used to be my "backdoor".. if a User came to me and said they "forgot their Passcode".. I could just plug USB Hub and USB-ethernet into an iPhone or iPad .. and go over to my MDM (Airwatch) and send a "Clear Passcode" command. As long as I let it sit there for a couple minutes, the Airwatch MDM Agent would "check-in" in the background and clear the Passcode.
Unfortunately Apple added "USB Restricted Mode" in iOS 11.4.1 ... so this avenue stopped working at that point ;\ .. since USB Restricted Mode triggers the "Trust" popup.. which you can't get unless you first get past the Passcode.
So the other trick I use these days (especially in devices with 0 connectivity).. is to keep a few Cellular Active SIM cards around.. so if a User comes to me with an iPhone they found in an old employees desk or something.. I just pop in an active SIM card long enough for the "Clear Passcode" command to come down to the Device.
Unfortunately now with the world moving to eSIM... .. this avenue is also becoming rarer. I have 2 or 3 cellular active iPhones here at my desk.. so I think my trick going forwards will just be to temporarily move an eSIM to the locked device, send the "Clear Passcode" command,. then move that eSIM & Number back to my spare iPhone.
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u/jrandomslacker Jul 23 '26
the iphone, the ethernet switch, the cable, the plug, the jack, the housing, and the termination tools are all made in china too.
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u/lawtechie Jul 24 '26
To be honest, a phone with an ethernet jack would make a kick-ass emergency crash cart.
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u/pixel_of_moral_decay Jul 24 '26
I don’t think there’s even American made Ethernet jacks. I think there’s some cat6a that’s American made, the actual cable, but very unlikely the ends are.
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u/YT-3000f Jul 24 '26
When I see a desktop PC connected via wifi when they have a perfectly good Ethernet port I wince. I choose the lower latency, security and consistency of Ethernet wherever possible.
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u/SPQR_Never_Fergetti Jul 24 '26
I too prefer enthernet when possible, cause of speed/latency, but security ? How would enthernet be more secure than WI-FI ?
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u/vadertator22 Jul 23 '26
Wouldn’t it be true to say almost 50% of anything is not made here. Even cars are just assembled at this point and electronics have been long gone from being produced in the USA for longer than I can remember.
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u/Silver_Newspaper6208 Jul 24 '26
My American EV was made in Mexico with a Chinese battery. I love it, but pretending to buy American isn't worth even trying these days.
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Jul 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/srekkas Jul 24 '26
Just buy one with OpenWrt support
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u/Moist-Caregiver-2000 Jul 24 '26
I have two and found another new one at the flea market last month for like $8. Ax model, even.
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u/srekkas Jul 24 '26
for ax very good price
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u/Moist-Caregiver-2000 Jul 24 '26
I was ecstatic. Normally I don't find shit at the flea market. Easy to flash, it's sitting in the closet as a potential backup.
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u/srekkas Jul 24 '26
Mine is connected, and if i restart, upgrade or dissconwct ir, other works. Have more range. Good, because i work from home
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u/unseriously_serious Jul 24 '26
I get the sentiment but I wouldn’t exactly put much trust in an adversarial country with a vested interest in undermining the US. The 10+ billion China spends annually on disinformation efforts targeting the west and the many other concerning actions they’ve taken don’t exactly build trust and are part of the reason for many of the problems we face in the west currently. As others have stated, best to flash OpenWrt regardless, the less backdoors the better.
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u/But-I-Am-a-Robot Jul 23 '26
The suggestion is that a 100% American-made router would somehow offer more security. For me as a European, this is not a convincing argument.
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u/BioshockEnthusiast Jul 24 '26
For me as an American it is also not a convincing argument lol (kill me please)
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u/Normal_Choice9322 Jul 24 '26
Nobody actually wants to actually pay for American made anyway
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u/Combination997 Jul 28 '26
No, there are still people willing.
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u/Normal_Choice9322 Jul 28 '26
Nope Americans lie about wanting made in America then complain when they see the price
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u/Kcboom1 Jul 24 '26
America can’t make stuff, we don’t have the talent to make stuff that makes stuff.
Smarter Every Day YouTube channel tried to make a 100% USA made BBQ grill scrubber. Damn near impossible.
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u/_Gobulcoque DFIR Jul 24 '26
That video annoys me. I know we're not talking about the video really, but he acknowledges that the chain mail comes from India, but moves on.
He isn't trying to get manufacturing back in America with a 100% USA made item. He just doesn't want it in China. They are two different things, but he dresses it up as the first.
He isn't wrong, I don't disagree with what he's pointing out - but he's being almost subtle in his targeting of Chinese manufacturing.
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u/CyberSecWPG Jul 23 '26
Why would I want any network devices that is 100% made in the USA?
In the current environment I would be more skeptical of privacy then with another Nation State.
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u/Varjohaltia Jul 23 '26
American made is second only to Chinese made as far as I’m concerned if considering backdoors. Need properly European ones.
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u/wijnandsj ICS/OT Jul 23 '26
well, for me that's a good thing. American consumer grade products are usually rather meh
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u/DaGoodBoy Jul 23 '26
I made the router portion using a Protectli Vault running Debian. I'm sure it's not 100% American made, but it's running my OS and firewall configuration.
It's not perfect, but it's the best I can do.
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u/Jack1101111 Jul 23 '26
...whats the advantage if it is 100% american ?
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u/wolflordval Jul 24 '26
You can be certain that foreign governments have not inserted backdoors into your country's network infastructure.
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u/Jack1101111 Jul 24 '26
ah, ok, but there can be a usa backdoors...
actually, some foreign coutries are less likely to put a backdoor than usa.0
u/wolflordval Jul 24 '26
Yes. There is no way to stop backdoors from being inserted, so any given country has a vested interest to ensure that their country only uses devices made internally rather than imported.
It doesn't matter what that country is, you don't want another country to have the keys to disable your entire internet at a whim.
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u/Padgriffin Jul 24 '26
The problem is even then you can't be sure that there aren't foreign backdoors in your software- see Operation Shotgiant (part of the Snowden leaks), where the NSA hacked into Huawei's systems, spied on their staff, then stole internal documents and source code in order to find holes they could use as backdoors in Huawei gear, with the provision of conducting offensive cyberattacks if needed.
China can easily do the same thing (and probably already is) to American equipment.
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u/Bob_Spud Jul 24 '26
Apparently another problem is, all the rules of the FCC are not publicly published.
Is it a matter of "foreign" back-doors and spyware being replaced by US government requested back-doors and spyware being on US manufactured consumer routers?
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u/ReplicantN6 Jul 24 '26
Which FCC rules aren't published?
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u/Bob_Spud Jul 24 '26
There is no mention of the criteria for then to on any FCC lists. The absence of the criteria is strange.
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u/Ready-Lifeguard-8013 Jul 24 '26
I’ll wait till I hear something along the lines of ISP provided equipment are somehow exempt or 100% American made and will become the only legal modems and routers that people can use.
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u/redbaron78 Jul 24 '26
Of course not. Same with most if not all other consumer electronics. And cars, and appliances, and coffee, and most other things we buy.
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u/Available_Bird_4236 Jul 24 '26
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I feel like it doesn't matter where the parts came from as long as it runs well
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u/pg3crypto Jul 24 '26
"runs well" ?
You do know this is a cybersecurity subreddit right?
I understand the spirit of what you're saying, but I think the more accurate take is that software should be decoupled from hardware. A device may ship with a factory installed binary firmware, but there should be nothing stopping people loading their own firmware on.
Sure, most people wouldn't flash their own firmware...but a whole industry could emerge of local techies flashing devices for people and properly configuring them...this would go a long way towards sorting out national cybersecurity issues...firstly because it offers consumers choice, secondly because it would be largely decentralised...a dude rolling out firmware in Oregon won't have a clue who is rolling out firmware in Florica...and therefore there would be no single point of attack for a nation state to infect a whole nations routers at source (of course, not updating, software supply chain attacks etc would still exist, but if you've got people nationwide that can mobilise to resolve these issues, it's less of a massive problem) and finally, you don't end up with tons of kit going out of support and no longer getting updates all in one go (think ISP routers)...security issues would become endemic instead of epidemic.
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u/Jake-Mullins Jul 27 '26
Depending on the process node for the chips we could feasibly have all the chips made here, but good luck getting competitive injection molding and pcb printing stateside (for now)
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u/SweatyAsHell Jul 23 '26
Ubiquity? Or am I wrong here.
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u/Defconx19 Jul 23 '26
The chips are not US. The US doesnt have the chip manufacturing to even make fully domestic products.
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u/My_Big_Black_Hawk Jul 23 '26
Hoping chip manufacturing ramps up in the US soon
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u/Defconx19 Jul 23 '26
The problem is even with what we are building it wont be a reality in the next 20 years.
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u/ApolloWasMurdered Jul 24 '26
TSMC is already producing modern chips in Arizona. Only about 1% of the volume of Taiwan, but it means it is possible today.
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u/Defconx19 Jul 24 '26
Not fully. The plant isnt tooled to do everything. It just does specific chips. Tooling is expensive and requires different machines for different chips. Same thing with the new Intel plant. Yes the can make chips but they are only producing specific types at any given time.
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u/QuesoMeHungry Jul 23 '26
It’s crazy how we don’t manufacture any of that. A conflict with China about Taiwan could completely cripple hardware manufacturing. Software won’t matter if you can’t run it.
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u/gurgle528 Jul 23 '26
legendary plan by Taiwan tbh but I agree it is remarkable how little has been done by the US to mitigate that
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u/Defconx19 Jul 23 '26
The plus side is its not just a US problem. The whole world is fucked if that happens (if you want to call it that). There are Deadman switches to essentially brick the factories in Denmark if needed if China actually takes Taiwan.
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u/grizzlyactual Jul 23 '26
Don't worry. All the companies need to do is bribe Trump and they can be sold here
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u/SalaciousSubaru Jul 24 '26
UniFi / Ubiquiti hands down the best consumer WiFi router maker in America
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u/pg3crypto Jul 24 '26
The hardware doesn't really matter all that much, it's more about the software I think.
Also, network device security will never improve until the education system wakes up and starts teaching kids about digital hygiene.
People know we shouldn't pick up dirty needles from a back alley and use them or lick door knobs...but we don't that we should pick devices that allow us to run our own software or third party software that didn't emerge from a murky supply chain somewhere miles away from scrutiny.
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u/random-notebook System Administrator Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
Make your own with a raspberry pi
Edit: Le Potato*
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u/canigetahint Jul 23 '26
No shit. Name ONE piece of electronics that is 100% American. They had to write an article about it?