U.s. Agencies Back Banning Top-Selling Tp-Link Home Routers on Security Grounds
Posted2 months agoActive2 months ago
msn.comTechstory
skepticalnegative
Debate
40/100
Router SecurityGovernment RegulationCybersecurity
Key topics
Router Security
Government Regulation
Cybersecurity
US agencies are backing a ban on TP-Link home routers due to security concerns, sparking debate among commenters about the effectiveness and implications of such a ban.
Snapshot generated from the HN discussion
Discussion Activity
Moderate engagementFirst comment
2h
Peak period
7
2-4h
Avg / period
2.2
Comment distribution11 data points
Loading chart...
Based on 11 loaded comments
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Oct 30, 2025 at 12:49 PM EDT
2 months ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Oct 30, 2025 at 2:56 PM EDT
2h after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
7 comments in 2-4h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Oct 31, 2025 at 10:30 AM EDT
2 months ago
Step 04
Generating AI Summary...
Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns
ID: 45762132Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 1:32:57 PM
Want the full context?
Jump to the original sources
Read the primary article or dive into the live Hacker News thread when you're ready.
Terrible.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/us-ban-china-...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tp-link-router-china-us-ban/#si...
>>The router-manufacturer TP-Link, established in China, has roughly 65% of the U.S. market for routers for homes and small businesses
Ban TP-link and tens or hundreds of chinese disposable brands will sell OEM TPlink routers, with even worse security.
Solution: all hardware IOT companies are responsible for any vulnerability discovered. ISPs are fined according to the number of vulnerable devices they connect. Watch responsible brands trying to cannibalize each other (discovering vulnerabilities) and ISPs actually caring about enforcing.
By "responsible" I mean recalls and replacements. Financial and penal responsibility.
IOTs will cost their actual price, without being financed by adversarial agents and bad manufacturing practices.
That sounds like how we get ISPs only allowing ISP-provided routers and only devices from a few big manufacturers can connect. And things like phones running LineageOS not being able to connect.
I understand your point. What you describe is happening in Australia. Hopefully any law targetting botnets and any other in the future has a clause forbidding this behavior of banning provider not approved devices when they are technically compatible.
Rather, it's that tplink has security vulnerabilities and those along with all other factors make it a national security threat. Other factors include, how pervasive it is in the market and how actively the Chinese are exploiting these flaws.
And to your point- soho devices are notoriously insecure, tplink especially. If youre not familiar then you simply must take your expert's advice on it.
This is more about preventing the next vpnfilter
They shall start with Cisco then. Or backdoors do not count as "other factors" ?
Because while people are really frustrated with these issues in general, effective reforms require principled regulation (eg anti-trust unbundling of software/hardware, personal data protection) and are directly opposed by the US surveillance industry. So instead people channeled their built-up frustrations into the siren song a fascist demagogue promising to simply make it all better with the snap of his fingers, while he was actually backed by the surveillance industry eager to consolidate its power. So now the battle lines we've gotten are the US surveillance industry pitted against the Chinese surveillance industry, with US citizens losing either way.