6 ms·

So stay away from routers that are Made in China and Made in USA - what's left? Is there a country small enough without a world domination agenda, yet large en

by resu 12y ago

So stay away from routers that are Made in China and Made in USA - what's left? Is there a country small enough without a world domination agenda, yet large enough to not be swayed by bullying from U.S, China etc.? It's time to start a router manufacturing business there...

octatone2 12y ago
Sounds like yet another manufacturing market for Germany to take up.
- Zigurd 12y ago
  NSN makes routers. However, you don't see the German state or key German companies actually doing anything about the NSA. Complaining, yes, doing no. That probably means the NSA and other US intelligence and military are so far in the Germans' pants it's really not possible for the Germans to have meaningful autonomy. Even nominally neutral Austria is a wholly owned subsidiary: http://www.ceiberweiber.at/index.php?type=review&area=1&p=articles&id=2949 http://www.ceiberweiber.at/index.php?type=review&area=1&p=ar...
osivertsson 12y ago
The NSA routinely receives – or intercepts – routers, servers, and other computer network devices being exported from the US before they are delivered to the international customers. So not only routers.
- chippy 12y ago
  So that means that if you buy and use the router in the USA, your router will be clean, but if the routers get shipped overseas they are corrupted?
  - wmf 12y ago
    It's not all overseas hardware; it's probably just a few targeted customers. This has been going on since the cold war.
    - fixermark 12y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_pipeline_sabotage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_pipeline_sabotage
      - Theodores 12y ago
        Speculative hearsay with no hard evidence.
        fixermark 12y ago
        What's your source? Mine is the CIA. "Contrived computer chips found their way into Soviet military equipment, flawed turbines were installed on a gas pipeline, and defective plans disrupted the output of chemical plants and a tractor factory." ~ https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol39no5/pdf/v39i5a14p.pdf https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...
  - joshstrange 12y ago
    Well being inside the USA doesn't protect you from receiving modified equipment, it has been reported that the NSA will, for certain "Persons of interest", intercept hardware in transit and compromise it.
mindslight 12y ago
There are basically three sovereigns left in the world. You've listed two, and the third is where Snowden ran. Everywhere else has chosen to give up on the idea of ultimate state security in favor of economic cooperation, and has therefore lost a bit of self-determination and will be easily subverted by agents of the three. The takeaway from Snowden's revelations shouldn't be that we need a sacrosanct place for trustable manufacturing / hosting / development. It's that all of these "hypothetical" subversions are actually continually taking place on an institutionalized scale by many parties, and to have any hope of having anything ever being autonomously secure (rather than ultimately ruled by informational superemperors), we really need to get serious about stomping out reliance on centralized authority/closed source/trusted hardware/etc.
- angersock 12y ago
  ...perhaps the answer is to layer everything behind interleaved stacks of these sovereign's hardware. That way, you can count that any traffic is known to them all, and thus avoid surprise.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
orik 12y ago
You could use a MikroTik Routerboard. You could also install their RouterOS on an old PC of yours however you won't have too much fancy hardware acceleration. Should be fine for home use though.
Shorel 12y ago
The country that gave us Nokia? One can dream.
- alrs 12y ago
  Finland is a young country. It didn't exist before 1917. Though not technically behind the iron curtain, Finland was largely a Soviet client from the end of WWII. http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=257979 http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=257979 Subtract the time Finland spent under Soviet domination, and then subtract its years in the EU, and Finland has only been a truly independent actor from 1917-1939 and then from 1991-1995.
  - pekk 12y ago
    It doesn't seem reasonable to compare EU membership to Soviet domination - apart from the values involved, just thinking about the degree of intervention or control.
    - alrs 12y ago
      I'm making no criticism of Finland. The parent was looking for a technologically advanced country to step up and be to networking gear as Switzerland (was) to banking. I pointed out that Finland is in a more precarious position than people realize.
corford 12y ago
> It's time to start a router manufacturing business there... Or install pfsense on an old PC and hope for the best
lauradhamilton 12y ago
Perhaps Switzerland. Doesn't meet the "large enough" definition, but they are very pro-privacy and anti-snooping. Labor is crazy expensive there though.
- toyg 12y ago
  They were. What they are now: people living in a landlocked country in the middle of a huge economically-integrated entity (the EU) on which they are fully dependant. Check what's happening with banking laws (until recently, the holiest of all Swiss taboos)... short story: from now on, if the EU says jump, Switzerland can only ask "how high?"
sdfjkl 12y ago
You'll not only have to manufacture them, you'll also have to make sure the shipping isn't routed through any country with a creepy spy agenda.

by resu 12y ago

octatone2 12y ago

Sounds like yet another manufacturing market for Germany to take up.

Zigurd 12y ago
NSN makes routers. However, you don't see the German state or key German companies actually doing anything about the NSA. Complaining, yes, doing no. That probably means the NSA and other US intelligence and military are so far in the Germans' pants it's really not possible for the Germans to have meaningful autonomy. Even nominally neutral Austria is a wholly owned subsidiary: http://www.ceiberweiber.at/index.php?type=review&area=1&p=articles&id=2949 http://www.ceiberweiber.at/index.php?type=review&area=1&p=ar...

osivertsson 12y ago

The NSA routinely receives – or intercepts – routers, servers, and other computer network devices being exported from the US before they are delivered to the international customers. So not only routers.

chippy 12y ago
So that means that if you buy and use the router in the USA, your router will be clean, but if the routers get shipped overseas they are corrupted?
- wmf 12y ago
  It's not all overseas hardware; it's probably just a few targeted customers. This has been going on since the cold war.
  - fixermark 12y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_pipeline_sabotage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_pipeline_sabotage
    - Theodores 12y ago
      Speculative hearsay with no hard evidence.
      - fixermark 12y ago
        What's your source? Mine is the CIA. "Contrived computer chips found their way into Soviet military equipment, flawed turbines were installed on a gas pipeline, and defective plans disrupted the output of chemical plants and a tractor factory." ~ https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol39no5/pdf/v39i5a14p.pdf https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...
- joshstrange 12y ago
  Well being inside the USA doesn't protect you from receiving modified equipment, it has been reported that the NSA will, for certain "Persons of interest", intercept hardware in transit and compromise it.

mindslight 12y ago

There are basically three sovereigns left in the world. You've listed two, and the third is where Snowden ran. Everywhere else has chosen to give up on the idea of ultimate state security in favor of economic cooperation, and has therefore lost a bit of self-determination and will be easily subverted by agents of the three. The takeaway from Snowden's revelations shouldn't be that we need a sacrosanct place for trustable manufacturing / hosting / development. It's that all of these "hypothetical" subversions are actually continually taking place on an institutionalized scale by many parties, and to have any hope of having anything ever being autonomously secure (rather than ultimately ruled by informational superemperors), we really need to get serious about stomping out reliance on centralized authority/closed source/trusted hardware/etc.

angersock 12y ago
...perhaps the answer is to layer everything behind interleaved stacks of these sovereign's hardware. That way, you can count that any traffic is known to them all, and thus avoid surprise.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

orik 12y ago

You could use a MikroTik Routerboard. You could also install their RouterOS on an old PC of yours however you won't have too much fancy hardware acceleration. Should be fine for home use though.

Shorel 12y ago

The country that gave us Nokia? One can dream.

alrs 12y ago
Finland is a young country. It didn't exist before 1917. Though not technically behind the iron curtain, Finland was largely a Soviet client from the end of WWII. http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=257979 http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=257979 Subtract the time Finland spent under Soviet domination, and then subtract its years in the EU, and Finland has only been a truly independent actor from 1917-1939 and then from 1991-1995.
- pekk 12y ago
  It doesn't seem reasonable to compare EU membership to Soviet domination - apart from the values involved, just thinking about the degree of intervention or control.
  - alrs 12y ago
    I'm making no criticism of Finland. The parent was looking for a technologically advanced country to step up and be to networking gear as Switzerland (was) to banking. I pointed out that Finland is in a more precarious position than people realize.

corford 12y ago

> It's time to start a router manufacturing business there... Or install pfsense on an old PC and hope for the best

lauradhamilton 12y ago

Perhaps Switzerland. Doesn't meet the "large enough" definition, but they are very pro-privacy and anti-snooping. Labor is crazy expensive there though.

toyg 12y ago
They were. What they are now: people living in a landlocked country in the middle of a huge economically-integrated entity (the EU) on which they are fully dependant. Check what's happening with banking laws (until recently, the holiest of all Swiss taboos)... short story: from now on, if the EU says jump, Switzerland can only ask "how high?"

sdfjkl 12y ago

You'll not only have to manufacture them, you'll also have to make sure the shipping isn't routed through any country with a creepy spy agenda.