China Manufacture
I just ordered the Gold last night, but I am concerned with the manufacturing in China. How familiar are you with the chipset being used?
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There is a certain level of trust we place on all devices we use in our lives today. At least Firewalla helps me stay and feels safe. Now my "LED Smart Desk Lamp" is not connecting to a server in China every hour 🤓.
Firewalla platform is open source... Gold is a robust hardware that I have deployed and used as a hardware firewall and router since launch. So far the Customer Service and any concerns I had were answered quickly.
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I could say that I hope the Chinese government is fascinated with my home network, time spent when they could have been doing something more useful for themselves.
To configure it, I first installed my FWG behind my previous router, seeing no signs of any nefarious phoning home. That does not exclude much but at least it is better than my NVR which frantically phones non-stop (and is duly blocked). Perhaps it is just looking for the correct time, or for software updates, or to show to a State espionage apparatus that, yes, there is still nothing happening in my street.
As 1980cyber implied, if there is something deep within the Intel chipset then I won't even know, so I do not worry about that and rely on manufacturer testing and the software be it from Apple or Firewalla; which means I also "trust" America but I don't live there either :-).
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I can't remember the details... but my Eufy outdoor security cams actively connects to... let me remember... China... Germany... Singapore servers... MULTIPLE times every hour... like mentioned above... maybe to sync time and check software updates... who knows.
I did a test. Blocked it from connecting to those specific countries ONLY... Maybe it would re-route to other servers... Nope... It just stopped working... I could no longer connect to the live cam footage from Eufy's iPhone app. Mind you... its not connecting through these country servers to allow for my app access... its connecting locally from my phone to my cameras... I can see that active as I connect.
Anyways... it's funny how IoT devices "break" once you limit specific communications. I tested just blocking China and Singapore... left Germany on... All works fine. Why Germany? Don't know... am a simple human-being.
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Some recent news about router's being manufactured outside the US:
New FCC rule banning newly designed routers without FCC certification which are manufactured outside the US. Existing are fine.
https://mashable.com/article/us-fcc-foreign-router-banScope of ban from consumers to government entities and how exceptions are being done.
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-420034A1.pdfCurrently banned.
https://www.fcc.gov/supplychain/coveredlistI don't have my shipping box handy for Firewalla but I just looked at the Gold SE device and didn't see anything saying where it was made. I think the box said "Made in China" but I can't be sure. Anyone able to verify?
More importantly, it seems Firewalla will be prevented from releasing a new Firewalla model without either an exception or relocating manufacturing.
What is Firewalla's strategy for this?
Kind regards,
bill -
I think everyone is looking for a strategy, not just us. The reason is that the "exception" part, no one knows the criteria ... it is a black box, and nobody has gone through it. And even with an exception, there must be a "moving to the USA" story. So ... likely we just start to build stuff in the USA ... it will be expensive! Period.
FYI:
Orange / Gold Pro / Gold Plus: Taiwan
Gold SE / Purple SE / Purple: China
AP7: Malaysia (small portion in China)
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