Whoa, that escalated quickly. This just got sent out by the press folks at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FCC says it has decided that all foreign-made consumer-grade Internet routers are henceforth prohibited from receiving FCC authorization and are therefore prohibited from being imported for use or sale in the United States.

"Update Follows Determination by Executive Branch Agencies that Consumer-Grade Routers Produced in Foreign Countries Threaten National Security

WASHINGTON, March 23, 2026—Today, the Federal Communications Commission updated its Covered List to include all consumer-grade routers produced in foreign countries. Routers are the boxes in every home that connect computers, phones, and smart devices to the internet. This followed a determination by a White House-convened Executive Branch interagency body with appropriate national security expertise that such routers “pose unacceptable risks to the national security of the United States or the safety and security of United States persons.”

"The Executive Branch determination noted that foreign-produced routers (1) introduce “a supply chain vulnerability that could disrupt the U.S. economy, critical infrastructure, and national defense” and (2) pose “a severe cybersecurity risk that could be leveraged to immediately and severely disrupt U.S. critical infrastructure and directly harm U.S. persons.”

"This action does not affect any previously-purchased consumer-grade routers. Consumers can continue to use any router they have already lawfully purchased or acquired."

"Producers of consumer-grade routers that receive Conditional Approval from DoW or DHS can continue to receive FCC equipment authorizations. Interested applicants are encouraged to submit applications to [email protected]."

Not sure how many consumer-grade routers will be left for sale if it really is a ban on approvals for any foreign-made consumer routers like they said, and not just a bunch of already restricted Chinese makers like Huawei and ZTE.

https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-updates-covered-list-include-foreign-made-consumer-routers

FCC's "covered list" of "thou shalt not entities": https://www.fcc.gov/supplychain/coveredlist

Ghostty just surpassed Terraform in stars (my previous most-starred project I started). It took Terraform 12 years to reach 48K. Ghostty did it in 1 year. It's bigger than Terraform in active usage, too. I take it personally when people doubt I can outdo my past.

I can take credit for starting both, but not for ongoing development (for the successes and failures). Neither project is a solo endeavor. I'm still extremely actively involved with Ghostty, but there's also a team of a dozen maintainers. Terraform I stepped back and stopped working on it directly like 6 or more years ago.

I consider stars a vanity metric and I don't care about it at all except in this narrow case. I'm a super competitive person (in general), but particularly/especially against my past self. There's no one I like "winning" more against than my past. So, this is my one exception for caring about stars.

I have argued this point in the past, as I'm sure many others, but it's nice to have a term for this concept: hobbyless behavior.

https://www.tumblr.com/abbiistabbii/810110535568949248/the-germans-really-cooked-making-hobbyless

#hobbyless #hobbylos #HobbylessBehavior #HobbylosesVerhalten