[maxloh]

TP Link is a Chinese company. I won't trust them personally.

In China's current political status, it is impossible for Chinese companies to reject the autocratic government's requests for surveillance. You may endup in jail or even get killed.

[ttybird2]

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa...

[rlpb]

This is true of the US too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intell...

[irutirw222]

Only partially: Rejecting the request won't get you killed. You also have the option to close your company to avoid jail, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit as a good case study.

Thus, I would prefer the US to China in this regard.

[rlpb]

As a purchaser of equipment, the risk is basically the same though. It's just about which government you want to trust with your data.

[Lifelarper]

So hypothetically as a western activist at risk of govt coercion you'd trust Cisco more?

Statistically, you very likely own a Chinese manufactured router while using it to tell others here not to do the same.

[irutirw222]

This is a good point. Probably most people are not aware of the country of origin of most of the tech products (resp forna given product, how many important, modular subparts come from Chinese companies).

It would be highly interesting if there would be a website where you could type in the name of a product (e.g. sime Cisco) router and it would give you a detailed decomposition of where and by whom is parts where made. Something like (highly simplified) : - CPU design: Company X - CPU manufacturing: Company - RAM design and manufacturing: Company Z - Overall remaining logic: Cisco

[x13]

Many US companies publish lists of suppliers. These examples do not show individual components, but may shine some light on things:

https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple-Supp...

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en_us/about/supply-chain/cisco-s...

[naoqj]

I mean, I get it, but Avira is a German company.

[lotsofpulp]

Avira’s bosses get their marching orders from NortonLifelock bosses, which seems to have pretty American leadership:

https://www.nortonlifelock.com/us/en/corporate-profile/manag...