[gruez]

>Imagine everyone had their routers disabled simultaneously. I don't know if the cell networks could function with the surge in standard traffic that would happen, and then you've effectively plunged all or part of the country into a communication blackout.

IME cell networks definitely can't cope with a loss of all routers in an area, given how mobile data becomes basically unusable when there's a power outage. That said, "everyone had their routers disabled" is probably not realistic, given that there are plenty of non-chinese router vendors.

[progmetaldev]

Isn't the issue that a lot of these devices have vulnerabilities and aren't updated often enough, rather than the device being of Chinese origin? You look at hardware for the home market, and most haven't received an update in years, if not a decade. Widely deployed hardware with out of date software seems like it's just a script to crawl home IP address spaces, like a Metasploit module, no?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the link to Chinese vs. non-Chinese router vendors?