The US adds Sandvine to its entity list, banning the networking equipment company from obtaining US tech, for supplying Egypt with equipment used for censorship
Sandvine had previously been reported to supply internet-censorship technology in more than a dozen countries, even after cancelling a Belarus deal amid criticism its wider censorship-technology footprint. It later said it would leave Russia, where records showed contracts with two ISPs its reported Russian ISP ties.
The designation turns that scrutiny into a concrete supply-chain restriction. It also places a networking-equipment vendor in the same broader US policy direction as prior restrictions on firms accused of malicious cyber activity, including NSO Group the earlier NSO Group designation.
First-order effects
Sandvine is immediately restricted from obtaining US technology, raising procurement and support constraints for the company.
Egypt is the named customer linked to the action; Sandvine's ability to maintain or expand the equipment associated with censorship is put under greater pressure.
Second-order effects
Sandvine will need to seek non-US alternatives for affected technology inputs, while its customers may face greater uncertainty around upgrades, maintenance, and vendor continuity.
Other network-monitoring and censorship-technology suppliers face higher compliance and reputational risk when serving governments accused of internet repression.
Third-order effects
If applied consistently, export controls could become a more regular tool for constraining commercial vendors whose networking products enable censorship, not only firms selling overt spyware.
The likely structural effect is export-control substitution: restricted vendors and their customers may shift sourcing and technical dependencies away from US suppliers, with uncertain effects on censorship capacity.
The trend: The case is part of a broader expansion of technology controls from traditional national-security targets toward vendors whose products can enable state surveillance and censorship.
2/ The @CommerceGov Entity List: A rogue's gallery of companies threatening US national security (E.g. from🇨🇳&🇷🇺) and/or facilitating certain human rights abuses. Lately, a growing list of mercenary spyware firms have been added: NSO Group, Candiru, Intellexa, Cytrox... [image]
@CommerceGov @karen_freifeld 4/ @Sandvine's Deep Packet Inspection shows up in all the wrong places. LIke last year, when my colleague @billmarczak found that that their gear was used in a spyware injection attack against Egyptian presidential candidate Ahmed Eltantawy.👇 https://…
Last fall, we @citizenlab published a report showing that @Sandvine's tech was used to target malware at an Egyptian opposition politician's phone https://citizenlab.ca/... [image]
@Sandvine Notably, @Sandvine took issue with that report and demanded we return the second-hand PacketLogic device we purchased from @eBay to refine our network measurement tests, threatening legal consequences if we didn't. We stood our ground. https://citizenlab.ca/... [image]
@CommerceGov ... 6/ Meanwhile, countries where @sandvine's tech has been used for #censorship surfaced in @rj_gallagher's vital reporting: #Algeria #Afghanistan #Azerbaijan #Egypt #Eritrea #Jordan #Kuwait #Pakistan #Qatar #Russia #Sudan #Thailand #Turkey #UAE #Uzbekistan https://…
Sandvine was originally founded in Canada & was acquired by US-based private equity firm Francisco Partners in 2017. More about Francisco Partners & its role profiting from repressive surveillance & censorship: https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Comes after we reported in Sept that Sandvine had made sales worth more than $30 million in Egypt, including to state-owned Telecom Egypt, Vodafone Egypt & to government agencies including Egypt's Ministry of Defense & the National Telecom Regulation Authority....
BREAKING: 🇨🇦Canadian networking company @Sandvine blacklisted by🇺🇸@CommerceGov. Added to Entity List for human rights abuses in #Egypt like enabling: ❌Mass monitoring ❌Censoring news ❌Spyware targeting. Super interesting case 1/ Announcement: https://public-inspection.federalregi…