Cisco Systems, Inc.

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Cisco Systems, Inc. is an American multinational corporation that develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, software, telecommunications equipment and other high-technology services and products.

Cisco Systems, Inc.

Basic information
Founded	December 10, 1984
Legal Structure	Public
Industry	Computing, Information Technology
Also known as
Official website	https://www.cisco.com/

Cisco's founders were crucial to many of modern day implementations and protocols of Local Area Network systems we have today.

Consumer impact summary

Company Issues

Business model

Cisco Meraki

Meraki is a cloud managed IT infrastructure division of Cisco acquired in 2012. Cisco Meraki devices include network firewalls, switching, wireless access points and security cameras all managed from their online web portal.

All Cisco Meraki devices require paid licensing to work and are very strict if this becomes out of compliance. Failure to obtain proper licensing will not only remove your access from configuring your equipment in the portal, it will cease all internet traffic from moving on previously working devices.

"What happens when I reach my co-termination date?

Immediately after reaching your co-termination date, you will receive a 30-day grace period ... If you chose not to renew before the end of the 30-day grace period, the organization will be "shut down"(License Problem - Out of Compliance). You will no longer be able to manage your devices via the Meraki cloud and your Meraki network devices will cease to function. This means that you will no longer be able to configure or make changes to your Meraki network equipment, and your Meraki network products will no longer allow traffic to pass to the Internet."

Complicit in implementing state-operated internet censorship in the People's Republic of China

According to internal PowerPoint presentations from 2002 that surfaced online, Cisco systems knowingly supplied hardware used in China's Golden Shield project, informally known as The Great Firewall of China. This is the infrastructure used by the CCP to heavily censor the internet in China for its citizens and to block access to independent information.

Removing access to critical downloads for products that are end-of-support

Cisco's Retired Products page with a note explaining that they purposely remove documentation, downloads and product pages from the Cisco.com website "for security purposes"

Cisco removes all downloads for products that are past their end-of-support date, making it impossible to obtain software or firmware from official sources for your Cisco product. Cisco claims "Note: For security purposes, upon retirement of a product, Cisco Systems purposely removes documentation, downloads, and product pages from the Cisco.com website, though you may be able to obtain peer support in the Cisco Community." This is considered to be security through obscurity. If you, a consumer, have obtained obsolete Cisco hardware and wish to utilize it in a working environment, Cisco has deliberately made it harder to update your device to shield against security issues, or add features.

Requiring a service contract to download firmware for products that are in-support

A Cisco download page showing the text "Log In and Service Contract Required".

Some Cisco products such as the Cisco ISR 1000 series require an active service contract from Cisco to download any files such as firmware, software, patches, etc. This makes updating devices to their latest respective versions increasingly harder, as you are required to sign in to an account and pay a subscription fee just to update components of the device that you already own. "To Download this software, you must have a valid service contract associated to your Cisco.com profile"

Withholding bug details from customers without a service contract

Cisco hides bug details, most importantly the resolution/workaround of a bug from non-paying customers. You are required to log into a Cisco account to view bug details, and even then you are only permitted to view 200 bugs a month without paying for a service contract.

"Bug information is viewable for customers and partners who have a service contract. Registered users can view up to 200 bugs per month without a service contract."