OK, so some Taiwanese network device manufacturers have poor default account practices, news at 11:00. I'm not seeing the CIA connection.
Devices like this are used by the government and military contractors as well, and as you can see such vulnerabilities are trivial to detect so you can't count on the opposition finding out about it and using it. This one was picked up days after the firmware release. The smoking gun would be government and military admins secretly being advised by the CIA to close these security loopholes, so the government is protected but everyone else isn't. IMHO that would get Snowdened almost immediately. There's no way they'd keep a lid on that, there would just be too many people involved.
As with a lot of this conspiracy theory stuff, it only makes sense if you don't think about it too much. Once you actually start thinking through the consequences and practicalities, it doesn't hold together.
Devices like this are used by the government and military contractors as well, and as you can see such vulnerabilities are trivial to detect so you can't count on the opposition finding out about it and using it. This one was picked up days after the firmware release. The smoking gun would be government and military admins secretly being advised by the CIA to close these security loopholes, so the government is protected but everyone else isn't. IMHO that would get Snowdened almost immediately. There's no way they'd keep a lid on that, there would just be too many people involved.
As with a lot of this conspiracy theory stuff, it only makes sense if you don't think about it too much. Once you actually start thinking through the consequences and practicalities, it doesn't hold together.