Why would Telnet be required...
...for manufacturing and diagnostics? It's definitely "old school" but wouldn't a plain 'ol RS-232 port that a technician could connect to be more secure than telnet? At least someone wishing to get into the equipment would have to be onsite. Sure, it complicates vendor support by requiring someone to schlepp into the data center and physically connect a laptop to the equipment but if you want security questions to NOT be raised in connection with your product, why not do that to defuse those criticisms? (There are ways to avoid the physical access but, I suspect those will be labeled as too archaic to be used in a "modern" environment.)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
