The first and central provision of the bill is the requirement for tracking technology to be embedded in any high-end processor module or device that falls under the U.S. export restrictions.
As a coder with some hardware awareness, I find the concept laughable.
How does he think they (read: the Taiwanese, if they are willing to) would go about doing it?
Add a GPS receiver onto every GPU? Add an inertial navigation module to every GPU? Add a radio to every GPU? :D
The poor politician needs a technically competent advisor forced on him. To make him aware (preferably in the most blunt way) of real possibilities in the real world.
In the real world, you can prevent a chip from knowing where it’s running and you can’t add random shit onto a chip, and if someone does, you can stop buying bugged hardware or prevent that random addition from getting a reading.
Taiwanese
AMD & Nvidia are American companies, for better or worse. The Taiwanese just make the chips, they don’t actually decide what they look like…
Add a GPS receiver onto every GPU? Add an inertial navigation module to every GPU? Add a radio to every GPU? :D
if it’s possible, which I agree with you, is highly unlikely, i’d assume it’d be something like html canvas fingerprinting. Rather than adding more stuff to the gpu, the gpu could be made to generate a specific fingerprint. I recon it’d be a very easy task for the hardware vendors.
Heck, there might be other ways we don’t even know yet, kinda like the glowy ethernet port. I could see that working very easily in conjunction to the GPU.
In the real world, you can prevent a chip from knowing where it’s running and you can’t add random shit onto a chip, and if someone does, you can stop buying bugged hardware or prevent that random addition from getting a reading.
please read up on intel management engine and amd’s equivelent. That shit runs on your system in ring minus 3. Oh yeah, ARM also has something similar.
China is also making it’s own x86 cpus, but I bet they’re laced with more spyware than the above.
You honestly have virtually 0 other cpu options. Everything is bugged… Who would you buy from in this case? It’s virtually unavoidable :/
please read up on intel management engine
I’m already familiar with it. On the systems I buy and intall, if they are Intel based, ME gets disabled since I haven’t found a reasonable use for it.
Oh yeah, ARM also has something similar.
Since this is more relevant to me (numerically, most of the systems that I install are Raspberry Pi based robots), I’m happy to announce that TrustZone is not supported on Pi 4 (I haven’t checked about other models). I haven’t tested, however - don’t trust my word.
Who would you buy from in this case?
From the Raspberry Pi Foundation, who are doubtless ordering silicon from TSMC for the Pico series and ready-made CPUs for their bigger products, and various other services from other companies. If they didn’t exist, I would likely fall back on RockChip based products from China.
https://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/bugs/nsaant/firewalk/index.htm
Wow. :) Neat trick. (Would be revealed in competent hands, though. Snap an X-ray photo and find excess electronics in the socket.)
However, a radio transceiver is an extremely poor candidate for embedding on a chip. It’s good for bugging boards, not chips.
ME gets disabled
I didn’t know you could disable it. I figured it was very impractical or near impossible to do. how did you do it?
Raspberry Pi Foundation
I’m not going to lie, raspberry pis are a good candidate for a desktop but they’re still very underpowered compared to modern computers. That’s my only critcism. But yes, i’m not sure if there’s any spookware on any of the raspberry pis.
how did you do it?
In the BIOS options of that specific server (nothing fancy, a generic Dell with some Xeon processor) the option to enable/disable ME was just plainly offered.
Chipset features > Intel AMT (active management technology) > disable (or something similar, my memory is a bit fuzzy). I researched the option, got worried about the outcomes if someone learned to exploit it, and made it a policy of turning it off. It was about 2 years ago.
P.S.
I’m sure there exist tools for the really security-conscious folks to verify whether ME has become disabled, but I was installing a boring warehouse system, so I didn’t check.
Also, don’t get me started on speculative execution vulns…
If politicians had advisors then how would they justify doing the dumb shit their owners want them to, then they can’t plead ignorance.
How about locking all the advanced functions behind a hardware lock that requires an online key to unlock? Besides getting an IP address for geolocation, this approach would enable manufacturers to put a subscription on the features as well. Require users to provide a government issued ID that matches the name on the credit card used.
VPN! I hear you cry. But the driver is already running pretty close to the hardware, so good luck hiding a VPN client.
So while you can’t guarantee a street address accuracy, you can get country and overall regional subdivision.
But who would buy such hardware? :)
so good luck hiding a VPN client.
In my imagination, there is no VPN client. The whole network is behind a VPN router and the internet gateway is where it needs to be.
Why do gpus need geo tracking? They’re usually pretty stationary right?
It’s about not letting them be used in China, and any other future enemy countries.
Because China supposedly used Nvidia cards to train DeepSeek, which blew all of the US AI out of the water. And apparently that raised some eyebrows, because Nvidia wasn’t supposed to be selling to China (free market, right?). Since China was eating big tech’s lunch, they cried to republicans (and gave them a bunch of reelection money) and now we have this bill. The point is to be able to remotely disable cards if they’re outside of their sale region.
Such a well-conceived feature could never possibly be abused for unintended purposes.
This is absolutely insane and no one will want to buy those GPUs.
Unless, of course, they’re in all the GPUs that people want.
…It’s unfortunately more likely that the majority of people won’t notice or care, though.
Yeah if you think most people are going to care or even know about this, you haven’t been paying attention to the last 20 years.
Have some faith bud.
Faith in what? The unending march to tech dystopia?
Just like nobody is buying the current generation because it’s insane, right?
How is this even legal? I am not even american nor living there, so how would the US be allowed to operate massive and unregulated surveillance through GPUs ?
The US is becoming worse than those they call villain.
The US has very low engagement of its voters, so even things that are illegal are starting to happen regularly.
It’s the same as so many countries, once a few rich guys get into power, as long as the guys with guns will take their money, it doesn’t really matter what want, the government gets captured and corrupted.
There’s ways to fight it but it’s a slog. I might give up. It’s not my job to fix it, fixing things doesn’t pay.
Isn’t it the reason for donald? Only like 60% vote, so the “stupid 30%” of the population can be used to grab the power seat?
Basically yes. That’s why Fox News is such an important instrument to the movement. They get their voters primed up and angry all year. They came out and voted against trans people in bathrooms and they are okay to suffer if that is achieved
If you’re in Europe I’m pretty sure those chips would violate the hell out of the GDPR and as such can’t be sold there.
Even then, as posted in a different too level comment, this is just too easy to fake, or block.
It’s an idiot law for idiots
How is this even legal?
That’s the neat part, if it isn’t no one will enforce it or protect you.
Finally my Intel stock will rise. This will definitely force Nvidia GPU to be manufactured in the US with always on DRM.
Yeah that is fun and all but I can at least guarantee you that that shit won’t fly in Europe, and likely neither in Canada. I can only imagine other countries will be penning their own laws outlawing this.
So tech giants then have the option to either go for separate chipsets for those countries or stip selling there.
Also, how do you want to implement this? Have the GPU request GPS data from the computer? That won’t be hard to forgr., but let’s say you ge that, then what?
You need to send that info somewhere or it’ll be useless. How? Over the Internet? Ahw, my firewall told you to go fuck yourself. Over its own GPS line? A little bit of aluminum foil can do miracles.
So what are you going to do then? Require an active internet connection for your GPU to work? Bwhahahahha. Have you seen gamers responses to games that require active internet connections to play? You won’t sell shit.
This is again a law designed by absolutely.emoty headed idiots tompleae some other empty headed idiots.
Senator Tom Cotton’s legislation seeks to “prevent advanced
AmericanTAIWANESE chips from falling into the hands of adversaries like Communist China.”FTFY
Nvidia, Intel, and AMD are all American companies. Yes, their GPUs are manufactured by TSMC in Taiwan but they just follow the designs given to them. The layout of these GPUs and the architecture of the chips are all designed and controlled by these American corporations.
So why are they made in Taiwan then? Why not make them in america?
Laughs in Faraday.
Adversaries who are being treated to lower tarriffs than allies.
Cooked country.
And how do they plan to do this? even if they add (GPS) tracking hardware the Chinese will just cut the connection to the Antenna and the GPU is gone. If they do it in software (like driver) it will just be patched out.
Sure, but now a new company selling Geo tracking shit for GPUs is making billions per year. Problem solved!
Capitalism is a system of whores. And there’s nothing wrong with whores, but a whore is a whore. Good luck. It’s going to be like trying to hold a bar of soap that’s slipping out of your hands. You can keep grabbing at it, but it’s just going to keep slipping. I just recall when America leaked nuclear secrets because soldiers were using a private private flashcard program and they forgot to check mark the box that said private. And so they ended up leaking all these secrets all over the internet. And let’s not forget. The open source information that was used from some snot-nosed person on an osint account on twitter for targeting a supposed underground base, that cost the lives of innocent civilians via the Palantir and Peter Thiel’s stupid AI. They did not get an underground base. They just wasted millions of dollars on something that wasn’t there.
It’s like their plans are dystopic and terrifying, but they’re not going to be able to implement them in a way that’s worth a damn. And also, their actual product that they produce is so stupid that it’s even more terrifying than the original idea. It’s just straight up fucking madness. It’s like, look mom, no hands. Then you fall off the goddamn bike and you’re sitting there crying.
This still remains. There is so much corruption and greed in this country that we can’t even function as an empire. We can’t even get a chip’s factory figured out. We don’t make shit. Everybody in this country is so goddamn lazy and stupid. I can’t even find a noble cause because I feel like I’m just enabling stupid people. I’m sure we just operate off of bare necessities. Like the need to just stay alive one more day. But it gets to the point where it’s like, what’s the fucking point? This country is nonsensical. It’s absurd. It’s laughable. It’s weak. It’s limp dicked. And this happened way before Joe Biden or Trump. This has been a continuation ever since I’ve been alive for 40 fucking dumb ass years.
What the fuck is your metaphor with whores all about??
Yeah right, a couple of my good friends used to be sex workers so
but a whore is a whore
just seems ignorant and misogynist to me.
A sex worker can be a honest whore. Nothing wrong with being a honest whore.
Now being a sales weasel and making backroom deals, that’s a lying whore.
Your comment feels like “a honest black person can be a good nigga, no wrong with that, but if hes not nice he’s a ***** nigga” IDK you just sound bad as hell.
It’s probably the word ‘whore’. Similar to ‘cunt’, it hits a little different from ‘prostitute’ or ‘pussy’.
Culturally, ‘whore’ is an acceptable word for me to use. Any permutation of the N word is not.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time among drag queens(not necessarily sex workers but there is overlap), strippers, prostitutes and crack whores. Most of them are decent folks in hard times. It is rare that people willingly choose sex work, instead, it’s usually desperation and addiction. A desperate population does desperate things like petty crime.
Everything you say feels A-ok (except you americans have a weird way forbidding words) but I think you missed my point. Whore is a way more loaded word than cunt, and in many ways, it’s not just an insult but also misogynist and so on, if used as an insult. So you can throw it around when it isn’t (my little cookie whore! or something I guess) but you can’t balance that off with the insult part, because it’s just too raw and bad IMO.
Sorry for the word salad!
Whore isn’t really gendered? There are more female whores than male whores in sex work but there are more male whores in politics than female. It is an insult about submission and service with a sexual connotation.
I think you’re seeing a difference in cultural weighting of common profanity. I’m from the deep south of the US.
I’m used to cunt being considered more offensive than whore. Whore is a milder obscenity than fuck, shit, or cunt. It is similar to slut, dick, or piss.
Its just a phrase about managing expectations. You can replace whore with literally any profession and its the same message.
Bruh… Literally 1984
why dont they just ask huwei to give them some spying tech.
I knew this shit was coming so I just… I got contingencies bruh. I ain’t buying that nonsense and I don’t give a fuck about video games no more so eat a dick. If I have to strip down naked and pull every goddamn microchip out of my ass, that these fuckers want to put there, then I will. I refuse. Not only that, I mean, don’t you as a company owner find this to be somewhat concerning, especially if you know about like, I don’t know, hierarchical systems? Like sure, you’re in charge of a small group of people with someone in charge of you. Are we headed to “our great leader territory”? I’ll just have a reductionist strategy. Less is more. What I see at the end of the day is goofballs wishing for something to be, but not implementing it or implementing it in a limp dick fashion, which actually leaves us in a worse off position.
Once China takes the semiconductor crown, the US isn’t getting it back.
Glad I get to be alive to witness communism beat capitalism. While the US ruling class wastes its money on dumb shit like “space tourism,” the Chinese ruling class has been investing vehemently into its own populace.
And of course the miraculous Chinese GPUs won’t have any tracking inside, none at all!
just like their smartphones and networking devices, right?
Nah you can keep your Oppos and Huawei routers.
I’m intrigued……
- Why and how do you think China will take the semiconductor crown?
- in what way will communism “beat” capitalism?
- You think China has been investing in its own people? The wealth gap in China between the 1% and the rest is enormous and growing - that’s how all communism ends up lol. Chinas ruling class treat the rest of the population like garbage.
that’s how all communism ends up lol.
You do know, that China is a capitalistic country labeling themselves as communist?
Apart from that you’re right.
The PRC is also quickly catching up in semiconductors, and they actually build infrastructure, unlike the US. Sure, they have a massive wealth disparity and very obviously aren’t communist, but they’re doing a few things right.
Guess it depends which part of the graph you are on.
So China has a smaller percentage of its population below 10k USD net worth despite having a 45% lower cost of living? That’s a pretty big difference in the number of people who can live comfortably. I’m willing to sacrifice people’s ability to be ludicrously rich for that.
And yet most americans think chinese people live in dirt huts wearing rags, and are forced into slave labor. I wonder if there will ever be a time when politicians stop lieing for their country.
Yeah China is actually insane. They’re growing like exponentially and we’re over here at crawling progress
