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China Hardware Technology

ASML and TSMC Can Disable Chip Machines If China Invades Taiwan (yahoo.com) 135

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: ASML Holding NV and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. have ways to disable the world's most sophisticated chipmaking machines in the event that China invades Taiwan, according to people familiar with the matter. Officials from the US government have privately expressed concerns to both their Dutch and Taiwanese counterparts about what happens if Chinese aggression escalates into an attack on the island responsible for producing the vast majority of the world's advanced semiconductors, two of the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity. ASML reassured officials about its ability to remotely disable the machines when the Dutch government met with the company on the threat, two others said. The Netherlands has run simulations on a possible invasion in order to better assess the risks, they added.

The remote shut-off applies to Netherlands-based ASML's line of extreme ultraviolet machines, known within the industry as EUVs, for which TSMC is its single biggest client. EUVs harness high-frequency light waves to print the smallest microchip transistors in existence -- creating chips that have artificial-intelligence uses as well as more sensitive military applications. About the size of a city bus, an EUV requires regular servicing and updates. As part of that, the company can remotely force a shut-off which would act as a kill switch, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Veldhoven-based company is the world's only manufacturer of these machines, which sell for more than $217 million apiece.

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ASML and TSMC Can Disable Chip Machines If China Invades Taiwan

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  • Local access (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2024 @09:05AM (#64490271) Homepage Journal

    Can they really disable them enough to prevent an attacker with full local access and unlimited time enabling them again?

    For that matter can they guarantee that they will have remote access at all? If China did invade it is easy to imagine that one of the first things they would do is cut undersea cables and start jamming wireless communications.

    • Can they really disable them enough to prevent an attacker with full local access and unlimited time enabling them again?

      I would assume that it would use something difficult like encryption to prevent unauthorized enabling. It would not be like a simple switch or a 4 digit pin.

      For that matter can they guarantee that they will have remote access at all? If China did invade it is easy to imagine that one of the first things they would do is cut undersea cables and start jamming wireless communications.

      I suppose that assumption rests on ASML and TSMC had not thought about the loss of communications in the event of an invasion.

      • Re:Local access (Score:5, Insightful)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2024 @09:41AM (#64490395) Journal

        Lets be honest; loss of communications probably is what disables the machine. They probably designed it to have to contact some license server every few days and your machine shuts off if you don't pay your maintenance contract.

        Someone said oh hey - we could just not let them renew inf there is an international incident to appease the security apparatus people when faced with questions.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Which raises the other possibility - China develops high end fabs, and then sabotages the machines in Taiwan by disrupting comms, leaving China as the only source for high end chips.

          I think it's far more likely that China will try to weaken Taiwan economically, while supporting politicians in Taiwan who want closer ties with the mainland, than it would try a military invasion.

          • China though is also in a race against time. If another decade goes by and no invasion at a certain point the rest of the world would have to say "these guys are bluffing"

            That's what makes this situation so dumb, China and Taiwan despite their historical issues have pretty close economic ties to China, all the big Taiwan OEMs like Foxconn, Quanta, Delta, MediaTek all seem to have some manufacturing in China.

            If China has a game plan to compete with ASML directly it risks that entire position in an invasion

            • I doubt China wants an invasion of Taiwan. That is mostly US propaganda. What China wants in an ideal world is peaceful reunification. They will likely only resort to force only when that becomes impossible. And I doubt their first use of force will be to invade. More likely is a blockade. As for sanctions, you have seen how well that worked with Russia which is a relatively minor economic power and their invasion of Ukraine which is internationally recognized. Given the option, its likely most countries i
          • Which raises the other possibility - China develops high end fabs, and then sabotages the machines in Taiwan by disrupting comms, leaving China as the only source for high end chips.

            That would require China to develop high end fabs. Without EUV machines, they first have to design new ways of chip fabrication that the rest of the world has not done. Remember, Intel under no sanctions, was stuck at 10nm for what 5-7 years?

        • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

          Lets be honest; loss of communications probably is what disables the machine. They probably designed it to have to contact some license server every few days and your machine shuts off if you don't pay your maintenance contract.

          The use of the word "probably" is a weasel-word when used to speculate how a system was designed.

          The design specification was "be able to assure politicians that the fab equipment can be disabled if taken over, but absolutely, positively, make sure that whatever you do doesn't ever stop the production line."

          And, here's the risk/reward matrix:
          Case 1: the shut-off disables the machine accidentally. Result: lose your job.
          Case 2: The shut-off fails to disable the machine after a Chinese invasion. Result: In

          • Also I feel like if this is actual issue the real plan would be employees start taking vital parts off the machines before they evacuate and sabotage anything else on the way out and that is the unspoken plan.

            It's a very well defended island, China won't be able to take it by pure surprise, everyone will have weeks if not months of warning before soldiers are storming the fab's doorstep.

      • john deere will take some of that encryption to lock in dealer only repair!

        • The main difference is the owners of the tractors do not want encryption to lock out their tractors. In this case TSMC would want encryption in the event of invasion.
      • I think the big assumption is that China doesn't have enough corporate espionage data to have exfiltrated the control software for the machines in an unencrypted form. I don't know to what extent they might have done so, but this would be a high target on their list.

        • I think the big assumption is that China doesn't have enough corporate espionage data to have exfiltrated the control software for the machines in an unencrypted form. I don't know to what extent they might have done so, but this would be a high target on their list.

          Encryption exists at the hardware level too. Current smartphones like Android and iPhones have hardware encryption that prevents unauthorized use.

          • I'm assuming they have the knowledge to completely replace the board itself with something more compliant but would still need the software. It's probably not an unreasonable assumption.

            • 1) You are assuming they have intricate knowledge to replace the board. 2) Where would they get the chips to replace the board? If only they had a cutting edge fab like TSMC to make the chips . . . oh wait.
              • I wouldn't expect them to fab a unique chip for this running a completely unique instruction set. Yes, I do expect the Chinese government to be able to find people to do that. We're talking about weeks instead of years to get it online but not hours.

                • I wouldn't expect them to fab a unique chip for this running a completely unique instruction set.

                  We are talking about the hardware encryption chip that is used to lock down ASML's equipment. I doubt you can just order such a chip from anywhere as they are custom designed for each board. Google and Apple designed their own hardware security chips for their smartphones.

                  Yes, I do expect the Chinese government to be able to find people to do that. We're talking about weeks instead of years to get it online but not hours.

                  Your expectations may not meet with reality. China has spent decades trying to get their current chip fabrication to compete. The current estimate is China is still 10 years behind.

                  • A phone might be locked down but you can assemble a board with the same parts but no lock and the ROM will run just fine.

                    • A phone might be locked down but you can assemble a board with the same parts but no lock and the ROM will run just fine.

                      1) Er what? How do you know? I can guarantee you that without the security chip, a smart phone does not work. Also are you under the impression that we are talking about PC motherboards? We are not. An ASML EUV machine has many custom boards some of which are probably designed not to work without a security chip.

                      2) You assume that China can source all the parts despite the fact that some of the chips was be made by EUV machines at TSMC. Do you not see the catch 22? In order to get the EUV machine running a

    • Can they really disable them enough to prevent an attacker with full local access and unlimited time enabling them again?

      Nothing withstands unlimited time, nor is that the design goal. The idea that China can be stopped from developing advanced microcontrollers is an absolute fantasy, nor is it the goal of the west. The goal is to remain ahead in technology.

      It is significantly more difficult to reverse engineer something complex if you can't see it operational from the onset.

      • The idea that China can be stopped from developing advanced microcontrollers is an absolute fantasy, nor is it the goal of the west.

        Let's be clear about what China's proficiency lies. China is great at copying things. Developing new things is where they struggle. When it comes to things like microprocessors, it takes teams of people with experience to design a chip. Copying that chip is easy. Designing the next chip is not.

    • Re:Local access (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Linux Torvalds ( 647197 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2024 @09:33AM (#64490367)

      You don't have to blow anything up. Sanctions will be more than sufficient to keep the TSMC facility from being of any use to China.

      These machines will work for a few weeks at most without supplies, support, and maintenance from the West. Then they might as well be sold for scrap.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        But if China controls the main source of high end electronics for the West, can we really maintain sanctions on them? Prices here will shoot up and companies will be screaming at the government to restart deliveries of the essential components they need.

        Or maybe China will wait until its domestic chip manufacturing has reached parity or near as, and then cut off the West from both Taiwanese and Chinese supplies of high end chips. Better get to building some fabs to make sure that doesn't happen.

        • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

          Well the core equipment comes from the Netherlands, so it shouldn't be especially difficult to spin up manufacturing in the US or Europe given sufficient motivation.
          Of course, Russia could decide to attack the Netherlands.

        • My SIL's car still doesn't have some of the features she was sold because of Covid chip shortages.

          Life moved on.

      • You don't have to blow anything up. Sanctions will be more than sufficient to keep the TSMC facility from being of any use to China.

        These machines will work for a few weeks at most without supplies, support, and maintenance from the West. Then they might as well be sold for scrap.

        True, and even examining captured EUVs for potential reverse engineering would be of limited use. What the Chinese wants to get a detailed look at the facility makes these EUVs and get their hands on the associated trade secrets which I sincerely hope are kept on air-gapped systems.

        • Even then just having the equipment in it's whole form doesn't mean it will be simple to replicate either. When Rocketdyne was designing the F1-B rocket engine based on the original F1 they had to end up still making a bunch of assumptions and modifications since while they could take apart complete functional engines and had access to the plans there was still parts of manufacture that were done by hand, not every process is documented and so much of what they work was the manual skills of the people maki

    • by Targon ( 17348 )
      There could be something like a "kill switch" that causes the equipment to self destruct. Put too much power through the control systems, and those systems are DEAD.
      • Therrmite works pretty well too.
      • I think without the control software, it would take years to figure out how to tell the laser to do much of anything. Just remotely wiping the controller would do pretty well. And can be undone if the invasion threat was a false alarm.

    • Everyone is just going to ignore that the people will all the expertise are still there... you think China is just going to let them leave? They'll have their families threatened and them fixing the machines within a week. The tech really needs to start to be moved offshore, which sucks for Taiwan, but it's a pretty huge single-point-of-failure for the rest of the world right now.
      • Hard to fix those things when there are no spare parts, worldwide sanctions, and the logic boards and optics are melted from a few pounds of well-placed thermite charges.
        • How effectively can other countries sanction China (or Russia, or the USA)?

          • The components used on the lithography machines in the fabs are made in the EU (mainly Germany) and the US.
          • China? Extremely well if we're serious, we can cut off energy and food supplies via sanctions and blockade their fishing fleets.

            They wouldn't last long before the hungry populace stormed the CCP places and tore them apart.

            • by qbast ( 1265706 )

              China? Extremely well if we're serious, we can cut off energy and food supplies via sanctions and blockade their fishing fleets.

              They wouldn't last long before the hungry populace stormed the CCP places and tore them apart.

              at which point they might just sit and wait for said tearing apart or decide to take US down with them. They have several hundreds of nuclear warheads, enough to remove US as a functioning country from existence.

              • Maybe but I have not seen China having the type of second-strike capabilities the US has. Could China park a nuclear missile sub off the west coast like the US no doubt has at least a couple Ohio class boats in the South China Sea at all time. Or stealth B2 bombers ready to fly across the globe from Missouri loaded with bombs? They could but China already knows the US has all of those so MAD still applies here.

      • And how are the guys that operate a machine supposed to "fix" it after a cruise missile flies in through the loading dock door and flattens the place?

    • 'Can they really disable them enough to prevent an attacker with full local access and unlimited time enabling them again?'

      A couple of pounds of thermite in the right place will take care of that, especially if you have key parts made out of aluminum and magnesium.

      • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

        'Can they really disable them enough to prevent an attacker with full local access and unlimited time enabling them again?'
        A couple of pounds of thermite in the right place will take care of that, especially if you have key parts made out of aluminum and magnesium.

        Yeah, that will be no problem when it's accidentally is triggered due to some com glitch.

    • You're going to have to justify the "unlimited time" bit, as that's absolutely not guaranteed.

      Dropping a JDAM through the roof of the building is likely to "disable them enough to prevent" any use permanently after the built-in lockout buys a few hours to put one on target.

    • I took "have ways to disable" in a very different way, the old-school way. I believe one or more people, likely the site's lab managers, are tasked with destroying the equipment if an invasion is imminent. It will be very obvious when China invades Taiwan and it will take them hours to even bring material and forces onto the island.

      If I were to do it. I'd have a lock box and trigger. Someone with a key goes to each machine and destroys it. Might take 2 minutes per piece of key equipment. An hour to do the w

    • just having the broken machines would be a tech windfall.

      It seems to me that the minimum sufficient standard would be a system that reduces the machine to slag unless given its weekly updates from abroad--and with an internal power supply.

      Yes, a dead man's switch.

      And even then, I'm utterly befuddled by the decision to keep such tech in Taiwan--it would seem to *increase* the chance of invasion by upping the rewards for doing so!

    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Can they really disable them enough to prevent an attacker with full local access and unlimited time enabling them again?

      For that matter can they guarantee that they will have remote access at all? If China did invade it is easy to imagine that one of the first things they would do is cut undersea cables and start jamming wireless communications.

      When you're dealing with machines that cost billions of dollars each, it wouldn't surprise me if these machines are continually talking to ASML and other manufactur

    • I wonder if they use more of a check-in approach? The machines could phone home every so often. If they donâ(TM)t have a successful call home they try again with an escalating level of urgency that culminates in a disabled machine if it goes too long without success. If it is not a reversible event(ie it destroys components) then it would need to be an interval at least long enough in normal times to allow for proactive efforts in Taiwan and the Netherlands to prevent problems when everyday operations
  • Redundant (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2024 @09:12AM (#64490291)
    Those are some of the most sensitive, optimized machines on the planet. All it would take to destroy one of those machines beyond repair would be a single engineer, a claw hammer, a liter of something flammable, a lighter, and approximately 5 minutes.

    I’m pretty sure that a small team of engineers could reduce TSMC’s chipmaking capacity to zero in a single afternoon, if they had full facility access.

    I guess it’s nice that the Dutch could remotely disable the systems. Maybe just to reinforce the point in public that China can’t capture TSMC in any meaningful way.
    • by ls671 ( 1122017 )

      I was going to ask if process defined in TFS was destructive enough...

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      I doubt China would take Taiwan for chip making machines. They can steal whatever they do not know and build the machines themselves.

      Xi Jinping is measuring the length of his dick as being inversely proportional to the number of free people with Chinese heritage.

      • 'I doubt China would take Taiwan for chip making machines"

        Taiwan's chip-making capabilities are probably a prime reason China desperately wants Taiwan. And the fact that an armed invasion would almost certainly completely wreck that ability is probably a major reason why they haven't done it, along with the massive expense and foreign policy repercussions.

    • I guess it's nice that the Dutch could remotely disable the systems. Maybe just to reinforce the point in public that China can't capture TSMC in any meaningful way.

      But what if the goal isn't to capture the equipment? Disabling it would also devastate the company (and, to an extent, the country's economy) as well.

      Now, they know there is another attack method. Make the people with "the switch" think things are bad enough to flip it.

      • Yes, now they should be afraid that ASML would disable the machines even if China would leave the factories alone (as in letting them go on with their business).
    • Re:Redundant (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2024 @09:27AM (#64490341)

      Those are some of the most sensitive, optimized machines on the planet. All it would take to destroy one of those machines beyond repair would be a single engineer, a claw hammer, a liter of something flammable, a lighter, and approximately 5 minutes.

      An engineer alone can't do that. For that you need a full on patriot. Everyone can do a lot of damage. The question is would you do said damage knowing that if you are found out having done the damage you will be sent to a Chinese ... "vocational training camp" where you can learn new manual labour skills for the rest of your remaining short life.

      Being able to do damage remotely is significantly more important than relying on some guy with a hammer knowing they won't see their family again if they use it.

      • by eth1 ( 94901 )

        An engineer alone can't do that. For that you need a full on patriot. Everyone can do a lot of damage. The question is would you do said damage knowing that if you are found out having done the damage you will be sent to a Chinese ... "vocational training camp" where you can learn new manual labour skills for the rest of your remaining short life.

        Being able to do damage remotely is significantly more important than relying on some guy with a hammer knowing they won't see their family again if they use it.

        Not really... China would probably need the engineers to run the machines. You think those engineers would be anything but slaves if captured? They have to make themselves scarce whether they sabotage the machines or not.

        • Re: (Score:2, Redundant)

          by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

          You think those engineers would be anything but slaves if captured? They have to make themselves scarce whether they sabotage the machines or not.

          Not all slaves are equals. Yes I would happily wager close to 100% of people would choose to work those machines when faced with a list of possible alternatives. To think otherwise is to live a truly sheltered and secure life - something you can I can consider a lucky privilege compared to what many people experience.

    • That was my thought too - although I suspect the 'bricking' is step 1 (as it'll be reversible, should the need arise). If China is still on the island 24 hours after that, then go to stage 2, which may involve some special forces or citizen forces to go in and vandalise the place as you describe. Stage 3 would likely be the same people planting explosives in some key areas (if they're not already there) and setting timer fuses.

      Either way, I predict there's no way China gets anything physical and useful from

    • I can't be sure about this, but I imagine just opening the door to the clean room would be enough to cause a multi-year cleanup. Heck have a woman come in heavy in hairspray, perfume and pancake. I was last in a clean room in the 80's, 1 micron-ish, and even back then full bunny and air showers.
  • It may be a dead man's switch on each unit. If it doesn't receive the all-green signal on a periodic basis, it commits some form of self-destruction.

    • by rastos1 ( 601318 )
      Why self-destruct, when it can just add a few nanometers offset on the "right" place ...
    • An accidental 2000lb JDAM bomb on each of the sites they are in during an invasion will likely be the real solution.
  • What is this story about? Who thinks China is likely to invade Taiwan for its chip machines? Aren't they far more likely to ignore patents & take the technology for themselves than take the physical machines & wouldn't that likely happen before any military conflict?

    I get the impression that the USA is pushing Taiwan into an increasingly hostile relationship with mainland China. If so, I can't see how this is going to benefit the Taiwanese people.
    • "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge."

      We never know that Montressor actually suffered any injuries, or insults. But that didn't matter, did it? At some point, Xi Jinping may decide that Taiwan has insulted him enough, and it's time to show those little pipsqueaks what's what. And it won't be for the chip making machinery. If Xi and his leadership team were entirely mentally stable, China wouldn't be a fascist, totalitarian s
  • This seems like a futile exercise. Chip factories in Taiwan are world best, if those are destroyed, everybody will have to buy from the second best, which are chip factories in China.

    • Re:futile (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rickb928 ( 945187 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2024 @10:09AM (#64490491) Homepage Journal

      And like that, the massive TSMC complex in North Phoenix is rendered moot.

      No, actually, it seems TSMC is busy with geographic diversification, and in equal measures for political/etc. purposes, and invasion-proofing. I consider the Chinese invasion threat something other than geopolitical.

      This has been obvious to any intent observers, and necessary. I expect next we will hear that their best and brightest engineers, designers, and all other technical staff are across the globe commissioning these new plants, for indefinite periods of time. I pity those unable to get assigned overseas, but eventually every other significant industry in Taiwan will follow suit. If China does invade, may they inherit a dry husk.

  • by TheNameOfNick ( 7286618 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2024 @10:13AM (#64490503)

    China isn't going to invade, you morons. It's going to get elected, sort of legally. Before anyone can turn anything off, the people who could do it will not dare to do it.

  • by oumuamua ( 6173784 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2024 @10:13AM (#64490507)
    The single main focus of China's foreign policy is, and has been, Taiwan. No country can even start diplomatic relations with China without signing up to the 'one China policy'. This is not new, this has been going on since the 50's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
    Against this history,TSMC is small potatoes.
    Furthermore, the only reason an invasion would occur is if Taiwan outright declares independence or China thinks it is moving toward independence.
  • by quietwalker ( 969769 ) <pdughi@gmail.com> on Wednesday May 22, 2024 @10:36AM (#64490591)

    So the problem with the kill switch is an age old one: the weak point is the people, and it's gonna be reaaaaaaly easy to bribe the folks to simply not pull the switches, or disconnect them in advance.

    I've worked with TSMC in the past. I've been to Taiwan, I've had a week's worth of starbucks coffees from one of the Fab 12 building's 7'th floor kiosk in Hsinchu city. Let me tell you about the culture there.

    More than 2 decades ago, we came in with what at the time was cutting edge Big Data analysis software we'd created. Now a days it'd be called machine learning or AI, but back then, it was Big Data. It could track down issues and correlate cause and effects with semiconductor data. Hey, you've got a common short on layer 12 because of copper growth issues with your scrubber pass on layer 6. Or in one case, when operator #3401 is logged into the transport machine, yield goes down by 12% and the number of scratches, closed vias, and particulate defects increases by 6%. Good stuff.

    Anyway, we bring our software in, do a demo - which takes about a week - and our point of contact could not care less. He tells everyone that we're unnecessary, not needed, he can do what our expensive SaaS does, himself. So we have a little challenge, blow him out of the water, and that's after he stripped OUR data of identifiers, so we can't tell if the data is a voltage test or resistance or defect identifier or whatever. Anyway, he stays in the meeting to discuss things after the presentation of results, and comes out later grinning.

    We go to pack up and he's got 4 guys with him - "You can't take your laptop out of the building," he says. It's had their data on it, even anonymized, and they believe it's a security risk. We might be spies. They caught some last week.

    Now while we were there, we had to run all the analysis from the laptop, which remained on site, locked to a table. One night, we found our analysis was interrupted and the hard drive had been removed while the system was still running. They had made a copy. Tried to steal our software.

    But we knew this was going to happen. This is how things work in Asia, and our code was CPU locked, so it wouldn't work without a lot of extra work. So by the time we were ready to leave, they realized they needed the laptop itself to run it. Or maybe it was just easier in any case. So we said we had to wipe it to protect our IP, which they had no problems with. So we got out our tools, and took the motherboard and hard drive out and ...

    "What are you doing?!?!" - one of the folks left to watch us cried. "Oh, we're destroying it so it can't be used." "YOU DON'T NEED TO DO THAT!" he shouted, as another one sprinted out of the room to get the manager. I'm drilling through the cpu when he gets there, his face bright red, "This isn't necessary" he says. "It's okay, we don't mind," we respond. "We want to make sure no one can use our software."

    He kept trying to get us to stop, saying how unnecessary it was, and I'm pretty sure as I was snapping the hard drive disks with pliers that he was crying - either from fear or rage, I don't know - but that was that. We declined their literal spyware-laden "replacement laptops," and noted how the two non-special-software laptops which had been used to create the presentation and had also had data on them - were not included in the 'keep' order. ...
    The purpose behind this story is to note that the overwhelming mindset in that area of the world is deep, fundamental and systemic lack of morals. If you can steal or cheat, you do it because it's a moral imperative to take what you can. It's at every level, in every aspect, from business to business like this, or business to personal; corruption, embezzlement, graft & kickbacks (I've got a whole story about "red envelopes"), and in this case, outright blatant theft.

    It's basically a hustle culture turned up to 11.

    So I have no doubt that if China were to invade, you'd find these kill switches surprisingly non-functional or simply never used, because the folks who would use them were already well paid not to.

  • China's intentions towards Taiwan are idealogical, not driven by a desire to control (or destroy) the world's supply of microchips.
    So while disabling Taiwan's ability to produce sounds smart it isn't much of a deterrent.And with China already operating with an embargo on western technology, such a move would just reduce western technology down to their level. But without having the two or three years to adapt to the situation, as China currently has.
  • by CEC-P ( 10248912 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2024 @11:44AM (#64490813)
    Oh, wow, flipping a software switch. I'M SO SURE motivated device hackers can't get past that!
    It's called thermite. Use it. The US already announced they'd rather turn it into a smoking crater than let China run the entire world's desktop and server CPU production. I completely agree.
  • by stevenm86 ( 780116 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2024 @01:26PM (#64491175)
    Remotely disabling cutting-edge technology? Even if the DRM cannot be bypassed (it almost certainly can), there are significant insights that can be gained into this technology by physically reverse-engineering the unit. You could disable the software but a lot of the secret sauce for this type of technology is in the mechanicals / optics / how it all fits together. You may not be able to run the machine as-is, but you would be closer to being able to build your own (which takes longer but is ultimately more valuable).
  • Iâ(TM)m fairly ignorant about the whole China - Tawain thing, so for an education, I turned to Wikipedia, otherwise known as Harvard for Morons. Yeah, I know, but what can I do with a 5-minute attention span?

    Anyway, Taiwan sounds like a wonderful place where human rights flourish. Would really be a shame for China to disrupt it.

    Some 2 million people, mainly soldiers, members of the ruling Kuomintang and intellectual and business elites, were evacuated to Taiwan, adding to the earlier population of ap

    • Do you realize the same can be said about South Korea, until about the same time ? That at the time neither Poland, Czechoslovaquia, or not much earlier Spain and Portugal were pretty much in the same situation?

  • I'd think they'd just plant some high explosives and 'disable' them permanently in that case.
  • Simply slows things down. Once they have access to hardware, it is trivial to figure things out.

An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it. -- James Michener, "Space"

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