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.
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.
Local access (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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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)
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.
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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.
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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
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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?
Re: Local access (Score:2)
And Intel keeps having trouble improving their process technology...
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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
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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 lo (Score:2)
john deere will take some of that encryption to lock in dealer only repair!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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)
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.
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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.
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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.
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My SIL's car still doesn't have some of the features she was sold because of Covid chip shortages.
Life moved on.
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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.
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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
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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.
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Re: Local access (Score:2)
How effectively can other countries sanction China (or Russia, or the USA)?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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'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.
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'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.
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You mean when a soldier accidentally breaks into the fab area during peacetime and starts tossing grenades around?
What?
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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.
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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
still insufficient (Score:2)
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!
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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
Re: Local access (Score:2)
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So, you would nuke Taiwan and it 22+ million inhabitants just to prevent China from getting access to chip making machines?
Re:Local access (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: Local access (Score:2)
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I would think a single missile with a conventional warhead hitting the clean room would do for them nicely enough.
Or just a small charge inside the clean room itself. Invasions are rarely successful in minutes. There will be plenty of time to physically destroy anything of importance. Seems to be a peculiar American fantasy that it'll need to be done from afar with a bomb when Fred can do it with a blow torch or hammer long before invaders even get close, there will probably even be sufficient warning to evacuate key equipment or personnel. The entire Russian defence in WWII relied on burning or moving everything befo
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If we have gotten to that point more than likely Taiwan has already been massively evacuated and if China is expected to occupy the island then I wouldn't put it past the owners of TSMC to request a nuke to their facilities as they are sitting safely in US borders already.
Of course the series of events that get us there are so fantastical that the outcomes are anywhere as likely.
Re: Local access (Score:2)
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Honestly I think as far out as it is that this war happens at all I think it's very unlikely it comes to nuclear exchanges. China has a bunch of vast population centers that they know the US has a few dozen nukes underwater parked right offshore and they likely don't want to raze Taiwan either. MAD still applies, it would be the most tense shooting war ever though unless both sides comes to some sort of gentlemans agreement of "no nukes" of course what gives the other side incentive to trust? A true "only
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You know I just can't make that bet because as many assumptions I make about the man at the end of the day it always feels like he acts on the last thing someone he likes told him about it.
So I really have no idea what Trump would do. He personally would love to be a real wartime President, he would get so much attention and that wartime poll boost and carte blanche on a lot of actions. At the same time he loves to cozy up with people like Xi and Putin who he admires since they don't have to deal with th
Re: Local access (Score:2)
Re: Local access (Score:2)
Hamas was waiting for an opportunity, and probably the green light from Netanyahu, who has bragged in the past about how he was using Hamas to create an environment in which he could get away with wiping out Palestine.
If Putin delayed until Trump was out of office, it was only because otherwise he would decrease the value of his asset, and because he thought Trump would make it easier for him to get away with invading if he got elected.
Biden has funded the defense of Ukraine in exactly the way that Trump wo
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There were other invasions of consequence during the Trump administration, such as the Turkish invasion which was directly triggered by Trump moving US troops (https://www.economist.com/briefing/2019/10/17/donald-trump-triggers-a
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Good grief, all you need is a bunch of high power capacitors ready to burn out critical boards and sensors.
Redundant (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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I was going to ask if process defined in TFS was destructive enough...
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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.
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'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.
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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.
Re: Redundant (Score:2)
Re:Redundant (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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Where did you get 'kidnap' from? More likely they'd live in exile, or choose to stay and live in part of the PRC.
The point I was trying to make is that I'd imagine the Taiwanese government has contingencies in place, where they will specifically help "high profile" people escape from the island if China invades. Usually such things get reserved for politicians, but in this case I'd imagine it includes some TSMC people too.
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I did read some theories that part of why TSMC is doing more domestic fabs in the US is not just because of big subsidies but it gives them "backup" facilities to move their people to and basically start over in exile.
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Does anyone "want" to live in exile? Is that what we think this is about?
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Dead Man's Switch (Score:3)
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.
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Doesn't make sense (Score:2)
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.
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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
futile (Score:2)
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)
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.
That's not going to happen (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
This is propaganda (Score:3)
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.
They can't secure the hand on the switch (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Who gains what? (Score:2)
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.
No they can't and yes they can (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Oh please (Score:3)
Iâ(TM)m Reading Up (Score:2, Insightful)
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
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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?
Blow them up (Score:2)
Does no good (Score:2)
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AI can't do anything complex. Where's it going to get the training data on how to build a semiconductor fab? I doubt it's on wikipedia.
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https://chatgpt.com/share/4901... [chatgpt.com]
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