4 ms·

Reminded me of this story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba%E2%80%93Kongsberg_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba%E2%80%93Kongsberg_scan... Tosh

Reminded me of this story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba%E2%80%93Kongsberg_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba%E2%80%93Kongsberg_scan... Toshiba wasn't allowed to export a 9-axis (C)NC-machine to the Soviet union, because it could (and would) be used to create ultra-silent submarine props, in the 80s. Asianometry video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaRyqAVIkwI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaRyqAVIkwI

542458 3y ago
It’s kinda wild that the two executives committed fraud to export weapons technology to a major military adversary in contradiction of international agreement… and ended up with 10 and 12 month sentences. That seems really light to me!
- romwell 3y ago
  The country that issued the sentence is the same country that profited off of the exports and whose government is heavily involved in business deals[1]... so yeah. Also, the punishment would be not to the executives, but to the company involved (Toshiba) and imposed externally. However: >In response to the affair, Toshiba carried out lobbying activities in Congress between 1987 and 1989 to ease the sanctions. The amount of money invested by Toshiba, the number of lobbyists, and the scale of its activities were said to be the largest ever. So, business as usual. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government-business_relations_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government-business_relations_...
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    You know, lobbying wouldn't be so bad if our government officials just ignored them when they were advocating against the public interest.
    - Exoristos 3y ago
      Found the lobbyist.
      - Eisenstein 3y ago
        Can I be a lobbyist that lobbies against lobbying?
- xp84 3y ago
  Right? This seems like close to Light Treason territory to me.
flacebo 3y ago
When the company I work for was buying a brand new swiss grinding machine (which enables the manufacturing of some extremely precise parts), I had to fill and sign a very strange statement about: - the exact kind of goods that we will use the machine for - certify that we will not use it in any nuclear explosive activity, or unsafeguarded nuclear fuel-cycle activity, or the use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons - that we won't transfer the manufactured goods or the machine outside of specific countries without the consent of some kind of swiss economic affairs office. I got the same kind of vibes.
- tommiegannert 3y ago
  Now I'm very curious what makes a precision grinding machine particularly useful for nuclear applications.
  - bcbrown 3y ago
    When you're using shaped charges to turn a large metal sphere into a small metal sphere, just about everything needs a high degree of precision.
  - Outright0133 3y ago
    Total layman guess: shaped nuclear charges? No idea if that's even possible.
- techdragon 3y ago
  It will be the centrifuges, and the extra words are to help obscure the intended target of the promise in an effort to continue the wide scale obfuscation of nuclear technology as part of the whole “born secret” international non-proliferation effort thing. The issue with nuclear weapons isn’t the weapon it’s the enrichment. The isotopic separation via centrifugal forces is the most efficient and technically challenging method of enrichment, and the hardware required involves extremely high RPMs and requires running them non stop round the clock in banks of hundreds of connected together so that the tiny fraction of a percentage each individual centrifuge can enrich the isotopes eventually ends up adding up to a significant enough to be useful for nuclear stuff. As you can imagine building a 50 thousand RPM centrifuge to run 24/7 is quite challenging and involves a lot of high precision parts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_centrifuge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_centrifuge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zippe-type_centrifuge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zippe-type_centrifuge

542458 3y ago

It’s kinda wild that the two executives committed fraud to export weapons technology to a major military adversary in contradiction of international agreement… and ended up with 10 and 12 month sentences. That seems really light to me!

romwell 3y ago
The country that issued the sentence is the same country that profited off of the exports and whose government is heavily involved in business deals[1]... so yeah. Also, the punishment would be not to the executives, but to the company involved (Toshiba) and imposed externally. However: >In response to the affair, Toshiba carried out lobbying activities in Congress between 1987 and 1989 to ease the sanctions. The amount of money invested by Toshiba, the number of lobbyists, and the scale of its activities were said to be the largest ever. So, business as usual. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government-business_relations_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government-business_relations_...
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  You know, lobbying wouldn't be so bad if our government officials just ignored them when they were advocating against the public interest.
  - Exoristos 3y ago
    Found the lobbyist.
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      Can I be a lobbyist that lobbies against lobbying?
xp84 3y ago
Right? This seems like close to Light Treason territory to me.

flacebo 3y ago

When the company I work for was buying a brand new swiss grinding machine (which enables the manufacturing of some extremely precise parts), I had to fill and sign a very strange statement about: - the exact kind of goods that we will use the machine for - certify that we will not use it in any nuclear explosive activity, or unsafeguarded nuclear fuel-cycle activity, or the use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons - that we won't transfer the manufactured goods or the machine outside of specific countries without the consent of some kind of swiss economic affairs office. I got the same kind of vibes.

tommiegannert 3y ago
Now I'm very curious what makes a precision grinding machine particularly useful for nuclear applications.
- bcbrown 3y ago
  When you're using shaped charges to turn a large metal sphere into a small metal sphere, just about everything needs a high degree of precision.
- Outright0133 3y ago
  Total layman guess: shaped nuclear charges? No idea if that's even possible.
techdragon 3y ago
It will be the centrifuges, and the extra words are to help obscure the intended target of the promise in an effort to continue the wide scale obfuscation of nuclear technology as part of the whole “born secret” international non-proliferation effort thing. The issue with nuclear weapons isn’t the weapon it’s the enrichment. The isotopic separation via centrifugal forces is the most efficient and technically challenging method of enrichment, and the hardware required involves extremely high RPMs and requires running them non stop round the clock in banks of hundreds of connected together so that the tiny fraction of a percentage each individual centrifuge can enrich the isotopes eventually ends up adding up to a significant enough to be useful for nuclear stuff. As you can imagine building a 50 thousand RPM centrifuge to run 24/7 is quite challenging and involves a lot of high precision parts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_centrifuge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_centrifuge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zippe-type_centrifuge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zippe-type_centrifuge