5 ms·

Some good answers here, but at the end of the day it's this: If the components don't work in a military situation, people might very well die. Sometimes a lot

Some good answers here, but at the end of the day it's this: If the components don't work in a military situation, people might very well die. Sometimes a lot of people. A counterfeit microprocessor in a dollar store Furby clone probably isn't going to kill anyone if it fails. The same microprocessor in a surface-to-air missile? Well...

polishdude20 3y ago
>The same microprocessor I knew Furbies had the same killing brains of missiles! It's in the eyes.
- sterlind 3y ago
  that's the plot of Home Alone 2 if memory serves (except with an RC car instead of a Furbie.)
  - lawlessone 3y ago
    No Home Alone 2 is kid is lost in New York and a forced cameo with Trump. You are thinking of Home Alone 3 which is a cynical money grabbing shadow of the original two films. Personally small soldiers is my favorite missile chip in toy genre movie.
  - kemotep 3y ago
    Home Alone 2 is set in New York. You are thinking of one of the later sequels that didn’t have Macauley Culkin.
- userbinator 3y ago
  Ironically, related to this article, the original Furby has a 6502-derived core. Its source code was released a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17751599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17751599
toast0 3y ago
> If the components don't work in a military situation, people might very well die. Sometimes a lot of people. Sure, but if the components do work, people might very well die. Sometimes a lot of people. Probably different people. Military (and aviation) want uniform, reliable parts and to be able to do post mortem investigation of failures where they lessons learned can be applied to the installed base and future production. You can't do that very well when you don't even know who made your ICs to ask them what happened during production or to improve their processes.
hkgjjgjfjfjfjf 3y ago
> If the components don't work in a military situation, people might very well die. Sometimes a lot of people. TBF, that's also true if they do work.
- samus 3y ago
  In the best case, the threat of using them is enough to get the job done. But for the threat to be genuine, they have to work reliably. This is definitely the case for nuclear and other "strategic" weapons.
petsfed 3y ago
Whether or not the thing keeps soldiers alive is actually pretty far down the list of reasons to control the supply chain (see, for instance, the various reviews of the M249, or the specific small-p political decisions around the M16 design. I've heard first hand accounts of Afghan National Army/Police answering calls while the US Army operated cell phone jammers a few feet away). The main thing is consistency. If you can depend on depend on your machine gun to jam if you fire it for more than 3 seconds, then you just don't fire it for that long. But if you have no way of knowing how many rounds you'll get out of it (if any) before it jams, you'll just stop using the thing. Further, a lot of the procurement rules devolve down to "is this supply chain a strategic weak point?" We don't buy our HMMWV tires from Russia not out of quality concerns, but to deny them that weapon. So the testing is done to verify provenance, rather than quality.

polishdude20 3y ago

>The same microprocessor I knew Furbies had the same killing brains of missiles! It's in the eyes.

sterlind 3y ago
that's the plot of Home Alone 2 if memory serves (except with an RC car instead of a Furbie.)
- lawlessone 3y ago
  No Home Alone 2 is kid is lost in New York and a forced cameo with Trump. You are thinking of Home Alone 3 which is a cynical money grabbing shadow of the original two films. Personally small soldiers is my favorite missile chip in toy genre movie.
- kemotep 3y ago
  Home Alone 2 is set in New York. You are thinking of one of the later sequels that didn’t have Macauley Culkin.
userbinator 3y ago
Ironically, related to this article, the original Furby has a 6502-derived core. Its source code was released a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17751599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17751599

toast0 3y ago

> If the components don't work in a military situation, people might very well die. Sometimes a lot of people. Sure, but if the components do work, people might very well die. Sometimes a lot of people. Probably different people. Military (and aviation) want uniform, reliable parts and to be able to do post mortem investigation of failures where they lessons learned can be applied to the installed base and future production. You can't do that very well when you don't even know who made your ICs to ask them what happened during production or to improve their processes.

hkgjjgjfjfjfjf 3y ago

> If the components don't work in a military situation, people might very well die. Sometimes a lot of people. TBF, that's also true if they do work.

samus 3y ago
In the best case, the threat of using them is enough to get the job done. But for the threat to be genuine, they have to work reliably. This is definitely the case for nuclear and other "strategic" weapons.

petsfed 3y ago

Whether or not the thing keeps soldiers alive is actually pretty far down the list of reasons to control the supply chain (see, for instance, the various reviews of the M249, or the specific small-p political decisions around the M16 design. I've heard first hand accounts of Afghan National Army/Police answering calls while the US Army operated cell phone jammers a few feet away). The main thing is consistency. If you can depend on depend on your machine gun to jam if you fire it for more than 3 seconds, then you just don't fire it for that long. But if you have no way of knowing how many rounds you'll get out of it (if any) before it jams, you'll just stop using the thing. Further, a lot of the procurement rules devolve down to "is this supply chain a strategic weak point?" We don't buy our HMMWV tires from Russia not out of quality concerns, but to deny them that weapon. So the testing is done to verify provenance, rather than quality.