4 ms·

I'm not clear on how this works if the transport over which the kill command is issued is degraded or interrupted. For example, if China decided to launch an a

I'm not clear on how this works if the transport over which the kill command is issued is degraded or interrupted. For example, if China decided to launch an action against Taiwan, it would destroy the latter's cellular network, cut all the fiber all the island, etc, and at that point no command is going to reach the machine. There is also the fact that should China actually invade (gulp) they would, presumably, send a crack team of engineers, accompanied by soldiers, to these fabs to extract whatever tech they needed before the inevitable response from Taiwan and its allies. If (and this is speculation, of course) these machines are so exotic that even Huawei's brightest people cant reproduce them in house, and that they would be a game changer for China's military capability, then it would be worth a raid during the initial invasion attack even if the overall invasion is repulsed. Then they can pick apart the machine in their own time. Of course, a lot of people would die, but military planners might ignore that. I rather suspect that this story is a kind of gentle psyop to the hawks inside China to remind them not to bother attacking Taiwan because what they think theyll get isnt what theyll get.

belter 2y ago
On my script as a Michael Crichton wannabee, China invades but gets their forces quickly disabled by a super advanced software worm that Taiwan have been developing for years as a precaution. Chinese forces lay down their arms and the revolt causes the Chinese elite to run. Elections are held in China and it becomes a Democracy. Taiwan institutes a temporary government and proposes a EU style agreement with China. Xi ends up his day incarcerated, and painting Chinese vases in the same facilities previously used to house Uyghurs... The US does not intervene because by then is fighting the second Civil War led by Texas...
- throw383845 2y ago
  During the Cultural Revolution, Xi's family was purged and he was sent to a reeducation camp. He even escaped once. Pretty amazing how he survived that and became the most powerful man in China.
killingtime74 2y ago
Well an explosive charge can be communicated with over a detcord. Sometimes practical solutions are best.
rad_gruchalski 2y ago
> For example, if China decided to launch an action against Taiwan, it would destroy the latter's cellular network, cut all the fiber all the island, etc, and at that point no command is going to reach the machine. Maybe lack of signal is the signal.
- euroderf 2y ago
  A deadman switch
maxglute 2y ago
Starlink, satellite phone, always online DRM going offline etc etc. But really PRC more likely to reverse engineer kill switch, unless it's physical. I'd more more surprised if TSMC engineers oblige to sabatoge, because doing so would turn them from being valuable collaborators with a job who are going to get 10x paperclip raises to becoming unemployed drone targets. All these TW will sabatoge TSMC forget the self interest a involved. These people want to make a living during and after the war. TW as province of China post unification still needs industry to maintain local economy, high end industries to sustain developed country QoL. Even ASML wants continuity in service contracts. That means doing everything to keep TSMC fabs running and relevant. Chances are good none of them will have a chance to make it off the island in a blockade. They're not moving to Arizona, their lot is tied to future prosperity of TW. There's a reason TW officials keep telling western chuckleheads to knock it off with the destroy TSMC talk, because they aren't going to kill their golden goose to spite PRC, because whoever controls the golden goose still has power in a post war world. How does a TWnese semi worker instantly propel themselves from expendable to privileged? By being paperclipped and collaborating with PRC.
- binary132 2y ago
  who’s to say it would be engineer employees responsible for sending (or stopping?) the signal? For all we know it’s the US government with the finger on the button.
- RecycledEle 2y ago
  > I'd more more surprised if TSMC engineers oblige to sabatoge, because doing so would turn them from being valuable collaborators with a job who are going to get 10x paperclip raises to becoming unemployed drone targets. The world is full of zealots willing to die for a cause.
nyokodo 2y ago
> I'm not clear on how this works if the transport over which the kill command is issued is degraded or interrupted. Perhaps if the system doesn’t receive a signal after a period of time it will disable itself or there are agents sufficiently close to send a signal through jamming, or who have a secret hard line in. If I were ASML, TSMC, the CIA, and definitely Taiwan itself I’d have many layers to this.
RecycledEle 2y ago
> if China decided to launch an action against Taiwan, it would destroy the latter's cellular network, cut all the fiber all the island, etc, and at that point no command is going to reach the machine Many good arguments against this have already been made, but I will point out one more: Taiwan has many of their people overseas, working in IT roles. The killswitch could be activated from another place in the world. I'd slip the code into a DNS server.
exabrial 2y ago
Dead man switch?
tonetegeatinst 2y ago
I'd argue they(CPP) don't even need to worry about the fabs. Let's face it, if the invasion happened and it wasn't a 3 day military operation, they need to be careful. Even if they somehow managed to basically teleport to Taiwan and take the entire area with little to no resistance, they have to be restrained in the use of force or risk disturbing the entire fab floors. Sure they got seismic protection but who knows how well that will handle nearby energetics going off. Let's say some act of divine intervention happened, and they take the entire facilities with zero resistance and no one sabotaging the cleanrooms.....they still need to have the know how to use, operate, and export those chips. If the US and EU block chip exports then Afric, Russia, and the middle east will be the only potential customers left. TSMC makes chips not equipment, and they only manufactured the chips. AFAIK they don't actually create the chip design or the photomask etc. Which means TSMC would have a useless supply chain in the CCP hands. Would it be a major setback, and a global supply chain crisis given chips are in everything.....yes. But the IP, the trade secrets, Eu and american intelligence has probably already captured any critical assets just in case this were to happen. In fact if this were to happen, I would see America totally profiting off this, which is another reason China dosnt do anything. They know if they take Taiwan and tsmc, America will pump so much money into make US chips that the covid money printing would look like pocket change. It would enable america to capture the production even more, and you just know that the US and other countries would ban semiconductor chemicals and key raw materials that the Chinese need to keep tsmc running. If they capture the ASML machines they probably would not use them to make more chips, it would be a better idea to disassemble every devices inside a fan, recover every document, so they can reverse engineer the technology and not rely on ASML or foreign hardware. The non credible defense: TSMC has built-in talks of pure HF and anhydrous hydrazine that can instantly douse the entire machines so as to destroy the major details in case they were ever to get captured. Lord knows they got plenty of hazardous chemicals laying around.

belter 2y ago

On my script as a Michael Crichton wannabee, China invades but gets their forces quickly disabled by a super advanced software worm that Taiwan have been developing for years as a precaution. Chinese forces lay down their arms and the revolt causes the Chinese elite to run. Elections are held in China and it becomes a Democracy. Taiwan institutes a temporary government and proposes a EU style agreement with China. Xi ends up his day incarcerated, and painting Chinese vases in the same facilities previously used to house Uyghurs... The US does not intervene because by then is fighting the second Civil War led by Texas...

throw383845 2y ago
During the Cultural Revolution, Xi's family was purged and he was sent to a reeducation camp. He even escaped once. Pretty amazing how he survived that and became the most powerful man in China.

killingtime74 2y ago

Well an explosive charge can be communicated with over a detcord. Sometimes practical solutions are best.

rad_gruchalski 2y ago

> For example, if China decided to launch an action against Taiwan, it would destroy the latter's cellular network, cut all the fiber all the island, etc, and at that point no command is going to reach the machine. Maybe lack of signal is the signal.

euroderf 2y ago
A deadman switch

maxglute 2y ago

Starlink, satellite phone, always online DRM going offline etc etc. But really PRC more likely to reverse engineer kill switch, unless it's physical. I'd more more surprised if TSMC engineers oblige to sabatoge, because doing so would turn them from being valuable collaborators with a job who are going to get 10x paperclip raises to becoming unemployed drone targets. All these TW will sabatoge TSMC forget the self interest a involved. These people want to make a living during and after the war. TW as province of China post unification still needs industry to maintain local economy, high end industries to sustain developed country QoL. Even ASML wants continuity in service contracts. That means doing everything to keep TSMC fabs running and relevant. Chances are good none of them will have a chance to make it off the island in a blockade. They're not moving to Arizona, their lot is tied to future prosperity of TW. There's a reason TW officials keep telling western chuckleheads to knock it off with the destroy TSMC talk, because they aren't going to kill their golden goose to spite PRC, because whoever controls the golden goose still has power in a post war world. How does a TWnese semi worker instantly propel themselves from expendable to privileged? By being paperclipped and collaborating with PRC.

binary132 2y ago
who’s to say it would be engineer employees responsible for sending (or stopping?) the signal? For all we know it’s the US government with the finger on the button.
RecycledEle 2y ago
> I'd more more surprised if TSMC engineers oblige to sabatoge, because doing so would turn them from being valuable collaborators with a job who are going to get 10x paperclip raises to becoming unemployed drone targets. The world is full of zealots willing to die for a cause.

nyokodo 2y ago

> I'm not clear on how this works if the transport over which the kill command is issued is degraded or interrupted. Perhaps if the system doesn’t receive a signal after a period of time it will disable itself or there are agents sufficiently close to send a signal through jamming, or who have a secret hard line in. If I were ASML, TSMC, the CIA, and definitely Taiwan itself I’d have many layers to this.

RecycledEle 2y ago

> if China decided to launch an action against Taiwan, it would destroy the latter's cellular network, cut all the fiber all the island, etc, and at that point no command is going to reach the machine Many good arguments against this have already been made, but I will point out one more: Taiwan has many of their people overseas, working in IT roles. The killswitch could be activated from another place in the world. I'd slip the code into a DNS server.

exabrial 2y ago

Dead man switch?

tonetegeatinst 2y ago

I'd argue they(CPP) don't even need to worry about the fabs. Let's face it, if the invasion happened and it wasn't a 3 day military operation, they need to be careful. Even if they somehow managed to basically teleport to Taiwan and take the entire area with little to no resistance, they have to be restrained in the use of force or risk disturbing the entire fab floors. Sure they got seismic protection but who knows how well that will handle nearby energetics going off. Let's say some act of divine intervention happened, and they take the entire facilities with zero resistance and no one sabotaging the cleanrooms.....they still need to have the know how to use, operate, and export those chips. If the US and EU block chip exports then Afric, Russia, and the middle east will be the only potential customers left. TSMC makes chips not equipment, and they only manufactured the chips. AFAIK they don't actually create the chip design or the photomask etc. Which means TSMC would have a useless supply chain in the CCP hands. Would it be a major setback, and a global supply chain crisis given chips are in everything.....yes. But the IP, the trade secrets, Eu and american intelligence has probably already captured any critical assets just in case this were to happen. In fact if this were to happen, I would see America totally profiting off this, which is another reason China dosnt do anything. They know if they take Taiwan and tsmc, America will pump so much money into make US chips that the covid money printing would look like pocket change. It would enable america to capture the production even more, and you just know that the US and other countries would ban semiconductor chemicals and key raw materials that the Chinese need to keep tsmc running. If they capture the ASML machines they probably would not use them to make more chips, it would be a better idea to disassemble every devices inside a fan, recover every document, so they can reverse engineer the technology and not rely on ASML or foreign hardware. The non credible defense: TSMC has built-in talks of pure HF and anhydrous hydrazine that can instantly douse the entire machines so as to destroy the major details in case they were ever to get captured. Lord knows they got plenty of hazardous chemicals laying around.