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If that happens, hardware trust becomes non-verifiable. We will also see talent pipeline erosion. Just further Western industrial policy failure.
by apercu 10mo ago
If that happens, hardware trust becomes non-verifiable.
We will also see talent pipeline erosion.
Just further Western industrial policy failure.
- standardUser 10mo agoNon-verifiable by what standards?
- apercu 10mo agoModern GPU's often have on device firmware, secure boot chains, microcontrollers, etc. If you don't control silicon design, firmware signing and update pipelines you can't meaningfully attest to what the advice is doing.
- Yoric 10mo agoBut for most of us, that's already the case, isn't it?
- XorNot 10mo agoFor the average paranoid person who is wasting their life on it, sure But large organizations like defense are all about distributed trust anyway - even if you could verify the hardware, the guy you order to do it is going to be a whole command chain removed and likely a contractor with a clearance in the civilian world. Whereas your high level political and military leadership having direct contact with managers and designers in production facilities is extremely valuable.
- saubeidl 10mo agoWhat if my high level political and military leadership are the threat scenario? Remember Snowden.
- crote 10mo agoYou're screwed. An individual is completely powerless against the combined might of the entire country they live in. Nothing you touch and nobody you talk to can be trusted. But realistically, they'll just bring out the wrench[0]. [0]: https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
- XorNot 10mo agoOr more likely you're just not that important and will be imprisoned without cause because close enough is good enough. People always seem to imagine tyranny worries about a standard of evidence. Tyranny has arrest quotas, evidence optional.
- HPsquared 10mo agoIs it verifiable now?
- apercu 10mo agoFair question. The technocrats are less than trustworthy.
- solid_fuel 10mo ago> If that happens, hardware trust becomes non-verifiable. Unfortunately I already have to run a binary blob just to play fps games from 10 years ago. I can't even load a new OS onto my phone anymore. Ultimately I'm not sure hardware sourced from China changes the trust equation very much, at least for me individually. I have much more concern about the FBI, which has recently decided to ramp up investigations into queer people [0][1][2], than I do about foreign powers - at least as long as it's not actively destructive malware or something. > We will also see talent pipeline erosion. We absolutely will, and to some degree I wonder if we aren't already with how popular tablets and phones are. I've noticed many young people these days don't really know how to interact with anything on a computer that isn't an app. GPUs and RAM becoming more significantly more expensive will take a huge chunk out of the hobby market and in doing so they will intensify the pipeline erosion. [0] https://www.advocate.com/politics/pam-bondi-trans-equality-bounties https://www.advocate.com/politics/pam-bondi-trans-equality-b... [1] https://ncac.org/news/advocacy-isnt-terrorism https://ncac.org/news/advocacy-isnt-terrorism [2] https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/09/26/us-trump-targets-opponents-in-sweeping-memorandum https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/09/26/us-trump-targets-opponen...