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Bush Lightens Supercomputer Export Restrictions

Posted by Hemos on from the gettinghte-power-out-there dept.

MrZeebo writes "According to a story on Yahoo! News, Bush has finally decided to lift the Cold War-era restrictions on how fast an exported computer can be. Now, computers as fast as 195,000 MTOPS (up from 85,000 MTOPS) can be exported to countries such as Russia, China, and Pakistan."

9 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. This restriction doesn't make sense anyways. by sluggie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think after a long time of several users being modded down for this comment, it still has its meaning:

    "Imagine a beowulf cluster of theese..."

    The power definetely lies in clustering, who wants to/can control which clusters are built?
    Some nice 2.2 Ghz Northwoods add up number crunching power very quickly...

  2. Does it really matter? by Raleel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As I read it, the scale at which this is working from is substantially over your average desktop machine. Why not just use a cluster of pc's/macs?

    Yes, I am aware that network bottlenecks can be an issue with certain varieties of calculations. I work in a national lab. I administer clusters. But I don't think there is an export restriction on myrinet, or any other high performance network. Not to mention that most of the countries that this applies to don't have a lot of money to work with anyways, so perhaps desktops with fast/gigabit ethernet is more the order of the day.

    Not only that, but there are other companies that make supercomputers. Hitachi comes to mind, and I think Fujitsu as well.

    Perhaps what they should rather do is not require DOE facilities to buy American unless it truly is the better product.

    --
    -- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
  3. So they haven't lifted the restrictions ... by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... just bought themselves another couple of years or so worth of computing progress before mainstream small-busines servers fall into the restricted category. [sigh] This is just as stupid as restrictions on encryption software. When the hell are the feds going to learn that the US isn't the world's only source for computing technology (hardware, software, and combinations thereof) and the only thing these export restrictions accomplish is to weaken US companies against foreign competition?

    --
    The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    1. Re:So they haven't lifted the restrictions ... by connorbd · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not to mention that the export restrictions are moot anyway. Yeah, another beowulf comment; I can feel the (-1, Redundant) already...

      But the problem here is the same one as we had with the aftermath of September 11, on a much less tragic scale. Instead of admitting that there was nothing we could have reasonably done to stop it, we've taken all kinds of after-the-horse-is-out-of-the-barn measures (i.e. banning knives on airplanes?!), cracked down on basic civil liberties, and tried to point fingers to blame someone, anyone, for something that was entirely the doing of one man and his personal terror cult.

      Things like this are accountability issues. While the average man on the street may not care, there's still a lot of cold-war mentality out there (Red-baiting is still a viable attack strategy in some quarters; it's not a joke to everybody) and those people pull some pretty powerful strings. Long story short, the people who demand ineffective restrictions like this are very much the same people who want National Missile Defense (just as unworkable -- you really think you can catch sand in a sieve?) -- long on rhetoric, short on logic.

      /Brian

    2. Re:So they haven't lifted the restrictions ... by deebaine · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think the analysis is a bit more subtle than that. By this same argument, preventing Boeing from selling -C and -E model F-15 Eagles to Pakistan and China does nothing but weaken Boeing against foreign competitors. After all, the United States is not the world's only source for high-performance combat aircraft.

      Of course, this too is an oversimplification, as computers are not exactly analogous to fighter planes. Nevertheless, the issue at hand is to what extent raw computing power is a defense technology, and to what extent its export should therefore be restricted. The "they're going to get it anyhow, we may as well give it to them" argument is an insufficient answer.

      -db

  4. Re:Interesting, considering.... by jamie · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Supercomputer export control topic for American republican president candidates

    "Washington 19 Oct 99 Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer called on Gov. George W. Bush to reverse his position calling for an ease on supercomputer export controls."

    Googling around, I see a lot of right-wing wackiness attacking both Bush Jr. and Clinton for proposing (and actually doing, respectively) the lifting of supercomputer restrictions. One 1999 report called "RED FLAGS OF TREASON" suggests that China is pretending to know more about supercomputers than it really does, so that the gullible Americans will let down their guard and sell them the supercomputers they can't make themselves.

    Now that Apple sells "supercomputer" laptops and Cringely is writing about building a clustered supercomputer in his garage, the restrictions of the 80s and 90s seem a little silly...

  5. Re:Super... by nochops · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Right on!

    Why is this flaimbait? I guess "flaimbait" should be changed to "disagrees with popular opinion".

    Believe me, I'm plenty tired of this "fuckstick" too, and I'm glad I didn't vote for him.

    Who is the USA to say who can and can't have knowledge? Supercomputers, Nuclear bombs, etc.?
    Is the US God? I think not. If someone in India is smart enough to figure out how to make a nuclear bomb, who are we to say anything against it?

    Anyway, your post is right on the mark, and I agree completely.

    --
    "A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force." -William Blum
  6. Re:Super... by Tugar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is the US God?


    No it isn't. But the responses to this are enlightening. I remember how there was a great clamor to boycott and embargo DeClerk's South Africa. Anyone who had business interests there had to divest themselves. It was the "moral" thing to do. Divestiture was the same as saying, "We don't like how you run your country and we refuse to have anything to do with you." If a company or university didn't divest itself, it was ostracized and or boycotted until it did.


    So for years, the US has had a policy regarding the exportation of certain kinds of technology to certain kinds of countries. These certain kinds of countries have a history of slaughtering thier own peasants and enslaving smaller countries. It was as much a "moral" statement as a political one.


    Unfortunately, these countries are on Noam Chomsky's list of Approved Nations so people like you oppose opposing them.

  7. Re:Super... by Computer! · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But the responses to this are enlightening.

    How about this response?:

    The "certain countries" you mention are often no worse, civil-rights-wise than many of the countries we have actively sold arms to. The US banned exporting high tech to them because of their way of government, not their way of life. Communism was threatening democracy, and we reacted by attempting to cripple it in any way possible. The foriegn policies of the US have never had anything to do with human rights. We only prop up that old cover whenever it's convenient. I'm glad we've finally stopped pretending we care.

    --
    If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy