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Bush Lightens Supercomputer Export Restrictions
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."
Cool, maybe now the Mac fanatics where I work will stop bragging about how THEIR computers are so powerful they can't be exported from the country.
...now we can re-export playstation 2's.
eBay.ru, here I come.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
The tanks that were being used to guard the
iMacs got sent over to Afghanistan.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Aren't american supercomputers made in China and programmed in Pakistan anyway?
RMN
~~~
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...
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? --
A typical U.S. home computer now sold in retail stores is capable of roughly 2,100 MTOPS.
So... now we can export supercomputers twice as fast as cold-era ones?
Ahem. So them, Bush's Law of Computer Export Speed states that the power of exported computers doubles every twenty years.
Why doesn't this sound like a good thing? Or is this rating not linear?
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
... 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.
Maybe now Iraq can start its stockpile of PS2s.
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
I think the main purpose behind supercomputer restrictions in the first place was to limit the amount of nuclear research that could be done. Russia obviously already has a stockpile heavy enough to blow a good portion of the earths crust into orbit, perhaps giving the planet a nice debris-ring like saturn or jupiter, and a toasty warmth similar to venus.
Pakistan just figured out how to split the atom for antihumanitarian purposes, and i guess Gee Dubya Srubya figures the indians are going to wipe out the pakastanis who are going to wipe out the indians anyways, so why not give them a computer powerful enough for them to calculate trejectories carefully enough to make sure thats ALL they destroy (directly)
"...And these atomic bombs which science burst upon the world that night were strange even to the men who used them. "
-H. G. Wells, The World Set Free, 1914
Certainly a number of above-average workstations or servers clustered together effectively would by far supercede the most powerful machine currently exportable.
And I don't see any limit on telecommunications or gigabit/optical switches that would otherwise limit the ability of such a cluster to be effective.
Is this finally an example of US legislation where a little ignorance actually HELPS the international tech community?
Wasn't it not all that long ago that Ashcroft (and the Bush administration) were beating their chests over the Clinton era "mistake" of lightening export restrictions on encryption software?
Anyone know what the impetus behind this move was?
"Moving through the masses like a fish through water." syrup
This has already been posted here.
There were a couple such steps during the Clinton administration, and probably this has been going on since the Cray 1 was a hot little number.
/. doesn't seem to have years attatched to its articles.
I think I even missed a step, article says current limit is 85 GOPS, last I heard was 12.
Don't forget too that there are different grades of countries we may or may not export "supercomputers" to.
See Dec 11, 2001, Jan 11, 2001, Aug 3, (2000? 1999?
Heh, pity
Start Running Better Polls
I belive this is a good move by the U.S. First of all though getting supercomputers - from the U.S. - was under export restrictions building clusters wasn't because that wouldn't been possible. Another crusial point is that this may have slowed the developement of competanse on supercomputing and certain areas wich requires super computing. Applying the butter-fly-effect to this the U.S. may have been - unwillingly - slowed the economic and democratical development in the countries the restriction applied to. No doubt could such computers be used in design and simulation of nuclear weapons but that is only one branch in wich super computing is put to well - or ill regarding nukes - use.
Look a monkey!
2100 MTOPS is a 900MHz P3. 5333 MTOPS is a 2GHz P4 .
Here is a nice reference from Intel.
~ fact is not dependant upon your belief therein. ~ ~ Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?
Well, giving the worst nation on earth normalized trade status was just plain dumb (China), but at least W isn't dumb enough to keep trade restrictions from 20 years ago on US tech firms in place for no reason. Free trade is good and all, but we shouldn't be giving more business to our enemies in the first place. Our only consolation is that hopefully the increased overseas business for US companies will mean more envelope pushing technologies for 'us', before 'them.'
WEll if you have read the story a few days ago about the guy who just wanted a supercomputer for christmas you would have read that he got his inspiration from those people in kentucky. For those of you who that isn't specific enough for the people from kentucky built a supercompturer out of like 64 athalons and it is ranked in the top 200 in the worlds for processor power. It was also said to be as fast as what cray was selling as there top model in 98. So if a college in kentucky can get the parts and make a supercompturer one would not doubt a country like china's ability. So as long as you can string a bunch of everday processors together and get a supercomputer I don't see the need for the ban at all. Except the fact that China is a one of the worst violators of human rights on the planet and is able to take anything good and use it for bad. So I'd love to help China by giving it the ability to aquire the same supercomptuter that a U.S. company could but I have to say to myself will it help the grow out of the economic problems they have or will it be used for evil.
Whose idea was it to put Windows servers on the net in the first place, anyway?
First he uses an undeclared war to stomp on our civil liberties, now he's our selling high end technology so his business buddies can make some more money. I can't wait to hear what the military is going to say. They view selling our high tech as the same as selling arms to the enemy.
Specially SGI, which is the biggest seller in the Defense and Federal markets. I'm sure that, despite the economic problems in Russia and China, they will save some money to buy some "big iron" from them. I don't think they will base some of their strategic systems in PC-clusters, not even if they run Linux.
The article was written in such a way that pretty much everything in it was misleading. Poor journalism at it's best.
Last time I checked the "real" site (may not now be current) the big loser was Motorola and IBM for home desktops (from a chipmaker's perspective). G3's and G4's did math better than the Intel chips (using the math instruction speed criteria used) and were restricted further than P3's and P4's. Again, it may not be current now, but 800Mhz Itaniums were faster at math than Pentium family computers at 2Ghz and were similarly restricted as G4s.
No mention of strong encryption in the article either (some SW and things like wireless cards were affected).
There are 4 tiers, also poorly noted in the article. Go to the US Department of Commerce's site at:
http://www.bxa.doc.gov/HPCs/Default.htm
Note: does not seem to reflect changes mentioned in the article; nonetheless a lot of good background that will help put the new rules into perspective.
Somebody already posted Intel's site, here is Apple's:
http://www.info.apple.com/support/export.html
The New York Times is also running the story, mostly the same info but with a few interesting facts not mentioned in the Yahoo version.
forma3
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
Let's try this again.
Wouldn't clustering be a way to circumvent the law in the first place?
The problems that the law was intended to make difficult to solve (nuclear weapons simulation, aero flow analysis, cryptography, and so on) are, as far as I can tell, problems that can can be attacked in parallel, and so are good applications for clusters to tackle.
Well then, if the restriction prevented the export of any computer faster than x, couldn't a cluster of n export-legal computers of speed y (y less-than x ) produce a total throughput power Y (Y greater-than x)?
And for smaller values of y, substitute larger values of n to gain the same net power Y.
So really, I would think that clustering technology rendered (heh) the restriction moot a long time ago.
.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
With all of the stories about individual people, labs and companies building supercomputers using clustered commodity hardware with freely available tools, software and information. Why would The Bush Administration with to continue to financially hinder US-based computer manufacturers?
It makes little sense. I mean if Cringley can run off and buy around $6000 to build a supercomputer in his garage. What is stopping someone in Russia, Pakistan or Vietnam from running out and buying tons of old Celeron 333 and slightly faster CPUs and then building a powerful Free *NIX-based supercomputer?
The only thing that would now make those people look at the US-built supercomputers are the fact that they won't have to run out and build their own supercomputer. They can take a pre-made solution and plug it into their computer datacenter and get to work much faster, with hopefully, a lower upkeep cost.
Ever since I first started reading about roll-your-own supercomputers, I have always wondered why the US would continue to ban the export of powerful computer systems.
The malarky about keeping 3rd-tier nations from being able to develop nuclear weapons is rather silly as well. I mean, did the US use powerful 195,000+ MTOP supercomputers to develop Fatboy?
Maybe they should ban the exportation of nuclear physics majors. Especially since a large number of foreign born physicists came to the US to learn how to do their thing.
--
.sig seperator
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If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
I think we all agree that beyond the shadow of a doubt this will drastically increase world terrorism. Super computers obviously play a huge role in organizations like al Qaeda. Terrorists will use them to carefully calculating the results of catastrophic activities as well as inform their operatives with strong, uncrackable crypto. (arf arf)
Why bother.
Can Russia, China, and Pakistan?
-Get DVD players in those "super computers"?
-Create a Q3 Clan and attack us with these "super computers"?
-Can their "super computer" do this?
-Will the pr0n banks be depleted as those countries begin the massive dowloading of Anna Kournikova and Stevana?
-Surf the web and see what great pricing we have on our "super camera" the X10?
-Will they be able to run Outlook on these "super computers"?
-Will evil frogs be _more_ evil in Daikatana?
This
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.
After reading all these comments, am I the only one who recognizes the absurdity of searching for TECHNICAL meaning in a POLITICIAN's decision?
/. won't change that. If you really care, write your representatives (from the state level on up) and volunteer your technical expertise. Write papers on the subjects that concern you. Publish them. Make your voice heard, instead of shouting into the abyss about the lack of technical knowledge at the higher levels of our government.
There are arguments about how the equipment is in use in those countries anyway, how clusters of "legal" systems can outpower the "illegal" ones, how plenty of dastardly deeds can be done with my TRS-80, etc, etc.
What we have here is a political decision, made by a politician, on the advice and recommendation of other [aspiring] politicians about a technical subject they know nothing about.
If you're looking for deeper meaning behind this decision - you'll find none.
If you're just looking for an excuse to bitch about politicians, doesn't that get old?
If you're looking to impress the world at large with your technical understanding of the subject, and point out the obvious flaws in the politician's point of view... taking candy from a baby becomes the obvious parallel.
I guess I don't see the point of the argument. We've proven over and over again that [most] politicians don't understand the technical issues they make decisions about, but bitching on
Just my $.05 (inflation, you know.)
- Dave
-- "Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?"
Treaties? If Bush keeps up his reign of stupidity, there won't be anymore treaties.
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
I don't care who you think you are and what you think you know. A computer model can only show you so much.
A computer model can give you an excellent look at what could possibly happen when you build the actual thing you are modeling.
To be truly sure of what will happen, you must test the actual product itself. If that means you need to blow something up, then you do that.
What you really learn with computer models, is what will never work. The models simply help you design something that is most likely going to work. Then you pull out your newly built test toy and give it a workout.
Would you honestly get into an airplane that was fully computer-tested, but never tested in the real world? I wouldn't, that is what test pilots are for. Would you buy an automobile that was crash tested only on a computer? I wouldn't, a human mind that programmed the software simply cannot program every single variable that can occur in the real world.
But, back to point that you chose to pick at in my post. Geniuses with supercomputers, building rockets.
Sure, you can design a rocket. I can do that on my PC at home. I know a little about basic rocketry and can create a great model rocket that can go quite a distance.
Now, I just don't have the $10,000 that I figure it would cost to build this micro-launch vehicle and also the safety equipment that I believe would be needed.
Now, multiply this by an incredible magnitude. Then look at the Gross Domestic Product of some of those "rogue" nations. They simply don't have the monetary resources to build such weapons. If they did, their people starve and die by the thousands/millions.
What they can afford is the cost to build large cannons, SCUD-like missiles and large bomber aircraft. Those systems are a little more reusable (save the SCUD) and much more cost effective. Sure, you limit your range, but most of your targets are within a spit into the wind from you.
So, do you spend the incredibly high millions and make your people starve, to be able to hit a country, with one ICBM, anywhere on the planet? Or, do you build many reusable launch platforms that can hit all of your enemies with?
Logic would dictate that you would want to destroy all of your enemies that happen to be right next door to you.
Thinking about Nuclear weapons with a Super-Power mindset is just not right anymore. Smaller non-Super-Power countries have diferent concerns and wish to eliminate their local enemies. Most of them have very few enemies that they could not reach with the extreme range of their current weaponry.
If they do have such enemies, then they would look into suitcase nukes, High-jacking fuel-laden jets and slamming them into buildings as well as other terrorist-based activities.
--
.sig seperator
--
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?