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Playstation 2 Under Export Controls
Henry Pang
writes "The New York Times
has this interesting
article. It seems like people of China will not be
able to buy Playstation 2 next year. " It's The Times,
so you need a free account to read it, but it talks about
the Playstation being a supercomputer by US standards. Also
notes that within 12 months, a $1200 Merced based PC would also
be illegal.
Lets see, I'll do the math and give you a history lesson at the same time.
1+ billion people,
invented gunpowder 600 years before the west had any idea about it ( amoung numerous other things ) and we treat the as if they're stupid and cant figure out this stuff on their own? Thats either arrogance or stupidity.....
Frankly its just easier to steal and guess what my friends in the US... you stole a good portion of it ( tech nology ) from the russians but hey lets not mention that.
The chinese people are equally capable of being brilliant ( maybe even more so ) than the people at LANL or LLNL and guess what they got a work ethic like no one in the west. If they put forth the effort it could be insanely scary what they could do.... Besides they already have nukes.
I hate this ( primarily based ) US arrogance that says that they get to regulate who can and cant play in the sandbox...who died and made you GOD... ( that goes for other countires as well but the US is the worst perpetrator of this kind of hypocrisy ).
In no way do I wish to see any country with NUkes or advanced guidance systems for them...the US included but unfortunately they exist and will continue to until people of this planet can learn to live together and the west ( again primarily the US but this historically goes back a long ways ) can stop trying to impose there beliefs and way of life on other countires ( ie. only countires just like the US are valid and any country run under a communist or Religous government is inherently "BAD" ).
oh well I'm done ranting for now....
Hey if we dont sell the to the chinese eventually they'll learn how to make them better than us and then they'll just sell them to us making their economy stronger. 1+ billion people is one hell of a potential consumer market.
Posted by viperx2:
This is absolutly rediculous. This is America wanting to hold all the cards, again. Fear of the Red Herring should be over by now, but there are many atrocities in China. Granted, we should keep our secrets to ourselves, but a PC.... A PC is never JUST a PC is it? With overclocking methods out, and faster processors comming every month, who is to say that they won't run nuclear simulations? On the other hand, we all know that the US runs nuclear simulations everyday, to combat a possable "threat" of another country that does not have the capabilities of our "super-techno-army." I am sure that countries like Russia, using what they have, run nuclear tests as well. The problem that American's have, is pointing the finger and shouting EVIL! before looking at themselves. If I was another country, I would be worried about America's aggressive media campaign that makes people in other countries think that this is the "land of oppertunity." This is the land of "War on Drugs," "No fredom of religon," and my personal favorite, "you look weird, I don't like you." The attack on other countries, such as germany, has people confused into thinking that America is better, when they should all remember the horror of the Berlin wall. America wants to be the best, and will do anything to stop anyone else from geting absolutly ANYTHING, including a simple playstation 2, that might give them the slightest hint of a minute advantage. While we pride ourselves on the Kosovo conflict (thus names so we don't think of innocent people dying) we fail to realize that we caused more problems that we hoped to fix. This will be the same situation of failed American secrecy that will eventually lead to the downfall of the biggest group of hipocrites that I have ever had the displeasure of living with.
With that said, I would like to add that I speak on people as a whole, not individuals. As they said in MIB, one person is smart, a group is dangerous. I would also like to add that most real netcitizens are very openminded, and I don't consider them to be "real Americans." I'm sure most of them have had the same problems with American bullshit that I have had to deal with, and can understand, at least where I am comming from, if not how abrasive I am being.
China IS A THREAT, don't get me wrong. They are just as much threat as my next door neighbor that dosen't like me comming over to kill me and take my property and use my house. Is that socity? Should I show him my big screen TV, and all my electronic equipment and tell him that he can't touch them? Should I go to the stores and pay them not to sell it to him? This is idocy. It creates tension, and hate between country lines. Masses of people in China will see something directly affecting them (eg. no playstation2) and public opinion will sway, no matter how much ProAmerican shit we are pumping into their TV, oh, and don't doubt that we are. That is America's strongpoint.
ViperX2
--And so the day came, when the mighty fell, and saw that all their power wasn't worth a drop in the bucket, when the people realized what horrors they lived in.--
Yeah my ass. Maybe Willamette. The G4 too, I bet. And I guess the K7. But Merced won't be in a machine costing $1200 any time soon. And I wonder, when were these policies introduced? Even making it 6 times what it is now will be a very temporary solution.
That's not the point.
The point is that the same game console that millions of children will be vegging out in front of on Christmas morning is considered by US export law to be a risk to national security. It's hard to type that when I'm laughing so hard.
odd, you're write. I must have only used one of them when I tried that in the past (probably the www). Thanks.
/usr/local/etc/junkbuster/cookiefile
btw, for FreeBSD, it's
I counted 4 comments that amount to "The playstation is made in Japan so US law doesn't apply".
The Actual article says that the CPU is made in the US."
Is there a law against reading the article before posting or do we just have a lot of morons around ?
--
"THINK" -: former IBM motto.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
The USA is blocking itself from the high technology market. The market may become a playground for companies that will not have to compete with the US. This means the US will lose. This happens to countries that do not play fair.
US encryption products are a joke. Pretty soon the same could be said about US semiconductors.
Add a few lines to your junkbuster's cookie file:
/etc/junkbuster/cookiefile
nytimes.com and
www.nytimes.com
that should do it!
russia is definitely screwed, and will be for a fairly long time. they are a superpower on their way down. ill agree with you on that. any way you look at it, though, they still got a lotta nukes.
did you know that russia developed "suitcase nukes"? smaller than conventional nuclear bombs, but how big a fricking nuclear bomb do you need to take out a city anyway? (not very big) they made several hundred of them- doesnt that make you sleep better at night? (theyve also LOST some of them....) so id say russia is still pretty dangerous, even when theyre spiralling down to postcommunist hell.
but china is very clearly on its way up.
some things you might wanna know about china, if youre wondering why everyone thinks theyre a threat.
china has and is still spending very very very large amounts of money to upgrade its military. their equipment sucks, and has for a while. but they have been quietly buying tech from russia and europe (and stealing from us). part of the way jiang got the military to support him was by promising to upgrade all their equipment, which he did and is still doing. china's also been building lots of factories- some of them with OUR money and expertise.
in terms of arms expenditures, china beats everyone else in asia. in fact, china has a larger military than any other country- in the world. yup. china's standing army (thats not counting reservists) is OVER ONE MILLION SOLDIERS. what happens if china can equip all of them (or even half of them) properly?
regarding education level, observe the current leader, jiang zemin. he likes to hide it, but in fact he speaks english fluently. his high school education was at an american missionary school and he studied engineering in china and in russia. hes an ee, but hes good at pretending to be ignorant.
in 1989, when he visited a university some students had put up posters quoting the gettysburg address. jiang gave an impromptu speech in which he recited the entire gettysburg address (in english) and then chastised the students for mistaking lincoln's meaning- because the civil war was fought to preserve the union, and to stifle rebels against the federal government.
the average person may not be well-educated. but anyone who can manage to stay afloat and rise to the top in a government as treacherous and corrupt as china's has to be pretty fricking smart, doncha think? and jiang's background means he has also attracted a larger number of intellectuals to china's government than ever before.
as for brain drain, there are a lot of chinese who come to the US for education. but there are also a lot of people who go back to make sh!tloads of money. and every factory opened by an american or european entrepreneur adds to china's industrial power.
china's economy is maybe the only one that didnt completely crash and burn in the last two years- can we say the same about south korea, singapore, taiwan, or even japan, the most advanced countries in asia?
so yeah, this was pretty long, but maybe you should know a little more about what youre talking about before dismissing such a large part of the fscking globe next time. specifically, the two largest countries on it.
unc_
I do not believe that this has been previously noted, but the 2000 MTOPS export limit is not only a US restriction but is also part of the Wassenaar Arrangement. There is one caveat however. The provisions of the Wassenaar Arrangement are not binding. Each of the 30 something countries involved is free to establish their own national policy wrt to export restrictions. This point was previously discussed here at /. with regard to encryption.
Another person mentioned that this is not an outright export ban. Once again, under the Wassenaar and US policy, exemptions to the export restrictions can be sought and approved. I think that is an important point that should be considered. OTOH, I have had the fun of dealing with export laws wrt to sending equipment overseas so that I could conduct my own research. As I don't have bags full of money to help grease the skids, my experience can be best described by the following phrase: bend over and grab your ankles.
Finally, keep in mind that changes in US export policy changes at a glacier pace that is not commensurate with Moore's law. Changes do occur, but they are driven by the interaction of industry lobbyists and politicans. This mix is not condusive for the establishment of intelligent policy.
As a side note, the Wassenaar Arrangement previously (1996?) had an export restriction of 700 MTOPS, IIRC.
>China isn't going to become a superpower like the US anytime soon.
;-)
:-)
They COULD be, but I doubt it too - though for different reasons. The chinese leaders are walking a tightrope right now. So far they have managed to introduce limited market economy without much personal freedom, but unrest is growing in the country. China is a mindboggingly huge country that is the oldest still living civilization, consisting of hundreds of different peoples and languages. If a civil war breaks out, it would be a tradegy on a scale not seen before. Imagine Bosnia with 1.2 billion citizens.
>Why? Because the supress freedom of press and speech there, which is not going to help people become more educated.
Well, America has freedom of press, but it doesn't seem to do a lot of good for YOUR education.
I mean, I bet 95% of Americans could tell you who Jerry Springer is, but according to a study "one in five could not name a single country in Europe, while one in four could not locate the Pacific Ocean on a map. Nearly half of those tested could not find New York State, and fourteen percent of them could not even correctly identify the United States on a blank map of the world's nations."
>It'll take a long time to revamp it, and the only way they can get better stuff is to steal it from us
That is where you are wrong. The west is currently ahead in the technological race, but the Chinese are smart and dismissing them like that would be a mistake.
>Russia? First, how are they going to pull their country out of economic ruin? Second, the only reason anyone cares about Russia is that they usd to be a superpower and still have lots of nukes. They are really just a junky broke country with corrupt and stupid leaders.
Russia is in deep shit for sure, but don't you understand that an unstable country is MORE DANGEROUS than a functioning one. Nukes have gone missing for crying out loud. Who has them now? Suicidal Hizbolla guerillas who want to give the US a little present? The Russian Mafia wanting to blackmail a nation?
If you knew a little bit about history, you would know that it was the economic ruin after WWI and German resentment over their defeat that made it possible for Hitler to rise to power. And he actually managed to rebuild the country in a few years. As you said, they have lots of nukes. Would you want Zhirinovski in control of them?
>Retaliates for what? All the aid we've sent them?
Well, I doubt YOU sent any aid. It's funny, poorer nations that need every penny they have to build their econmy have it in their hearts to spend 1-2% of their GDP on aid to the poor. How much does the rich US spend? 0.0001? Or look at the sitiation in Kosovo. Now that the fun and exitement of dropping bombs on civilians is over, the US goes home and declares that it is the job of Europe to take care of 100 000 refugees, both Kosovars and Serbs, and rebuild a country that has been bombed back to the 19th Century.
Personally, I would like to nuke the US for what you have done to the environment, but that is another matter...
>Any military attack from Russia would mean no more Russia.
...and if they used nukes, no more US, no more Europe, and nuclear winter. Wohoo.
>"The American society is arrogant, poorly-educated, knows very litle about history, is very easly influenced, manipulated and brainwashed." And this is different from the people in other countries how?
It is a matter of degree, and the stupidity and ignorance is spreading, but your country defenitely leads the pack. This is a quote from a forum on Salon Magazine that I think sums it up pretty good.
Cheers,
/Lars
******************
P Glass 11:03pm Jun 9, 1999 PDT (# 98 of 106)
WHERE IS THE PRESS?.....(It's been 'developed')
Sounds about right, catb.
But I'm getting dizzy. The media pack simply is getting dumber and less and less informative every month.
In no other country has this occurred. And they all have payrolls to meet and `need audience. But somehow they manage to attract viewers and listeners and readers by the good, not poor quality of their product.
Andrew walsh 06:29am Jun 10, 1999 PDT (# 99 of 106)
Last time I visited Niagara Falls I watched CBC at night. I was pretty amazed at the quality of the programming. Maybe it was just a good night for CBC, but I wished I lived closer to the border. More and more the US strikes me as a strangely zombified country. Lots of money, lots of irrational anger and paranoia, lots of religious cults, but it's missing something that I can't put my finger on - something akin to emotionally cool, satisfied-with-life, integrated-with-society mental health. Ken Starr, singing hymns at night as he soaks in the dirty details of Clinton's sex life, seems the perfect embodyment of this psychic illness. But no one dares to say the emperor has no clothes.
P Glass 08:38am Jun 10, 1999 PDT (# 101 of 106)
WHERE IS THE PRESS?.....(It's been 'developed')
Andrew- re CBC...
I remember with nostalgia the time in the early eighties when NPR routinely carried CBC news productions daily as part of All Things Considered and the AM news.The ONLY unbaised, investigative journalism on the ground in Nicaraugua, for example.
Canadian correspondents entered villages immediately following the massacre of citizens carrying a tape recorder. One I particularly remember was inside a village house where inhabitants had been caught and slaughtered while in the midst of preparing a meal. The correspondent was almost whispering into the mike as he went from room to room describing the fresh bloody scene.....
CBC was removed from NPR after a couple years...I wrote and telephoned protest. I think it was too sophisticated for NPR to tolerate. Their correspondents in Cuba and Central America were not helping NPR in its struggle to keep Congressional funds..
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
Heh.. just imagine if the Chinese buy up the remaining stock of nicely overclockable Celerons then and slap 'em together to make systems that are greater than the export regulations allow.
.. come on .. I don't call a 'games console' a computer by any stretch of the word. You can't go run any old OS on it can you or can you really get a PSX title of 'Nuclear Physics Simlation' ?? .. jeez.
.. nothing you can do (or want to do IMHO) to stop it - not that I advocate helping the Chinese take advantage of stolen secrets, that's a different thing.
Seriously, the PlayStation a 'supercomputer'
One thing is of note in the article, you can't stop technology once it becomes so widely available and prolific. Processor power increases almost exponentially
Delphis
Junkbuster makes all it's block/don't block decisions from a file containing patterns to watch for. If you click on the junkbuster logo that pops up, you can see exactly which pattern it was that got caught, and remove/modify it if you like.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
One problem with your theory is that the U.S. is the only place China can get it's information from; and that's a very biased view. I think you are confusing the inability of the U.S. govt. to keep *it's* secrets secret, with it's refusal to allow American companies to be competitive in the global market. Yes, they should guard their secrets better; but no, they should not control what U.S. companies can produce, especially if it's already freely available outside the U.S.
"Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin,
The article makes it sound like the PS2 and higher MHZ computers are outrighted banned and will never be available in China unless laws are changed. This is not true.. the author is just trying to cause a stir. Sony only has to apply for an export license, which is a very simple process. Undoubtably they will be granted export permission immediately.
-- Virtual Windows Project
I'm from Israel, one of the other countries effected by the export regulations. The reason Israel is effected by the export regulations is that our country refused to sign the treaty concerning nuclear weapons.
Now, guess who was the first client that got a Cray supercomputer, with the blessing of the US government? Right, the defense ministry. And at the same time, Israeli academic institutes couldn't even dream of getting such a computer. Now, go figure the logic behind it
It seems like those export regulations long lost their point. It is true that computing power is needed for simulation of nuclear weapons - while the A-bombs in WWII where made without a computer - a simulation can be used to create even deadlier weapons using radioactive isotops which are easier to produce. The biggest problem is the detonation. There is a need to calculate the exact position and activation time of the different detinators in the bomb to make an efficient and fast chain-reaction.
Anyway, personal computer power has reached the point where it can solve those problems several years ago, so what are they trying to prevent now?
In nuclear physics there is critical mass neaded for the chain-reaction to be possible (probable) and for the bomb to explode. Likewise, there is "critical computing power" needed to develop nuclear weapons. Once we're past that point, increase in computing power won't change anything.
I would like to pose two scenarios and ask what would happen in each case. What if our government imposed censorship on the net, and lets say 50 people which is really an unrealistic number actually broke our law, would we actually go to their country, pull them out and bring them here to be prosecuted? Now magnify that at least 900 fold, and think of this, where is the money coming from to prosecute these people? Now think of this situation of the playstation 2, people will get it illegally, just like alot of illegal CDs coming out of China of our best software, our best games. It usually seems that it is a desire that we want our technology to not get into enemy hands, but what exactly is our government doing to check that other countries that are fortunate to be able to get our technology also has some form or checking mechanism in place and that would be used on our behalf? Just a few questions, that I wanted to have answers to the next time I get into a conversation *smirks*
I don't know what life is, but no one gets out alive...N
While I do think that restricting Playstations is ridiculous (a case of barn door a few years too late), the government is right to be worried about China and other countries like that gaining advanced technology. Before I go any further, I want to make it clear that when I say China, I mean the Chinese government. I have nothing against the Chinese people.
China already has over a dozen nuclear missiles pointed at the US. The technology to allow accurate guidance of these missiles was 'accidentally' leaked by Lorel. The technology to build various advanced nuclear weapons, such as neutron bombs (which kill people and leave buildings standing) have been stolen by the Chinese. China has demonstrated its willingness to use military force against its own citizens (Tienammen Square).
China appears to be headed down a new and dangerous path, combining communism with capitalism, in a mix with a high potential for growth and an even higher potential for instability.
I think it's quite likely the US will see themselves in some form of conflict with China fairly soon (i.e. next decade). It may come in the form of a limited conflict over Taiwan, or another cold war, or (hopefully not) WWIII.
Unless China's government changes to something more democratic and less oppresive, I don't see any way around it--China wants to be a superpower, and the US isn't going to just shove over and step down. There are two main ways to subvert another country's government.
A) Force--this is bad, for many reasons.
B) Destabilize, then cause a revolution from within. In this case, this might be achieved through trade, by making it obvious to the people how much better democracy is. Of course, if this doesn't work, you're left with A, and your enemy now has way better technology.
Basically, the US is stuck between a rock and a hard place. It might be worthwhile for them to work on Star Wars-like anti-ICBM technology. Otherwise, China can rattle their nuclear sabre to keep the US at bay while they go pillage Taiwan or the rest of Asia.
The only bright side I can see to all of this is that China is going to get hit especially hard by Y2K, as almost all of their government's software is pirated (making it much harder to get updates or otherwise fix). Kinda ironic...
When the most powerful computer in the world runs on commodity Pentium processors, available under no export restrictions whatsoever.
Sure, it has over 9000 of them, but neither the chips themselves, nor the technology to make interconnects of the required speeds, nor the algorithms to make large-scale distributed applications are under any controls whatsoever.
It makes no sense to make it illegal to buy a Cray mainframe when you can build a computer with similar power from parts that any major PC manufacturer will ship to you no questions asked.
Sure, ASCI Red has lots of custom hardware, but i seriously doubt that the Chinese, Soviets, Indians or any other reasonably developed country in the world are incapable of building or sourcing this type of hardware.
Sure, it's cheaper to buy a pre-built system from a US manufacturer, but if China wants to simulate nuclear explosions, then they'll do it. And theres not much the US Government can do to stop them.
I don't see the problem, they seem to think it's alright to have nukes sitting round in their own back yard, but no-one else gets to play?
Making the PSX-2 illegal to export is just plain ridiculous, if theres sufficient demand in the market, illegal (according to US law) clones will simply be manufactured in Taiwan or Korea for the Chinese market.
Copyright and Patent law? Look at the situation with software in Asia.
Why try and put export controls on technology that is inherently uncontrollable?
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long