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U.S. inks bill to force geo-tracking tech for high-end gaming and AI GPUs

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Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨moonleay@feddit.org⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/u-s-inks-bill-to-force-geo-tracking-tech-for-gpus-and-servers-high-end-gaming-gpus-also-subject-to-tracking

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Comments

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  • perestroika@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The first and central provision of the bill is the requirement for tracking technology to be embedded in any high-end processor module or device that falls under the U.S. export restrictions.

    As a coder with some hardware awareness, I find the notion laughable.

    How does he think they (read: the Taiwanese, if they are willing to) would go about doing it?

    Add a GPS receiver onto every GPU? Add an inertial navigation module to every GPU? Add a radio to every GPU? :D

    The poor politician needs a technically competent advisor forced on him. To make him aware (preferably in the most blunt way) of real possibilities in the real world. In the real world, you can prevent a chip from knowing where it’s running.

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  • Darkard@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Between this, the tarrifs and the brain drain, why would any manufacturers consider operating in the US anymore?

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    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      They’ll still want access to Americans coz there are profits to be had, and they can price gouge under fascism many orders of magnitude harder than elsewhere.

      What they don’t understand is that the fascist leadership will backstab many/most of them eventually, especially if they possess any moral fibre whatsoever. Luckily for them, capitalism has already purged corporate leadership of morality and ethics.

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      • kruhmaster@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        But if we don’t have as much money due to increased prices on life essentials and assistance cuts, how are we supposed to buy all these things? Bad logic on their part, if this is their approach.

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      • JudahBenHur@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        i wish you were wrong so fuckin bad :(

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    • Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      There’s no real push for that to happen. This is about crashing an economy, stealing wealth and creating a a massive almost slave labor class at the bottom.

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      • FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        So it’s about communism? No the other guys wanted that.

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    • FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Why would any manufacturer want access to the biggest market in the world? Hmmm let me think about that……

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  • centof@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Ah yes let’s try to stifle Chinese innovation by … checks notes … expanding our surveillance state. Usually we are the ones calling China a surveillance state, but it’s fine(it’s nor) once we do it.

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    • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      There is nothing more American than hipocracy my friend

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    • malin@thelemmy.club ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Yeah. All the FUD about Huawei really solidified in my mind how stupid the average internet user is these days.

      It’s like, everything they were bitching about has already been confirmed to be happening with US companies thanks to PRISM and the Snowden leaks.

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    • Saleh@feddit.org ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      You joke, but western governments regularly pull the “our surveillance is good because we aren’t an authoritarian regime” trope.

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  • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Why do gpus need tracking?

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    • lorty@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      It’s about not letting them be used in China, and any other future enemy countries.

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    • Mic_Check_One_Two@reddthat.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Because China supposedly used Nvidia cards to train DeepSeek, which blew all of the US AI out of the water. Since China was eating big tech’s lunch, they cried to republicans (and gave them a bunch of reelection money) and now we have this bill. The point is to be able to remotely disable cards if they’re outside of their sale region.

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  • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Senator Tom Cotton’s legislation seeks to “prevent advanced American TAIWANESE chips from falling into the hands of adversaries like Communist China.”

    FTFY

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    • MeaanBeaan@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Nvidia, Intel, and AMD are all American companies. Yes, their GPUs are manufactured by TSMC in Taiwan but they just follow the designs given to them. The layout of these GPUs and the architecture of the chips are all designed and controlled by these American corporations.

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  • jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Senator Tom Cotton

    Ah. Yeah, that tracks.

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    • Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Care to tell more?

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      • rocket_dragon@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Famously he declared that slavery was justified because it was necessary to create the US:

        www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53550882

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  • RoidingOldMan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    This is absolutely insane and no one will want to buy those GPUs.

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    • Yttra@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Unless, of course, they’re in all the GPUs that people want.

      …It’s unfortunately more likely that the majority of people won’t notice or care, though.

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    • Blueberrydreamer@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Yeah if you think most people are going to care or even know about this, you haven’t been paying attention to the last 20 years.

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      • x00z@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Have some faith bud.

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    • Trollception@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Just like nobody is buying the current generation because it’s insane, right?

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  • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Oh Senator Know-Nothing…

    What are you going to do about firewalls and airgapped networks? JFK you stupid asshole… GTFO

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    • d00ery@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Next up GPUs require always-on connections and Nvidia releases a monthly subscription to pay for that.

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      • schema@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        For just $19.99 a month you can have us track your GPU*, or chose the premium ad-free upgrade for just $49.99.

        ^^^* ^^^failure ^^^to ^^^comply ^^^will ^^^be ^^^punished ^^^by ^^^deportation

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      • HakunaHafada@lemm.ee ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Don’t give them any ideas.

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  • NGC2346@sh.itjust.works ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    How is this even legal? I am not even american nor living there, so how is would the US be allowed to operate massive and unregulated surveillance through GPUs ?

    The US is becoming worse than those they call villain.

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    • twice_hatch@midwest.social ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      The US has very low engagement of its voters, so even things that are illegal are starting to happen regularly.

      It’s the same as so many countries, once a few rich guys get into power, as long as the guys with guns will take their money, it doesn’t really matter what want, the government gets captured and corrupted.

      There’s ways to fight it but it’s a slog. I might give up. It’s not my job to fix it, fixing things doesn’t pay.

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      • Valmond@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Isn’t it the reason for donald? Only like 60% vote, so the “stupid 30%” of the population can be used to grab the power seat?

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    • phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      If you’re in Europe I’m pretty sure those chips would violate the hell out of the GDPR and as such can’t be sold there.

      Even then, as posted in a different too level comment, this is just too easy to fake, or block.

      It’s an idiot law for idiots

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  • phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Yeah that is fun and all but I can at least guarantee you that that shit won’t fly in Europe, and likely neither in Canada. I can only imagine other countries will be penning their own laws outlawing this.

    So tech giants then have the option to either go for separate chipsets for those countries or stip selling there.

    Also, how do you want to implement this? Have the GPU request GPS data from the computer? That won’t be hard to forgr., but let’s say you ge that, then what?

    You need to send that info somewhere or it’ll be useless. How? Over the Internet? Ahw, my firewall told you to go fuck yourself. Over its own GPS line? A little bit of aluminum foil can do miracles.

    So what are you going to do then? Require an active internet connection for your GPU to work? Bwhahahahha. Have you seen gamers responses to games that require active internet connections to play? You won’t sell shit.

    This is again a law designed by absolutely.emoty headed idiots tompleae some other empty headed idiots.

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  • andybytes@programming.dev ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    [deleted]
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    • Valmond@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      What the fuck is your metaphor with whores all about??

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      • Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Yeah right, a couple of my good friends used to be sex workers so

        but a whore is a whore

        just seems ignorant and misogynist to me.

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  • SomeRandomNoob@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    And how do they plan to do this? even if they add (GPS) tracking hardware the Chinese will just cut the connection to the Antenna and the GPU is gone. If they do it in software (like driver) it will just be patched out.

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    • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Sure, but now a new company selling Geo tracking shit for GPUs is making billions per year. Problem solved!

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  • Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Why would they make their own products illegal in Europe?

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  • thorhop@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    …okay, so invest in Chinese GPU companies? Invest in Chinese GPU companies.

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    • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I looked into those recently, actually expected the GPUs to be a lot farther behind than they are. The things that are really pushing them back are the drivers and the outdated process node, but there are already GPUs comparable to the lower end current generation cards from the 3 big manufacturers (and even those have 16GB of VRAM, Nvidia 😤).

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      • skisnow@lemmy.ca ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        The image of China as an uncreative, uneducated backwards nation of drones good only for assembling phones, hasn’t been the reality for at least a decade.

        A lot of people in the West don’t realize this because to this day there’s a vicious cycle of people only import cheap Chinese crap because China has a reputation for only making cheap crap because people only import the cheap crap. They don’t realize that China is also making top tier products, because nobody’s trying to import top tier Chinese products.

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      • FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        They’re a loooooong way off being able to match any nvida card from the last like 7 years, at least.

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  • Squizzy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Adversaries who are being treated to lower tarriffs than allies.

    Cooked country.

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  • ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    That’s some weird shit

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    • Nomad@infosec.pub ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Fascists are weird little guys. There is a podcast about that, it’s true.

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  • matmarspace@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Bruh… Literally 1984

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  • GrumpyDuckling@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    People will just make custom firmware and drivers.

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    • brokenlcd@feddit.it ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      It would be wonderful if this pushes develpment of noveau drivers. But i don’t get my hopes up…

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    • grue@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      INB4 the US outlaws Free Software drivers and mandates DRM and locked firmware in all new PCs.

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    • JigglySackles@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Or desolder the gps module

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  • malin@thelemmy.club ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Once China takes the semiconductor crown, the US isn’t getting it back.

    Glad I get to be alive to witness communism beat capitalism. While the US ruling class wastes its money on dumb shit like “space tourism,” the Chinese ruling class has been investing vehemently into its own populace.

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    • FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I’m intrigued……

      1. Why and how do you think China will take the semiconductor crown?
      2. in what way will communism “beat” capitalism?
      3. You think China has been investing in its own people? The wealth gap in China between the 1% and the rest is enormous and growing - that’s how all communism ends up lol. Chinas ruling class treat the rest of the population like garbage.
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      • cows_are_underrated@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        that’s how all communism ends up lol.

        You do know, that China is a capitalistic country labeling themselves as communist?

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  • Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    How would that even work? But aside from that, I should probably upgrade my GPU before this goes into effect, even if the GPU I want will probably not be affected.

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    • brokenlcd@feddit.it ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I’d back up as many versions of the drivers as well (different oses, different releases). I feel like this will be implemented drm style with forced network connections baked in the drivers

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      • Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Yeah, that’s the only way I can see this work. I use Linux with the Mesa drivers, that are part of the kernel, anyway, so there’s not really a need for me to make driver backups.

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      • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        and not just through the american archive.org.

        but I wpuld say if you can’t hold all the driver files yourself, keeping a list of sha256 hashes or better of them could be worth it too, to later verify their authenticity if you find it somewhere. its also easier to search by hash sometimes

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    • Kyrgizion@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Just did the same. My pc was 7 years old. This may be my final ever upgrade.

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  • Ledericas@lemm.ee ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    why dont they just ask huwei to give them some spying tech.

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  • Chee_Koala@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Thanks but no thanks!

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  • andybytes@programming.dev ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I knew this shit was coming so I just… I got contingencies bruh. I ain’t buying that nonsense and I don’t give a fuck about video games no more so eat a dick. If I have to strip down naked and pull every goddamn microchip out of my ass, that these fuckers want to put there, then I will. I refuse. Not only that, I mean, don’t you as a company owner find this to be somewhat concerning, especially if you know about like, I don’t know, hierarchical systems? Like sure, you’re in charge of a small group of people with someone in charge of you. Are we headed to “our great leader territory”? I’ll just have a reductionist strategy. Less is more. What I see at the end of the day is goofballs wishing for something to be, but not implementing it or implementing it in a limp dick fashion, which actually leaves us in a worse off position.

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  • NoForwardslashS@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    This will surely complete the final step of the master plan - the world craves those superior American made goods.

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