US restricts Windows exports to Chinese/Russian/Venezuelan military and police
globaltradeandsanctionslaw.com
globaltradeandsanctionslaw.com
At least with open source widely used in a government sector we would get more investments in OSS (direct and indirect, e.g. by training people), thus in the long run resulting in a better software for everyone. And we would not get pathetic vendor lock-ins, which hurt everyone except the vendor company.
But it works very well!
(UNIX, Linux, never Windows)
After Australian wildfires, Coronavirus, economic collapse, trade wars, and asteroids, Linux on the desktop HAS to be next!
I made a comment similar to this, when they restricted Matlab to some random Chinese university. Why should a Chinese company invest in developing for American technology platforms, when their access to such platforms can be easily revoked on a whim.
The great tech decoupling is about to begin.
And if recent news about Apple migrating to ARM for their laptops prove, then the Intel/Microsoft domination is finally coming to end. Of course, they’ll always have a dominant position in western markets. But their domination in the eastern markets will end.
It’s about time that the world finally has some real competition.
I suspect that there will be a significant increase in software companies in China after this. And we know, that software is much easier to build than hardware.
This is actually a gift. Before this, it just wasn’t profitable to build some software products like operating systems, because Microsoft dominated that field. But now that this is politicized, then this is now an existential crisis. These countries must go their own way.
I suspect that in 2021, some Chinese operating system will finally emerge. Maybe the world will finally get to see what that Harmony OS is all about.
Complete with integrated OS-level keylogger that forwards all the users' dissident typing straight to the police for intervention.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/4/18250474/chinese-messages-...
https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/11/19/china-police-big-data-sy...
Even if you think you’re using something encrypted, the message will just get recorded and cracked later. Either with a backdoor key, or they’ll just brute force crack the key.
Or, even easier, they’ll just record the metadata, then crack you with a rubber hose.
So, pick your poison.
There's no equivalence or even comparison. Watch the Youtube video I linked above. If you complain about the police, the Five Eyes aren't going to forward a tip along so you can be locked in a tiger chair to be dominated and made to apologize for your insolence. Five Eyes allow the use of all kinds of technology that makes their jobs hard, rather than mandate all your messages be sent to them directly. China is several orders of magnitude worse.
Also, here's relevant lecture about the features of an old version North Korea's homegrown OS:
https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2015/Fahrplan/events...:
> Investigating functionality that can be used to invade the privacy of users was our primary goal. We found that the features implemented in Red Star OS are the wet dream of a surveillance state dictator. It provides a set of surveillance features like the capabilities to watermark different types of files that can be used to track the distribution of documents and multi-media files. We will have an in depth look on how some of these features built the foundation for a suppressive state in a modern world.
And then the media attention is turned off, or turns a blind eye, and the world just moves on.
So still, pick your poison.
That's a bold claim. I thought they'd shoot you from a grassy knoll.
I hope HN is not developing a propaganda problem like every other news/social site.
Forget theft, some of their IP regulations are just weird. I can file a patent in China even if there's prior IP or a patent elsewhere, just as long as I am the first one to file it in China. Good luck fighting this.
Really good question!!
I think the short answer is, no, not by itself. But in conjunction with many other things, it increases the friction in transactions, making it more costly for them to achieve their goals.
Rain & snow may not stop an army, but it sure will slow an army down. This is the same.