Europe turns a blind eye to Russia smuggling dual-use microchips | Hacker News Reader

Europe turns a blind eye to Russia smuggling dual-use microchips

theins.ru

59 pointsnabla98 comments

It's good to have high level visibility into the reality of what's happening. Certainly things that ought not be in Russia are getting into Russia. The glaring omission of the article though, is that it never identifies which sanction is being violated.

Who is actually breaking which law with which action? Should the Americans be rounding up EU citizens? Should the Germans be seizing TI bank accounts? Should the Americans arrest the TI CEO because an Estonian sold parts to a Chinese man who doesn't participate in any sanctions at all?

AD7450BRZ

1MSamples ADC? Military-spec?

A shame that we are leaking these chips, but these are incredibly low cost, and tiny, chips that will be very hard to regulate.

The article as a whole kinda paints the contrast: total military aid to ukraine in hundreds of millions, total examples of chip shipments in the single digit millions. It's not a good thing, obviously, but it's far from the biggest problem (sanctions are rarely expected to completely cut of supply, anyway. Limiting it and increasing prices substantially is enough. With EAR, the regulations covering such chips, the rules essentially have a 10x maximum cost multiplier, as exporting goods containing 1/10th EAR components by value is explicitly exempt.)

Yes and no.

On an absolute dollar value you are correct and I agree with you. But our Ukrainian allies are not in an absolute dollar situation.

Ukraine is aiming at atrophy warfare, trying to outlast Russian production and force them into running out of supplies.

Every extra weapon the Russians can build is another weapon that extends the current stalemate.

The battlefield reality is not measured in dollars, but in blood and bullets.

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My perspective is that these smallest and cheapest of chips (ADC, filters, and regulators) are obviously essential components to the Russian war machine.

But I do acknowledge the reality that these chips are small, easy to hide, cheap and difficult to regulate.

They should be fined at least 3x income from the sale. Not to mention criminal prosecution of the board and C levels.

The brothers Strugazki wrote in 60s a novel "The Final Circle of Paradise" ("Хищные вещи века" literally:"Predatory Things of Age")

The novel describes society that resembles our times. It's kind of spy/criminal investigation but in the end the culprit is just usual things that used in unusual ways

Perhaps the whole thing is some spy operation to sell chips with tracking devices or chips that stop working after a given amount of time

Ssshhhhh

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