Controversial Reads 091022

https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/01/column_7nm_chips_china/
After decades trailing the rest of the world in leading-edge chip making, Chinese sand stamper Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) has quietly got into the 7nm business. That’s a huge and unexpected leap. Has the West’s embargo of the latest fab furniture failed?

https://www.theepochtimes.com/semiconductors-emerge-as-battleground-in-us-china-race-to-make-global-tech-norms-in-their-image_4648523.html
Although the United States and China are not engaged in traditional warfare, they are engaged in a war of ideas, trade, and technology, especially in semiconductor hegemony, where both sides are battling for supply and advancement.

https://www.piratewires.com/p/american-hustle-microchip-edition
Trade was global, the world was inextricably connected, and your job’s in China now but you should thank us, actually, because everything is cheap and fast and out-of-work factory workers can simply learn to code.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/defending-open-internet-confronting-reality-fragmented-cyberspace-reflecting-upon-two-cfr-reports-us
Last month, CFR issued the report of a new task force, “Confronting Reality in Cyberspace: Foreign Policy for a Fragmented Internet.” (I was project director for both reports.)

https://www.lawfareblog.com/should-uncle-sam-worry-about-foreign-open-source-software-geographic-known-unknowns-and-open-source
Nationalism has come to software. While downloading TikTok or WeChat onto your cell phone isn’t quite tantamount to installing Huawei equipment in your local cell tower, all indications suggest that a software geopolitical divide has arrived and won’t be going anywhere.

These Emails Show How the Biden Administration’s Crusade Against ‘Misinformation’ Imposes Censorship by Proxy


On July 16, 2021, the day that Joe Biden accused Facebook of “killing people” by failing to suppress misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, a senior executive at the social media platform’s parent company emailed Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in an effort to assuage the president’s anger.

https://slate.com/technology/2022/09/india-data-protection-bill-fourth-way.html
Recently, India, home to more than 1.3 billion people, withdrew its data protection bill—signaling yet another setback in global efforts to protect people’s data privacy.

Cloudflare takes the law into its own hands by blocking Kiwi Farms


The responsibility for policing the internet has once more come to the fore as network security provider Cloudflare felt compelled to block Kiwi Farms for allowing targeted threats.