“To access the update, please overthrow your government”
“have you tried restarting your government?”
We are entering the era of cyber-warfare, nation-state counter hacking, software and hardware sabotage, underground black and grey markets for both hardware and software.
Sanctions now include software and access to networks, not just hardware imports and generic VPN region locks.
Nations are taking more control over their national network infrastructure, China has shown it’s possible to almost completely isolate a modern technological nation of a billion people in their own intra-net with near full visibility and control into everything their citizens say and do.
Other nations are following, and big tech will always play into whatever is the most profitable, which is why companies like Google and Apple will turn a blind eye to the authoritarian governments and comply with their controls in order to gain more market share.
Now let me be clear; fuck the Russian war machine, fuck it hard and fast, and fuck Putin and his pathetic removed bois that support him. But I feel for the Russian people who are oppressed, there is a deep hacker and FOSS culture that has been there since the 80’s, shame that they are getting screwed by their shitty regime, much like the citizens of China, especially gen-Z having terms like “lying down” banned because it opposes their oppressive and abusive work culture.
Open software and hardware is under attack more and more lately. From the capitalist corpos who hate anything they can’t generate insane profits from and that gives workers and end users control over their data and privacy. It’s also under attack from the government neo-liberals and right-wingers because it allows people to be private and safely express their opposition, and also allows easy organizing of mass protests against their abuses of power.
What a precious thing we have in the world of FOSS. The spirit of human collaboration and free expression, across cultures, races, genders, and ages is so incredible, but we must defend and support it.
Fuck Capitalism, fuck copyright, and FUCK war.
Hell yea brother
We are entering the era of cyber-warfare, nation-state counter hacking, software and hardware sabotage, underground black and grey markets for both hardware and software.
We have entered that territory at least 10 years ago.
The rest I agree with. But I also think this is in fact the right move: you need to create pressure that hurts both the leadership and the people.
What would you personally do with that pressure if you lived in Moscow? At best get beaten in a protest.
Believe it or not, even the thugs beating down protests enjoy western luxuries… Or not having 20% inflation.
Plus, enforcing your government’s policies becomes a whole lot less attractive if all your neighbors dislike your employer. It all trickles down eventually.
Amen
I wish Free/Libre movement (as not to be limited only to FOSS and OSHW) to stay away from getting too political. Sure perhaps because their contributors mostly coming from westerner but lately things get piggybacked by nonsense stuffs (Debian wtf?). For truly Free/Libre there should be no border and everyone welcome to contribute instead of artificial reasoning because someone above them have to comply with this-that or whatever the heck the agenda are.
Pretty much for form I suppose, there are other ways to get those drivers.
I’ve been in a few online games with RU players and it struck me as so weird to be playing a game with someone from a nation we are basically at war with. Major WWI Xmas football vibes.
I feel that many Russians are against Putler’s regime, but are (rightfully so) too afraid to speak up.
You are wrong. More than half are in favor of the war in Ukraine.
How is what he said wrong? 25% is “many Russians”.
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25% of 150 million is a pretty large number of people. “Many” is vague enough that you shouldn’t be calling anyone dumb over it.
75% of 150 million is still a significantly larger number, regardless. In this context, does not fall under “many”.
And calling a pro-Russian troll dumb is fine, because only feelings are hurt, meanwhile actual lives are being lost thanks to Russians invading Ukraine, and is competitively worse.
There can be multiple groups of many people in a population. It doesn’t have to be a majority to be significant.
I think you’re mistaking “many” for “most”. There are objectively many Russians against putins bullshit. And the original comment specifically said they’re afraid to speak out, meaning part of those you say are for putin are just stuck, like so many others around the world. The only troll here is you, every reply you’ve gotten is way more friendly than you deserve. (I refuse to capitalize putins name, and wish nothing but death to him, his regime and everyone supporting him).
I think you’re confusing “many” with “most”. The definition of “many” does not mean the largest, just simply large.
25% of millions of people is still many people, they didn’t say “a majority of people”.
Hmm little aggressive ya?
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e.g.
I’m going by this definition of “many”: a large but indefinite number. Identifying the larger percentage, 75% or 25%, isn’t much of a challenge 😉
brbposting’s hypothetical response upon having read the above comment:
N/A
Ahh yes, polling in a country where saying the wrong thing gets you locked up. Very useful /s
How would that number change if all those people had access to independent reporting?
There’s an old joke about agents from the CIA and KGB sharing a drink at a pub in Berlin.
“I have to admit, I’m always so impressed by Soviet propaganda. You really know how to get people worked up,” the CIA agent says.
“Thank you,” the KGB says. “We do our best but truly, it’s nothing compared to American propaganda. Your people believe everything your state media tells them.”
The CIA agent drops his drink in shock and disgust. “Thank you friend, but you must be confused… There’s no propaganda in America.”
Joke is going over my head can you explain?
CIA agent ‘drinks the kool-aid’
Cold-war era joke, pre-suppose all us media is ‘State’ media
That is a truly excellent joke. I will remember that
The Trumpublicans in the U.S. have access to independent reporting, yet they choose instead to limit themselves to lies that make them feel like they’re better than everyone else.
Maybe it would change but Russian culture is still Russian culture.
Seriously, you can’t unshit a pool.
I don’t have access to it, but allegedly on VK which is the Russian knockoff of Facebook, they also have similar numbers of a majority in favor of destroying Ukraine.
I mean given that you get arrested for a showing a blank piece of paper and sent to prison/gulag… Do you really think that de-annonymised people would put their opinions forward?
But also in the west where we don’t have quite such a police state, we still do have many people who vote against their interests until their own interests are being affected…
Moral of the story… Humans suck
Humans suck
Conservatives suck. The normal people are actually pretty cool.
In favor of what? They aren’t being told the truth about anything. They’re in favor of an imaginary war for imaginary reasons.
That may be true. But I tend to believe factual journalism over a random internet person’s conjecture that you seem to be sure of for some reason.
Yikes. Sucks to live there. Maybe they should do something about it?
As they should be. US/NATO expansion is an existential threat to Russia. CIA even more brazenly embraced would divide and conquer Russia through splitting it into warring provinces. US has no intention of improving humanity/world if it reduces subjugation to the empire.
The last thing the US wants is a civil war and mass instability in a nuclear nation. That has the capability to shatter MAD. At best, the US wants a regime change.
They have no qualms about taunting a nuclear powered Russia. The return of a CIA puppet like Yeltsin is not likely, but just as Ukraine, there is not the slightest US concern for the welfare/benefit of people. Just destruction, hike price of oil, sell a lot of weapons, and buy the ruins for cheap.
Russia is the existential threat to Russia, that’s literally all of Russian history in a nutshell followed by ‘and then it got worse’.
Russia will collapse into multiple fragments, because Russians are just idiots who have never agreed on anything without a gun pointed at their families.
It’s hilarious how lucky China is to have the largest natural resource motherlode right next door, Russia was asking to be dismantled!
It’s not that they’re for or against. They don’t care.
I feel that many Russians are against Putler’s regime
Well thats not what any polls anywhere say. Where did you get that from? Reminds me of this saying: “Wish into one hand and shit into the other and see which one gets full first.”
Nah, propaganda is a hell of a drug
there are other ways to get those drivers.
Not only will they have back doors, but they’ll be screening for shittier updates and working on hacks that liberate the hardware from proprietary software updates.
Beginning to feel like the good old Internet Wild West over on the eastern internet.
Feel bad for the average Joe over there.
Be that as it may, this is very much part of the intent of the sanctions. Creating popular dissent and dissatisfaction within Russia due to Putin’s insistence on carrying out a war of aggression is very much by design. This is the Second Cold War. We’re in it.
Sure… Their anger will be directed at Putin, not at who actually imposed those sanctions.
I am worried that these sanctions will make them band together and support Putin even more.
Sure… Their anger will be directed at Putin, not at who actually imposed those sanctions.
I am worried that these sanctions will make them band together and support Putin even more.
And then what? They’ll go to war even harder? And if Putin is such a good leader, why doesn’t he just have Russia produce alternatives to the goods and services under sanctions?
The old status quo without sanctions got the world into the current situation. Why would keeping it the same fix it?
One could also make the opposite case for your logic: I am worried that without sanctions, people will see Putin as a strong leader, and as such hand together and support him even more.
Sanctions have not succeeded in lessening support or creating regime change. They are a siege warfare tactic, and a way of inflicting suffering upon the masses of people. There’s plenty of books on the topic, I’d recommend Sanctions as War, edited by Stuart Davis and Immanuel Ness.
Well, I never argued for not sanctioning them. I just think it’s kind of fucked either way - if sanctions work, they start hating sanction imposers and band behind the dictator; if sanctions don’t work, then obviously they are going to praise the dictator for his good work. It’s lose-lose.
And I don’t know if you have noticed or not, unfortunately, the sanctions aren’t working that well… Maybe the answer is more sanctions? idk
And I don’t know if you noticed or not, unfortunately, the sanctions aren’t working that well… Maybe the answer is more sanctions? idk
I’m in favor of more of them, but I don’t think the current ones aren’t working. It was clear from the beginning that they’d be escalating so that Russia has a way out. They’re not using it so sanctions get worse.
Could go both ways, but really the change has to come from within, they will have to change this in the end
Really sucks though that 90% of war supporters are brainwashed/indoctrinated anyway
Nvidia is a western lie, comrade. You don’t need it.
It was a joke why you’re being downvoted lol
Obligatory Poe’s Law mention, since Lenny seems to have agreed that it’s important.
To be fair, with the amount of tankies in this site, you can never play safe lol
I feel bad for the average Joe in Ukraine, and I dont feel any need to pity Russia or Russians at all.
“Does nobody think of the people?” they asked while putin sends his citizens into a certain death.
And for the crime of being send to death they should be punished by not having the newest divers. That’ll show them.
Exactly. Those russian CS gamers are the worst scum in the world and deserve to be (cybernetically) wacked.
Why now? Does it actually do something?
Some tech scantions from when the war started went into effect. Allowing access to Russians is now a complicated legal risk. Even Linux was forced to block devs.
Must prevent them from training drone operators on PC’s with Nvidia. Of course there’s no other way they can get those drivers. The program is operated by 10yo sim players. They won’t be able to use Tor or VPNs or proxies. This is a very smart plan to optimize manpower, but Nvidia is smarter. Smarrrrt!
If, I have learned anything from YouTube it’s that if a multi trillion dollar international mega conglomerate doesn’t want you to have it, no matter how impossible it may seem they can stop you from getting it they just need enough market incentives.
This could just be one small step in a much larger plan or it could be placating the United States government whose to say.
Now do israel.
I thought of that too, but then realized they need the latest graphic card updates to run Google, Amazon and Microsoft mass-surveillance applications!
Weird timing
Yes, especially in light of the Linux thing this morning
Yeah… weird how sanctions work… it’s like they’re broad and affect many people and entities…
We should ask Deepcool about their experience with non-compliance.
Ok cool but we are talking about timing so
Most likely coincidence. The sanctions came into effect and their respective lawyers took about the same time to come up with a policy that complies with them. There’s nothing more to the story that would make it weird.
Huh, it’s almost as if, when sanctions are declared, they go into effect for everyone at once.
Yeah, along with this I am suspecting there’s been a “suggested interpretation” from western governments to large orgs.
That’s a very good way to put it !
I’m OOTL. What Linux thing are you talking about?
A bunch of .ru email holders have been removed from the linux kernel group because of sanctions
Ahhh I see. Thank you!
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linus-Torvalds-Russian-Devs
The Linux project removed maintainers who were Russian or were using Russian e-mail addresses, probably to comply with sanctions. Linus hasn’t talked about the legal details because he doesn’t know if he can (and because Daddy Vladdy’s Dick Chuggers are out in full force).
Yeah, did US added more sanctions?
I would guess some people have received a friendly reminder
I don’t think so. It’s been making the tech waves for the past year. As a multinational, my company went department by department, ensuring we clean up and remove anything potentially connected to Russia. I’m guessing it’s never been newsworthy enough for the average person.
Everyone has a VPN or can use proxies extremely easily nowadays, especially in Russia. Literally all this does is creating a precedent of a parts manufacturer (““manufacturer”” in the case of nvidia), and y’all are cheering because “fuck russians”.
All this does is creating this bad precedent while accomplishing exactly nothing
And now some Russians get mad a the corrupt Putinlord because his actions have consequences and they have to go trough all kinds of hoops to get it.
Sometimes the annoyance is important too.
Putin only exists because Russians resent the west after having been sidelined despite foregoing communism (which Gorbachev did in the hope that Russia would be able to join, and benefit from trade with, the liberal bloc)
If you think they’ll resent Putin and not the west for every minor (and some major) annoyance brought by sanctions, you are ignoring decades of policies done in the same spirit and resulting in the exact opposite of the intended effect. All this does is demonstrate to the Russians that the west is indeed their enemy, and thereby reinforce Putin and the likes of him.
All sanctions do is target innocents and reinforce whatever government the US is supposedly targeting. See literally every single country sanctioned by the US.
Can I blame Trump on 9/11 or something?
I blame Trump every day, but sure.
They should give access to one last update that displays “Fuck Putin” on your screen at all times
How to do nothing while appearing to.
Am I going crazy or is that the framework ceo in that stock photo?
Nirav Patel
He used to work at nVidia, so this is very possible it’s him. They do look very similar.
My heart goes out to those Russians who have been patiently waiting for S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 to release and now they face the very real scenario that S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 just won’t run. After years of delays this will hit hard. Putin himself has been posting regularly about S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2, begrudged by so many delays and his mother bought him the version with all future DLC’s included.
I hope Nvidia feel real fucking good about them selves knowing they’ve taken away a dictators dream.
Putin belongs in Yantar like the swamp-fuck he is.
Lol too true. What faction would Putin pick?
I’d say Bandits, but he’s only worthy of the Renegades.
That sounds good and all, but the ones aho are really affected are the powerless people.
Most sanctions, aside from ones aimed at individuals, are going to have indirect effect. That is, they will produce pressure on Russia in aggregate, and that means that they’ll impact the typical citizen.
But that being said, there have been a lot of sanctions applied, and…the impact on Nvidia drivers isn’t, I think, really a huge one relative to those. Like, things like cutting off access to all kinds of electronics parts and payment system access and stuff are going to be, I’d say, a lot more impactful to a typical person in Russia, even if the impact is secondary.
That’s the objective or they learn to overthrow their shit leader of they don’t get western tech
Oh nyoo, they’ll have to use the open source ones!!
Haven’t the common folk been through enough?/s
(And the open sauce nVidia drivers got actually completely viable, great effort & results)They could still just download the official drivers straight from the NVIDIA website with a VPN. Or from a mirror without one.
Did NVIDIA stop selling videocards in Russia? The article doesn’t mention it.
Did NVIDIA stop selling videocards in Russia?
kagis
https://www.pcmag.com/news/nvidia-to-stop-all-product-sales-to-russia
Nvidia Stops All Product Sales to Russia
March 5, 2022
So, yes, though I don’t think that it matters a huge amount, since companies are just gonna re-export them out of China or Kazakhstan or wherever. I mean, it’s not like the hardware has some kind of region-locking. It’s a piece of consumer hardware, sold and resold anonymously all over the place. It’s not some kind of specialized military hardware with four end customers and tight control over the movement of the product.
kagis
https://hardwaretimes.com/nvidia-loses-just-2-of-its-revenue-as-offices-are-shut-down-in-russia/
In October [2022], NVIDIA officially shut down all its operations in Russia as sales of both data center and consumer graphics cards were wrapped up. At the time, around 240 employees worked for the Santa Clara-based company. These folks were given the option to either relocate abroad or look for other jobs.
Furthermore, NVIDIA hardware has been banned from sale via official channels.
Fortunately for Team Green, the Russian Federation represented a minor market for its wide portfolio. Disclosures from the Q3 2022 earnings report indicate that the Federation accounted for just 2% of its revenue and 4% for the gaming business.
Although channel partners are forbidden to sell the latest GeForce RTX 40 series graphics cards, Russian gamers can still procure them from the grey market.
It’ll probably add cost and some risk of getting ripped off and no manufacturer’s warranty, but I would be surprised if someone who wanted a new GPU couldn’t continue to get ahold of one in Russia, given enough funds.
EDIT: Does make me wonder about Windows-side driver updates. Like, people here are talking about Linux. Windows requires driver signing, and I don’t know if those signatures are region-specific.
but I would be surprised if someone who wanted a new GPU couldn’t continue to get ahold of one in Russia, given enough funds.
From what I saw recently it’s actually cheaper there than in non-sanctioned nearby countries.
