• Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      I mean, it would bring global tech to a standstill. It would be a significant problem. Once existing stuff broke, there would be no replacement. I know very little about chip manufacture, except that the lithography machines are fantastically complex and costly. It would probably take years to spin up new production.

      This seems like a pretty solid mutually assured destruction deterrent and doesn’t even involve nukes.

      • JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca
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        4 hours ago

        From what I can find, it looks like ASML has a software brick they can just drop into the update stream. As cool as physical disabling would be, a remote software trigger is simpler and leaves the machines in tact to spin back up after aggression ends