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FLASHBACK: China uses computers from U.S. illegally; Nuclear facility simulates blasts
drudgereport ^ | June 27,2000 (January 3, 2002) | Bill Gertz (Washington Times)

Posted on 01/03/2002 2:49:00 PM PST by OKCSubmariner

China's main nuclear weapons center is using U.S. supercomputers illegally to simulate warhead detonations without actual underground tests, The Washington Times has learned.

U.S.-origin high-performance computers are being used at the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics, the main nuclear weapons facility in Beijing. The facility is viewed by officials as China's version of Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to Clinton administration intelligence officials.

The use of U.S. supercomputers - with computational speeds of billions of operations per second or faster - at the nuclear facility was outlined in a report classified "top-secret" and circulated among senior U.S. national security officials last month, said the officials who have seen it. They discussed some elements of the report on the condition of anonymity. Disclosure of the use of U.S. computers to help develop China's nuclear arms comes as the Clinton administration and Congress are considering new measures to loosen exports of American-made high-performance computers.

An amendment to the current defense authorization bill President Clinton signed in February further relaxed export rules on advanced computers, allowing U.S. manufacturers to begin selling faster systems on Aug. 15.

Officials did not identify the U.S. manufacturers of the systems or how they were obtained.

Supercomputer sales have been restricted because they are crucial elements for designing and developing nuclear weapons, missiles and advanced conventional arms, according to defense officials.

Additionally, the U.S. intelligence community reported last month that China is expanding a nuclear research facility at Mianyang. The so-called "Science City" there is working on both nuclear weapons and civilian energy research, the intelligence officials said.

The reported supercomputer use at the nuclear facility is the third time China's government has been detected diverting U.S.-origin computers to defense facilities.

In 1997, China agreed to return a Silicon Graphics supercomputer that was illegally diverted through a Hong Kong front company to a Chinese defense facility.

A White House National Security Council spokesman declined to comment, citing a policy of not talking about intelligence matters.

A U.S. intelligence official who was not familiar with the report said that it has been difficult for U.S. intelligence agencies to learn whether China is using complete U.S. advanced computers, or whether they are using a combination of U.S. components and homemade systems.

According to Clinton administration officials, the president hopes to dramatically ease export control on high-powered computers.

An amendment to the current defense authorization bill sponsored by Sen. Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, would make it easier for the president to change the export rules by reducing a congressional notification period from 180 days to 30 days.

The argument of some officials who support the changes is that the systems are so widely available that controlling them is futile.

Other officials who oppose the decontrol note that the United States produced the best and fastest supercomputers and that they should not be exported to countries that could use them against the United States, like China.

A Senate national security aide said the administration "failed completely" to win Chinese government cooperation in checking on the end use of U.S. computers sold during the 1990s.

"That's why the Chinese know that they can use these computers with impunity," the aide said, noting that the relaxation of controls "has been a disaster for U.S. national security."

Stephen Bryen, a Pentagon export-control official during the Reagan administration, said he predicted in the early 1990s that U.S. supercomputers would be used by China for developing advanced nuclear weapons.

"That's been the great worry about transfers of supercomputers," he said. "That they would be able to design a new generation of smaller warheads that can fit on smaller missiles or which can be MIRVed" - multiple, independently targetable re-entry vehicles, or multiple warheads.

Mr. Bryen said in an interview that the United States was able to radically reduce the number of actual underground nuclear tests needed for developing new warheads, from several hundred to about five.

"This is not good news for us because the Chinese can do a lot of this covertly," he said. "It will be hard for us to know their capabilities, and we will have a difficult time understanding the threat."

The report by the special House committee that investigated Chinese spying and technology acquisition stated that there is limited information on China's use of U.S. supercomputers. However, the report said that the panel "judges that the People's Republic of China has been using high performance computers for nuclear weapons applications."

The report stated that under relaxed export rules, China may have purchased as many as 603 high-speed computers between 1996 and 1998.

Following the illegal diversion to defense use of several U.S. supercomputers by Russia and China, Congress in 1998 passed a law requiring tighter restrictions.

The law required exporters to notify the government before selling supercomputers to nations like China and Russia.

The U.S. computer industry opposed the requirement and has lobbied instead for further relaxation of controls as computer computational capabilities increased.

In July, Mr. Clinton loosened the restrictions further to allow exports of machines capable of 6.5 billion operations per second, and in February announced he will allow sales of computers that carry out 12.5 billion operations per second.

According to the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics was identified in June 1997 as an "entity of concern," a designation that warned American exporters that the institute was involved in defense programs.


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To: toddhisattva
The limit is in how the cluster is hooked up. A real cheap cluster probably won't be connected with fiber optics.

Sure, and Saddam's radar systems are all wired to together with fiber optics thanks to the Chinese. Some here will say, "We shouldn't have let American tech companies employ Chinese nationals", "We shouldn't fund Chinese industry by buying Chinese-made optical fiber". The anti-immigration/protectionist tone of those arguments rubs me the wrong way. But the national defense angle ("national security" means just about everything under the sun nowadays) is worth arguing over, I guess.

Getting back to optical fibers and whatnot, I take it that one SMP machine could in turn run circles around fiber-interconnected clusters. I guess China doesn't have much of a motherboard chipset designing capability at least, although Taiwan sure does. Has anybody tried putting large numbers of cpus on one chip?

Remember, any computer can emulate any other computer, it will just do it slowly. So you can do all this "supercomputer" stuff on a slow network of tiny little machines if you were patient.

Sure. It would be really neat to learn about the inner workings of cray cpus and what made them so much faster than 80's era microprocessors. Of course, I regret not having taken the time to figure out how my old ASR 33 teletype machine worked before I trashed it. It may not matter anymore.

If the Chinese couldn't buy our computers, they'd buy somebody else's. If they couldn't do that, they would simply force a few million of their slaves to push abacus beads all day.

...while they're jumping up and down in unison in order to knock the earth out of its orbit! LOL. But I'm sure there are some problems that don't "scale" as easily (?). For instance, try compiling the latest, greatest linux/BSD kernel on a 25 Mhz 386 box. You might be able to do pull it off, but you might be able to save up the money for a decent upgrade in the time it takes.

Genies never go back into bottles.

Agreed.
21 posted on 01/03/2002 9:11:08 PM PST by dr_who
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To: dr_who
I think we designed our bombs using computers about as powerful as an old pentium II. I think we built our first bombs without any computers at all. I doubt the chinese need supercomputers for bomb testing.
22 posted on 01/03/2002 9:11:15 PM PST by staytrue
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To: staytrue
I think we designed our bombs using computers about as powerful as an old pentium II. I think we built our first bombs without any computers at all.

Yeah, literally just a room full of technicians, a few mechanical adding machines, and a telephone.

I doubt the chinese need supercomputers for bomb testing.

The question is, was it the speed of innovation in bomb making that drove the U.S./Soviet arms race, and was it our computer technology advantage that overwhelmed the Soviets? I'd say it was our GNP.
23 posted on 01/03/2002 9:33:16 PM PST by dr_who
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To: Buck Turgidson,golitely,ratcat,rightwing2,rubbertramp,Uncle Bill
For reply #20:

If you read what you quoted me closely you will find I used the word OPINION:

"My OPINION is that HW Bush helped China get the legacy codes."

I just want the people reading my replies to know that there are some people out here who do have a negative opinion of HW Bush and what the opinions are. I did not vote for him or the Democrat either. People usually vote their opinions.

I read a lot of replies from Bush apologists and shills on FR that freely state their opinions and I rarely see any other Bush supporters ask for a cite or proof for their opinions.

I have evidence but I do not have to present smoking gun evidience or evidence that has to stand up in court to express an opinion. We still have free speech in this country.

Tyrants (my opinion) like GW and HW Bush do not like to be called corrupt even in statements of opinion even though they are public figures because they have no real respect for laws or the COnstitution, much less free speech (that is why I call them tyrants).

There have been about four major discussion threads on the subject of HW Bush and his nuke transfers with numerous cites of documentation within the past few weeks which are easy to find.

Most of the Bush apologists and shills ignored the documentation posted on these threads and pretended it was not posted in some cases. They just keep trying to divert and discredit the message or the messenger rather than engage in a rational discussion. Some are no better than the Democrats and use most of the same tactics in my opinion.

The US Attorney in OKC will not listen to opinion. And I assure you he definitely will not listen to hard evidence because he has been approached many times by me and others in OKC about hard evidence of FBI crimes in the OKC bombing and would do nothing.

I have gone to the DOJ and the Senate Intelligence COmmitttee with allegations of crimes by HW Bush and the FBI before and they will do nothing. I went to ASchroft through a personal intermediary ( a friend of AShcroft) who spoke to AShcroft directly with hard evidence in the OKC bombing case and AShcroft would do nothing. The friend was so repulsed by how AShcroft behaved that he no longer has respect for AShcroft.

How likely is it that a Republican AG or a Republican US attorney would do anything against an ex Republican President whose son is now President especailly when they will do nothing about the treason of Bill Clinton and say "move on" and keep corrupt Clinton appointtees in their administration they could easily replace without COngressional approval.

BTW, Henry Gonzales did formally accuse HW Bush of treason in the US Congress just before the Gulf War for HW Bush transferring weapons of mass destruction to Saddam Hussein and Iraq. The Congressional record of Gonzales' remarks and of Bush transfers was posted ten days ago on FR.

24 posted on 01/03/2002 11:07:54 PM PST by OKCSubmariner
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Comment #25 Removed by Moderator

To: Buck Turgidson
Because I wanted them to see what I wrote in general paricularly my points about going to US attorneys, the Attorney general Ashcfroft etc. They have been replying to me before on these subjects.

I guess I was a little lazy and should have flagged them separately. Sorry.

BTW for more on Bill OReilly's concerns about the AG Ashcroft you might want to check out this article from today

Bill O'Reilly blasts Ashcroft and Reno for Corruption

WorldNetDaily.com | January 4, 2002 | Bill O'Reilly

Posted on 1/4/02 9:52 AM Pacific by editor-surveyor

The link for the article you can paste into your browser to find the article is:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/601710/posts

26 posted on 01/04/2002 2:51:48 PM PST by OKCSubmariner
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To: OKCSubmariner
bump
27 posted on 01/04/2002 5:34:22 PM PST by pttttt
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To: dr_who
Yes, but is clustering adequate for doing nuclear bomb simulations?

We do our simulations on a cluster. Lawrence Livermore's ASCI White, the fastest computer in the world, consists of 8,192 commercially available RS/6000 processors. Runs at 12.3 teraflops. That means it does 1,230 calculations in the time the computers Bush is allowing to be exported do 19.

28 posted on 01/04/2002 5:49:58 PM PST by LarryLied
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To: LarryLied
Man, sounds like a good way to keep your building warm during the winter.
29 posted on 01/05/2002 7:11:23 AM PST by dr_who
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Comment #30 Removed by Moderator

Comment #31 Removed by Moderator

Comment #32 Removed by Moderator

To: Buck Turgidson
I appreciate OKCSubmariner's opinions and am honored to be on his recipient list. Why do you have a problem with that?
33 posted on 01/06/2002 4:58:21 AM PST by rubbertramp
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To: Black Jade
Daddy Bush has a huge debt to the Chinese and sonny is paying it off. We are merely the "fodder".
34 posted on 01/06/2002 4:59:53 AM PST by rubbertramp
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To: Buck Turgidson
If you have evidence of treason, you should contact the local US attorney.

Boy are you naive.ROTFLMAO

35 posted on 01/06/2002 5:03:19 AM PST by rubbertramp
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To: Black Jade
"As I just pointed out in another thread "

Jade, will you please post a link to this thread, I want to read it, thanks.

36 posted on 01/06/2002 6:04:36 AM PST by ChaseR
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To: Black Jade; OKC Submariner; BeAChooser; Mudboy Slim; Snow Bunny
"Bush did receive heavy campaign donations from the US high tech industry
which favors more lax export limits and the PRC's membership into the WTO."

To me, this is a stunningly sad development! :(

(Mudboy Slim, I'm just curious, what do you think of Jades posts here this morning and do you Mud, give much them the credibility that I'm starting to give them??? Thanks for your pensive imput.)

37 posted on 01/06/2002 6:09:21 AM PST by ChaseR
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To: Iwo Jima; bayourod; Miss Marple
typo:
"and do you Mud, give them the credibility that I'm starting to give them???"
bttt
38 posted on 01/06/2002 6:11:18 AM PST by ChaseR
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To: Mudboy Slim
(just curious Mudboy, are you pleased with the way Jade has presented his posts? I am)
39 posted on 01/06/2002 6:12:46 AM PST by ChaseR
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To: OKCSubmariner; LarryLied; Black Jade
"An amendment to the current defense authorization bill President Clinton signed in February further relaxed export rules on advanced computers, allowing U.S. manufacturers to begin selling faster systems on Aug. 15."

First of all, thanks OKC for posting this article and the link to bluetoads article.

OKC and all readers, notice that everything always leads back to treasonous bastard Bill Clinton and the delusional DNC.
(I'm hoping LarryLied will be here soon to give us his astute take on all of this. I always fall back on and trust LarryLied's comments - along with a few others)

40 posted on 01/06/2002 6:17:19 AM PST by ChaseR
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