This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
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 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."
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.
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.
Ahh yes, polling in a country where saying the wrong thing gets you locked up. Very useful /s
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
It’s not that they’re for or against. They don’t care.
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.
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
"To access the update, please overthrow your government"
"have you tried restarting your government?"
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!
"Does nobody think of the people?" they asked while putin sends his citizens into a certain death.
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.
Yeah, along with this I am suspecting there's been a "suggested interpretation" from western governments to large orgs.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
