SINGAPORE/NEW YORK, Aug 13 (Reuters) - U.S. authorities have secretly placed location tracking devices in targeted shipments of advanced chips they see as being at high risk of illegal diversion to China, according to two people with direct knowledge of the previously unreported law enforcement tactic.
The measures aim to detect AI chips being diverted to destinations which are under U.S. export restrictions, and apply only to select shipments under investigation, the people said.
Five other people actively involved in the AI server supply chain say they are aware of the use of the trackers in shipments of servers from manufacturers such as Dell and Super Micro, which include chips from Nvidia and AMD
Those people said the trackers are typically hidden in the packaging of the server shipments. They did not know which parties were involved in installing them and where along the shipping route they were put in.
There is a huge difference between embedding spyware into the silicon or cpu package of a semiconductor manufacturer or integrator and tracking a shipment of chips from a manufacturer. The first is extremely rare and basically tin-foil hat territory, the second is extremely common and any company that orders a large number of chips from a manufacturer will have GPS tracking of their shipments. Of course US Customs would use a similiar method to ensure that embargo’s and treaties mandating those embargo’s are being followed.
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Looks like this was true https://lemmy.ml/post/34045122
There is a huge difference between embedding spyware into the silicon or cpu package of a semiconductor manufacturer or integrator and tracking a shipment of chips from a manufacturer. The first is extremely rare and basically tin-foil hat territory, the second is extremely common and any company that orders a large number of chips from a manufacturer will have GPS tracking of their shipments. Of course US Customs would use a similiar method to ensure that embargo’s and treaties mandating those embargo’s are being followed.