This is a little off topic, BUT:

These are the people you pollys trust that say Y2K is OK. They are fools, traitors, and idiots:

Can We Buy Back Our Supercomputer, Please?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Jamie Dettmer --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

hey are hoping Congress never finds out -- and in the wake of the damning Cox report on Chinese espionage and the recent flurry over major security lapses at U.S. nuclear labs, it is hardly surprising. But soon officials at the Sandia nuclear laboratory are going to have to explain to lawmakers how they managed 10 months ago to sell a $9 million surplus supercomputer for $30,000 to a California-based Chinese national who specializes in exporting advanced U.S. goods to Beijing. . . . . According to classified Department of Energy reports leaked to news alert!, the October 1998 sale by the New Mexico lab of the early 1990s Intel Paragon XPS system is of "significant national-security concern." Federal sources say the supercomputer could be a major addition to the Chinese nuclear program -- that is, if the system finds its way to Beijing. Now DOE officials are engaged in a standoff with the purchaser and endeavoring desperately to persuade him to sell the system back to Sandia for $2.5 million. However, he is proving intransigent. . . . . The alarm bells about the sale only started ringing after the purchaser, Korber Jiang, contacted Intel Corp. seeking to secure some items that would get the system up and running again. Sandia sold the computer disassembled, thinking that any buyer would just use it for scrap, and Korber had told the lab of his plan to use the system only for spare parts. . . . . On learning in mid-July of Korber's approach to Intel, federal investigators were scrambled from New Mexico to Cupertino, Calif., to interview him and to discover the whereabouts of the computer. They also were ordered to urge the Chinese exporter to let Sandia repurchase the system. But, according to classified documents, "he has been somewhat evasive about where the system is located and what he intends to do with it." . . . . "Sandia is in full farcical 'cover-your-a** mode,'" says a Washington official. "They are still praying they can get the damn thing back without anyone noticing in Congress -- and of course they are anxious Beijing will get hold of it." Until July 20, the DOE wasn't even sure the system was still in the United States. . . . . While the Paragon XPS is not the most advanced U.S. system now on the market, its computing power is significant -- 150,000 to 200,000 MTOPS. According to the leaked classified reports, the model sold had been modified to include "some of the U.S.'s most leading-edge interconnect and computer technology -- it has an operating system that has been tuned and enhanced by Sandia for a number of important national-security missions." . . . . Further, while Sandia insists the system "never processed classified or sensitive information," officials at DOE aren't so sure. They suspect their Sandia counterparts are not being forthcoming and they're fearful U.S. nuclear secrets may be stored in the system's hard drive, which apparently wasn't wiped. "Sandia is being as evasive as Korber -- we are not taking anything on trust from the lab," says a Washington source who declined to be identified for this article. "Why was the system improved if it wasn't used for security missions? Did they just use it to work out the staff's monthly schedule?" . . . . While Sandia still is attempting to secure the supercomputer, the DOE is conducting a review to discover whether the lab followed federal guidelines covering the sale of surplus high-risk property. The lab was due on July 16 to supply a "white paper" detailing what action it took to address possible security concerns and export-control regulations on supercomputers. . . . . Some federal sources familiar with the transaction dispute the lab's initial insistence that it was vigilant in how it went about the sale. They maintain Sandia should have been far more security-minded and exhaustive in unearthing crucial facts about the identity of the buyer. . . . . Before selling the supercomputer to the highest commercial bidder, Sandia did check to see whether any federal agencies were interested in acquiring it, but none were. Korber came in with the best offer. But the property section failed to check his background and assumed that his EHI Group USA was American-owned. A little digging would have discovered that Korber's one-man business has as its only client the government of the People's Republic of China. . . . . Korber himself is in the United States on an L1 business visa. Recently, in a House Immigration subcommittee hearing, federal officials admitted that L1 business visas are being abused on a massive scale, both by organized-crime groups and by foreign governments intent on placing "intelligence assets" in the United States. However, there is no evidence that Korber has links either with foreign-intelligence organizations or criminals. Sandia is at a loss about what legal action they can take to get the computer back. Export-control regulations should prevent the computer being sent to China. . . . . Told by news alert! of the sale, Republican Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, a Cox committee member, says: "The national security ramifications of this sale are disastrous." Weldon promptly wrote to Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson on July 23 calling for his resignation. . . . . He adds: "Ironically, at the very time the Cox committee was investigating the transfer of sensitive technology to China, your employees were selling some of our most sophisticated systems to them at bargain-basement prices." . . . .

-- Jon Johnson (narnia4@usa.net), July 23, 1999

Answers

Please note, among other things, the hard drive --- possibly containing nuclear secrets --- was not "wiped".

And this government has "fixed" MILLIONS of lines of code for Y2K! Traitors! Fools! ...... have to leave now to wipe foam from my mouth.

-- Jon Johnson (narnia4@usa.net), July 23, 1999.

And an update. It doesn't say anything about the info on the hard drive. Also misleading: THEY didn't discover his nationality, it was bought to their attention by Intel and reporters.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Energy Department's Sandia National Laboratory last week bought back a supercomputer it had sold as surplus to Korber Jiang, a Chinese citizen who is the principle of EHI Group USA and exports American goods to his home country.

Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., called Friday for Energy Secretary Bill Richardson's resignation, saying that the computer could have been used ``to design nuclear weapons.''

``He's going around the country saying there are no problems in the Department of Energy, that everything is under control,'' Weldon said in a telephone interview. ``If there are no problems, then how can this happen?''

Neal Singer, a spokeswoman for Sandia National Laboratories, said that the New Mexico facility sold the Intel Paragon XPS to Korber's one-man company for $30,000 in October. After discovering Korber's nationality, Singer said, the department bought back the computer for $88,000 last week and stored it under guard at Sandia. The spokesman said the difference in cost may have been due to shipping costs incurred by Korber.

``Secretary Richardson has instituted a moratorium on any sales of surplus material that incorporates export control technology until there has been a thorough review of what happened,'' said Energy Department spokeswoman Brooke Anderson.

The transaction was first reported by Insight Magazine.

-- Jon Johnson (narnia4@usa.net), July 23, 1999.

Don't believe anything you hear and only half of what you see.

-- deafandblind (deafandblind@deafandblind.com), July 23, 1999.

I wonder if it is y2k compliant? Maybe it will suffer meltdown with the rest of them........

-- dozerdoctor (dozerdoc@yahoo.com), July 23, 1999.

Much ado about nothing. These i860 based things are fast, but buggers to program. $30,000 was probably the high bid at auction - supercomputers age even worse than PC's, and how much is a PC from 1990 worth? There are still a few of them in use, more for teaching than anything else.

Link to an online manual for a Paragon - probably a bit newer than the one Sandia got rid of.

http://quest.cc.purdue.edu/Paragon/Docs/Intel/Manuals/

If you haven't noticed, you are probably using 'illegal to export' software on your computer right now! The new versions of MSIE 4 and 5, and Netscape Navigator include 128 bit encryption - which means they cannot be exported. The algorithm is question is not hard - I have a copy of it in PERL that takes up 4 lines of code. Congress is passing laws to regulate things it does not understand - so the laws look stupid to anyone who does understand the technology.

For that matter, it is illegal to export the descrambler used by HBO and other companies to sell satellite TV signals. The actual descrambling chips are classified. Seems they are the same chips they use in the Hawk missile. They did it that way on purpose - anyone who tampers with the descrambler to get free TV will get a visit from - the US Customs Service. No fooling. Doesn't that snap your garters?

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), July 24, 1999.