Nvidia blocks access to video card driver updates for users from Russia and Belarus.
Nvidia blocks access to video card driver updates for users from Russia and Belarus.
Russian users have complained about the inability to download driver updates from the Nvidia website.
Now do israel.
"To access the update, please overthrow your government"
"have you tried restarting your government?"
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.
Putin only exists because Russians resent the west after having been sidelined despite foregoing communism (which Gorbachev did in the hope that Russia would be able to join, and benefit from trade with, the liberal bloc)
If you think they'll resent Putin and not the west for every minor (and some major) annoyance brought by sanctions, you are ignoring decades of policies done in the same spirit and resulting in the exact opposite of the intended effect. All this does is demonstrate to the Russians that the west is indeed their enemy, and thereby reinforce Putin and the likes of him.
All sanctions do is target innocents and reinforce whatever government the US is supposedly targeting. See literally every single country sanctioned by the US.
"Does nobody think of the people?" they asked while putin sends his citizens into a certain death.
And for the crime of being send to death they should be punished by not having the newest divers. That'll show them.
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.
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.
We have entered that territory at least 10 years ago.
The rest I agree with. But I also think this is in fact the right move: you need to create pressure that hurts both the leadership and the people.
Amen
Hell yea brother
I wish Free/Libre movement (as not to be limited only to FOSS and OSHW) to stay away from getting too political. Sure perhaps because their contributors mostly coming from westerner but lately things get piggybacked by nonsense stuffs (Debian wtf?). For truly Free/Libre there should be no border and everyone welcome to contribute instead of artificial reasoning because someone above them have to comply with this-that or whatever the heck the agenda are.
UPD: as of right now, the access isn't blocked in any way.
It is still unclear whether or not the block was intentional, Nvidia gave no comments.
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.
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!
If, I have learned anything from YouTube it’s that if a multi trillion dollar international mega conglomerate doesn’t want you to have it, no matter how impossible it may seem they can stop you from getting it they just need enough market incentives.
This could just be one small step in a much larger plan or it could be placating the United States government whose to say.
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.
I feel that many Russians are against Putler’s regime
Well thats not what any polls anywhere say. Where did you get that from? Reminds me of this saying: "Wish into one hand and shit into the other and see which one gets full first."
You are wrong. More than half are in favor of the war in Ukraine.
It’s not that they’re for or against. They don’t care.
Nah, propaganda is a hell of a drug
there are other ways to get those drivers.
Not only will they have back doors, but they'll be screening for shittier updates and working on hacks that liberate the hardware from proprietary software updates.
Beginning to feel like the good old Internet Wild West over on the eastern internet.
Feel bad for the average Joe over there.
I feel bad for the average Joe in Ukraine, and I dont feel any need to pity Russia or Russians at all.
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.
How to do nothing while appearing to.
That will show BRICS countries what not to buy.
Tankie detected.
Cus they can't access SWIFT, ofc they can't buy.
Besides, China is working on their own GPU/NPU/ASIC production line.
Russia (vassal state) x China (dommy mommy state).
wow you really owned them. Good job, Nvidia.
Weird timing
I don't think so. It's been making the tech waves for the past year. As a multinational, my company went department by department, ensuring we clean up and remove anything potentially connected to Russia. I'm guessing it's never been newsworthy enough for the average person.
Yes, especially in light of the Linux thing this morning
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.
That's the objective or they learn to overthrow their shit leader of they don't get western tech
they gonna stop the mirror operators that reside outside those areas yet serve them?
They should give access to one last update that displays "Fuck Putin" on your screen at all times
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.
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)They could still just download the official drivers straight from the NVIDIA website with a VPN. Or from a mirror without one.
Did NVIDIA stop selling videocards in Russia? The article doesn't mention it.
Did NVIDIA stop selling videocards in Russia?
kagis
https://www.pcmag.com/news/nvidia-to-stop-all-product-sales-to-russia
Nvidia Stops All Product Sales to Russia
March 5, 2022
So, yes, though I don't think that it matters a huge amount, since companies are just gonna re-export them out of China or Kazakhstan or wherever. I mean, it's not like the hardware has some kind of region-locking. It's a piece of consumer hardware, sold and resold anonymously all over the place. It's not some kind of specialized military hardware with four end customers and tight control over the movement of the product.
kagis
https://hardwaretimes.com/nvidia-loses-just-2-of-its-revenue-as-offices-are-shut-down-in-russia/
In October [2022], NVIDIA officially shut down all its operations in Russia as sales of both data center and consumer graphics cards were wrapped up. At the time, around 240 employees worked for the Santa Clara-based company. These folks were given the option to either relocate abroad or look for other jobs.
Furthermore, NVIDIA hardware has been banned from sale via official channels.
Fortunately for Team Green, the Russian Federation represented a minor market for its wide portfolio. Disclosures from the Q3 2022 earnings report indicate that the Federation accounted for just 2% of its revenue and 4% for the gaming business.
Although channel partners are forbidden to sell the latest GeForce RTX 40 series graphics cards, Russian gamers can still procure them from the grey market.
It'll probably add cost and some risk of getting ripped off and no manufacturer's warranty, but I would be surprised if someone who wanted a new GPU couldn't continue to get ahold of one in Russia, given enough funds.
EDIT: Does make me wonder about Windows-side driver updates. Like, people here are talking about Linux. Windows requires driver signing, and I don't know if those signatures are region-specific.
The smart ones will be unaffected as nouveau, as distributed through package managers, remains unaffected.
And the really smart ones don't even have nvidia hardware to begin with.
Sucks to suck.
Some of you may rejoice in unison because of this but this creates a dangerous precedence for other countries. At any time Nvidia can just brick computers at whichever country they decide to. This situation shouldn't be taken lightly.
Just buy an AMD card and use linux.
I do lol.
But now you're forcing an entire country to use AMD and Linux, while ignoring the main issue. Pretty much one of the biggest computer companies who have their fists on a good chunk of our nation's balls, and can choose to squeeze them at any time.
The average Lemmy user operates with „USA good, Russia bad, Democrats good, Republicans ban, especially Trump TERRIBLE BAD“ so you‘ll be downvoted
But 2020-2024 showed us that United States of North America have no moral compass. And any North American company will do whatever it needs to in order to support the military industrial complex and the interests of North America.
Then North America will claim that they “care about human rights”.
Hacker sanctions are finally real.
This has no sense
They will just come up with a new Runix OS with Ruvidia drivers. It might be like the time the Germans invented modern rocketry, the pulse engine and the turbine engine.
It's relatively bad news maybe. Same in China.
I'm sure they'll try, just like they tried to copy IBM mainframes, the IBM pc, the Apollo program, and nuclear power.
They're too stupid to do it, you see, all the smart soviets who were capable of thinking were from Ukraine, which is why they're designing Hunter killer drones in a cave with a box of scraps.
Russians without Ukrainians can't invent anything, which is why the t14 and su57 aren't in Ukraine, the semhat exploded on the pad (which would be hilarious if it had a payload), and they're just generally pathetic failures at everything else.
I sure hope this is the case. I know for sure that China will try very hard to develop technology as the world sort of closes access to high tech. I assume Russia will try too. Unfortunately that's how innovation happens sometimes. Extreme limitations lead to extreme efficiency if the other option is total failure.
There aren't many uses where discrete v-cards are needed now and where integrated won't be enough. Machine learning, content editing, engineering and science, mostly. So besides making purchased v-cards less effective or useless, it aims at top consumers, industry, may it be media or production facilities, including MIC. Ah, and gamers, the most opressed minority.
What in the world are you talking about? This just simply isn't true
Intel and AMD chips can support youtube and office apps themselves alright. It is 90% of casual PC usage for home setups and office usage. V-card drivers and discrete v-cards are not required for most people. Is that wrong?
Why bother when these blocks are so easily circumvented with VPN?
Damn, that's fucked.
Yeah, but so are Russians, so it works out.