Note that they also banned Chinese inverters at the same time. Industrial inverters are still made in the US but solar inverters are often made in China. So is this an attack on home solar and solar farms?
National Security Determination Threat Posed by Foreign-Produced Robotic Devices [pdf]
71–78 of 78 posts
Re: National Security Determination Threat Posed by Foreign-Produced Robotic Devices [pdf]
#72Note that they also banned Chinese inverters at the same time. Industrial inverters are still made in the US but solar inverters are often made in China. So is this an attack on home solar and solar farms?
Its an attack on solar in the aggregate, similar to how they're using DOE must run orders to keep coal plants generating needlessly.
Powerplants under DOE emergency orders are producing less energy than before - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49002828 - July 2026
> The Department of Energy ordered six power plants to delay their retirements last year. Two of them produced zero electricity in the first quarter of 2026, and another one is now offline for repairs.
Re: National Security Determination Threat Posed by Foreign-Produced Robotic Devices [pdf]
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Removing an internet connection doesn't really solve much when you're talking about autonomous AI-driven robots with vision and hearing. It's a whole different category to toys, refrigerators, etc. My refrigerator isn't going to suddenly pick up a weapon and start attacking things on command. Nor does it have an easy way to receive instructions through side channels. I'm not saying I agree with Trump's policy - but r…
You have to realize that in a war China will use everything they can against us, including power converters (force a blackout), cars (drive-by-wire car will drive into a tree to kill a high ranking official), routers (disconnect the internet to make command and control difficult for our military). And a zillion other things. A refrigerator could be forced to overheat and burn you house down killing you and your famil…
Yes, I agree. I think you misunderstood me though. I wasn't saying refrigerators aren't an attack vector. I was using them as a comparison to make the point that a policy of blocking internet access is far less effective on an autonomous robot with vision and hearing (since it can easily communicate in other ways) than for a refrigerator (where the policy actually has a good chance of disabling the attack).
You need something more than just disabling internet access if you don't want robots sourced from military rivals to remain a strong risk.
Re: National Security Determination Threat Posed by Foreign-Produced Robotic Devices [pdf]
#74Note that they also banned Chinese inverters at the same time. Industrial inverters are still made in the US but solar inverters are often made in China. So is this an attack on home solar and solar farms?
There's some clarification here, see the editors note at the end:
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/07/28/fcc-bans-foreign-prod...
So there won't be an immediate impact on solar inverters, but there might be a long term impact on ease of use (no more OTA firmware updates) or price (made in USA costs more).
Re: National Security Determination Threat Posed by Foreign-Produced Robotic Devices [pdf]
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember a big push by business journals back in the 2000s with claims that "executives who offshore work get 18% greater bonuses than executives who don't".
Would love to see that report if you have a link
The office I worked in back then subscribed to lots of business journals. The one I remember the most was Harvard Business Journal. I'm certain that the articles were based on a McKinsey report. I started working there in 2004, so it would have been sometime in the 2000-2006 timeframe. I had a long bus ride, so I would take a couple with me every night to read.
Re: National Security Determination Threat Posed by Foreign-Produced Robotic Devices [pdf]
#76Ah, the newly popular "let's make the policy unusually broad and treat all foreign production as presumptively dangerous, regardless of country, manufacturer or security practices, this way we're more transparent about prioritizing a bribe rather than our stated concerns". > Advanced robotic devices are inherently networked systems which creates broad attack surfaces and leaves them vulnerable to data exfiltration, r…
> Ah, the newly popular "let's make the policy unusually broad and treat all foreign production as presumptively dangerous, regardless of country, manufacturer or security practices, this way we're more transparent about prioritizing a bribe rather than our stated concerns". IIRC, these policies are backdoor way to ban Chinese products without explicitly banning Chinese products (because the administration is trying…
It’s not them trying to make nice. It’s them trying to extort China and China fucking knows it. God I hate this timeline.
Re: National Security Determination Threat Posed by Foreign-Produced Robotic Devices [pdf]
#77> In response to this threat, the White House convened an executive branch interagency body with appropriate national security expertise, see 47 U.S.C. § 1601(c)(1), comprising agencies that included appropriate national security agencies, id. § 1601(c)(4), which determined jointly and severally that: All foreign-produced advanced robotic devices pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States…
> executive branch interagency body with appropriate national security expertise
Pete and his drinking buddies, probably.
Re: National Security Determination Threat Posed by Foreign-Produced Robotic Devices [pdf]
#78The irony is this will harm US manufacturing, not help it. Manufacturing is the sector that most depends on robotics. Companies will now have to sue the administration so they can continue operations without this new regulatory hindrance. I thought this president was supposed to eliminate regulations, not impose newer and stupider ones.
I read somebody point out that the cold war roles have reversed. Now the US is protectionist and isolationist, and the likely eventual outcome will be the same for the US as it was for the USSR.
> and the likely eventual outcome will be the same for the US as it was for the USSR.
Split into a bunch of states with only one of them getting the debt burden and the nukes? and they try to invade some other 'ex-US' states a couple decades later?