How do you know if something is encrypted?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subliminal_channel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography

Or for more practical implementations: https://blog.frost.kiwi/ssh-over-https-tunneling/ (granted, this one uses normal looking encryption to hide hide maybe unwanted encypted traffic) https://nurdletech.com/linux-notes/ssh/via-http.html

True. That is probably what the UK will settle on too.

What about China? There are VPN in China. They only try to block those that are used to act as if you are not from china.

Company VPN or university VPN are generally allowed.

You can probably block companies offering public VPN services.

But good luck blocking VPN in general.

You know, not even a third of people voted for this guy.

He basically only became Bundeskanzler because 13,8, or over 1/8, of the votes didn’t get any say at all. Also in first try, the Bundestag rejected to inaugurate him.

Basically noone wants him. But thats who we got now.

Look unless you come up with any substantiating, through sources, of your constantly repeated same argument of scale being the only thing that matters, this discussion is over.

Still no source but ok.

Oh right, the famous laws of physics that apparently decree silicon must forever be the cheapest material.

I never said that.

Silicon is cheap because we made it cheap.

True. However that doesn’t mean that, at the current point of technology available to us, scaling a different material in the same way woul get us chepaper or better computing.

To claim nothing else could ever compete requires ignoring how technological progress actually works.

I never claimed that.

If we had poured the same obsessive investment into germanium or gallium arsenide, we’d be having this same smug conversation about them instead.

However this is untrue. There are regular atempts to use Gallium in silicon processing and gallium transistors are in fact already mass produced for power handling applications. So not even the scaling argument holds true about Gallium. The issue is just that gallium transistors are still inherently more costly to produce.

https://softhandtech.com/is-gan-better-than-silicon/

We would need a technological breakthrough to make Gallium viable against silicon. But with current technology it is just worse than silicon from a price/performance standpoint.

Similarly, graphene isn’t too expensive because physics. It’s too expensive because we’re still learning how to make it in bulk with high quality. Give it a fraction of the focus and funding that silicon has enjoyed and watch the cost curve do the same dramatic dive.

True except as I was saying and you are saying here too, we would need some kind of technological breakthrough to make graphene viable.

This is on a Level of development where they hope to have first viable products for some edge cases in the next 10 to 15 years.

https://semiengineering.com/the-race-to-replace-silicon/ https://blacksemi.com/2025/02/06/black-semiconductor-starts-fabone/

So yes in this case we could say invest all into graphene and nothing else. Which will mean that all other semiconductor innovation stops so that maybe in 15 years we have cool brand new graphene computing, or maybe not.

The only real law at play here is the law of economies of scale.

As explained above, in reality there is just no other option available that makes any sense. If you have any other option that will work please tell me and only me so that I can start founding my startup.

Because the big player sure as hell know that silicon shrinking is not working any more and researching for alternatives.

https://inf.news/en/science/0e165f2238a902cf3a3d5c1fbd0d316a.html

Silicon doesn’t have a magical property that makes it uniquely cheap.

Except that is actually the case. Silicon is a widely available material that is easy to work with. And through that beats many other materials immediately.

That doesn’t mean that it will stay that way forever. But it is disingenuous to say that just switching to something else will be better.

your physical laws will look a lot more like a temporary price tag.

Oh I don’t disagree with you here. The question is just how big will the price tag be. Because with what we currently can foresee all other price tags are still pretty enormous.

Sure because apparently I do not understand how it is able to beat the laws of physics.

Lol. You are trolling me right? What have we been talking about?

Sure but no proof an no sources. Come on man it can’t be that hard to find.

Then enligthen me.

Without substantiating? I linked a Wikipedia article as a source, which explains quite a lot of the reasoning for choosing silicon.

The only thing that you reiterate here is economics of scale and you haven’t provided any source that substantiates that there are other materials where the economics of scale might lead to a better and/or cheaper product.

After considering multiple other options for mass production.

Germanium transistors are still mass produced to this day, but only for the niche products where silicon doesn’t cut it.

The semiconductor industry is still constantly looking for other materials to use. Graphene is a big contender.

You act like the industry can switch to a bunch of materials and have better products but they are just too lazy to do it.

But actually more likely is that through its physics and availability silicon is just the best material for the job. Of course unless some scientific breakthough comes along but it is not here yet.

Looking into history is distorted here because you only see what succeeded.

Exept the fist transistor wasn’t even silicon it was germanium.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_transistor

Silicon is used because it is inherently cheaper.

The problrm is that this is already calulated st scale.

Silicon isn’t the best material for semiconductors, it never was. What makes silicon special is that it is the cheapest material for semiconductors.

So unless there is some kind of scientific breakthrough with one of the other semiconductor materials, this equation will not change.

Yes gallim arsenid transistors wold be about 10 times faster. But also about 100 times more expensive.

(Numbers pulled out of my ass.)