Foreigners in America may be blocked from sitting down at any keyboard connected to any decent-sized cluster of computers unless they get an American friend to get them an “export license”:
“The Commerce Department, in the Federal Register, has proposed some significant changes to the Export Control Rules. The changes seem subtle and arcane (a change of ‘and’ to ‘or’, changing country of citizenship to country of birth OR citizenship (whichever is more restrictive), and a couple of “clarifications”). But the implications appear huge, especially the ‘and’ to ‘or’ change. Assuming I’m reading this correctly, it sounds like whoever allows a foreign citizen to use a supercomputer (or other export controlled device) has to get an export license and approval from the federal government. And just about every remotely decent cluster qualifies.”
(Thanks, John H Doe!)