“The Cuban PCs have Intel Celeron processors with 80 gigabytes of memory (sic) and 512 RAM and are equipped with Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system. Both could be violations of a U.S. trade embargo, but not something Washington can do anything about in the absence of diplomatic relations with Havana. Clerks said the PCs were assembled by Cuban companies using parts imported from China.”
Now, there’s an idea for a future “24″ episode.
The June 4, 2009 letter (originally marked “confidential”) to Intel from the SEC states: “We are aware of a May 2008 news report that PCs in Cuba contain your Celeron processors. Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria are identified by the State Department as state sponsors of terrorism, and are subject to U.S. economic sanctions and export controls.”
Intel Celeron chips in Cuba: paging Jack Bauer? Probably not.
OMG! Intel Celeron chips in terrorists' hands
A letter from The Securities and Exchange Commission to Intel is not likely to inspire a future episode of “24.”
Maybe there’s more to this than meets the eye but a lowly Celeron chip (one of Intel’s bottom-of-the-performance-barrel processors) is hardly the chip to designate as a threat to national security. In short, data-crunching server farms–assuming they exist–in Cuba are not built with Celeron processors.
Brooke Crothers has served as an editor at large at CNET News,ugg on sale, an editor at Dow Jones’ Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, and a senior editor at InfoWorld. His CNET blog covers chip technology and computer systems, and how they define the computing experience. He also contributes to The New York Times’ Bits and Technology sections. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. Follow Brooke on Twitter @mbrookec.