[107717] in Cypherpunks
Intel Announces P3 Serial Numbers
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Eric Cordian)
Thu Jan 21 18:35:17 1999
From: Eric Cordian <emc@wire.insync.net>
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 17:20:13 -0600 (CST)
Reply-To: Eric Cordian <emc@wire.insync.net>
ZD-net on Intel's plans for "Caller-ID" on PCs
-----
Intel Corp. will unveil plans to embed identification numbers in its
PC processors on Thursday, according to industry insiders and
cryptographers familiar with the company's efforts.
In doing so, the Santa Clara, Calif., chip maker could be sounding the
death knell for anonymity on the Internet.
"The application is a double-edged sword. On the one hand it offers
more security -- for e-commerce and information security," said Barry
Steinhardt, associate director and privacy expert at the American
Civil Liberties Union. "As a pure privacy issue, it allows for a means
of tracking individuals on the Net."
Intel briefed the ACLU and others on the details of its new
identification scheme in hopes of heading off any protest by privacy
advocates about the initiative.
The plan calls for Intel to put a machine-specific ID and a random
number generator in every processor, said sources familiar with the
plans. The random-number generator will aid e-commerce by allowing PCs
to encrypt data more securely, while the ID numbers will allow
merchants to verify a user's identity and prevent stolen PCs from
getting on the Internet.
What about privacy?
In fact, the plan is sort of a cross between vehicle identification
numbers and caller ID.
Users who buy a PC will have the ID number feature turned on
automatically. Merchants and other "trusted" parties will be able to
verify a user's identity.
For those users who want to remain private, Intel (INTC) will provide
a software patch to turn off the function. This sort of scheme, which
is referred to as "opt out" because consumers have to opt out of
participating, mimics the current state of the industry.
That bodes ill for privacy. "We would rather that Intel have the patch
installed as the default," said the ACLU's Steinhart, who stated that
such a policy would let consumers choose whether they wanted to
enhance their PC for e-commerce.
More significantly, if the technology is seen as enabling e-commerce,
then users may effectively have no choice of opting in or out -- the
feature may be required by companies to do business with them on the
Internet.
Such worries also run to the collection of identification information.
"Intel says they're not keeping a database matching users to their ID
numbers," said Steinhart, "but the temptation down the road for
someone to keep a database will, most likely, be too great. It will
happen."
Stronger security
Still, even with such concerns, there is no denying the benefits of
the scheme.
"It's a matter of pros and cons," said Michael Slater, principal
analyst for chip watcher Micro Design Resources Inc. "There is a lot
of benefit for e-commerce with [Intel's] method."
The identification numbers could act like their vehicular counterparts
-- essentially, blacklisting stolen PCs from the Internet. "This kills
theft," said one cryptographer at the RSA Data Security Conference who
had been briefed by Intel on its plans. "As soon as you go on the
Internet, you will be detected."
For merchants on the Internet, having proof-positive of their
customers will end consumer fraud and cut the cost of doing business
with customers you can't see.
End of overclocking
And for Intel, the ID scheme takes care of a problem that has been
plaguing it for years: illegal "overclocking."
Overclocking is the act of running the processor at higher than
registered speeds, usually an act of the hardware hacker.
Nevertheless, Intel has repeatedly run into companies that buy, say, a
300MHz Celeron processor, overclock it to 400MHz, and then sell it as
a 400MHz processor.
Not only does this result in lost profits for Intel, but if the
processor has problems running at the higher speed, Intel gets blamed
-- not the PC maker.
With an electronic ID attached to each processor, consumers will be
able to check their processor against Intel's database of products and
find out at what speed the processor was sold. This would still allow
hobbyists who want to overclock their PCs to do so, but it would crack
down on fraud.
--
Eric Michael Cordian 0+
O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"
