Intel To Drop CPU ID Number

slashdoter writes: "Looks like Intel is giving up the ID number thing on the CPU. They will still have it on the PIII but the Willamette will be like the older PII. " Guess the boycott over the fiasco is at an end. Cool that Intel listens to consumers.

Comments

I am not a number...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a free CPU

A couple of things...

[DeepDarkSky]

How was the serial number accessed? I mean, if it was documented, then you'd know it's there. What if it wasn't documented? What if they keep it in there and just not say anything about it? Since CPUs and hardware in general are not exactly "open source", there's nothing to prevent them from putting it in and not have anybody ever know about it, right? Not that Intel would do that, because if anybody ever find out, it'd be PR disaster. Right?

The other thing is, why not just create two versions of the chip? For home users, we can get the version of the chip that does not have the serial number, and for those that want/need the serial number feature, they can create a version that has it. Better yet, make it a separate module that can be added to the CPU, so that while each CPU has a serial number, it cannot be accessed unless this module is added. If corporate/government users want this feature, I don't see why they shouldn't have it. For personal use, I'd say we have to have at least a choice or it should not be there at all.

Re:MAC = Processor ID

[um... Lucas]

As far as I know, Microsoft was embedding the MAC Address in documents created by their products... Which is how the guy that wrote the Melissa virus was caught. Not that that's a good thing!

In a completely separate incedent, it was found that the Windows Registration Wizard was sending all the data about your configuration back to Microsoft, regardless as to whether or not a user said it was okay when they were presented with a dialog asking permission.

Two completely separate incidents, which took place a while back... After the fallout, Microsoft released 2 utilities... One that would replace the standard Windows registration wizard with an :improved: one that actually obeyed your commands, and another that removed the embedded hardware info in Office docuents.

Serial numbers

[Signal 11]

Yes, horray for intel. Now, what about color printers embedding hidden codes? Or your ISP selling your browsing habits? What about doubleclick consolidating cookies with real world users? Why does the NY Times require me to sign in? Or for that matter, dozens of other websites? Where is the outrage over the HTTP standard being encoded to tell the next website you visit where you came from (and what you were searching for if you used a search engine like altavista, google, any "directory-like" service like yahoo, etc)?

Yes, a wonderful victory for consumers. But what about going after the root of the problem - marketing and insufficient legal protections?

Re:Serial numbers

[Kaa]

Now, what about color printers embedding hidden codes?

Wasn't it color copiers? Consumer-level ink-jet doesn't really have enough resolution for all the dirty tricks.

Or your ISP selling your browsing habits?

I am unaware of any. I think that anytime an ISP tries to market the 'net access logs, a huge outcry will result.

What about doubleclick consolidating cookies with real world users?

What about it? They own the data, they can cross-reference it all they want. The problem is not doubleclick, the problem is ownership (or lack thereof) of personal information.

Why does the NY Times require me to sign in? Or for that matter, dozens of other websites?

Doh! Cause it's their site. They are under no obligation to let anybody in. You don't like it, don't go there. Or are you arguing for the younger RMS habits (who, as the story goes, went around the network forcing all the users' passwords to be the same -- on the Thou Shall Not Hide Any Information principle)?

Where is the outrage over the HTTP standard being encoded to tell the next website you visit where you came from

And why the outrage? This doesn't look like a huge threat to privacy. There are a lot of more important things.

But what about going after the root of the problem - marketing and insufficient legal protections?

I wonder what you propose to do about marketing -- outlaw it, maybe?

And insufficient legal protections for what? Privacy? That's a good thing, but has to be done carefully and precisely. I myself favor introducing property rights over personal information: you have unalienable (can't sell it) copyright to your own personal info. Anybody who collects such info automatically gets a license to use it, but not to transfer it (otherwise you couldn't e.g. take pictures of people in the streets or log IP traffic).

Kaa

The Id Number was a good idea gone bad

[The Infamous TommyD]

I have this straight from one of Intel's senior researchers. The original concept was that the CPU ID would be used for tracking assets in an organization. Inventory type stuff. This was actually asked for by major IT departments.

Then: The marketing dept. got hold of the ID number and started asking around about what it could be used for and someone said oooh, e-commerce! It was then that things got out of control and everyone got onto Intel for tracking them, etc.

The sad thing is that you don't need a CPU id if you allow your adversary to execute arbitrary code on your machine.(which you would have to do to allow someone to read your ID #) I mean a nice unique ID number is available by running /sbin/ifconfig

removed?

[coreman]

or just reimplemented in an undocumented way?

Even paranoids have enemies

Finally

[roman_mir]

Remember, the day when you found out about Intel PSN? It was devastating. I remember going to their newsgroups and publishing questions
-1 -, -2 -, -3 - maybe those were not very well articulated questions but, jeez, couldn't they try to answer?
The only responses from Intel rep's that me and other hundreds of people received was to move our questions away from Intel's newsgroup into other newsgroups.
They specifically did not like questions that mentioned overclocking their CPU's, even though they overclock their own CPU's all the time and sell them at higher prices (PII, PIII same core; Pentium 166 was an overclocked Pentium 150 - but only intel is allowed to do this.)

I am happy that AMD did not catch this desease of marking their processors with PINs, it would be a worse blow yet.

Now at least, I can go back the Intel's newsgroups and say: "told you so, suckers!"

the last thing they needed in the first place...

[LocalYokel]

Intel really needs to get their ass in gear on several much more important things:

• Provide a chipset that makes Rambus even halfway worthwhile.
• Differentiate their CPUs by price and performance (L2 cache variances are not enough)
• Release a 1GHz processor to the retail market
• Show support for PC133 and DDR SDRAM
• Prove that the Pentium III processor really does make the Internet more fun

--

CPU ID dead from no MS support

[RayChuang]

Folks,

I think the CPU ID idea used on the Pentium III CPU died real quickly because Microsoft never really supported the idea in Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition and Windows 2000. Given that's 85% of the operating system market, when Microsoft doesn't support the CPU ID#, nobody else is going to support it.

Who do you trust?

[Jouni]

Hard drives can be used for fairly good identity tracking as they are assigned a 'quite' unique ID number when they are low level formatted. This is a method used by some multi-player online games to ban cheaters from their realms. Obviously this is "easily" circumvented by a hacker by re-formatting the hard disk, re-installing all system software and finally the application for the online connection/game. I was fairly amused by the vision of this kid reformatting his system every time he was caught cheating.

But that's all still really besides the point. :)

Digital identity in the right hands can give you the kind of freedom you've never imagined possible. Fully authorized digital identity or certificate in the hands of a third party you trust can be used to arbitrate your business and thus shield you from the more tiring elements of free capitalism such as direct mail marketing. Other elements of your identity, like all contact information, in the right hands can give you powerful roaming freedom, and in the wrong hands an endless nightmare of commercial bombardment.

In the Real World, we leave this sort of trust to the government, the community and society that we are a part of. We have enough trust in our own community to allow them to do things like keeping an elaborate registry on everyone; where they live, where they work and how much they earn. Our identity can be verified at every door and most financial transactions. We have a common agreement that this information will not be abused, and a legal system to enforce it where violations may occur.

Now, since the virtual world does not possess this kind of global authority, the need for verification and identification of an individual has driven us to temporary choices like ID numbers on processors. Quite laughable, actually, both the concept of associating a machine with a person and the worry of someone tracking these cyptic numbers over the Wild, Wild Web. Laughable, maybe, but hitting frighteningly close to home. A piece of our identity in the hands of someone we do not trust to treat us justly.

This will continue to be an issue when we learn to flash the badge of our strong digital identify in the online world. Who will you really let know who you really are? What will they do with this information, where will it be stored?

In God we trust, and God is dead. Now who will hold your number?

--
Jouni Mannonen
3D Evangelist

I liked the serial number

[Animats]

The CPU serial number was a good idea, ruined by stupid marketing statements and unwarranted activist enthusiasm. Sun has had CPU serial numbers for over 15 years, and nobody is bothered by that.

CPU serial numbers are useful mostly for networking, inventory control, and copy protection. If you've had to deal with dongles, or FLEXLM, the License Manager from Hell, CPU serial numbers look like a big improvement. Dongles are notorious for having problems when you have more than one. They usually plug into the printer port (although USB dongles are appearing) and try, not too successfully, to be transparent. On my system, if the printer runs out of paper, the dongle can't respond to the license manager, and the licensed software stops running.

There's a difference...

[Millennium]

You're right. In the physical world, we do have these elaborate "registries" as you call them. But there's a difference between that and strong digital identity. With physical identity, we can always choose not to "flash the badge." With digital identity, you can't do that because you have no control whatsoever over what of your identity people see (you don't have much control in the physical world either, but you can still take precautions to completely hide your identity).

Now, if this "identity" could be stored on my machine and only my machine, and I could at my own discretion choose to hide it or not, that would be one thing. Perhaps CPU ID's would make a starting point, though MAC addresses would be better (they're cross-platform). But that's not how it works now, and businesses will never allow that (since then they have no control, and in business it's all about who controls what).

By the way, I notice people here saying MAC addresses are totally private. Not strictly true. Every Ethernet packet you send out is tagged with both your MAC and the MAC of the machine you're sending to; it's part of the Ethernet protocol. Now, these are both stripped out as soon as the packet passes through a non-Ethernet device (cable modem, DSL modem, T1, etc). But as long as there's only Ethernet between you and The Bad Guy (tm), he can still track that part of where you're going. Guess it's a Good Thing that the Net isn't Ethernet-only...