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New PIII: SMP In, Serial Number Out

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the ah-sweet-validation dept.

florin writes: "This article from GamePC talks about the new cB0 stepping of the Intel Pentium III processor. The FC-PGA format has finally been validated for use in multiprocessor systems. After much confusion about this issue, it is good to see 'Now Dual Processor Capable' clearly marked on the retail box. Another item of interest is that Intel has gone ahead and stripped the controversial processor serial number feature from this new PIII, like they announced they would do on their upcoming Willamette CPU. "

4 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. Thank god by geekd · · Score: 3

    Intel has come to thier senses.

    For the past 6 months, I have rejoiced, silently, every time good news about AMD came out.

    "AMD grosses $1 Billon"

    and also celebrated when Intel had a screw up

    "Intel recalls 840 chipset"

    This is not because I hate Intel. I like Intel. The Pentium family of chips has revolutionized home computing. I have a dual celeron machine (BP6) that I am typing on right now. I have a P II 450 machine at work that rulez.

    But, Competition is good

    If AMD wasn't putting the screws on Intel, then they wouldn't give a damn what the consumer wants. They'd be as bad as Microsoft. But, with AMD giving Intel real competition, things couldn't be better in PC hobbyist land. Chips are cheap as all hell, and there is real choice in the market.

    And Intel is forced to pay attention to what we want. We want Dual PIII boxes for cheap. Intel has listened and responded.

    The free market rules, when there is competition.

    -geekd

  2. When the serial # was announced... by Sir_Winston · · Score: 3

    ...there was good news, too. People who valued their privacy, and wanted to be viewed as more than "consumers" tied to a number, found solace in Intel's other announcement about the P!!!. Intel said when announcing the serial #'s that they'd also be implementing in a later stepping a hardware Random Number Generator. Privacy advocates praised that as much as they [expletive deleted] the dreaded Internet-readable serial #. Those new P!!!'s, originally due out late last year, were supposed to include a sensor to read "thermal noise," the completely random motion of atomic particles, and make those random values available to encryption applications. The importance of this is that truly random numbers cannot be calculated in software, they can only be approximated in software, through the use of "pseudo-random number generators." Those PRNGs are currently one of the weakest points (theoretically, at least) in implementing crypto, because a flaw in the "randomness" of their numbers could render encrypted data vulnerable. But natural phenomena like the motion of atoms is truly random, and the proposed Intel sensor would have therefore contributed substantially to the security of data. And yet, nothing has been heard of it since early last year, when it was announced along with the CPU IDs. The most likely scenario is that the utter backlash against the CPU serial #s caused Intel to completely drop its strategy of integrating "e-commerce" and data security features, which is a shame because hardware random number generation would have been almost as big a step forward for privacy as the CPU ID was a step back. But I still like to think that the NSA had something to do with it, and mutter under my breath "Damn gubbmint, takin' ma guns and ma crypto..." ;-)

    --


    "The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
    1. Re:When the serial # was announced... by Elbereth · · Score: 3

      You're half right about most of the points you raised.

      First, you can get true random numbers from software. Just sample the line-in from the SoundBlaster. It's vaguely possible that you'll get repeating values, due to the noise from the case fan(s), but I doubt that's really a concern for most people. This is the Wintel architecture, here.

      Second, Intel did implement the hardware RNG. It's in the i810(e), i820, and i840 chipsets. It was never supposed to be on the CPU itself. There's no way to get hardware RNG on a BX chipset.

      CPU IDs are mostly harmless... your computer has ten other hardware-generated, unique IDs in it already. What do you think the hard drive serial number is? Read the docs on your NIC. Etc, etc.

      Ignorant paranoia.

  3. More room for multiprocessors??? by gklyber · · Score: 3
    "FC-PGA processors are going to be all the rage in multiprocessor environments, there's no doubt about it. After all, they're small (room for more processors in crowded spaces), create less heat (smaller heatsinks, also good for crowded systems), and cheaper than Slot-1 chips, they also perform exactly the same as their larger Slot-1 counterparts."

    Wasn't one of the advertised Slot-1 advantages the ability to put more in for multiprocessing because now the chip was vertical? Now they're saying back to the traditional chip socket form is better for more processors. What gives?