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Intel Updates vPro Platform and Features
MojoKid writes "Intel's has certified the Core 2 Duo E6550, E6750, and E6850 processors for vPro, and is releasing the new low-power Q35 Express chipset with a companion ICH9-DO Southbridge, and 82566DM Gigabit Network controller. With these new chispets and technologies, the vPro platform offers next-generation Intel Active Management Technology, enhanced Intel Virtualization Technology, and Intel Trusted Execution Technology (aka Intel TXT). vPro also supports next-generation management standards like WS-MAN and DASH (draft 1.0 spec) and v1.2 of the Trusted Platform Module. Intel has plans to provide continual updates to the vPro platform and will likely enhance vPro further after the launch of their 'Montevina' platform in the first half on 2008."
Do not want!
"Intel Trusted Execution Technology". Way to sound ominous.
What's with this naming practice that seems to be going on in every god damn company? I can't even start a fricking sentence with name like vPro, iTunes, iFolder, omgXIITLOL since first letter should be in CAPS. Well, I'm not sure about english grammar but at least finnish grammar forces capitals.
You don't know what you don't know.
...more interesting than a link to a marketing blurb would be a link to the TPM-specifications. Actually, i do trust a platform - until it's "tpm-enabled".
All new initiatives and 'innovations' from Intel have been closed source, secretive and the technology is available to a few limited US h/w mfrs. The reason Linux became so successful is because of Intel's low-cost, standards-compliant, open-source hardware; but with initiatives like virtualisation, vPro, multi-threaded compilers etc. the balance gets tilted further in favour of TCPA and DRM partners; and puts Linux at a disadvantage in the Enterprise.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Intel Updates vPro Platform and Features.. ..in their continuing efforts to help Microsoft mutate the personal computer into the final planned state of being essentially a tamper-proof remote contolled type-writer and entertainment vending machine for the masses.
How difficult would it be to mod a mobo, removing the TPM? Is TET (because Execution begins with the letter E) done in Microcode or is it all in silicon?
Aaah what I really want to know is about those "chispets", are they some kind of pokemon from intel or something?
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... Intel Updates PPro Platform and Features.
I sure hope they have been updating the Pentium Pro!
Interestingly, Richard Stallman warned us about "Treacherous computing" years ago. It's sad that these things are becoming reality.
.: Max Romantschuk
Others have commented on the TPM and DRM aspects of vPro, but the part that interests me most is the remote access functionality. Is this coming to desktops now?
... which on the positive side could mean that we get BMC/LOM capabilities soon on normal home machines as well.
Most modern servers have remote management capability these days, through some kind of Lights-Out Management (LOM) system that works even when the operating system is dead or when the host CPU is powered off. It's not just the high profile Sun/HP/IBM brands that have such capability --- even Dell servers have BMC hardware (a small embedded microcontroller) running a LOM and providing access through IPMI, and have had it for many years. I've found all these LOM systems extremely useful, even without the more recent remote KVM features.
I'd love this kind of functionality independent of the running O/S to appear on desktop motherboards too, but motherboard manufacturers have traditionally kept server and desktop markets separate. Is there any sign that the new vPro chipsets could start moving such functionality towards the desktop too?
From the videos, it doesn't seem so, as they're targetted at corporates. But the worries that people have expressed about the TPM/DRM side of vPro suggest that the desktop isn't far away
As always, a powerful tool can be used both for good and for bad, and a BMC could do unwanted things as well as providing a very useful LOM. However, if it can be controlled by the end user, this sounds like useful technology.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Are there any working implementations of AMD's IOMMU (not GART)? Can I buy one right now?
I think my Adblock is broken because there's this Intel advertisement at the top of slashdot where I usually expect to see the first article.
Seriously though, adblock should just automatically block anything with the text "next-generation".
"Trusted Execution", "Digital Rights Management", "Patriot Act", "Plays 4 Sure",
"SecuROM", "Windows Genuine Advantage", "Operation Iraqi Freedom", etc...
I really dislike it when the creators of evil things add one final slap in the face
by giving the evil a name that is the exact opposite of what it is. This is beyond
euphemism. I'm amazed, kinda impressed, but mostly disgusted that there are people
who can tolerate such evil ideas in their heads let alone commit to such projects
-- but the names really add that evil flair.
What's next? "Net Fairness" to describe traffic shaping or a tiered Internet?
"Your Software" to describe a software leasing model?
I wish the words "Trust", "Patriot", "Secure", "Protection", "Sure", "Safe",
"Fair", etc, didn't reflexively make me think of the exact opposite ideas,
but that's what happens when marketing people, or lawmakers, use such terms
to describe their untrustworthy, insecure, unsafe, unfair schemes.
Maybe this marketing tactic has been used for decades or centuries. Maybe
the Roman Empire had their own extreme euphemisms for decimations, crucifixions,
and tax collecting. But I do feel like there are a relatively high number of
evil projects in this millennium with names that are totally, insanely,
conspicuously opposed to what is actually being described. I think we're
in the middle of a wave of this kind of thing. Something about the way
various governments used 9/11 as an excuse to ramp up police state activity
has set a pattern of rhetoric and behavior that industry, with their own desire
for consumer control, has embraced for their own projects.
How difficult would it be to mod a mobo, removing the TPM? Is TET (because Execution begins with the letter E) done in Microcode or is it all in silicon?
Why mod when you can buy a motherboard without it? When I went shopping for Intel motherboards a few weeks ago I noticed TPM and non-TPM versions of the same motherboard.
Before someone out there decides to write "But what about buying from Dell, HP, etc?" note we are discussing modding. Someone who is going to mod a motherboard should be able to operate a screwdriver and install a motherboard.
Open Source Intel AMT Drivers and Tools. (the part that runs on the PC), Intel Active Management Technology Reference Design Kit (the part that runs on a server and remotely takes over the PC).
Do not want!
l able.htm
No problem, Intel has motherboards for you too. I was specing out a quad core and noticed Intel has TPM and non-TPM versions of the same motherboard, for example the D975XBX2.
http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/bx2/bx2_avai
The non-TPM version seems to have more features too, digital audio out, 8 SATA instead of 4, IEE1394/Firewire, 3 year warranty rather than 1 year.
WS-Management (look it up on dmtf.org) is the protocol being used for remote hardware (BMC) management.
Because it's already cracked.
They think it allows them to observe unobtrusively.
What really happens is it allows us to observe them thinking they are observing us unobtrusively. Stupid bunch of scriptkiddies.
Heh. Honeypot, anyone?
Number one, managing access on a per-page basis couldn't be done on iNTEL until now?
We knew that Microsoft has made their place by selling unsafe software for all these years. Now we see that iNTEL has done the same. And we see that, just like Microsoft, when the power of CPUs actually makes it possible for them to sell amost competitive products that are built correctly, they still have built them correctly to the wrong standards. And we will see that they aren't really competive, after all. Maybe watching video will mostly work without too many glitches, but thid inversion of trust they call TPM is going to make it impossible to use more than half of the cycles that should be available from your CPU, and that only if you have just one virtualized machine.
And Symantec's stupid anti-virus hypervisor? It's broken already. Now there's one more speedbump between you and my keyloggers.
All you iNTEL fanbois, look what your fanaticism just bought you.