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Intel's Sandy Bridge Processor Has a Kill Switch
An anonymous reader writes "Intel's new Sandy Bridge processors have a new feature that the chip giant is calling Anti-Theft 3.0. The processor can be disabled even if the computer has no Internet connection or isn't even turned on, over a 3G network. With Intel anti-theft technology built into Sandy Bridge, David Allen, director of distribution sales at Intel North America, said that users have the option to set up their processor so that if their computer is lost or stolen, it can be shut down remotely."
I'm sure the virus writers are rubbing their hands with glee waiting to get their hands on one of these chips.
Actually, Kill-switch based malware is much less valuable in reality than other types of hacks. If this were a server processor, I could see the value in an enhanced remote server-kill. Because these are basic home-use processors though, remote kill viruses probably won't get much farther than proof-of-concept.
Botnets are much more lucrative in the malware world - processor uptime is much more valuable than processor downtime.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
I don't know what Intel is putting into those chips, but I am highly doubtful it is the way the article states it.
Chip real estate is expensive. So Intel is going to put a complete 3G module on the CPU and use it only for this feature? And to top it off, it has some kinda of separate battery, cause you know, it works when the chip is off? Nonsense.
This is probably some feature that gets build into the AMT support of some chipsets, maybe on Laptops that have a 3G connection already.But the way they are describing this? I call BS on that.