<http://img.cmpnet.com/tw/newsletters/scoop-top.gif> The Scoop http://img.cmpnet.com/tw/newsletters/blank.gif <http://img.cmpnet.com/tw/newsletters/blank.gif> http://img.cmpnet.com/tw/newsletters/blank.gif <http://img.cmpnet.com/tw/newsletters/blank.gif> http://img.cmpnet.com/tw/newsletters/blank.gif <http://img.cmpnet.com/tw/newsletters/blank.gif> By Fred Langa By Fred Langa InformationWeek You probably saw the original coverage of Intel's announcement that it would embed an individual serial number in each Pentium III and Celeron chip. The 96-bit ID can identify the user's PC to any software that knows how to ask. Immediately after the announcement, various consumer watchdog groups went ballistic. Epic, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, launched a boycott of Intel, calling it the "Big Brother Inside" campaign. Epic says the processor serial number, "would likely be collected by many sites, indexed and accumulated in databases...The records of many different companies could be joined without the user's knowledge or consent to provide an intrusive profile of activity on the computer." Intel immediately backed off a bit by announcing that although the serial number would ship enabled on every chip, Intel would provide equipment manufacturers with a small software applet that could be used to prevent access to the number. However, the software must work (it hasn't been tested yet); it must be properly installed on each PC; and it must be run after every reboot. Epic says that because this approach "relies on a software patch that must run each and every time that a user turns on the computer, it is susceptible to tampering by other software programs." So, Epic's boycott is still in place: The group insists that Intel should disable the processor serial number at the hardware level, where it will stay disabled until the PC owner turns it on. To further muddy the waters, the processor serial number may not be very secure. CMP Media's Electronic Engineering Times quoted cryptography expert Bruce Schneier, who talked about the prospect that the serial numbers can be forged or stolen: "A system is only as secure as the smartest hacker," he said. "All it takes is for one person to defeat the tamper resistance. There's always someone who manages to unravel the protection. There isn't a copy-protected piece of software that hasn't been stripped of its protections and posted to hacker bulletin boards. This won't be any different." (For the full story, go to "Intel ID Protection Scheme Called Insufficient.") Of course, there are legitimate and useful purposes for this kind of ID, especially for resource-tracking within an enterprise. Indeed, some workstation manufacturers already include similar functions on their enterprise-ready boxes, and some enterprise software products use these serial numbers for licensing. But Intel is attempting to broaden this practice to an unprecedented degree by putting the ID number on every chip and enabling it by default. Toss in only weak assurances of the serial number's security and only a weak turn-off option, and you're got a firestorm of protests. Last week, I conducted an informal online poll among the readers of Windows Magazine. The reaction was eye-opening: Out of hundreds of posts, virtually all were vehemently anti-Intel. And in that huge majority, most people swore their next PC purchase would be AMD-based, until and unless Intel either removes the processor serial number or allows it to be disabled in hardware. One reader suggested the clever idea of resurrecting the old "turbo" switch approach and placing a simple serial number enable/disable button on the front of every PC. (You can read more on the controversy and see reader reaction at Windows Magazine: Big Brother Inside?.) I was amazed at the absolute intensity of the reader posts. It's as though the processor serial number was the last straw for many people: Intel's history of high prices and other public relations fumbles (like the floating-point math bug) seem to have built up a huge reservoir of resentment that's now spilling over. I think we're seeing the start of a strong anti-Intel backlash, analogous to the anti-Microsoft fervor that's changing the operating system landscape. Fred Langa is a senior consulting editor and columnist for Windows Magazine. Fred's free weekly newsletter is available via subscribe(a)langa.com <mailto:subscribe@langa.com> . You can contact him at fred(a)langa.com <mailto:fred@langa.com> or via his website at http://www.langa.com <http://www.langa.com> . http://www.techweb.com/ <http://www.techweb.com/>