On Thu, 04 Feb 1999 12:09:15 +0100, Markus Becker 
	<bec### [at] zessuni-siegende> wrote:
>Margus Ramst wrote:
>> 
>> And Intel had the "great" idea of this identification code in PIII... Big
>> Brother Inside.
>
>I don't know what people want (or people don't know, for
>that matter). At first everyone shouts "make a unique ID
>into every processor so that faked and overclocked CPUs
>would be history." Now that they've done it, everyone
>is concernde about privacy. People, this CPUID can
>be switched off with no chance to get it back on without
>restarting your computer.

The concern is that some software manufacturers and e-commerce
sites will require you to have a CPUID to use their software
or site (though what that does to people with AMD processors or
P-IIs I don't know) and that someone who uses such software or
sites regularly will be forced to leave the ID on whether they
want to or not.

And I didn't hear too many people complaining about overclocked
CPUs.  It seems Intel would be the one hurt the most by that,
except in the cases where a CPU is overclocked at the factory.
That case is easy enough to solve by going back to stamping the
intended clock frequency on the case, as they did with 486en.

No, Intel claims they won't use the ID for those purposes anyway.
Their claim is that it makes E-commerce more secure.  How, 
exactly?  By tying a particular customer to a particular computer.
So if I don't have Internet access myself but get it through the
local public library, I'm screwed.  Guess this is Intel's way of
selling more processors that people don't really need.

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