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E-commerce, anti-theft and anti-fraud efforts to benefit,
but privacy concerns are real.
By Robert Lemos, ZDNN www.zdnet.com
Intel Corp. will unveil plans to embed identification
numbers in its PC processors on Thursday, said industry
insiders and cryptographers familiar with the company's
efforts.
In doing so, the Santa Clara, Calif., chip maker could be
sounding the death knell for anonymity on the Internet.
"The application is a double-edged sword. On the one hand
it offers more security -- for e-commerce and information
security," said Barry Steinhardt, associate director and
privacy expert at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Do you think Intel's plan for registering chips is good for
consumer protection -- or bad for personal privacy? Add your
comments to the bottom of this page.
"As a pure privacy issue, it allows for a means of tracking
individuals on the Net."
Intel briefed the ACLU and others on the details of its new
identification scheme in hopes of heading off any protest by
privacy advocates about its new initiative.
The plan calls for Intel to put a machine-specific ID and
a random number generator in every processor, said sources
familiar with the plans.
The random-number generator will aid e-commerce by allowing
PCs to encrypt data more securely, while the ID numbers will
allow merchants to verify a user's identity and prevent
stolen PCs from getting on the Internet.
What of privacy?
In fact, the plan is sort of a cross between vehicle
identification numbers and caller ID.
Users who buy a PC will have the ID number feature turned
on automatically. Merchants and other "trusted" parties will
be able to verify a user's identity.
'The application is a double-edged sword. It offers more
security ... [and] it allows for a means of tracking
individuals on the Net.'
-- Barry Steinhardt, ACLU
For those users who want to remain private, Intel (Nasdaq:
INTC) will provide a software patch to turn off the
function. This sort of scheme -- which is referred to as
"opt out" because consumers have to opt out of
participating -- mimics the current state of the industry.
That bodes ill for privacy, though. "We would rather that
Intel have the patch installed as the default," said the
ACLU's Steinhardt, who stated that such a policy would let
consumers choose whether they wanted to e-commerce-enhance
their PC.
But more significantly, if the technology is seen as
enabling e-commerce, then users may (effectively) not have a
choice of opting in or out -- the feature may be required of
users by companies before any transactions are made.
Such worries also extend to the collecting of
identification information.
"Intel says they're not keeping a database matching users
to their ID numbers," said Steinhardt, "but the temptation
down the road for someone to keep a database will, most
likely, be too great. It will happen."
Stronger security
Still, even with such concerns, there is no denying the
benefits of the scheme.
"It's a matter of pros and cons," said Michael Slater,
principal analyst for chip watcher Micro Design Resources
Inc. "There is a lot of benefit for e-commerce with
[Intel's] method."
The identification numbers could act like their vehicular
counterparts -- essentially blacklisting stolen PCs from the
Internet.
"This kills theft," said one cryptographer at this week's
RSA Data Security Conference, who had been briefed by Intel
on its plans. "As soon as you go on the Internet, you will
be detected."
For merchants on the Internet, having proof-positive of
their customers will end consumer fraud and cut the cost of
doing business with customers you can't see.
End of overclocking
And for Intel, the ID scheme takes care of a problem that
has been plaguing them for years: Illegal overclocking.
'As soon as you go on the Internet, you will be detected.'
-- Cryptographer
Overclocking is the act of running the processor at higher
speeds, usually an act of the hardware hacker.
But Intel has repeatedly run into companies that buy, say,
a 300MHz Celeron processor, overclock it to 400MHz, and then
sell it as a 400MHz processor.
Not only does this result in lost profits for Intel, but if
the processor has problems running at the higher speed,
Intel is the one blamed -- not the PC maker.
But with an electronic ID attached to each processor,
consumers will be able to check their processor against
Intel's database of products and find out at what speed the
processor was sold.
This still allows hobbyists who want to overclock their PCs
to do so, while cracking down on the frauds.
Intel refused to comment for this story.
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