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To: HIA who wrote (71915)	1/23/1999 5:56:00 PM
From: grok	Respond to of 186894

I think that this serial number thing is a spinoff of the fact that Intel needed to make a technology change for something called "cache ram redundancy" which means that they can avoid losing chips which have a bad sram bit by using laser repair to replace the bad bit (actually a row or column of bits) with a spare row or column which have been provided for this purpose. "Laser repair" means that a laser beam blows aluminum fuses. However, Intel and everyone else is switching from aluminum metal to copper metal which is a problem for laser repair. Therefore, I believe that Intel is moving to another fusing method which uses flash ram cells for fuses. All is this just manufacturing trivia which normally no one would care about. However, I image that a bunch of Intelers were sitting around brainstorming about what else they could do with the flash now that they needed it anyway. Along with worthy ideas like "we could use it to optimize self-timed circuits for better performance" came "we could use it screw people who are overclocking by puting a serial number on each chip." The latter idea was warmly embraced by marketing but then they started to worry about how this would look to the public. So they decided to package this idea as if it were a security feature. Of course, maybe I am just the suspicious type.

To: HIA who wrote (71915)	1/23/1999 6:43:00 PM
From: Paul Engel	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 186894

HIA - Re: " Intel's new chip broadcasts a serial number to the web...and therefor acts like a "hardware cookie"? Who's going to buy something like that? " Anybody AS STUPID AS YOU to believe this nonsense would be a good candidate to buy the "new chip". Look, CLOWN - the new chip contains a unique serial ID and a random number generator - and BROADCASTS NOTHING ! The ID and random number generator are available to be used by software programs which can use them for data security purposes. A user has the option to "turn off" these features. YOUR IDIOTIC mis-understanding of what Intel's new CPU does just reconfirms that there are some pretty dumb whackos out there. Paul

To: HIA who wrote (71915)	1/23/1999 10:03:00 PM
From: semi2000	Respond to of 186894

I think you are wrong. If the CPU with help of OS does not broadcast CPU ID (which alomst certainly it will not), then browser software has the responsibility to communicate to web server. Given HTTP protocol over TCP/IP, current environment variables transferred do not have any place holder for CPU ID. Thus it is upto Microsoft and Netscape to decide how much and what "environment" information to send to web server. In intranet if company DOES run a TCP/IP based program on client which broadcasts such information to central repository then it is perfectly legit for the security and intergrity of company.