****** Background: http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=intel ****** http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,35950,00.html Intel Nixes Chip-Tracking ID by Declan McCullagh ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 3:00 a.m. Apr. 27, 2000 PDT Hoping to avoid another campaign by privacy activists, Intel has decided not to include a controversial user identification feature in its forthcoming 1.5 GHz Willamette chip. Absent from Willamette's design are a unique ID number and other security measures that could be used to limit piracy by tracking users, an Intel source said Wednesday. "The decision has been made and the engineers have already been told," said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "The gains that it could give us for the proposed line of security features were not sufficient to overcome the bad rep it would give us." In January 1999, Intel said it would wire a unique ID into each Pentium III chip, but then disabled it after privacy activists began a boycott and a prominent House Democrat denounced the plan. An Intel management committee, after hearing from marketing, privacy, and engineering representatives who were opposed to the idea, reportedly made the decision not to include similar features in the much-anticipated Willamette chip, the source said. Besides the serial number, the other missing features include support for hardware digital certificates -- something banking and finance firms would have preferred [...]
