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Intel PIII: Is Big Brother Inside? (1999)

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Re: Intel PIII: Is Big Brother Inside? (1999)

#61

Post by Daho0n »

qazxcvbnmlp wrote: post #32
JohannMac wrote: post #29

Common to have unique SN in a processor. Let the SW vendors do copy protection too. E.g. at Sonos we used them to associate with the software signed certificate such that you couldn't run a given Players software on another Player without the same SN. When making products via contract manufactures, especially in China, it was a wise procedure.

That is glorious and horrifying. Sounds like it protects your business from counterfeits and hobby hackers at the same time :) Also, I have a Sonos system and it works great!

For now (see other comment with link). I'll never touch Sonos again. They burnt their bridges.

Re: Intel PIII: Is Big Brother Inside? (1999)

#62

Post by b0tzzzzzzman »

PurpleFoxy wrote: post #15
illys wrote: post #9

"Big Brother Inside" for just a unique id? What should we say now about Intel Management Engine?

We already know the management engine is a backdoor/botnet. No intel powered computer is secure or private.

This has been said alot on HN, but I get the feeling it's quickly shrugged off. The real key is out of band communications and out of scope of the OS.

Re: Intel PIII: Is Big Brother Inside? (1999)

#63

Post by pacman2 »

PurpleFoxy wrote: post #15
illys wrote: post #9

"Big Brother Inside" for just a unique id? What should we say now about Intel Management Engine?

We already know the management engine is a backdoor/botnet. No intel powered computer is secure or private.

You may be able to disable it

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3220476/researchers-say-no...

Re: Intel PIII: Is Big Brother Inside? (1999)

#64

Post by sn_master »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #23
ttt0 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's never guaranteed, no matter what payment model. There is plenty of discontinued closed-source software from way before a subscription model became a thing that everyone does, and some of it managed to stay alive only thanks to piracy. With subscriptions it's way worse, because it has to rely on a central server, sometimes for no good reason at all, and you can't even do that. It's just bound to happen that the c…

my Word 97 still works great (and blows away today's software, both foss and not)

No joke. It was one of the first apps I used and in non-European languages its leaps and bounds ahead of most of FOSS today that can't even do RTL right, let alone letter merging etc. And doc files work perfectly with all the modern editors too.

Re: Intel PIII: Is Big Brother Inside? (1999)

#65

Post by jlgaddis »

monocasa wrote: post #43
jamiek88 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>albeit with a nice, NSA-provided open-source RE environment to play in. Absolute game changer for reverse engineering. It was like leveling up three levels instantly.

I still feel more productive in IDA, but getting to that point was for sure a slog that I wouldn't wish on anyone learning RE anymore.

IDA is a godsend compared to when I first started in RE'ing... using SoftIce (DOS) in the early- to mid-90s!

Oh man... +ORC, +Fravia, +HCU, it really was a simpler time back then!

Re: Intel PIII: Is Big Brother Inside? (1999)

#66

Post by internet2000 »

PurpleFoxy wrote: post #15
illys wrote: post #9

"Big Brother Inside" for just a unique id? What should we say now about Intel Management Engine?

We already know the management engine is a backdoor/botnet. No intel powered computer is secure or private.

Apple neuters/disables the ME on the Intel chips used for T2 co-processor Macs: https://support.apple.com/guide/security/uefi-firmware-secur...

Irrelevant now with the switch to ARM, but still pretty interesting they out and out state it.

Re: Intel PIII: Is Big Brother Inside? (1999)

#67

Post by jandrese »

tyingq wrote: post #22
monocasa wrote: post #2

> Q: I've never heard of software "expiring." How is that possible? What a beautiful world that was

Pretty sure I remember Sun compilers, Veritas Volume Manager, and several other pieces of software having license keys that expired in the 1990's. Several of them used something called FlexLM.

Like all good DRM FlexLM causes no end of headaches for people who actually paid for the product, and is trivially defeated by pirates.

Re: Intel PIII: Is Big Brother Inside? (1999)

#68

Post by verst »

snailmailman wrote: post #60
JohannMac wrote: post #29

Common to have unique SN in a processor. Let the SW vendors do copy protection too. E.g. at Sonos we used them to associate with the software signed certificate such that you couldn't run a given Players software on another Player without the same SN. When making products via contract manufactures, especially in China, it was a wise procedure.

When I built my pc the cpu came with some free game or game coupon or something. It wasn’t in the box, I instead had to download and run some AMD software that verified that I was in fact using the CPU. I’m under the impression that it detected my specific CPU not just make/model but some sort of unique ID. Presumably this stops people from claiming the code and reselling the cpu,(or at least without reselling it as…

In November I activated such an AMD Promo for my Ryzen 5000X. The game I got was Far Cry 6. Hilarious because the game keeps getting delayed to now mid September or so of this year, almost a year after I bought the CPU. Not exactly the best Promo to show off the power of the CPU :)

Re: Intel PIII: Is Big Brother Inside? (1999)

#69

Post by monocasa »

kortilla wrote: post #53
tails4e wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, interesting to see that this seems like a niche market thats relitively untapped. What seems initially strange is its protecting SW that can be as much as 100k per seat (e.g. ASIC EDA licenses) I'm sure less scrupulous operations are pirating the SW, though perhaps the EDA vendors know the compabies who do pay are honest lest they are found out so a truly secure licensing system is less critical to them.

With most software in that price category, the actual software is a small piece of what you’re paying for. It’s really support, custom features, etc. Additionally, the potential users that can pay have much bigger legal exposure using the pirated version and just wouldn’t risk it.

I've heard that pretty much the whole Chinese fabless scene runs on cracked EDA tools FWIW.

Re: Intel PIII: Is Big Brother Inside? (1999)

#70

Post by rasz »

whoopdedo wrote: post #27
moonbug wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a common problem back then was chips getting remarked as higher clock bin parts.

I felt at the time that when Intel said "counterfeit" they really meant "clones".

What Intel meant at the time was "someone is selling our chips relabeled to a higher SKU and pocketing our cut". This happened in 1996 with criminal gang remarking 120 to 150, 133 to 166, etc, pocketing extra ~$30-50 per CPU.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsKjX6UGYUQ

Intel was so pissed someone else was making money on binning they locked multiplier on later 133/166/200, all Pentium MMX and later models ending easy overclocking.

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/pentium-200mhz-multipli...

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