By Rachel Chalmers
Intel Corp is playing a double game with new features in its chips. Of the two proposed additions to the next mass market microprocessor, one adds security and the other compromises privacy. Intel VP Pat Gelsinger has explained how Intel plans to make its next microprocessor, the Pentium III, at once more trackable and more secure. Intel will add processor serial numbers to the Pentium III. In addition, the company plans to add a random number generator to the core silicon. The processor serial number will be added to the CPUs at the time of manufacture, and will be uniquely burned in. You can think of this processor serial number like the equipment serial number of your cellphone, Gelsinger said, an identifier that’s part of that piece of equipment that’s then being used by the services that run upon it. That means that individual computers on the internet could be readily identified. You think about this maybe as a chat room, Gelsinger suggested, where unless you’re able to deliver the processor serial number, you’re not able to enter that protected chat room. This part of Intel’s announcement has raised the hackles of privacy advocates. This would appear to really seriously endanger privacy on the internet by creating a permanent ID number for every Intel user on the net, David Banisar of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) told the Chicago Tribune. It makes you wonder if maybe Intel should change their logo from ‘Intel Inside’ to ‘Big Brother Inside’. Gelsinger said that Intel has a policy of end user privacy, and that it would be providing the end user with the ability to enable and disable the processor serial number. That controversial proposal, however, is only one of the new features in the PIII. The other is the random number generator, for use in cryptographic applications. Random number generation is incredibly difficult to do in software, so much so that computing pioneer John von Neumann famously said: Anyone contemplating generating random numbers in software is in a state of sin. Since we don’t want any of you to remain in a state of sin, we’re evangelically calling you to repent and providing you the means to do so, Gelsinger joked. The PIII’s new random number generator will use the thermal noise of the semiconductor resistor to create random and nondeterministic numbers. Software can use this data to seed random number generators of its own. This should provide a much stronger foundation for public and private key cryptography, digital signatures and so on. So the privacy compromised by the serial number can be restored in part by using the random number generator to strengthen encryption. Intel gives, and Intel takes away.
