
Messages in this thread
From (Dave Jones)  wrote on 11.07.01 in <>:
> Given the PR disaster that the P3 serial number brought about,
> I'd be surprised if Intel were to revisit that chapter of history :)

Though much of that has been bad PR handling, I think. It's not as if
Intel invented that feature - for example, every s390 system has one (and
so did the whole family at least since the /370, used for licenses, for
example), and everything living on ethernet is supposed to have a unique
MAC address. (Which *has* already been used in tracing authors of
malicious Windows software, I believe.)

OTOH, ISTR that under VM, it's possible to simulate the /370 etc. cpuid of
someone else. Which I know has been used to circumvent license

Then again, the US custom of using the SSN as a generic index would be
rather illegal over here, so that might change peoples attitudes to the
mere existance of those numbers - it does make a difference how big a
stick you can wield.

Not that any of this is important to Linux ...

MfG Kai
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