Remote ‘Kill Switch’ Added to Intel’s Newest Processor.

[JF-AMD]

Out of band management has been available in servers for as long as I have been in servers. And that has been almost 20 years.

 

[niko084]

Out of band management has been available in servers for as long as I have been in servers. And that has been almost 20 years.

Yes but that's a little different.... We are talking about making your hardware useless here, for the average consumer at that.

I'm pretty certain they will have to put some type of safe guard in otherwise all the big names will simply choose not to use Intel cpu's.. And thus Intel will go out of business, they should make a public statement on this asap now that the rumors are out or this will seriously hurt their business.

 

[JF-AMD]

95viper was the one that brought up out of band management, I was replying

 

[streetfighter 2]

Now I may be an ordinary hyper chicken, but:

Intel AT provides several features that thwart
attempts to circumvent its anti-theft capabilities.
Once Intel AT has been enabled in the BIOS, had
the correct firmware installed on the platform, and
has enrolled with a central console, the capability
will continue to work even if the BIOS is flashed
or the complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor
(CMOS) battery is removed.

and

. . . once a laptop is marked “stolen, ”
responses can include:
• Disable access to encrypted data by
deleting a critical encryption key stored
on the chipset.
• Disable the laptop entirely by blocking
the boot process.
• Disable both the laptop and the data.

from Intel's AT evalution linked by Tatty

My interpretation (as read from Intel's perspective):
"I think if we're intentionally vague we can delay the hackers from abusing this new AT mechanism by up to a day."

Personally I'll let encryption protect my data and I'll protect my laptop.

Also, this popped into my head:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/89250/oni...s-protect-privacy-by-moving-to-remote-village

 

[niko084]

Personally I'll let encryption protect my data and I'll protect my laptop.

I'm just curious but whats your knowledge level...

Encryption can cause HUGE issues if you don't keep a good backup.
I find a lot of people don't understand that part or don't take it into consideration.

Just a friendly note.

 

[overclocking101]

and everyone thought these new chips were going to be the 2nd coming of christ, guess what! locked multi EVEN on the "K" cpu's and now this! nope I wont buy this crap ill stick with what I have or go X58

 

[MatTheCat]

and everyone thought these new chips were going to be the 2nd coming of christ, guess what! locked multi EVEN on the "K" cpu's and now this! nope I wont buy this crap ill stick with what I have or go X58

FFS.

LOL.

Well remote kill switch or not. I certainly won't be purcahsing one of these. Looks it will be Bulldozer for me in March 2011.

 

[F1reFly]

Oh, it's like OnStar for computers (they can remotely turn off a stolen car and prevent it from starting). :/

that and cell phones can be used to eavesdrop. frankly i dont care, i'd rather they just join me in the convo

 

[Batou1986]

I think the whole point of this is to make using TPM encrypted stuff more secure.

While you cant make a TPM encrypted HDD work in another machine, someone may figure out a way to bypass the security on the original machine gaining access to the correct TPM and accessing your files.

If the original system is locked due to this tech and the HDD is encrypted with a TPM it makes it damn near impossible to crack.

 

[Thatguy]

I think the whole point of this is to make using TPM encrypted stuff more secure.

While you cant make a TPM encrypted HDD work in another machine, someone may figure out a way to bypass the security on the original machine gaining access to the correct TPM and accessing your files.

If the original system is locked due to this tech and the HDD is encrypted with a TPM it makes it damn near impossible to crack.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard

 

[pr0n Inspector]

and everyone thought these new chips were going to be the 2nd coming of christ, guess what! locked multi EVEN on the "K" cpu's and now this! nope I wont buy this crap ill stick with what I have or go X58

Blatant lies.

Sandy Bridge K parts' multipliers can go up to 57x. That's 5.7GHz in case you don't know.

 

[Tatty_Two]

FFS.

LOL.

Well remote kill switch or not. I certainly won't be purcahsing one of these. Looks it will be Bulldozer for me in March 2011.

I don't think you could purchase one if you tried and thats really just my point, they are intended for Mobile use and probably OEM only, at the end of the day is an individual (rather than a large corporation) going to spend a lot of money on VPro just to disable one laptop if it gets stolen, the facility may be there in the mobile chip at the hardware level but if the user aint subscribed to the software then as far as I can read it, there is nothing going to happen, remembering that this technology supposidly has been requested by corporate users.

 

[95Viper]

95viper was the one that brought up out of band management, I was replying

And, thank you for the reply.

I was trying to show that there are such options; while, not totally hardware based.
They are not some subversive tactics; they are for the organizations that require or want them.
Also, if, this does take off... I can see other manufacturers following the lead.

The company, I retired from, used them for the protection of our information.

The info was ILLEGALLY released moron...

I don't believe that is productive to this thread (my opinion).

And, it is not very nice to call someone names and flame bait them.

 

[Tatty_Two]

The info was ILLEGALLY released moron...

Less of the insults otherwise I might just do something moronic, I think he was saying that Wikileaks has done nothing illegal as opposed to the guy who actually stole and disclosed the info.

 

[scooper22]

*bump* becaus eI think it's important to know about the SB remote kill pill (which actually has been around since 2008 in Intel's chipsets BTW)

I think it will not be used to shutown half a million of computers but to shut down just a handful important servers just before the groundtroops come marching in. Ah, yes, and the presidents "internet kill switch", which will result in a genocide in the server market, and without the servers there's no infrastructure or economy, which will make a country surrender even faster.