http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/technology/zdnet/story.html?s=n/zdnn/technology/19990224/199902241506

"The issue is what will be acceptable and when," said Paul Otellini, executive vice president of Intel's architecture business group during an interview at the Intel Developers Forum here.

While surprised at the level of public outcry at Intel's (Nasdaq:INTC) decision to add electronically identifiable serial numbers in its next generation of processors, Otellini has no doubt that the Santa Clara, Calif. company's security scheme will eventually gain acceptance in the market.

He pointed to the 500,000-plus people who signed up for FreePC.com's giveaway of computers. To get one of the 30,000 PCs, each customer would be subject to constant advertisements and give up a great deal of personal information.

"The people who are willing to give up their privacy for a free PC are our market," he said.

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), February 25, 1999

Answers

Well, we'll see how long Intel will last by giving away free P.C.'s. Totally ridiculous statement: "The people who are willing to give up their privacy for a free PC are our market," he said. This has not been Intel's market and will see if it will be in the future...I doubt it seriously.

-- Texan (alamo@ranch.com), February 25, 1999.

Hot link:

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/technology/zdnet/story.html?s=n/z dnn/technology/19990224/199902241506

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), February 25, 1999.

Let em add the damn things. There will be a plethora of software gimmicks on the market (would write one myself except I expect a flood of freeware) to turn off the ID or to substiute a fake for the ID in the chip. The market will rule, one way or another.

Evidence is good that Intel and MS are trying to take the PC market down the road that IBM and Apple followed by locking out all the other hardware and software vendors. If so, the market will eventually throw up another company that will become the great force in personal computing, and WINTEL will become as irrelevant to the future as IBM is today.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), February 25, 1999.

Arlin,

Here's a quote from the article that got my attention:

[snip]

"Why does adding 64 fuses to a chip raise such a brouhaha?" said Pat Gelsinger, vice president and general manager of Intel's desktop products group. "You have no less than three ID numbers on your computer that can be used to identify you."

[snip}

If there are already three ID numbers, why the effort to have a fourth?

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), February 25, 1999.

AMD and Cyrix, anyone?

-- vbProg (vbProg@MicroSoftAndIntelSucks.com), February 25, 1999.

Yep!! The Driver dining room is an Intel Free Zone!!! Three seriously smokin' AMD K-6's fer me!!!!

Chuck

-- Chuck, night driver (rienzoo@en.com), February 25, 1999.

Got a Mac?

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), February 25, 1999.

WW is on his second Cyrix now. Why pay big bucks for the "dancing cleansuit" ads and to get a little sticker for the PC's case? I put the seven hundred bucks I saved into a scanner and a second printer (a laserjet).

But it's nice to know what Intel is doing with that machine I helped build for them last year. They're shooting themselves in the foot with it!

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), February 25, 1999.

Went to Intel site to send them an e-mail. Jumped around for a few minutes -- but no e-mail addresses I could find.
Was going to tell them to f* off with their "Big Brother" chip, and that since they even considered the idea, I was going to go with AMD or Cyrix next time. That they are not trustworthy or deserving of my future business.
BOYCOTT INTEL

-- vbProg (vbProg@IntelAndMicrosoftSuck.com), February 25, 1999.