INTEL'S Pentium III brings the user more than the usual performance boost of a new processor. The chip, released two weeks ago, includes a built-in serial number that other computers can recognise over the Internet. Short of implanting the users themselves with a Net-readable serial number, nothing else could make it easier to assemble detailed information on Internet users for marketing or surveillance purposes. Outraged privacy advocates have called for a boycott of the Pentium III (PIII) and have asked the US government to halt its release. They say the serial number is the beginning of the end of personal privacy on the Internet and some have suggested that the serial number was included at the behest of US intelligence agencies.
On the positive side, the PIII promises the performance of a high-powered workstation on a standard PC. It includes a new set of instructions - the basic tasks a processor carries out millions of times a second. "Pentium III will enable the user to receive high-quality streaming video and audio even over a fairly thin data pipe such as a analogue telephone line," said Michael Aymar, a senior Intel official. "You will even see a significant improvement the processor's ability to run recognition applications."
For the home user, this means better games performance and the ability to download and decode Internet graphics more quickly. "I believe that the computer industry is now ready to move from a character-based medium with pictures, to a true graphics-based medium," said Adam Hertz, vice-president with the Internet search engine, Excite. Intel says it included the serial number for the corporate computer market, to enable companies to track and manage their PCs more easily. For instance, a business could permit only the serial number of the managing director's PC to access the company's most sensitive information.
Electronic commerce institutions such as online banks have also welcomed the serial number, because it could allow them to offer greater security to customers. Only serial numbers registered to a particular user would be allowed to access that user's account. Groups that advocate online civil rights say the negative effects far outweigh the positive, however. The serial number would be a huge boost to the already formidable range of tools used to assemble information about Internet users. Registration forms, cookies and the databases compiled to track users' buying and browsing habits would gain enormously by having each PC uniquely identified. It might be possible, for example, to correlate differing profiles tied to the same serial number to assemble a profile not just of individual users, but of family groups.
Using similar tactics, police and intelligence agencies could use the number, not to investigate specific offences, but to routinely track the activities of millions of online users. The real-world equivalent would be to have an electronic policeman at your side at all times, just in case you or someone you contact might do something of interest to them at some time. Intel has worked hard in the last month to try and dispel these fears and reassure PC users that their personal information is safe from prying eyes. For instance, it has created a program which allows a PC owner to turn off the identification number. The company has also encouraged websites to provide users with a method to scramble serial numbers so that the number used on the Internet does not match the number on the chip. Intel has also said it will not keep a database of chip serial numbers. Aymar admits, though, that the company may be able to tell approximately when, and therefore to whom, a particular chip was sold.
However on February 22nd, the German computer magazine CT found a way to read the serial number without the user's knowledge, albeit using some fairly complex cracking techniques.
Privacy groups such as the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Centre (EPIC) are speculating that US government agencies pressured Intel into including the identifier.
"We have repeatedly asked Intel if the NSA or the FBI requested them to include the serial number," said Dave Banisar, policy director of EPIC. "Their only response is that their largest customers have requested the serial number. The US Government is one of Intel's largest customers."
In the meantime Intel insists that that it has provided adequate levels of privacy for Pentium III users.
"Users can disable the serial number from the configuration software," said Seth Walker, a spokesperson for Intel. "We are also recommending that PC manufacturers disable the serial number in the system BIOS (the computer's built-in software instructions) and we advise users to choose carefully which websites they spend their time on."
However, once the serial number is enabled in the BIOS it is not easy for the average computer user to disable it.
Meanwhile, Intel is aggressively marketing the new processor. For instance a 450 MHz Pentium III will cost $496, just $21 more than a Pentium II. The company plans to phase out the Pentium II in the second half of this year. It will replace it with the Celeron processor at the low end of the market, and the Pentium III and Xeon processors at the high-end.
"Only the lunatic fringe game players and multimedia freaks will find Pentium III useful in the beginning," said Keith Diefendorff, editor of Microprocessor Report, in San Jose, California. But by the second half of 1999 prices will drop, new software will be available and Pentium III will be as pervasive as the Pentium II is now, he says.
In the long term, a wide variety of applications will benefit. Microsoft's Windows 98 already takes advantage of Pentium III and there are over 100 software vendors and Web developers with new applications in the pipeline. So despite privacy concerns, like any Microsoft or Intel upgrade, it will be hard to resist the latest in "progress".
niall@niall.org