Commentary

Big Brother Inside?

Want to search for porn via your spiffy new ethernet connection? Go ahead everyone, but even if your parents aren't watching over your shoulder, someone else might be. Will Intel's new Pentium III chip mark the end of internet privacy?

As it turns out, one of the several current television commercials for the Silicon-Valley based Intel Corp is quite symbolic. A little stuffed-animal monkey comes walking up to a wall, into which a door marked 'Intel' is built. He knocks, tries opening the door, but to his chagrin, finds that it is locked. He pulls on the knob and he pounds on the door, trying to get inside. Beaten, the monkey steps back and the locked door magically changes into revolving, bamboo doors. The monkey walks through the doors and comes out with a number of his animal friends.

It's an advertisement for the new Pentium III chips, recently released by Intel. With these chips comes the introduction of a new feature: the Processor Serial Number (PSN for short.) The PSN is a 96-bit number that is programmed into the silicon of the chip the manufacturing process, and serves as an identifier unique to each chip, working much like a serial number included on most any high-end product. Intel's hopes are that this feature will improve the security of internet transactions by assigning a number specific to each user's system. Each number can be easily identified and cross-checked in order to decide if the information submitted by the user is accurate.

Despite Intel's apparent good intentions, this identifying system has internet privacy advocates in an understandable uproar. One claim is that the PSN could be used to track and store information about the user's internet habits. Consumer profiles could be created with this information and sold to marketing companies without your knowledge.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and another internetprivacy group, JunkBusters, have organized a boycott of Intel, asking the firm to recall all Pentium III processors and take the PSN out of the architecture of future chips. Their web site, www.bigbrotherinside.com, urges consumers not to buy Intel products until the PSN is removed. EPIC and Junkbusters, along with other privacy groups, have asked the federal government for help. A letter sent to the Federal Trade Commission asks the agency to consider "whether its Section 5 authority regarding false claims and deceptive practices should be brought to bear on Intel."

Intel has responded to the boycott by announcing that all future chips will be shipped with the PSN default set to 'OFF.' Intel will offer a software program to give users the option of turning the PSN on or off through the computer's BIOS. But privacy advocates point out that most users do not know how to change settings in their BIOS. Another problem that could arise is the possibility that certain sites might require the PSN to be on in order to gain access, and this is already the case with cookies sent from many sites. Cookies are files that are downloaded onto a user's machine from a web site for access at a later date-many fear these as potential opportunities for corporations or the government to spy on their everyday actions-something cookies are not in place to do.

A web page on Intel's site dedicated to questions about the PSN says that "once the control utility or the BIOS switch has disabled the processor serial number feature, it cannot be turned back on without resetting the processor, which normally means rebooting the machine."C'T Magazine, a German computing journal, found that this was not true.Using Pentium III schematics available to computer technicians, a software program was designed that did not require a cold boot to enable the PSN.

This type of choice information would have inevitably made the roundsthrough hacker circles eventually, the magazine states-had it not beenrecognized already by wary internet users. Intel responded to this claim by stating "that the control utility, or any software, can theoretically be affected by a virus that is allowed onto theuser's system. The user must download a software application onto theuser's PC that will run a string of code to re-enable the disable utility switch." Yet many sites, such a Microsoft's home page, prompt users with a message stating that they must download a small program in order for a feature to work properly. A PSN check could feasibly be accomplished in such a manner, unbeknownst to the casual surfer.When asked about the tracking capabilities of the PSN, Joseph Kenned, an Intel technical support worker, said that "while it is theoreticallypossible to do as part of our manufacturing process, Intel will not track or correlate processor serial numbers, nor will Intel entertain any offers to develop such a list." Yet there are no laws to prevent another company from doing so. Intel's current plan would leave "the high-tech industry policing itself," according to Junkbusters. It cites the history of cookies as an example of how well this policing has worked. Some websites store information in cookies and use it to send junk e-mail to users. Philip Regenie, a manufacturing consultant for Intel, thinks that privacy advocates are making a bigger issue out of the PSN than is necessary. "Internet commerce is one of the fastest growing market segments." He says that the PSN was created to end "the public's fear of [performing] critical transactions over a shared wire." But a March 1998 Harris/Business Week poll lists privacy as the number one reason that consumers do not purchase goods online-not security, as Intel claims is the reason it created the chip.

"Primarily, businesses do not survive in this intensely competitivemarketplace by trying to dupe the public into using products that benefit Uncle Sam or infringe on their privacy," Regenie said in an e-mail interview. But privacy advocates claim that the US government might have played a role in the development of the PSN. EPIC has submitted requests to 15 federal agencies under the Freedom of Information Act, including the National Security Agency and the FBI, asking for information on their role in the creation of the PSN. No information has yet been made available about the role these groups may have played.

The debate over the Processor Serial Number is likely to continue for some time, and without appropriate resolution. Intel has no plans to recall their chips or remove the PSN, and privacy advocates could have the Federal Trade Commission looking into the matter. Meanwhile, that stuffed animal monkey in the Intel commercial is banging on the door to your Pentium III, and can gain access to all the information it wants.

Ben Nahorney, a senior majoring in Journalism, is a staff writer for the Oregon Commentator