Pentium III and phoning home

[Zand]

Just curiously, anyone got an good articles on the PIII phoning home?

I remember when it came out there was much yelling about the PIII phoning home and I was wondering if anyone knew any basic info about the phoning home, or had articles. I looked for information on it myself already, but I didn't really know the technical terms or anything, I guess.

Hah, I'm just doing a bit of research so I'm ready for Palladium.

 

[AndyHui]

The Pentium III does not phone home. Not ever.

All it does is contain a unique Processor Serial Number. The PSN can be disabled by the BIOS, and just about all BIOSes disable it by default.

But so what? There is no database of personal information kept with the PSN, or any information at all except processor speed. It's a non-event.

Your NIC also contains a unique serial number: the MAC. What are you going to do with your NIC? Rip it out?

In short: don't worry about it.

 

[Jeff7]

Heck, don't nearly all PC components contain a unique serial number? Network cards have unique MAC addresses, which can't be changed by users. Hard drives have unique serial numbers; optical drives do; motherboards have them....