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Intel Processors to Become OS Locked

posted by janrinok on Saturday March 15 2014, @07:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the more-lock-in-is-just-what-we-needed dept.

FuckBeta writes:

"Guido Stepko reports - In an GOLEM interview at CEBIT 2014 fair, Frank Kuypers, technical account manager at INTEL corp., proudly presented a new feature in INTEL processors, called "hooks", beginning with the new 2014 "Merrifield" 64 bit SoC chip generation.

In the Intel network only mobiles with certain Android versions are allowed to use certain functionalities. If you then replace your Android version, e.g. by a free Cyanogenmod Android kernel, not only some chips would stop working, e.g. LTE/UMTS, but also mails from your employer would be blinded out, because now the processor itself would 'classify' the new software as 'risk'.

Now, beginning with the new 2014 power efficient mobile "Merrifield" processor generation, this functionality will be used to lock the processor for certain OS'es or OS versions. Whether there will be a SDK or use of this 'functionality' will be kept a secret, still is undecided, Kuypers said.

Ryan O'Dell sees a potential abuse of the technology: "You'll buy a computer from a shop with Windows OS and not be able to change to Linux or another OS in the future. You may be able to buy the processor unlocked for a sum. With mobile phones/tablets it can be worse with phone networks also potentially have a lock-in. It's a disaster for the consumer"

Google translation from German: (Google)

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 15 2014, @08:42PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 15 2014, @08:42PM (#17024)

    Who would demand such a "feature"?

    At a guess, I'd say the corporation in question is one who's name begins with an "M" and ends with a "t".

  • (Score: 0) by NullPtr on Sunday March 16 2014, @08:50PM

    by NullPtr (3786) on Sunday March 16 2014, @08:50PM (#17331)

    No - the Midget corporation recently got one of its finest spokespeople to stand on a create of children's clothes and deny outright it had anything to do with this.