4 ms·
Why are they doing this?
by pgl 7y ago
Why are they doing this?
- _pmf_ 7y agoMy uneducated guess would be to make reverse engineering exploits from patches harder.
- simias 7y agoThat doesn't make a lot of sense to me since we're talking about EOL software that won't receive patches in the first place. I can't think of any good reason to get rid of that besides maybe "we're revamping the website and can't be bothered to port that bit".
- beauzero 7y agoDrive sales of hardware. If you can't get drivers you have to purchase something you can get drivers for.
- squarefoot 7y agoThis was my first thought as well, although I never expected Intel willing to resort to such low tricks since it indicates they don't care at all about their customers. I would expect that move from a used car shady salesman, not from Intel: there are businesses out there that would be forced to ditch perfectly working hardware just because of this. I'll surely consider moving elsewhere in the future.
- jacquesm 7y agoThat's pretty shortsighted then. The only thing this will do is drive those sales to the competition. The people who are using this hardware are likely not doing so by choice so if you cut them off and force them to re-invest they will not be bitten the same way twice.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ENOTTY 7y agoIf you read more in the thread, Intel is also removing old gpu and nic drivers for currently supported hardware. There’s no other reason to do that other than to obstruct patch diffing.
- simias 7y agoWouldn't simply not providing old versions of the driver achieve the same thing then? And beyond that, what's the logic? "We don't want black hats to diff our patches so we make sure that the legit users can't get patched firmwares in the first place"? Doesn't really add up to me. People with enough knowledge, time and resources to pull such an attack will manage to get the binaries one way or the other. I still think that incompetence and laziness are more likely causes.
- teraflop 7y agoRemoving old files to prevent bad guys from getting their hands on them is utterly pointless if you announce the removal beforehand.
- cf141q5325 7y agoSo you buy new hardware.
- wlesieutre 7y agoGreat timing on Intel's part. Piss off your customers right when Ryzen is making a great case to switch off of Intel processors.
- mqus 7y agoWell, as this only concerns their own motherboards, there is no more hardware to buy from them[1], so I really don't think that's it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21513556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21513556
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- cf141q5325 7y agoGood point, but buying a new mainboard often also means buying a new cpu. I dont think you will be able to fit any of Intels current cpus in the EOL motherboards.
- lonelappde 7y agoBecause supporting 15 year old cheap consumer products is a waste of energy.
- jacquesm 7y agoIt actually isn't. Causing people to replace stuff that still works is a waste of energy.
- nkrisc 7y agoUpdating hardware probably uses more energy overall than supporting existing hardware with software, if you account for increased manufacturing for shorter product lifecycles.
- asenk 7y agoSince this fabricated "15 year old" hardware claim is repeated for who knows what reason, I'm going to have to spam the debunking of it as well. It's nowhere near to being true. Software is going to be gone for haswell generation,[1] boards originally released just 6 years ago[2]. 1. https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/28295?product=709031 https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/28295?product=7090.... 2. https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/compare.html?productIds=70903,69045,69044,72031 https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/compare.html?pro...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ddingus 7y agoCould it be security related? Old stuff could contain info Intel now recognizes as enabling to exploiters, researchers, et. Al. Edit: I see that shot down elsewhere in the discussion.