10 ms·

Honestly I’m surprised that they cant just be remotely disabled. I’m not advocating for this feature by the way. I’m just surprised that it’s not a thing.

yissp 5y ago
How about this... some of these will probably be sold to unwitting gamers, right? So push a driver update with the hot serial numbers and have it pop up a window saying "tell us who sold you this GPU and not only will we let you keep the card, but we'll even throw in a free year of GeForce now" (EVGA can foot the bill). Then track down the thieves, done.
- dahart 5y ago
  > some of these will probably be sold to unwitting games, right? Probably not, they’re more likely to get used for mining by someone who knows they’re stolen. The thieves already know that selling them is extremely risky. Which is why tracking from the driver is an interesting idea, but also probably won’t work. But then again, we’re only speculating, so maybe it’d work!
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  "push a driver update with the hot serial numbers and have it pop up a window" Sure that runs foul of computer misuse act, millioms od people were downloading a driver, and you used it to get admin rights and take control of their computer, and 99.9% of them have no stolen GPU. It's like if you broke into and searched every house in London to find a batch of srolen iPhones, you aren't allowed to do that
  - glouwbug 5y ago
    I’m almost certain everyone already does this. Even as far back as the Pentium III has there been an opcode for any soft vendor to retrieve a CPU ID
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
chrischen 5y ago
Ebay can definitely (as in feasible) block or delete listings for stolen goods based on serial numbers. Not sure if they do that but I think they do this for bikes?
- Gigachad 5y ago
  There is no visible serial number on a GPU. At least not clearly and in a way that could be seen by ebay.
Strom 5y ago
How would it be a thing? You don't even need a network card, much less a network connection, to use a GPU. I guess they could manufacture these in a way that requires online activation of the firmware, but that would be a big step in the wrong direction of consumer rights.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- kuratkull 5y ago
  Each and every second-hand buyer in the world would block nvidia in the firewall after that. You know you need to tighten the screws when your GPU is trying to phone home.
  - berkes 5y ago
    In that case, it can easily be swapped around: card won't run unless it can reach an online endpoint. E.g. to fetch some binary blob that must be loaded in firmware. Only handed out and signed when requester is known to be legit. Not saying I'd like this, or that I endorse this, though.
    - NullPrefix 5y ago
      Stallman was right
- smarx007 5y ago
  Printer manufacturers figured out how to make their customers lives miserable long after the sale. Also, see what FTDI did: https://hackaday.com/2014/10/22/watch-that-windows-update-ftdi-drivers-are-killing-fake-chips/ https://hackaday.com/2014/10/22/watch-that-windows-update-ft...
- amatecha 5y ago
  The NVIDIA driver could refuse to function correctly on a GPU with a known-stolen serial number.
sebow 5y ago
Shhhh.... (By the way that's also the first thought that popped to me, i reckon some hardware do have this 'feature', especially in the enterprise space)
kordlessagain 5y ago
Disable mining on them! Note: I'm just kidding.
- squarefoot 5y ago
  If they disabled mining on all GPUs and hardware not intended for that purpose, video card prices would return to normal in a month. Unfortunately it's too late; we just entered the era in which every appliance consumes less power, yet there is an unprecedented demand for energy, and it grows steadily. What will happen when everyone on the planet will want their own mining machine on 24/7?
  - iotapi322 5y ago
    "they" you watch a lot of disney.
    - squarefoot 5y ago
      "They" == "those who can do that", that is, developers under their employers direction. Not every sentence containing "they" is necessarily a flat earth like conspiracy.
- pugworthy 5y ago
  Just make cards that are good at video, but don't work with mining. I am hearing this is being done.
curtain 5y ago
This is dumb and blind cynicism.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Gigachad 5y ago
  Is it dumb? Many manufacturers already do this. Samsung had a case recently where they bricked all of the stolen smart TVs. Apple would do this as well. Basically any technology product company has or is considering having the ability to brick stolen devices. And I'm not against this either. The law can provide a strong set of rights for actual owners, but if your product is stolen, you have no rights over it.
  - curtain 5y ago
    A GPU is a component, not a complete system. For laptops and smartphones, sure being stolen a common risk, and that kind of functionality grants the end-user some protection, and perhaps a chance to recover the good. For TVs and motherboards, GPUs, printers, etc it's basically superfluous DRM that typically only serves the manufacturer. Overall Smart TVs have been the polar opposite of user-respecting technology.
    - Gigachad 5y ago
      Of course anti theft serves the manufacturer. And I think that is ok. If you have a stolen product, you have 0 rights to use or posses that product. Once you purchase the product legitimately, you now have legal protection so that the OEM may not lock you out. Products should respect the owner. Stolen products are still owned by the OEM and not the person physically holding the product.
      - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
        99.99% of TVs aren't stolen, why am I forced to run this DRM on my property?
landryraccoon 5y ago
Is this the first time this has happened? Let's ignore the privacy and consumer rights implications of what you're proposing for a second. Is the cost of adding remote tracking and disabling capability to every EVGA video card worth it? How does that impact their ORM customers knowing that they're now on the hook for any security failure EVGA has? They could introduce a vulnerability far worse than anything they prevent. Any hacker that compromises EVGA's remote kill switch keys could now hijack their entire user base. So EVGA loses a truckload of hardware in a theft in an event so rare that the fact that it happens makes the front page of hackernews. Unless this starts to be a pattern, it makes far more sense for them to file an insurance claim and write off the loss than to try a risky technical solution - which might not even work, given that hackers are really good at bypassing DRM solutions anyway.
- theshadowknows 5y ago
  I was clear in my comment that I wasn’t advocating for that to be a feature. How is it that you learned to type before you learned to read?
  - landryraccoon 5y ago
    There's no need to be rude. My comment still stands. You asked why the feature doesn't exist, and I gave a very reasonable possible answer.
- Sebb767 5y ago
  Auto-updating software and drivers have been around for ages by now, quite often with pretty lousy security. A lot of companies even require you to register your hardware to use all features - NVidia, for example, but AFAIK Razer does, too. Oculus comes to mind as well. Wacom even tracks you from within their driver [0] and I won't even go into the insanity that AV software does. They might theoretically be on the hook for damages they introduce, but in reality, there's already a ton of services running on every device that can compromise you if the infrastructure behind it is hacked. EVGA wouldn't even be a worthwhile target. And, as mentioned above, NVidia already has the necessary infrastructure in place. So the effective cost for doing this would be close to zero. > which might not even work, given that hackers are really good at bypassing DRM solutions anyway. Hackers are, yes. But the price you fetch for a card will go down massively if you need high technical skills to run it. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22247292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22247292
xvilka 5y ago
It would surely help open source drivers development, Nouveau, for example.
nevermindiguess 5y ago
Just activate them via NFC at point of sale.
perth 5y ago
Thinking about it a bit, there are physical solutions EVGA/NVidia can take that don't rely on introducing DRM components into the software. One that comes to mind would be stamping a red embossed serial number into the plastic around the entire chassis around the card. It wouldn't look very nice but it would be nearly impossible to remove and sanding it down would look extremely obvious that it was a stolen card in any product listings.

yissp 5y ago

How about this... some of these will probably be sold to unwitting gamers, right? So push a driver update with the hot serial numbers and have it pop up a window saying "tell us who sold you this GPU and not only will we let you keep the card, but we'll even throw in a free year of GeForce now" (EVGA can foot the bill). Then track down the thieves, done.

dahart 5y ago
> some of these will probably be sold to unwitting games, right? Probably not, they’re more likely to get used for mining by someone who knows they’re stolen. The thieves already know that selling them is extremely risky. Which is why tracking from the driver is an interesting idea, but also probably won’t work. But then again, we’re only speculating, so maybe it’d work!
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
"push a driver update with the hot serial numbers and have it pop up a window" Sure that runs foul of computer misuse act, millioms od people were downloading a driver, and you used it to get admin rights and take control of their computer, and 99.9% of them have no stolen GPU. It's like if you broke into and searched every house in London to find a batch of srolen iPhones, you aren't allowed to do that
- glouwbug 5y ago
  I’m almost certain everyone already does this. Even as far back as the Pentium III has there been an opcode for any soft vendor to retrieve a CPU ID
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

chrischen 5y ago

Ebay can definitely (as in feasible) block or delete listings for stolen goods based on serial numbers. Not sure if they do that but I think they do this for bikes?

Gigachad 5y ago
There is no visible serial number on a GPU. At least not clearly and in a way that could be seen by ebay.

Strom 5y ago

How would it be a thing? You don't even need a network card, much less a network connection, to use a GPU. I guess they could manufacture these in a way that requires online activation of the firmware, but that would be a big step in the wrong direction of consumer rights.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kuratkull 5y ago
Each and every second-hand buyer in the world would block nvidia in the firewall after that. You know you need to tighten the screws when your GPU is trying to phone home.
- berkes 5y ago
  In that case, it can easily be swapped around: card won't run unless it can reach an online endpoint. E.g. to fetch some binary blob that must be loaded in firmware. Only handed out and signed when requester is known to be legit. Not saying I'd like this, or that I endorse this, though.
  - NullPrefix 5y ago
    Stallman was right
smarx007 5y ago
Printer manufacturers figured out how to make their customers lives miserable long after the sale. Also, see what FTDI did: https://hackaday.com/2014/10/22/watch-that-windows-update-ftdi-drivers-are-killing-fake-chips/ https://hackaday.com/2014/10/22/watch-that-windows-update-ft...
amatecha 5y ago
The NVIDIA driver could refuse to function correctly on a GPU with a known-stolen serial number.

sebow 5y ago

Shhhh.... (By the way that's also the first thought that popped to me, i reckon some hardware do have this 'feature', especially in the enterprise space)

kordlessagain 5y ago

Disable mining on them! Note: I'm just kidding.

squarefoot 5y ago
If they disabled mining on all GPUs and hardware not intended for that purpose, video card prices would return to normal in a month. Unfortunately it's too late; we just entered the era in which every appliance consumes less power, yet there is an unprecedented demand for energy, and it grows steadily. What will happen when everyone on the planet will want their own mining machine on 24/7?
- iotapi322 5y ago
  "they" you watch a lot of disney.
  - squarefoot 5y ago
    "They" == "those who can do that", that is, developers under their employers direction. Not every sentence containing "they" is necessarily a flat earth like conspiracy.
pugworthy 5y ago
Just make cards that are good at video, but don't work with mining. I am hearing this is being done.

curtain 5y ago

This is dumb and blind cynicism.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Gigachad 5y ago
Is it dumb? Many manufacturers already do this. Samsung had a case recently where they bricked all of the stolen smart TVs. Apple would do this as well. Basically any technology product company has or is considering having the ability to brick stolen devices. And I'm not against this either. The law can provide a strong set of rights for actual owners, but if your product is stolen, you have no rights over it.
- curtain 5y ago
  A GPU is a component, not a complete system. For laptops and smartphones, sure being stolen a common risk, and that kind of functionality grants the end-user some protection, and perhaps a chance to recover the good. For TVs and motherboards, GPUs, printers, etc it's basically superfluous DRM that typically only serves the manufacturer. Overall Smart TVs have been the polar opposite of user-respecting technology.
  - Gigachad 5y ago
    Of course anti theft serves the manufacturer. And I think that is ok. If you have a stolen product, you have 0 rights to use or posses that product. Once you purchase the product legitimately, you now have legal protection so that the OEM may not lock you out. Products should respect the owner. Stolen products are still owned by the OEM and not the person physically holding the product.
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      99.99% of TVs aren't stolen, why am I forced to run this DRM on my property?

landryraccoon 5y ago

Is this the first time this has happened? Let's ignore the privacy and consumer rights implications of what you're proposing for a second. Is the cost of adding remote tracking and disabling capability to every EVGA video card worth it? How does that impact their ORM customers knowing that they're now on the hook for any security failure EVGA has? They could introduce a vulnerability far worse than anything they prevent. Any hacker that compromises EVGA's remote kill switch keys could now hijack their entire user base. So EVGA loses a truckload of hardware in a theft in an event so rare that the fact that it happens makes the front page of hackernews. Unless this starts to be a pattern, it makes far more sense for them to file an insurance claim and write off the loss than to try a risky technical solution - which might not even work, given that hackers are really good at bypassing DRM solutions anyway.

theshadowknows 5y ago
I was clear in my comment that I wasn’t advocating for that to be a feature. How is it that you learned to type before you learned to read?
- landryraccoon 5y ago
  There's no need to be rude. My comment still stands. You asked why the feature doesn't exist, and I gave a very reasonable possible answer.
Sebb767 5y ago
Auto-updating software and drivers have been around for ages by now, quite often with pretty lousy security. A lot of companies even require you to register your hardware to use all features - NVidia, for example, but AFAIK Razer does, too. Oculus comes to mind as well. Wacom even tracks you from within their driver [0] and I won't even go into the insanity that AV software does. They might theoretically be on the hook for damages they introduce, but in reality, there's already a ton of services running on every device that can compromise you if the infrastructure behind it is hacked. EVGA wouldn't even be a worthwhile target. And, as mentioned above, NVidia already has the necessary infrastructure in place. So the effective cost for doing this would be close to zero. > which might not even work, given that hackers are really good at bypassing DRM solutions anyway. Hackers are, yes. But the price you fetch for a card will go down massively if you need high technical skills to run it. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22247292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22247292

xvilka 5y ago

It would surely help open source drivers development, Nouveau, for example.

nevermindiguess 5y ago

Just activate them via NFC at point of sale.

perth 5y ago

Thinking about it a bit, there are physical solutions EVGA/NVidia can take that don't rely on introducing DRM components into the software. One that comes to mind would be stamping a red embossed serial number into the plastic around the entire chassis around the card. It wouldn't look very nice but it would be nearly impossible to remove and sanding it down would look extremely obvious that it was a stolen card in any product listings.