4 ms·

Can you please elaborate on the "To protect the media conglomerates." part?

mschuster91 4y ago
Intel's SGX was at least partially intended to implement DRM [0], and its various-ish predecessor technologies such as old-school Palladium/TPM was expected to do the same [1] (but was ultimately cancelled because of wide backlash). [0] https://www.techspot.com/news/93006-intel-sgx-deprecation-impacts-drm-ultra-hd-blu.html https://www.techspot.com/news/93006-intel-sgx-deprecation-im... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next-Generation_Secure_Computing_Base https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next-Generation_Secure_Computi...
- markus_zhang 4y ago
  Thanks, didn't know these are pretty hardcore protection. Just curious maybe these protection layers and protetion-protection layers may introduce more vectors for attackers?
nonrandomstring 4y ago
> Can you please elaborate... Certainly. Intel (amongst others) supply consumer grade CPUs for a "multimedia" market, to service music and movie playback. The movie and music industry apply intense pressure and lobbying against the computing industry to protect their profits. They see users having control over media, and thus ability to copy, recode, edit or time-shift content as a threat, which they dub "piracy". Under this pressure to implement "Digital Rights/Restriction Management" within their hardware, semiconductor manufacturers have been making microprocessors increasingly hostile to end users, since if users were able to access and examine device functions they would naturally disable or reject what is not in their interests. Hiding undocumented functionality to take over, examine or exfiltrate data from systems via backdoors etc is a natural progression of this subterfuge and tension between manufacturer and user. This situation of cat-and-mouse hostility should not exist in anything recognisable as a "free market", and hence I deem it "protectionism". Now the real problem is that these same "multimedia" processors are used in other areas, automotive, aviation, health and even military applications. The "risk-tradeoffs" bought by big media bleed into these sectors. Therefore it's clear to me that measures for the protection of "intellectual property" are directly at odds with computer security generally, and are increasingly leading to problems for the sake one relatively small sector. Sure, the digital entertainments industry is worth many trillions of dollars, but pales within the larger picture of human affairs. At some point we may have to choose. Hollywood or national security?
- bambax 4y ago
  You are absolutely right, and media companies are the evilest of evil. But it's a little unclear why Intel felt it had to cave in. What would have happened if it had told Hollywood to go love itself somewhere? It's not like movie producers are remotely capable of making chips.
  - xmodem 4y ago
    One possibility might be that Intel thought that if they did not do it voluntarily, they might ultimately be forced to by legislation.
  - Jolter 4y ago
    It’s not like Intel have no competition. They probably figured that if they didn’t cooperate with the media industry, AMD or someone else would, and eat their lunch when suddenly Sony movies can only be played on AMD devices.
    - Crosseye_Jack 4y ago
      I’m not hearing much noice over intels latest chips losing support for 4k Bly-ray disc playback (They dropped SGX which is needed for the DRM) https://www.whathifi.com/news/intel-discontinues-support-for-uhd-blu-ray-discs-in-its-newest-pc-chips https://www.whathifi.com/news/intel-discontinues-support-for...
      - Jolter 4y ago
        Yeah, I’m not saying they made the right call… If they have any business sense they will just open up the microcode after this.
      - formerly_proven 4y ago
        SGX is only dropped from consumer SKUs for product segmentation purposes.
        4y ago
wsc981 4y ago
Would this kind of functionality not, more likely, be implemented on the behest of the CIA? The media companies could be used as a good cover though.
- ta988 4y ago
  Why the CIA specifically?

Intel's SGX was at least partially intended to implement DRM [0], and its various-ish predecessor technologies such as old-school Palladium/TPM was expected to do the same [1] (but was ultimately cancelled because of wide backlash). [0] https://www.techspot.com/news/93006-intel-sgx-deprecation-impacts-drm-ultra-hd-blu.html https://www.techspot.com/news/93006-intel-sgx-deprecation-im... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next-Generation_Secure_Computing_Base https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next-Generation_Secure_Computi...

markus_zhang 4y ago
Thanks, didn't know these are pretty hardcore protection. Just curious maybe these protection layers and protetion-protection layers may introduce more vectors for attackers?

nonrandomstring 4y ago

> Can you please elaborate... Certainly. Intel (amongst others) supply consumer grade CPUs for a "multimedia" market, to service music and movie playback. The movie and music industry apply intense pressure and lobbying against the computing industry to protect their profits. They see users having control over media, and thus ability to copy, recode, edit or time-shift content as a threat, which they dub "piracy". Under this pressure to implement "Digital Rights/Restriction Management" within their hardware, semiconductor manufacturers have been making microprocessors increasingly hostile to end users, since if users were able to access and examine device functions they would naturally disable or reject what is not in their interests. Hiding undocumented functionality to take over, examine or exfiltrate data from systems via backdoors etc is a natural progression of this subterfuge and tension between manufacturer and user. This situation of cat-and-mouse hostility should not exist in anything recognisable as a "free market", and hence I deem it "protectionism". Now the real problem is that these same "multimedia" processors are used in other areas, automotive, aviation, health and even military applications. The "risk-tradeoffs" bought by big media bleed into these sectors. Therefore it's clear to me that measures for the protection of "intellectual property" are directly at odds with computer security generally, and are increasingly leading to problems for the sake one relatively small sector. Sure, the digital entertainments industry is worth many trillions of dollars, but pales within the larger picture of human affairs. At some point we may have to choose. Hollywood or national security?

bambax 4y ago
You are absolutely right, and media companies are the evilest of evil. But it's a little unclear why Intel felt it had to cave in. What would have happened if it had told Hollywood to go love itself somewhere? It's not like movie producers are remotely capable of making chips.
- xmodem 4y ago
  One possibility might be that Intel thought that if they did not do it voluntarily, they might ultimately be forced to by legislation.
- Jolter 4y ago
  It’s not like Intel have no competition. They probably figured that if they didn’t cooperate with the media industry, AMD or someone else would, and eat their lunch when suddenly Sony movies can only be played on AMD devices.
  - Crosseye_Jack 4y ago
    I’m not hearing much noice over intels latest chips losing support for 4k Bly-ray disc playback (They dropped SGX which is needed for the DRM) https://www.whathifi.com/news/intel-discontinues-support-for-uhd-blu-ray-discs-in-its-newest-pc-chips https://www.whathifi.com/news/intel-discontinues-support-for...
    - Jolter 4y ago
      Yeah, I’m not saying they made the right call… If they have any business sense they will just open up the microcode after this.
    - formerly_proven 4y ago
      SGX is only dropped from consumer SKUs for product segmentation purposes.
      - 4y ago

wsc981 4y ago

Would this kind of functionality not, more likely, be implemented on the behest of the CIA? The media companies could be used as a good cover though.

ta988 4y ago
Why the CIA specifically?