Intel plans crypto-walled-garden for x86

[David G. Koontz]

On 14/09/10 3:58 PM, John Gilmore wrote:
> http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/09/intels-walled-garden-plan-to-put-av-vendors-out-of-business.ars
> 
> "In describing the motivation behind Intel's recent purchase of McAfee
> for a packed-out audience at the Intel Developer Forum, Intel's Paul
> Otellini framed it as an effort to move the way the company approaches
> security "from a known-bad model to a known-good model." Otellini went
> on to briefly describe the shift in a way that sounded innocuous
> enough--current A/V efforts focus on building up a library of known
> threats against which they protect a user, but Intel would live to
> move to a world where only code from known and trusted parties runs on
> x86 systems."

The 'approved application' security model doesn't have to be ubiquitous
anymore than the IOS application restrictions on iDevices extend to Mac OS
X.  Just yesterday I tripped across a media item saying Nvidia's Tegra 2 was
being replace by an Intel Atom CE4100 (due to lack of performance for Full
HD output).
http://liliputing.com/2010/09/boxee-box-up-for-pre-order-nvidia-tegra-2-chip-replaced-with-intel-atom-ce4100.html

If you look in the August 20th Business Week article
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-08-20/intel-after-mcafee-may-find-mobile-a-difficult-sell.html

  “As we look at all of the growth areas for Intel silicon, one of the
  consistent purchase criteria for both IT managers and consumer is
  security,” Renee James, the head of Intel’s software division, said in an
  interview yesterday. “This is a pretty natural step for us.”

Growth areas for Intel silicon aren't in the PC market, which is saturated,
Intel is producing silicon to compete with ARM CPUs in mobile and appliance
computing.

  “The number of new security threats identified every month continues to
  rise,” Otellini said. “We have concluded that security has now become the
  third pillar of computing, joining energy-efficient performance and
  Internet connectivity in importance.”

Energy-efficient implies portability.  And:

  Intel will have to persuade customers they need security in non-PC
  electronics in much the same way it has convinced businesses and
  consumers that they required chips that speed computing tasks or ensure
  seamless wireless connections.

Owning an antivirus software company is probably a good license to
scaremonger. It's likely McAfee will suddenly start detecting threats and
offering solutions.

And:

  “As we move from a PC-centric era to a mobile-centric era, Intel needs to
  take advantage of every opportunity to expand its footprint into that
  marketplace.”

The gist of the article is that the intent is for new Intel markets.  In
other words there's more to mobile and appliance computing than dreamed
about in Mr. Gates philosophy, wherein Microsoft has moved in the antivirus
market for PCs, haven't they?  (Microsoft Security Essentials).  In a
saturated PC market the McAfee adoption rate has probably been stagnating or
dropping signaling the need for new markets, hence the company being
available for purchase.

There doesn't appear to be enough information to state what Intel plans
authoritatively, but it does bring into question Windows Mobile 7 adoption
rates.

Also when (web) content contains programming (javascript, etc.) you'd be
faced with the necessity of certifying everyone's content (including blogs)
or impinging on First Amendment uses of the Internet.  It's unlikely the
entire Internet would be transformed into commercial outlets for goods and
services, while providing the means for walled city marketing in specific
products appears the hot new thing.

While vigilance to impingement of rights is always a good thing, there's
evidence for the meat of the issue to fall on the other side of the razor's
edge.

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