Controversy About Privacy Issues
The Pentium III was the first x86 CPU to include a unique, retrievable, identification number, called PSN (Processor Serial Number). A Pentium III's PSN can be read by software through the CPUID instruction if this feature has not been disabled through the BIOS.
On November 29, 1999, the Science and Technology Options Assessment (STOA) Panel of the European Parliament, following their report on electronic surveillance techniques asked parliamentary committee members to consider legal measures that would "prevent these chips from being installed in the computers of European citizens."
Eventually Intel decided to remove the PSN feature on Tualatin-based Pentium IIIs, and the feature was not carried through to the Pentium 4 or Pentium M. The feature does not exist in modern Intel x86 CPUs.
Read more about this topic: Pentium III
Famous quotes containing the words controversy, privacy and/or issues:
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Any moral philosophy is exceedingly rare. This of Menu addresses our privacy more than most. It is a more private and familiar, and at the same time, a more public and universal word, than is spoken in parlor or pulpit nowadays.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Cynicism formulates issues clearly, but only to dismiss them.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)