By Lisa Burroughes, 11 March 1999 17:44
NEWS Software company Zero-Knowledge Systems claims to have a program that can bypass Intel's controversial Serial Number Control Utility, the device which gives every CPU - and hence every PC - an identifiable number. A control switch was put in place after privacy lobbying groups complained that having a traceable serial number on a chip was an infringement of personal privacy and CPUs on consumer PCs would have the default set at 'off'. At the UK launch of the Pentium III on the 26 February Intel said the control unit would be unbreakable. Business users would have the default control switch set at 'on'. However, Zero-Knowledge claims it has designed an ActivX program that will bypass that. And the company warned that malicious attacker could manipulate the control utility remotely, or steal a user's serial number.
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