Intel Secure CPUs: From the Outfit That Delivered Unfixable Security Issues?

June 17, 2020

I read “Intel Brings Novel CET Technology to Tiger Lake Mobile CPUs.” Sounds good. Sounds like Google and quantum supremacy. Sounds like IBM cheerleading for Watson’s Covid drug discovery service. Sounds like… marketing.

Intel, as DarkCyber recalls, has been shipping CPUs with some interesting characteristics: [a] Older and very warm technology and [b] CPUs with security issues that have been metaphorically characterized as unfixable.

True? DarkCyber believes everything available via the Internet.

ZDNet asserts in what seems like marketing department speak:

Intel has announced today that its experimental CET security feature will be first made available in the company’s upcoming Tiger Lake mobile CPUs.

Okay, experimental.

Like the quantum computer Horse collar innovation, DarkCyber will take a wait-and-see stance. The article contains a diagram, helpfully provided by Intel.

The innovation is definitely going to put a dent in AMD mobile CPU sales. Oh, right. Intel has a new line of mobile CPUs built on old fabrication technology.

The message seems to be:

“When we need to maintain a technical lead, let’s issue a news release.”

Does this echo like the quantum supremacy and Covid approach to technical leadership. Is Intel following a marketing and PR playbook, not technical realities?

Stephen E Arnold, June 16, 2020

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