[an0n]

Not solely capable but with some minimal assistance from the over-clocking community. And as for CPU stuff, I'd just fly over to Taiwan and get some piss-ant little factory to knock me up a few thousand un-fux0red processors.

[betterthanyou]

According to http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,274309,00.asp

It seems to be saying that AMD is going right along with it...

Now I'm getting worried...

[Top Gun]

Yes, now you seem to grasp the scale of the threat here. Of course you could abandon the PC platform (and all the games that come with it) and use macs, sun machines etc. Don't forget though that this Chip can always be turned off (It's in the specifications if you'd care to read the link I posted above) but you set off the M$ alarm which means any DRMed software will refuse to run and you would possibly be deprived of online content from DRMed servers. Of course there'll always be GNU/Linux distros that will install with a de activated chip (www.debian.org - the distros sole purpose is to live up to RMS's ideals). The EU has also got its eve on M$ and Intel and will hopefully get them on anti trust if they do pull a stunt like that.

[an0n]

No matter how clever or complicated the means employed to stop piracy become, people will find ways around them. All you'd need to do would be get an active program to make any software/media checks through the chip come up as all nice and okay and legal.

[Martinus]

Anyone who does make unf0x0red CPU's is set to make a killing. The PC market may even split into two seperate markets, protected hardware and 'free' hardware.

Bear in mind that unprotected hardware is going to ber the techie's choice so you'll see all the hardcore programmers writing stuff for that platform. It's even plausible that you'd have a new internet network set up. Freenet has a lot of potential if it gets mass usage, it was written by an Irish guy IIRC so that's doubly good 'cos Ireland is usually very cautious when it comes to privacy related matters.

[wEvil]

Originally posted by Top Gun


But then there's always the danger that AMD will incorporate this into their CPUs. Of course it's less likely because AMDs are generally used by a more technically minded class of users with less tolerance of crippling. However there's always the G4. I doubt steve Jobbs would sell his soul to the MPAA, RIAA and BSA and of course the Chinese may use this to kick start their CPU industry.

Anon: Are you telling me that you're actually capable of removing such offending chips from the motherboard? because that's one hell of a lot of soldering you're going to have to do and you'll have a hell of a lot of broken ones on your hands before you succeed (this is no magic marker thing here). Not to mention that it'll be stuck on the CPU before long which is a very different story.

AMD are more at the mercy of Microsoft than Intel is.  Essentially their leap to x86-64 means that M$ HAS to support it for it to get to the "critical mass" to become self-sustaining rather than a dead-end set of instructions like 8.1 pixel shaders (or was it 8.2?)

Essentially, there is very little chance (barring a full-scale revolution) of the general public curbing this threat to their freedom.  Just look at it -

we have the G8 conferences, we have the RIAA/MPAA corporate push and finally we have people like Blair and Blunkett and Bush who want to turn the US and UK into police states.

Everyone's realising a little too slowly and the fight (because it WILL come to that) to stop it will be long and painful.   I'm not living in a capitalist-driven police state, I don't think anyone else wants to either.

[betterthanyou]

Well the problem is that the average person doesn't get the implications of this kind of thing. I'm sure they'll see it as piracy free enviroment and some may be dissapointed but they likely don't realize what other implications this could have. And that's talking about people that are actually at all aware of the measures. Remember that the average user knows little more than how to check their e-mail and play solitaire and as such has no knowledge of the future of our digital freedom.

I just hope we have some political powers that understand our plea and fight for it, or else we are very much doomed.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

The so-called War on Terrorism is a god-sent for these people.

They are worse than the terrorists themselves as they are actually taking our freedoms away.

As Palladium comes on-line and Intel and AMD are sucked into the void that will be I'm guessng that Unix-based Operating Systems and independent processors will acquire a bigger market-share than now.

In the end it does not matter what they try, there will always be people that are able to circumvent it. The yearning for liberty is not something you can stomp out that easily (or at all)

EDIT: another option is of course to never upgrade again.