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by wmf 1929 days ago
This was a self-own by Intel where they claimed that the processor serial number would be used for online authentication which was then exaggerated to "the processor serial number will be a super-cookie sent in every HTTP request" which does sound pretty big-brotherish.

The ME, on the other hand, is obviously good since it "allows" you to watch 4K Netflix on your PC.
2 comments
wolrah 1929 days ago
> The ME, on the other hand, is obviously good since it "allows" you to watch 4K Netflix on your PC.

The ME has nothing to do with this, it's entirely about the GPU. 7th generation Intel GPUs and 10xx or newer nVidia GPUs support the DRM that Netflix requires, the CPU just needs to be fast enough to handle its part of the equation.

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flomo 1929 days ago
Intel did release a browser plugin/activex which claimed to expose the processor serial number to websites. But this was such a scandal that it almost immediately disappeared, along with the documentation, so I never found out how it actually worked.
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