2 responses to “Intel buying McAfee – the rest of the story”

1. 

   rc primak August 20th, 2010 at 00:35

   It’s fun to engage in wild-eyed “exposes” using old news stories and now-ancient rumors about Chinese (or North Korean) “conspiracies” with (or against)Google, Intel, Yahoo, or your choice of anti-virus companies.

   But let’s focus on real-world consumer and business patching issues here, Woody. Neither you nor I can possibly believe that our Federal Government has been infiltrated by Cyber-Spies at the highest levels, and that US Intelligence Agencies knew nothing about it for over thirty years.

   The “Wild List” your friend and you speak of, is older than the hills, and does not contain anything not known to any IT Professional or Security Professional who subscribes to the Wild List. (And there are no Background Checks required to subscribe to it.) This is hardly a secret of Classified piece of virus Intelligence. And I note that the timeline ends in 2002 — an eternity in Intelligence, Counter-Terrorism, and IT security.

   This story does not pass the Smell Test. It is only another screaming headline about something which has had no impact whatsoever on National Security, in spite of what a few bloggers, yourself included, may try to mislead the Public into fearing. We have enough crackpot Conspiracy Theories running around without any Windows Experts adding unnecessary weight to any of them.

   For the average home or business user, there is nothing whatsoever in this “report” upon which anyone can take any actions whatsoever to protect ourselves. The whole thing sounds like just more Bashing against your favorite anti-virus Whipping Boys.

   Enough, already — let’s get back to some real work around here!

2. 

   rc primak August 20th, 2010 at 01:31

   Getting back to the Intel acquisition of McAfee, let’s be clear about one thing. Putting a logo on a chipset saying “McAfee Inside” does NOT lock us into only using McAfee security software on that computer. What is being discussed is chipset hardening against the growing threat of Firmware WORMs and their ilk.

   A chipset does not contain enough addressable memory to put a full-blown AV app onto the chipset, let alone to update it and run scans on the computer or its software and data files. This arena will remain wide-open for all competitors for the foreseeable future.

   This hardening will be useful for protecting devices which do not have user-accessible programs, such as Network Cards, game boxes, and other hardware which has firmware but is not user-configurable. And in this arena, it may be impossible to go any other way than to standardize on one set of algorithms, due to on-chip storage space limitations and other technical issues. Hence, security from only one vendor.

   Again, there’s no conspiracy here, folks.