Posted on 01/31/2022 11:33:39 AM PST by ShadowAce
Sounds like nonsense to me.
I'm hoping they'll actually fix it.
Can’t they just use the MAC id? Anyone who is really concerned can monkey with the settings a touch regularly (resolution, color depth, gaming fps, dedicated memory). One easy way to deal with both is to create a VM and work from the VM.
Doesn’t each processor chip (the CPU hardware) have a unique serial number. Couldn’t that be embedded in various outgoing messages?
I’d say don’t use a computer or phone if you are really concerned about being snooped on. Maybe not mail either. Try to communicate with a wink of the eye.
“One easy way to deal with both is to create a VM and work from the VM.”
VMs are the way to go. On my next computer I want to go with Qubes OS.
and , I don’t care
Tracking my PC won’t do much good. It just sits in my home office, day after day. I don’t even carry my cell phone “religiously”...just when I think I might actually need it.
MAC ids on network and motherboard interfaces are often in EEPROM and capable of override for spoofing purposes. Some vendors use a MAC ID as a license key. That was viable when the manufacturer generated an immutable key for the network interface. That's not the case anymore.
Finding ways to track your activity will be a perpetual cloak and dagger effort. New ones will crop up soon after you've nailed the ones you discovered.
Same with my PC, sits at home and I don’t even own a cell phone.
“Finding ways to track your activity will be a perpetual cloak and dagger effort.”
I think you’re correct. You know more about what’s going on inside those boxes than I do.
My company’s IT department is all the time fiddling with security software and training.
Begs the question of which GPU’s are compromised and how far back. I ask this as I have access to many older GPU’S as well as older rigs starting with the XT.
and if you use a VPN?
MAC IDs can be spoofed.
Privacy & Internet Security are a myth in the 21st Century.
No, it does makes sense: your GPU can run custom code - just like the bitcoin miners use. The timing for different sections can be measured down to the microsecond. If there are consistent timing differences for different sections in the GPU, it’s like a fingerprint.
And if that wasn’t enough, combine that with your CPU+GPU model information, your amount of installed RAM, any peripherals, language, general location and anything else that the browser will provide, it is probably enough to uniquely identify your computer amongst millions.
The fact that you are using such an old GPU will stick out like a sore thumb: your computer will be unlike almost anything else out there. It would be like painting your car psychedelic purple and pink: when they see that, it will uniquely identify YOU. (No one else has a rig like it.)
It’s not a security compromise, it’s a technique to uniquely identify your computer from millions of others on the Internet.
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