McAfee and Intel chips - enhanced protection

[Nikos751]

Hello!
Many of us here in MT know that Mcafee was recently aquired by Intel.
Today I was reading an article about antivirus in Windows 8 and I saw this:

"Intel's acquisition of McAfee has provided McAfee with an unprecedented level of access to some of the resources that help to create the CPU layer. This allows McAfee to place antivirus and rootkit protection at a level below the operating system to provide real-time CPU and memory monitoring at the kernel level. This DeepSAFE hardware assisted protection is not software embedded on the CPU; it is technology taking advantage of features that Intel has placed on the core i3, i5 and i7 series chips. While the features are open to anyone, McAfee is in a unique position to take advantage of their parent company. Unfortunately, companies running AMD CPUs are out of luck as DeepSAFE is for Intel chips only."

Is this technology currently available in home products?
What about the real level up in systems security with i3, i5 and i7 systems? Is it worth?
I found this interesting and wanted to share it with you and discuss extra information on it.

 

[Nikos751]

About consumer products
https://community.mcafee.com/message/322373

 

[Ink]

The acquisition wasn't recent, here's a related topic from 2011.
http://malwaretips.com/threads/mcafee-and-intel-work-together-on-new-security-technologies.3601/

 

[Nikos751]

The acquisition wasn't recent, here's a related topic from 2011.
http://malwaretips.com/threads/mcafee-and-intel-work-together-on-new-security-technologies.3601/

you have a point, it's not very recent!

 

[Nico@FMA]

The acquisition wasn't recent, here's a related topic from 2011.
http://malwaretips.com/threads/mcafee-and-intel-work-together-on-new-security-technologies.3601/

True.

That said you do not have to like Mcafee, but fact is they have a huge infrastructure, great research department and awesome understanding of their own product and on top of that they got something to offer to Intel which could make Intel great.
I personally could fully support Intel for making this move, but the only thing I do fear is that, by merging products and technologies within one product that the individual products and technologies go to waist.
For example look at Microsoft, how many great products did they buy and how many of those products ended up in their software?
And how many of that software has gone to just barely average levels?

 

[cruelsister]

Personally I think the approach taken by the guys at ATT holds more promise than Mcaffe-on-a-chip:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...=20140304.PD.&OS=ISD/20140304&RS=ISD/20140304

 

[Nico@FMA]

Personally I think the approach taken by the guys at ATT holds more promise than Mcaffe-on-a-chip:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...=20140304.PD.&OS=ISD/20140304&RS=ISD/20140304

I do not care much about US patent office. And their registered patens, neither does it hold any info for my other then the fact that there was someone with a seemingly eureka moment.
My point here is Microsoft and Intel both would have been bankrupt and NON existed if some of the previous chip makers would have been granted a fair shot, I remember myself a German/Dutch ASML/France company who did have a revolutionary idea about the architecture of a CPU and the efficiency of chips set, they currently make those chips for the heavy industry.
But due to economic reasons and so called fake patents and patent trolls the US supreme court did block them from going into that direction as it would effectively kill Intel and Microsoft.
Fact is MS and Intel is great...but by no means does it represent the technological status of the current computer industry.

MS and Intel would die first while taking everyone with them to avoid that a company develops a chip which CANNOT be infected by malware.
ASML and some other EU counter parts did just that 15 years ago.
And ended up in one law suit after another, then won all, except the law suit in the US as the supreme court deemed that the economic stakes where to high... bla bla bla.

(Now 15 years later EU patent office and EU court has overruled the US court and did found its case and patent thing untrue and based upon nothing) So given the markets in Asia, given the the EU as the biggest economy and a upcoming software section, it remains to be seen if Windows and Intel are still around in 10 years.
Because those within the industry know that there are some things changing so fast, that the Intel "idea" and the traditional MS approach towards traditional OS and IBM firmware is changing REALLY fast.

 

[Nico@FMA]

Maybe offtopic but let me explain a bit about the computer industry, in the early 70's and 80 and to some extend in the start up years in the 90's it was US policy to have the government protect key technology and register it in the US under the US patent office.
Those within the industry know that in some of these cases it was pure technology grab/theft.
It disabled companies outside the US from developing technology superior to US standards.
The US government and its industry did everything they could to maintain a monopoly which started with putting IBM out of business towards key computer technology developments.

Anno today the US economy and its policy cannot prevent that notably within EU and ASIA technology is being developed surpassing US patents and technologies, and even tho the US is fighting hard to maintain a edge they lost it in many respective fields.

So its only a matter of time till chipsets are being developed that do not contain backdoors and such. And technologies being developed that cannot be infected with malicious code.
And slowly you see the US reacting to that by trying to force those companies out of the US sphere... in order to stop them.
Which does not work in most cases.
And this is exactly the fact why there is such rivalry between US and ASIA where both have a powerhouse status in development.
I know how this sounds but those in the industry know exactly what I am talking about.
That said the US will lose its technological edge within the next 5/10 years and that's a fact, if you see the market share of windows/dos based OS/firmware within the process industry then you already see that there is a huge change going.
So imo the odds that companies like MS, Intel and other giants are going to be rivaled by other counterparts who might have better and more secure chipsets & software is a given.

 

[cruelsister]

Abuses certainly exist in Patents around the world, but nonetheless the alternative would be to freely publish an idea and make it open source. Maybe a good idea in Wolkenkuckucksheim, but rather difficult to recoup R&D expenses that way in the real world.