[Infowarrior] - Chips let PCs get turned on remotely

[Richard Forno]

 Chips let PCs get turned on remotely

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070617/ap_on_hi_te/remote_control_chips&printer
=1;_ylt=ApsExA0lK7jOjrwkXoKHkOVk24cA

By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer1 hour, 8 minutes ago

Your work computer just suffered a major meltdown. Maybe the operating
system failed, or a virus crashed the hard drive.

Either way, your employer can now tunnel into your crippled machine remotely
by communicating directly with the chips inside it, allowing authorized
managers to power up and repair turned-off PCs within the corporate network
at virtually any time.

The technology ‹ which Intel Corp. introduced last year to rave reviews from
computer professionals ‹ represents a fundamental change in the way work PCs
are repaired, updated and administered.

Now the world's largest chip maker is studying how to bring the same
technology to the consumer market.

Santa Clara-based Intel envisions consumers one day signing up for a service
that allows their Internet providers to automatically install security
upgrades and patches, whether the PC is turned on or not. Once they return
to their computers, users would then get an alert with a detailed record of
the fixes.

In some ways it's the computer-industry equivalent of General Motors Corp.'s
OnStar service, which allows an operator in a call center to open your car
doors if you've locked the keys inside.

Intel is hoping consumers will decide that the convenience of having a
round-the-clock watchdog outweighs the obvious privacy and security concerns
raised by opening a new remote access channel into the PC.

Digital-privacy experts aren't worried about the use of such technology in
the workplace, where employers may peek into any worker's machine at any
time. But advocates said the same technology might raise questions about the
level of control consumers are willing to cede to keep their machines
running smoothly.

"It's a lot of power to give over to someone ‹ people are storing a large
portion of their lives in their computers," said Seth Schoen, a staff
technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "My main concern would
be to make sure consumers knew who they were giving access to, and what kind
of access they're giving."

Intel's Active Management Technology only allows technicians to see a small
amount of mundane but critical information, mostly configuration and
inventory data. Only authorized IT managers already inside the corporate
network can access the computers, and they cannot rifle through an
employee's files, or see the Web browsing history, or gain access to other
personal files, Intel said.

They can, however, install missing or corrupt files, and even reinstall the
entire operating system by having the system boot from a remote drive on the
network.

"The technology itself is privacy-neutral ‹ it doesn't know who you are, it
doesn't really care what you do," said Mike Ferron-Jones, director of
digital office platform marketing at Intel. "Any policy decisions about what
a user can do in a business environment with their PC, those are up to the
business owner. (Active Management Technology) does not facilitate those
policies in any way."

The top two personal computer makers, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc., and
retailers such as Best Buy Co., also offer remote tech support services for
consumers ‹ if the machines are switched on and plugged into the network.

Intel's technology opens up a new level of access.

Intel's Active Management Technology works by keeping a communications chip
inside the PC active at virtually all times, as long the machine has battery
or AC power.

Once an IT manager reaches out to that chip, it contacts the chipset inside
the same machine, which jolts to life and can access certain core data
stored on a memory chip that retains information even when the computer is
off. Chipsets are responsible for sending data from the microprocessor to
the rest of the computer.

The technology is only available in desktops with Intel's vPro branding and
laptops with the Centrino Pro branding. Those brands indicate that the PCs
have a full package of Intel chips, and workers with those computers should
assume their machines are being monitored in this manner.

Intel said about 250 business worldwide with between 1,000 and 10,000 PCs
each are now using the desktops. Laptop sales numbers are not yet available,
as those machines were made available only about three weeks ago.

The technology is similar to the existing Wake on LAN feature, which also
allows managers to boot PCs remotely, but Intel customers said the Active
Management Technology is more secure and reliable because they can
communicate directly with the chipset even in corrupted machines.

Richard Shim, an analyst with market researcher IDC, said IT managers have
been asking for the technology for some time to speed their service calls
and save the company money.

By giving them a uniform and reliable way to access their fleet of
computers, the technology lets system administrators more easily manage
widely dispersed machines from different manufacturers, Shim said. That
lessens the need for the patchwork of hardware and software they have been
relying on to perform some of the same tasks.

"It will help automate the process, and any time you can automate something
in technology, it's a blessing," he said. "It addresses pain points that are
common to all IT managers."

In one study of companies already using Active Management Technology,
desk-side visits for hardware problems dropped 60 percent and trips for
software glitches fell 91 percent.

"They're huge numbers ‹ for us it's extremely costly to send a field
technician out," said Matt Trevorrow, vice president of infrastructure
services for Electronic Data Systems Corp., a provider of information
technology outsourcing services that uses the new Intel technology and is
offering it to customers. "It all comes back to getting the end user back to
being productive."