Nice malware vehicle.

No relation to the evil Hood of Thunderbirds fame I suppose ...

Adding Symantec security to a chip should knock about 50% off the speed of the chip if it's software is anything to go by.

"Nice malware vehicle."

Huh? They're talking "on chip" so either hardware or at best Firmware. How is that a malware vehicle?

Stop piss-assing about with chips to detect if your inside a VM etc and deal with the root of the problem...security of the host system. Symmantec shouldn't even have a product to sell. Make the system secure at the entry point (using a firewall) and stop all this "virus detection" bollocks that's never mattered anyway.

Anyone had a virus alert pop up..."Norton Antivirus has detected xxx." and then when you look at the virus info page on the net it says "this virus is harmless. it just changes a few files and spreads".

Had *that* virus have a destructive payload for immediently after it had further replicated 3 times, your scanner just wouldn't get it in time. deal with the flaws, deal with the incoming traffic.

Perhaps we should have a chip inside the computer to detect if someone is pointing a video camera at the screen and breaking DRM since that's what M$ would clearly like to use a VM detection chip for. As for symantec, there only job is to make mountains out of molehills and to give MS and excuse not to fix it's security bugs.

MS has a lot invested in TPC. It will load DRM at the hardware level and, in theory, prevent anyone from breaking it, regardless of application or OS. OTOH, it may just break a competing OS. Imagine if MS owned the patents to the interfaces for TPC. Everybody who thinks this couldn't happen please return your heads to the sand.

What if I don't want a company telling me what I can and carn't do on my own machine?

I trust me, does intel, I don't trust intel and definatly not symantec after Norton System Works screwed up my system after "trying" to uninstall it, when I consulted an IT technician at my university they said the best way to uninstall Norton was to "format my hard disk drive"

I am a linux, mac and windows user, I use a very basic firewall on all three, I don't have any problems with viruses as I don't do stupid things such as download everything and anything, open attachments from unknown sources and visit spyware ridden websites.

I believe in Trusted Computing but only when "I decide"!

The simple and easy way to stop this monopolistic behaviour is to say "No Thank You".

I wouldn't even let Symantec security products anywhere above my OS, now they want to sit under the OS ? or have they now worked out how to make a Quad core CPU run as slow as a dual core now ?

How exactly are we supposed to "patch" this chip when someone finds the inevitable foul-up, akin to the ATI driver bug? Yeah, I expect Windows Update can be extended to include microcode patches, but the smart money (XenSource and VmWare) is moving the hardware into software right now, because it is more flexible. Symantec and Intel appear to be moving in the opposite direction.

I'm assuming Intel will be providing the security portion of this adventure? what role will symantec be playing? most likely they'll be ensuring instability, non-operability and multi platform incompatibility, as well as coding for operationally brain dead functionality.

@ Walter Brown

I think you're giving them too much credit. Symantec probably only has their name associated with it so that they can get a few royalty cheques.