John Dvorak has an interesting column in a recent PC magazine on the possibility that Intel has created some new circuits in its new chips that would allow alteration by software. this is to deal with a "verification crisis" in which the complexity of their large chips is outstripping their ability to test for flaws and make them perfect. according to Dvorak the scheme would allow Intel to release a software program that would actually alter the circuitry of the chip. information at this point is very limited; Dvorak says that Intel doesn't want to announce the scheme for fear that it may not work in an embarrassing scenario. he says that the scheme is protected using cryptographic algorithms, so that hackers would be prevented from altering the chip. he raises the spectre of a virus that could do permanent, irreparable damage to the chip. however, I have some big red flags going off in my brain the more I think about this. it seems to me that no matter what kind of cryptography is used on the chip, there is the possibility of reverse engineering via dissassemblers & debuggers etc. if the software is distributed widely. hackers have long experience with this, and I suspect if a fix was released, the code could be cracked quite readily. the only other possibility is that Intel would require people to bring the chip into a service dealer. but this would decrease the utility and convenience of the fix feature, and I doubt they could protect the distribution of the software in this case either. anyway, an interesting topic of conversation for this list, no?