RE: FW: pIII Serial (or lack there-of)

Jones D (djones2@glam.ac.uk)
Thu, 14 Oct 1999 13:51:12 +0100

> > You shouldn't be able to read them either, as AFAIR,
> > it's a ring 0 instruction. You should segfault
> > immediately.
> Yes, and then the kernel has the opportunity to "fake" (read: handle)
> the instruction on you.

Whilst such a feature would be possible, I don't think it
would stand a chance of getting into the mainstream kernel.
Think about it. If it did, userspace application writers
would know that they couldn't trust what they got back,
so wouldn't use it.

> it is even possible to provide this without having an PIII)...

Again possible, but would probably impact userspace apps.
The paranoia over whether your app reads a real serial number
or a pretend one, would probably put off some people from
using it.

regards,

Dave.

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