Oil Wars and the CPU power!?

[Guest]

[Melih]

Oil Wars and CPU power! 

What the hell has Oil got to do with CPU power?
Well they are somewhat related. One is the enabler for the physical world (Oil) and you have people fighting over it, and the other is the enabler for the Virtual world and you have people (well malware, spammers and hackers) are fighting for it).

Just like Oil is the key component that enables majority of our lives from transportation to heating etc, CPU power is the one that enables our online worlds. Without the CPU power there would be no online world! So who is fighting for that CPU then? We can see who is fighting for Oil ;-) but who is fighthing for the CPU?  Nope, I am not talking about Intel or AMD. They are not fighting for the CPU power, they are fighting for market share to sell CPU. But there are more sinister forces who are fighting for the CPU power, forces that without CPU power would be utterly useless. CPU is the food they need to survive. They trick you and your programs to let them in to get some CPU power! With that CPU power, they get more powerful and continue to exist and expand/spread.
(ok, ok.. enough suspense.).

It is the malware, it is the malware providers, it is the spammers, it is the hackers, it is the script kiddie that wants to have access to and control of the CPU power you have! Computer software are made of instructions. (things that instruct the PC to do things like: Display text, do algorithms etc.). These instructions get “executed” in the CPU (eg: intel/amd etc). whether the code/instructions has good intention or bad intentions, they get executed in the CPU. So a bad guy who wants to do bad things will go after your CPU power. Let me give you an example: A spammer, who wants to send lots of spam to millions of people: They write some nasty code that they distribute, to take over unsuspecting victim’s machine and turn them into Zombies. Cos the spammer does not want to send all the spam from his machine! And why should he, its easy enough and less risky for him to take over your machine and send his spam thru your machine. You see, your CPU is able to do a lot of good and bad things, its very powerful and its control is totally up for grabs! It can send millions of spam, it can launch attack on other websites and take them down, it can harbour malware and act as a distribution point and oh btw it can also do word processing !

The question is: How do you get that control back!? How can you make sure you have control of your own CPU!?

Melih

[munckman]

What the hell has Oil got to do with CPU power?
Well they are somewhat related. One is the enabler for the physical world (Oil) and you have people fighting over it, and the other is the enabler for the Virtual world and you have people (well malware, spammers and hackers) are fighting for it).

Melih, without Oil there is no CPU power. Although, you can have Oil without CPU power.

Just like Oil is the key component that enables majority of our lives from transportation to heating etc, CPU power is the one that enables our online worlds.

Oil enables our online world.

So who is fighting for that CPU then? We can see who is fighting for Oil ;-) but who is fighthing for the CPU?

Everyone is fighting for oil; including CPU producers and consumers. Exploitation however, is not limited to the CPU. Without oil nothing can be built nor maintained. Oil is at the top of all industry.  Oil's Sub-Industries compete positively or negatively. As long as there are profits to be had on the negative side, there will be the distracters. Eliminate the profit and they will stop. The same goes for the control of the CPU power.

These instructions get “executed” in the CPU (eg: intel/amd etc). whether the code/instructions has good intention or bad intentions, they get executed in the CPU. So a bad guy who wants to do bad things will go after your CPU power.

This has always been so and I suspect will always be this way. Bad guys do bad things.

The question is: How do you get that control back!? How can you make sure you have control of your own CPU!?

Vigilance on the part of CPU users that know how to prevent loosing control of their own CPU and by educating the ones that do not. Sounds simple but of course it is not.

We could always just take the CPU power and control out of the consumers' possession altogether and let someone else centrally manage it but....

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