@regehr In a conversation about some processor architectural extensions in development, asking about the motivations for the instruction additions including the popcount instruction: “the spooks wanted it.”

Cryptography, presumably. But there are some answers I’d rather not know.

Profiling for which apps and which sites used what instructions and how often was always interesting.

@pfriedma Various dimensions here… Boeing versus Airbus control philosophy, with a side-helping of local and offline operations versus connected and server-based and with subscriptions, and with a side-helping of which sensors are involved if any.

My oven or refrigerator or clothes washer doesn’t need a camera, or a network connection.

I -might- be talked into a strictly-local (probably Matter & Thread) network connection for certain benign notifications, such as “done”.

But full operations while offline and disconnected is absolutely non-negotiable.

But unfortunately, I’m expecting to encounter embedded cellular data modems within new devices in the very near future, collecting and uploading metadata the purported device owner just can’t block, and presumably downloading advertisements.