5 ms·

Nice breakdown of how ME works, but nothing new here. Still, I'm glad I hold on to a ton of older, pre Core i-series Intel machines, AMD machines, and ARM boar

Nice breakdown of how ME works, but nothing new here. Still, I'm glad I hold on to a ton of older, pre Core i-series Intel machines, AMD machines, and ARM boards. If ME is ever truly compromised at least I have a fallback or three.

yuhong 10y ago
Indeed, there was another recent HN thread on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11880935 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11880935
rpgmaker 10y ago
When people realize that it has been "truly compromised" it will be too late. The whole thing is a huge mess from a security stand-point.
ashitlerferad 10y ago
Watch out for TrustZone. There are definitely flaws in it too, for example: https://bits-please.blogspot.com/2016/06/trustzone-kernel-privilege-escalation.html https://bits-please.blogspot.com/2016/06/trustzone-kernel-pr...
- Grazester 10y ago
  Seems like this has already been patched
SXX 10y ago
You use three different platforms and every have backdoors in it.
- morganvachon 10y ago
  Name one that doesn't. Sorry, name a modern, useful hardware platform that is 100% guaranteed not to have a backdoor or vulnerability of some sort. It's about mitigating threats, because it's impossible to do more than that today. If you don't design and build the hardware yourself from the board and chips on up, it's not guaranteed to be safe. Even then, without being tested by the masses, you're bound to accidentally design a weakness in your system that you won't discover until you've been compromised. So yes, I'm happy that I have older platforms with known, documented, manageable vulnerabilities to fall back on should ME's mysterious, undocumented vulnerabilities become compromised by a bad actor.
orbitingpluto 10y ago
In fact, I still don't see much of a reason to upgrade quad core Yorkfield Q9xxx servers except for cheap SSD upgrades. An 8 year old desktop still compares favorably to a $700 laptop (except, of course, for electricity).
- chriscappuccio 10y ago
  all intel chipsets since 2006 have had AMT/ME, including yours
  - orbitingpluto 10y ago
    Thank you.

yuhong 10y ago

Indeed, there was another recent HN thread on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11880935 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11880935

rpgmaker 10y ago

When people realize that it has been "truly compromised" it will be too late. The whole thing is a huge mess from a security stand-point.

ashitlerferad 10y ago

Watch out for TrustZone. There are definitely flaws in it too, for example: https://bits-please.blogspot.com/2016/06/trustzone-kernel-privilege-escalation.html https://bits-please.blogspot.com/2016/06/trustzone-kernel-pr...

Grazester 10y ago
Seems like this has already been patched

SXX 10y ago

You use three different platforms and every have backdoors in it.

morganvachon 10y ago
Name one that doesn't. Sorry, name a modern, useful hardware platform that is 100% guaranteed not to have a backdoor or vulnerability of some sort. It's about mitigating threats, because it's impossible to do more than that today. If you don't design and build the hardware yourself from the board and chips on up, it's not guaranteed to be safe. Even then, without being tested by the masses, you're bound to accidentally design a weakness in your system that you won't discover until you've been compromised. So yes, I'm happy that I have older platforms with known, documented, manageable vulnerabilities to fall back on should ME's mysterious, undocumented vulnerabilities become compromised by a bad actor.

orbitingpluto 10y ago

In fact, I still don't see much of a reason to upgrade quad core Yorkfield Q9xxx servers except for cheap SSD upgrades. An 8 year old desktop still compares favorably to a $700 laptop (except, of course, for electricity).

chriscappuccio 10y ago
all intel chipsets since 2006 have had AMT/ME, including yours
- orbitingpluto 10y ago
  Thank you.