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A story: One of my coworkers told me he previously worked on the motherboard team for Intel and was regaling the office with stories about testing the motherbo
by AdmiralAsshat 10y ago
A story:
One of my coworkers told me he previously worked on the motherboard team for Intel and was regaling the office with stories about testing the motherboards against the latest games. Apparently many of the Intel engineers personally tested overclocking the processors to see how much they could take before they fried.
At some point I asked him if he knew anything about the Management Engine. He said that they were starting to become a thing right around the time he was leaving, so he didn't know too much about them. I said, "Well, there's a bunch of paranoid people that are uneasy about it because, to my understanding, it's a blackbox second processor and we really have no idea what it's doing."
Without prompt, he replied, "Oh, you mean like the FBI using it to listen in? Yeah, that happened. It happened on AT&T's when I went over there as well."*
That's my story. I apologize if it looks like I'm spreading FUD here, since I'm not going to give up my name or my coworker's to verify the story, but I sincerely doubt that Intel would acknowledge such a capability anyway, so, take it as you will. Libreboot, the Management Engine cleaner, and other such projects need to exist. My coworker's comment convinced me of that.
* I'm not sure what he's referring to here. Maybe someone else can shed some light. Does AT&T make processors?
- Someone1234 10y agoI'm skeptical that the FBI have the technical capabilities to turn the IME into a trojan horse (in the biblical sense). More likely NSA-levels of sophistication. Plus there's also the issue of doing the actual implants (either via postal intercepts, physical access, or breaking into networks) which are illegal for the FBI to do but semi-legal for the NSA to do against foreign targets.
- dromen 10y agoCan't the FBI request services from the NSA? And there have been versions of the Intel ME in the wild with known remote exploits AFAIK.
- kobeya 10y agoYes, although this was made legal only recently.
- eximius 10y agoDoesn't mean it wasn't already happening at some level.
- dv_dt 10y agoIsn't this a two edged thing in legal courts - if there is a widely available backdoor to hack Intel systems, how can any digital evidence be taken without some measure of doubt?
- AnthonyMouse 10y agoThat is the whole "parallel construction" debacle. Once they have the evidence, they come up with a cover story for how they could have legally obtained it.
- mikeash 10y agoIf Intel was cooperative, then all the FBI would need to do is ask them to help. That would fit with an Intel employee being aware of it happening. Pure speculation on my part, of course.
- kobeya 10y agoIntel wouldn't even have to be cooperative with an NSL in place.
- colordrops 10y agoIf Intel added the feature for use by groups like the FBI, they wouldn't need to reverse engineer or hack anything. Intel would hand over the keys.
- caycep 10y agoHe may be referring to the illegal / gray area tap rooms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A