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Intel's response to the authors kind of explains it: they added this feature hastily to meet specific requirements of the HAP program and didn't fully validate

Intel's response to the authors kind of explains it: they added this feature hastily to meet specific requirements of the HAP program and didn't fully validate it – so it's not supported.

dmitrygr 9y ago
You missed the point. It was added for people with big money. I promise you - it is supported. Just not for you. You need to be backdoorable. They don't
- etatoby 9y ago
  ME itself was added for people with big money. I'm not an engineer experienced in this kind of work, but I fail to see how a company whose core business is manufacturing chips would develop an entire computer (comprising an x86 CPU, its own RAM, MINIX OS, and access to all kinds of I/O) hidden inside each one of their chips and made largely inaccessible to regular users and developers. Unless they are paid very well to do so. In retrospect they were kind of naive not to make it much harder to enable this HAP mode, considering the lengths they went to make ME tamper proof. They left the flag wide open and even commented it in an XML file.
  - verall 9y ago
    This sort of microcontroller for bringup and/or power in a large processor/SoC is not surprising at all. Intel ME is used for large scale setup and provisioning of new machines and is probably worth every penny to their OEM customers. I'm not saying that the NSA isn't possibly using it as a backdoor, but to say that the whole ME subsystem was created because they were paid off by the NSA is a bit far fetched.
  - the8472 9y ago
    > comprising an x86 CPU The ME runs an Argonaut RISC Core instruction set and leverages a lot of the existing infrastructure in the system since it sits directly in the chipset and can ask the main CPU to do some things on its behalf too.
    - 4ad 9y ago
      No, the new ME chip is an x86 running Minix. It's in the article, did you read it?
    - Narishma 9y ago
      Old versions did. Newer ones, as mentioned in the article, use a 486-derived low-power core (similar to what was used in Edison/Quark platforms) for the ME.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - MaxfordAndSons 9y ago
    > In retrospect they were kind of naive not to make it much harder to enable this HAP mode Idk... I suspect this info being publicized won't have much material impact on the effectiveness of the ME as a backdoor. Even among the tiny portion of the population interested enough and capable of understanding what it is and why it's bad, I doubt more than 1% of us will be bothered to go through the trouble of actually disabling it.
  - johnflan 9y ago
    Maybe this was due to a sympathetic engineers actions in Intel?
- MaulingMonkey 9y ago
  > I promise you - it is supported. For a general purpose consumer chip, "supported" generally doesn't carry the implicit caveat of: "... if you bring your own hardware engineers, pay enough $$$ to be worth letting your hardware engineers talk to our hardware engineers, and coordinate with us so we can test your very specific hardware setup(s) instead of trying to verify compatibility with a wider range of motherboards etc." You're of course correct that Intel is supporting it for $BIG_CUSTOMER that meets this exacting list (and likely more) of requirements. But I'd say codezero is just as correct in saying "it's not supported [for general use.]"

Intel's response to the authors kind of explains it: they added this feature hastily to meet specific requirements of the HAP program and didn't fully validate it – so it's not supported.

dmitrygr 9y ago

You missed the point. It was added for people with big money. I promise you - it is supported. Just not for you. You need to be backdoorable. They don't

etatoby 9y ago
ME itself was added for people with big money. I'm not an engineer experienced in this kind of work, but I fail to see how a company whose core business is manufacturing chips would develop an entire computer (comprising an x86 CPU, its own RAM, MINIX OS, and access to all kinds of I/O) hidden inside each one of their chips and made largely inaccessible to regular users and developers. Unless they are paid very well to do so. In retrospect they were kind of naive not to make it much harder to enable this HAP mode, considering the lengths they went to make ME tamper proof. They left the flag wide open and even commented it in an XML file.
- verall 9y ago
  This sort of microcontroller for bringup and/or power in a large processor/SoC is not surprising at all. Intel ME is used for large scale setup and provisioning of new machines and is probably worth every penny to their OEM customers. I'm not saying that the NSA isn't possibly using it as a backdoor, but to say that the whole ME subsystem was created because they were paid off by the NSA is a bit far fetched.
- the8472 9y ago
  > comprising an x86 CPU The ME runs an Argonaut RISC Core instruction set and leverages a lot of the existing infrastructure in the system since it sits directly in the chipset and can ask the main CPU to do some things on its behalf too.
  - 4ad 9y ago
    No, the new ME chip is an x86 running Minix. It's in the article, did you read it?
  - Narishma 9y ago
    Old versions did. Newer ones, as mentioned in the article, use a 486-derived low-power core (similar to what was used in Edison/Quark platforms) for the ME.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- MaxfordAndSons 9y ago
  > In retrospect they were kind of naive not to make it much harder to enable this HAP mode Idk... I suspect this info being publicized won't have much material impact on the effectiveness of the ME as a backdoor. Even among the tiny portion of the population interested enough and capable of understanding what it is and why it's bad, I doubt more than 1% of us will be bothered to go through the trouble of actually disabling it.
- johnflan 9y ago
  Maybe this was due to a sympathetic engineers actions in Intel?
MaulingMonkey 9y ago
> I promise you - it is supported. For a general purpose consumer chip, "supported" generally doesn't carry the implicit caveat of: "... if you bring your own hardware engineers, pay enough $$$ to be worth letting your hardware engineers talk to our hardware engineers, and coordinate with us so we can test your very specific hardware setup(s) instead of trying to verify compatibility with a wider range of motherboards etc." You're of course correct that Intel is supporting it for $BIG_CUSTOMER that meets this exacting list (and likely more) of requirements. But I'd say codezero is just as correct in saying "it's not supported [for general use.]"