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This is something I always have been wondering about. I can't imagine the US government is happy having the ME in every computer, with a closed source operating
by captainmuon 9y ago
This is something I always have been wondering about. I can't imagine the US government is happy having the ME in every computer, with a closed source operating system running that has complete access to CPU, memory and network. If anybody can call Intel and ask for a custom version without this stuff, it is the government. And it looks like they did.
(If any important Silicon Valley CEO reads this, why don't you give Intel a call, as an important customer, and ask why 1) you can't disable the ME and 2) for a written guarantee that there is no backdoor in the ME?)
Something else: does anybody know if the trick mentioned in the article has negative side effects? Does power management still work? Can we be sure that this doesn't activate a backdoor to begin with, and the computer tries to connect to an NSA domain :-) ?
- etatoby 9y agoConsidering that they left the HAP flag in the open and even commented it in an XML file; considering how it does not disable all of ME, but only certain bits; and contrasting it with the otherwise inscrutable, encrypted, and tamper-proof nature of ME, it's hard not to see it as a honeypot or bait.
- codedokode 9y agoIntel's management and QA probably looked only at UI where the flag is marked as "Reserved".