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They added it for business reasons for remote monitoring and control since enterprises like it. That's a large part of their sales. It also had consumer benefit

They added it for business reasons for remote monitoring and control since enterprises like it. That's a large part of their sales. It also had consumer benefits. Related tech also helped DRM machines through Trusted Computing alliance. And they probably got defense contracts or payments for selective use by NSA or other organizations. Lots of return on that investment. Lots of reasons unrelated to those you mention.

ar-jan 9y ago
Then why refuse the possibility to disable it?
arca_vorago 9y ago
>remote monitoring and control There are opensource ways to do out of band management without it. >consumer benefits. Related tech also helped DRM machines through Trusted Computing alliance. Nobody I knew who was knowledgeable wanted that shit in the first place. It was always edging away consumer control of the platform. DRM is part of the problem here! Same thing with web standards. What annoys me the most about this is the audacity of calling it "consumer benefits". >probably got defense contracts or payments for selective use by NSA or other organizations Fine, but that's not a good enough reason to backdoor literally everything for everyone else. (reminds me of systemd and redhat actually)
- forapurpose 9y ago
  >>remote monitoring and control > There are opensource ways to do out of band management without it. I'd be surprised if there is a cost-effective open source alternative to this requirement: Remotely access and control a computer under any circumstance where it has power and a physical network connection. Solutions like AMT work even if there is no functioning processor or memory, because ME provides its own processor and memory. The open source alternative would need the same hardware. At best, it would mean the corporate IT department designing, buying, installing, integrating, and supporting additional hardware, for tens of thousands of computers. That's very hard to justify when the computers come with hardware already installed, integrated with everything else, and supported by the vendor. If someone could put FOSS on ME (or competing proprietary solutions), I'd be all for it. I suspect it would be very difficult, as we can't even figure out how to disable ME.
  - bubblethink 9y ago
    There's open BMC, which I think Facebook uses. Google has its own thing from a recent thread.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    Most BMCs are rather limited aren't they? They can switch power off and on, read a few sensors. ME goes well beyond that from what I gather.
    - wmf 9y ago
      That's what BMCs were like 15 years ago; they're much more sophisticated now.
    - snuxoll 9y ago
      They've supported a lot more than that for a very long time. The BMCs on both my ThinkServer TD340 and ProLiant ML10 support remote KVM access, CD/DVD emulation (mount a local .iso as a virtual drive on the server), firmware updates, and quite a bit more. On top of that, I should note they do this without assistance of the Intel ME. The remote KVM access is handled through a video adapter embedded in the BMC.
      - forapurpose 9y ago
        I agree but those are servers, where the extra investment is worthwhile (server outages cost much more than a user desktop) and market demand is driven by people like you and me. I was talking about end-user desktops and laptops.
  - kiallmacinnes 9y ago
    Right, out of band management (by today's definition) means - assuming the chassis has power and network, you can manage the machines, this is primarily a hardware problem. As much as I root for Open Source software, I don't see how OSS can replace the AMT stack. Our team has several racks of R&D servers 7500km away from the bulk of the team, and having OOB management is vital. Absolutely vital.

ar-jan 9y ago

Then why refuse the possibility to disable it?

arca_vorago 9y ago

>remote monitoring and control There are opensource ways to do out of band management without it. >consumer benefits. Related tech also helped DRM machines through Trusted Computing alliance. Nobody I knew who was knowledgeable wanted that shit in the first place. It was always edging away consumer control of the platform. DRM is part of the problem here! Same thing with web standards. What annoys me the most about this is the audacity of calling it "consumer benefits". >probably got defense contracts or payments for selective use by NSA or other organizations Fine, but that's not a good enough reason to backdoor literally everything for everyone else. (reminds me of systemd and redhat actually)

forapurpose 9y ago
>>remote monitoring and control > There are opensource ways to do out of band management without it. I'd be surprised if there is a cost-effective open source alternative to this requirement: Remotely access and control a computer under any circumstance where it has power and a physical network connection. Solutions like AMT work even if there is no functioning processor or memory, because ME provides its own processor and memory. The open source alternative would need the same hardware. At best, it would mean the corporate IT department designing, buying, installing, integrating, and supporting additional hardware, for tens of thousands of computers. That's very hard to justify when the computers come with hardware already installed, integrated with everything else, and supported by the vendor. If someone could put FOSS on ME (or competing proprietary solutions), I'd be all for it. I suspect it would be very difficult, as we can't even figure out how to disable ME.
- bubblethink 9y ago
  There's open BMC, which I think Facebook uses. Google has its own thing from a recent thread.
- ams6110 9y ago
  Most BMCs are rather limited aren't they? They can switch power off and on, read a few sensors. ME goes well beyond that from what I gather.
  - wmf 9y ago
    That's what BMCs were like 15 years ago; they're much more sophisticated now.
  - snuxoll 9y ago
    They've supported a lot more than that for a very long time. The BMCs on both my ThinkServer TD340 and ProLiant ML10 support remote KVM access, CD/DVD emulation (mount a local .iso as a virtual drive on the server), firmware updates, and quite a bit more. On top of that, I should note they do this without assistance of the Intel ME. The remote KVM access is handled through a video adapter embedded in the BMC.
    - forapurpose 9y ago
      I agree but those are servers, where the extra investment is worthwhile (server outages cost much more than a user desktop) and market demand is driven by people like you and me. I was talking about end-user desktops and laptops.
- kiallmacinnes 9y ago
  Right, out of band management (by today's definition) means - assuming the chassis has power and network, you can manage the machines, this is primarily a hardware problem. As much as I root for Open Source software, I don't see how OSS can replace the AMT stack. Our team has several racks of R&D servers 7500km away from the bulk of the team, and having OOB management is vital. Absolutely vital.