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You're not Intel's customer. Dell, Lenovo, Amazon et al. are. And they want management systems, because the large companies who buy from those guys also want ma

You're not Intel's customer. Dell, Lenovo, Amazon et al. are. And they want management systems, because the large companies who buy from those guys also want management systems. This isn't some super conspiracy, (even if it's something the three letter organizations try to take advantage of it) this is pure business. Pwning a computer across the internet that your dumbass sales manager left on a train is a feature.

KGIII 9y ago
The 'best' part about it is that they don't even have to leave it on a train. This is progress!
wolco 9y ago
You are intel's customer when those retail stores try to sell a computer to yourself. They usually include the cpu details and can help a customer make a decision. That's why the intel inside campaign was so successful.
- userbinator 9y ago
  Keyword being "was". Unfortunately most PC (and Mac, to an even greater extent) buyers today probably barely know who makes the CPU in what they're buying.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    Also the choice is, and always was, basically between Intel and AMD. That's literally two options a customer has. When both companies implement a management engine across their CPUs, you don't have any choice in the matter.
    - r3dk1ng 9y ago
      I've had a handful of computers with CPUs made by VIA, so there's at least a small third option. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIA_Technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIA_Technologies
ss248 9y ago
>And they want management systems The funny thing is that they actually don't. Never heard of system administrator who prefers to use intel ME. Some people told me that there are better tools to manage computers in the datacenter for example and ime just not worth it. This is just an anecdata, but if anyone has any stories of using Intel AMT on a large scale (or actually on any scale even), i would really love to hear them.
- shard 9y ago
  I don't think system administrators are the customers, they are just the employees who keep the systems running. The customers are the upper management who has final approval on the purchases. The problem is likely that somewhere between the system administrators and the chain of management up to the top, one of the levels don't have enough political clout or was not persuasive enough to convince upper management to take a different direction.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    This. I had this situation in my career. Someone somewhere in the management chain decided that all computers need a full remote management tool installed behind employees' backs, and our friendly sysadmins didn't have any say in that; their job is to tell us to not have stuff that the remote management scripts identify as unwanted. In another place that I had to deal with for a while, someone had the bright idea to outsource IT to an external company. This meant all the computers software engineers used were a) locked up as much as they could be, b) alterations to some OS configuration (or hardware) required going through a third party service provider. I kind of understand the need for locking things up for regular computer users. I guess it also somehow adds up in the sheets to the upper beancounters. I also believe their math is totally bogus, because it doesn't count in the total destruction of productivity it causes for engineers of all kind.
    - ginreaper 9y ago
      Yeah. New project at my work is to get everyone onto a stripped down Windows 10 dumb terminal with IE and MS Office installed, no admin rights, no extra software. I flat out refused to upgrade. I'm a software engineer. You want me catting, grepping and manipulating files on OneCloud ? really? You want my VMs (also not allowed by default) to be stored in one cloud? Like... this was clearly not well thought out
FooHentai 9y ago
In a world where the clipper chip, snowden leaks, NSAKey, room 641a, NSA/RSA deal, and national security letters didn't exist, I'd be in the realms of crazy conspiracy theorist and you'd sound like the rational voice of evidence-based reason. But that's not the world we live in. What I list above are not conspiracy theories, they are proven, factual happenings. There is a clear evidential basis to infer the NSA's intent and capabilities in this area. There are obviously security/privacy snafus that companies make all the time that have nothing to do with nation-state influence and spying. Superfish, for example, was more-likely-than-not a really bad judgement call on the tradeoff between analytics and customer privacy. >this is pure business. If that were true then the ability to disable ME, which clearly exists, would be made available to parties other than the NSA.
- eivarv 9y ago
  Nah, it's still conspiracy theories. At best conspiracy conjecture. Unlike "... proven, factual happenings", your idea isn't backed by any evidence - at least not any that appear in your post.
  - FooHentai 9y ago
    What kind of evidence would you imagine one would find, if that were happening?
    - eivarv 9y ago
      Your point doesn't push the burden of proof unto those that disagree (see Russel's teapot[0]), nor make it OK to skip evidence altogether. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
      - indrax 9y ago
        Things change once we've found the rest of a tea set in various orbits. There may not be strong direct evidence but it's no longer a silly conjecture, it's the kind of thing that we find. So those other examples mean you do have the burden of justifying your 'conspiracy' label.
raverbashing 9y ago
Which will be fun when the next data breach happens because of it

KGIII 9y ago

The 'best' part about it is that they don't even have to leave it on a train. This is progress!

wolco 9y ago

You are intel's customer when those retail stores try to sell a computer to yourself. They usually include the cpu details and can help a customer make a decision. That's why the intel inside campaign was so successful.

userbinator 9y ago
Keyword being "was". Unfortunately most PC (and Mac, to an even greater extent) buyers today probably barely know who makes the CPU in what they're buying.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Also the choice is, and always was, basically between Intel and AMD. That's literally two options a customer has. When both companies implement a management engine across their CPUs, you don't have any choice in the matter.
  - r3dk1ng 9y ago
    I've had a handful of computers with CPUs made by VIA, so there's at least a small third option. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIA_Technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIA_Technologies

ss248 9y ago

>And they want management systems The funny thing is that they actually don't. Never heard of system administrator who prefers to use intel ME. Some people told me that there are better tools to manage computers in the datacenter for example and ime just not worth it. This is just an anecdata, but if anyone has any stories of using Intel AMT on a large scale (or actually on any scale even), i would really love to hear them.

shard 9y ago
I don't think system administrators are the customers, they are just the employees who keep the systems running. The customers are the upper management who has final approval on the purchases. The problem is likely that somewhere between the system administrators and the chain of management up to the top, one of the levels don't have enough political clout or was not persuasive enough to convince upper management to take a different direction.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  This. I had this situation in my career. Someone somewhere in the management chain decided that all computers need a full remote management tool installed behind employees' backs, and our friendly sysadmins didn't have any say in that; their job is to tell us to not have stuff that the remote management scripts identify as unwanted. In another place that I had to deal with for a while, someone had the bright idea to outsource IT to an external company. This meant all the computers software engineers used were a) locked up as much as they could be, b) alterations to some OS configuration (or hardware) required going through a third party service provider. I kind of understand the need for locking things up for regular computer users. I guess it also somehow adds up in the sheets to the upper beancounters. I also believe their math is totally bogus, because it doesn't count in the total destruction of productivity it causes for engineers of all kind.
  - ginreaper 9y ago
    Yeah. New project at my work is to get everyone onto a stripped down Windows 10 dumb terminal with IE and MS Office installed, no admin rights, no extra software. I flat out refused to upgrade. I'm a software engineer. You want me catting, grepping and manipulating files on OneCloud ? really? You want my VMs (also not allowed by default) to be stored in one cloud? Like... this was clearly not well thought out

FooHentai 9y ago

In a world where the clipper chip, snowden leaks, NSAKey, room 641a, NSA/RSA deal, and national security letters didn't exist, I'd be in the realms of crazy conspiracy theorist and you'd sound like the rational voice of evidence-based reason. But that's not the world we live in. What I list above are not conspiracy theories, they are proven, factual happenings. There is a clear evidential basis to infer the NSA's intent and capabilities in this area. There are obviously security/privacy snafus that companies make all the time that have nothing to do with nation-state influence and spying. Superfish, for example, was more-likely-than-not a really bad judgement call on the tradeoff between analytics and customer privacy. >this is pure business. If that were true then the ability to disable ME, which clearly exists, would be made available to parties other than the NSA.

eivarv 9y ago
Nah, it's still conspiracy theories. At best conspiracy conjecture. Unlike "... proven, factual happenings", your idea isn't backed by any evidence - at least not any that appear in your post.
- FooHentai 9y ago
  What kind of evidence would you imagine one would find, if that were happening?
  - eivarv 9y ago
    Your point doesn't push the burden of proof unto those that disagree (see Russel's teapot[0]), nor make it OK to skip evidence altogether. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
    - indrax 9y ago
      Things change once we've found the rest of a tea set in various orbits. There may not be strong direct evidence but it's no longer a silly conjecture, it's the kind of thing that we find. So those other examples mean you do have the burden of justifying your 'conspiracy' label.

raverbashing 9y ago

Which will be fun when the next data breach happens because of it