4 ms·

>It's a feature, not a nefarious backdoor that the NSA made Intel include under the cover of darkness. Let's be clear: It's both.

IgorPartola 9y ago
Is it? Again, that a big claim to make in five words and drop the mic. Can you cite anything to back it up?
- Sir_Substance 9y ago
  If Intel weren't under pressure to keep a negative-ring network enabled snoopstack open by an external entity, they would by now definitely have released an update that allowed people to disable the networking aspect of IME. Major system vendors are now offering to apply bootleg removal situations at the factory on customer request[1]. That request is not free. People are willing to /pay extra/ for no-IME laptops. Either Intels marketing and public relations department are asleep at the wheel, or they've gone to the top to request a friendly switch to disable this and been told by the legal department that they can't have one. [1]https://liliputing.com/2017/12/dell-also-sells-laptops-intel-management-engine-disabled.html https://liliputing.com/2017/12/dell-also-sells-laptops-intel...
  - IgorPartola 9y ago
    OK, but that's (a) 100% speculation and (b) fails Hanlon's razor. I don't like the fact that you can't disable ME, that it's not open source, and that it's vulnerable any more than anyone else. But this does seem like hyperbole much more than fact.
    - Sir_Substance 9y ago
      >OK, but that's (a) 100% speculation 95% speculation. The last 5% comes from exercising basic pattern recognition. I remind you that we're probably talking about interference from the organization that arranged this: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa... The existence of that program was pure speculation, until it turned out to be totally real. >(b) fails Hanlon's razor. This is completely irrelevant to any argument made between two informed participants. It's worse than speculation, it's a plea to glib colloquialisms. Any chance you've got evidence or even reasoned speculation supporting the theory that the worlds most successful CPU manufacturer has an incompetent marketing department?
      - IgorPartola 9y ago
        I think they have an incompetent management department that decided that no open sourcing ME is a good idea. Marketing is may also be incompetent at picking up the pieces after the bugs were discovered. > 95% speculation. The last 5% comes from exercising basic pattern recognition. No, it's all speculation because pattern recognition is not evidence, as applied here. Like, is it possible that I am an NSA agent trying to persuade you that you are safe and shouldn't worry about ME? Of course it's possible. But do you have any evidence of that? No. "Well, in the past the NSA has asked big companies for backdoors into their products" is a true statement with evidence. "That implies that in this case there is a 5% chance that is exactly what's happening" is 100% speculation because again there is no evidence. If you can find any, I am all ears because honestly I am not a fan of Intel, Intel ME, the NSA, government spying, big corporations taking advantage of consumers, or a number of other things I imagine you and I agree on. But I think I am being rational when I say that chances are this is a stupid bug or number of bugs, plus bad old school thinking on the part of the management team, and not a deliberate NSA feature. Here is my bit of speculation: if the NSA asked Intel to include a backdoor, wouldn't they both have done a better job of creating it? Why introduce a bug when you can include whatever code you want in a closed source firmware? You can literally add any kind of C&C mechanism you want because nobody can see what you are doing and nobody would ever know. Is the NSA that stupid to to ask for a bug that can be found and exploited? Is Intel not able to offer a better technical solution? Wouldn't it be to both of their benefits to do this right from the start? Also, why only approach Intel and not AMD? AMD is not as popular but surely has enough market share to warrant spying on.
        johnny22 9y ago
        you are the mvp of this post. thanks for keeping things rational.
        pdimitar 9y ago
        You say "do you have proof?". But nobody can have proof beforehand. That's how these things always go -- something is done under cover and later (usually much later) somebody uncovers it and shows it to the world. Why do you ask of a proof that can't possibly be in the spotlight right now? Many historical facts have been denied and met with skepticism and mockery until they have been proven to be indeed facts. Why is this case different in your eyes? Why aren't you viewing the possibility of intelligence agencies ordering the Intel ME as one of these future historical facts? If the proof for that became known today, both the agency and Intel would scramble to introduce a better backdoor in the next generation CPUs / MBs and devise a marketing campaign to make it sound good -- and to bash their former selves for "making a mistake" while simply thinking "OK, we're gonna cover it up much better this time and we're gonna twist it in such a way that people would flock to buy it". It's what marketing and spies do; they twist facts. Why is that so non-legit for you? Furthermore, you're asking why didn't they do a better job if it was a conspiracy. People in closed circles aren't exposed to public criticism and their thinking is affected in the process. They usually think "meh, good enough, nobody will ever find it anyway". They are humans like you and I and are susceptible to bad days or negligence due to being tired. Furthermore, it's very likely they were under pressure to make it work quickly so they took shortcuts. What makes you think the programmers of the intelligence agencies have godlike powers over their (very likely) military superiors? Answer is, they don't. Programmers have no executive powers and their counsel is usually met with skepticism if it doesn't fit the management's agenda. When talking about intelligence, our best bet is to do educated guesses. If we had hard facts we would be targets. As mentioned in another reply of mine directed at you -- it's their job to hide the facts. So you requesting proof of these matters is basically refuting all possibility of intelligence agency commission of the Intel ME on the grounds of "hey, you are not the next Edward Snowden so your arguments are invalid". Meh. You come across as a guy who basically says "my speculation is better than yours". Not constructive.
  - kllrnohj 9y ago
    Adding that option costs them money (engineering time, QA time, support issues resulting from it, etc...) Until it's financially worth their while, why would they spend money on it?
- boomboomsubban 9y ago
  It creates a huge attack vector on most computers that the user has almost no control over. Even if Intel are completely uninvolved, some intelligence agency will try to exploit it.
  - JdeBP 9y ago
    The claim at hand, however, was that the NSA made Intel include it.
    - boomboomsubban 9y ago
      No, the claim being made is that ME is being added as a feature, with a hyperbolic version of the other argument tacked on. Whether they were forced to include it doesn't matter, the way they included it benefits the intelligence agencies.
- pdimitar 9y ago
  How can you request a citation about things relating to possible intelligence agencies efforts with a straight face? It's literally their job to make sure such material doesn't exist or sees the light of day if it does. It's not exactly publicly-funded science now, is it? You request a proof that's impossible to procure. Are you now gonna claim the lack of this proof supports your thesis?
  - IgorPartola 9y ago
    Yes? Because acting on pure unvarnished unburdened by critical thinking speculation is not a good idea?
    - Karunamon 9y ago
      Critical thinking would demand recognition of the fact that intelligence agencies compromising security isn't a hypothetical anymore, it's a fact, and it would further demand intense skepticism of unauditable and hostile (resists attempts to disable it) code running below ring 0.
      - IgorPartola 9y ago
        I never said they don't. Simply that in this case there is no evidence, direct or circumstantial, pointing to Intel ME being born out of an order by an intelligence agency. Could it be? Sure. But critical thinking demands facts, not speculation. Facts are: 1. Intelligence agencies have been known to force companies to give them access to their products. 2. Companies have been known to comply, if reluctantly, at least until a whistleblower exposes the program. 3. Intel ME was developed as an on-chip version of an external card that is actually useful. 4. Intel has made poorly engineered products before. 5. Intel isn't in a habit of open sourcing firmware. 6. From a technical standpoint, Intel is fully capable of creating a system that doesn't allow C&C through a bug and an exploit. 7. AMD, the second largest computer chip maker does not have a matching system that can't be disabled and that has similar bugs. Based on this, I'd say it's possible that the NSA (or equivalent) asked Intel to develop ME and add a bug to allow C&C, but very unlikely. It's also possible that the NSA (or equivalent) asked Intel to develop ME and add C&C and Intel did it through a deliberate bug, but very unlikely. It's also possible that Intel tried to develop a feature the market might want, and screwed up the implementation. This seems to me to be very likely. It's the simplest explanation (Occam's razor) and it requires only incompetence, not malice (Hanlan's razor), so it's sort of by default most likely. If someone can produce an iota of evidence to the contrary I will change my allocation of probabilities appropriately, but so far the evidence is "it could have been done" and "they've been known to spy on people in the past". In my book that's not a strong enough argument.

IgorPartola 9y ago

Is it? Again, that a big claim to make in five words and drop the mic. Can you cite anything to back it up?

Sir_Substance 9y ago
If Intel weren't under pressure to keep a negative-ring network enabled snoopstack open by an external entity, they would by now definitely have released an update that allowed people to disable the networking aspect of IME. Major system vendors are now offering to apply bootleg removal situations at the factory on customer request[1]. That request is not free. People are willing to /pay extra/ for no-IME laptops. Either Intels marketing and public relations department are asleep at the wheel, or they've gone to the top to request a friendly switch to disable this and been told by the legal department that they can't have one. [1]https://liliputing.com/2017/12/dell-also-sells-laptops-intel-management-engine-disabled.html https://liliputing.com/2017/12/dell-also-sells-laptops-intel...
- IgorPartola 9y ago
  OK, but that's (a) 100% speculation and (b) fails Hanlon's razor. I don't like the fact that you can't disable ME, that it's not open source, and that it's vulnerable any more than anyone else. But this does seem like hyperbole much more than fact.
  - Sir_Substance 9y ago
    >OK, but that's (a) 100% speculation 95% speculation. The last 5% comes from exercising basic pattern recognition. I remind you that we're probably talking about interference from the organization that arranged this: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa... The existence of that program was pure speculation, until it turned out to be totally real. >(b) fails Hanlon's razor. This is completely irrelevant to any argument made between two informed participants. It's worse than speculation, it's a plea to glib colloquialisms. Any chance you've got evidence or even reasoned speculation supporting the theory that the worlds most successful CPU manufacturer has an incompetent marketing department?
    - IgorPartola 9y ago
      I think they have an incompetent management department that decided that no open sourcing ME is a good idea. Marketing is may also be incompetent at picking up the pieces after the bugs were discovered. > 95% speculation. The last 5% comes from exercising basic pattern recognition. No, it's all speculation because pattern recognition is not evidence, as applied here. Like, is it possible that I am an NSA agent trying to persuade you that you are safe and shouldn't worry about ME? Of course it's possible. But do you have any evidence of that? No. "Well, in the past the NSA has asked big companies for backdoors into their products" is a true statement with evidence. "That implies that in this case there is a 5% chance that is exactly what's happening" is 100% speculation because again there is no evidence. If you can find any, I am all ears because honestly I am not a fan of Intel, Intel ME, the NSA, government spying, big corporations taking advantage of consumers, or a number of other things I imagine you and I agree on. But I think I am being rational when I say that chances are this is a stupid bug or number of bugs, plus bad old school thinking on the part of the management team, and not a deliberate NSA feature. Here is my bit of speculation: if the NSA asked Intel to include a backdoor, wouldn't they both have done a better job of creating it? Why introduce a bug when you can include whatever code you want in a closed source firmware? You can literally add any kind of C&C mechanism you want because nobody can see what you are doing and nobody would ever know. Is the NSA that stupid to to ask for a bug that can be found and exploited? Is Intel not able to offer a better technical solution? Wouldn't it be to both of their benefits to do this right from the start? Also, why only approach Intel and not AMD? AMD is not as popular but surely has enough market share to warrant spying on.
      - johnny22 9y ago
        you are the mvp of this post. thanks for keeping things rational.
      - pdimitar 9y ago
        You say "do you have proof?". But nobody can have proof beforehand. That's how these things always go -- something is done under cover and later (usually much later) somebody uncovers it and shows it to the world. Why do you ask of a proof that can't possibly be in the spotlight right now? Many historical facts have been denied and met with skepticism and mockery until they have been proven to be indeed facts. Why is this case different in your eyes? Why aren't you viewing the possibility of intelligence agencies ordering the Intel ME as one of these future historical facts? If the proof for that became known today, both the agency and Intel would scramble to introduce a better backdoor in the next generation CPUs / MBs and devise a marketing campaign to make it sound good -- and to bash their former selves for "making a mistake" while simply thinking "OK, we're gonna cover it up much better this time and we're gonna twist it in such a way that people would flock to buy it". It's what marketing and spies do; they twist facts. Why is that so non-legit for you? Furthermore, you're asking why didn't they do a better job if it was a conspiracy. People in closed circles aren't exposed to public criticism and their thinking is affected in the process. They usually think "meh, good enough, nobody will ever find it anyway". They are humans like you and I and are susceptible to bad days or negligence due to being tired. Furthermore, it's very likely they were under pressure to make it work quickly so they took shortcuts. What makes you think the programmers of the intelligence agencies have godlike powers over their (very likely) military superiors? Answer is, they don't. Programmers have no executive powers and their counsel is usually met with skepticism if it doesn't fit the management's agenda. When talking about intelligence, our best bet is to do educated guesses. If we had hard facts we would be targets. As mentioned in another reply of mine directed at you -- it's their job to hide the facts. So you requesting proof of these matters is basically refuting all possibility of intelligence agency commission of the Intel ME on the grounds of "hey, you are not the next Edward Snowden so your arguments are invalid". Meh. You come across as a guy who basically says "my speculation is better than yours". Not constructive.
- kllrnohj 9y ago
  Adding that option costs them money (engineering time, QA time, support issues resulting from it, etc...) Until it's financially worth their while, why would they spend money on it?
boomboomsubban 9y ago
It creates a huge attack vector on most computers that the user has almost no control over. Even if Intel are completely uninvolved, some intelligence agency will try to exploit it.
- JdeBP 9y ago
  The claim at hand, however, was that the NSA made Intel include it.
  - boomboomsubban 9y ago
    No, the claim being made is that ME is being added as a feature, with a hyperbolic version of the other argument tacked on. Whether they were forced to include it doesn't matter, the way they included it benefits the intelligence agencies.
pdimitar 9y ago
How can you request a citation about things relating to possible intelligence agencies efforts with a straight face? It's literally their job to make sure such material doesn't exist or sees the light of day if it does. It's not exactly publicly-funded science now, is it? You request a proof that's impossible to procure. Are you now gonna claim the lack of this proof supports your thesis?
- IgorPartola 9y ago
  Yes? Because acting on pure unvarnished unburdened by critical thinking speculation is not a good idea?
  - Karunamon 9y ago
    Critical thinking would demand recognition of the fact that intelligence agencies compromising security isn't a hypothetical anymore, it's a fact, and it would further demand intense skepticism of unauditable and hostile (resists attempts to disable it) code running below ring 0.
    - IgorPartola 9y ago
      I never said they don't. Simply that in this case there is no evidence, direct or circumstantial, pointing to Intel ME being born out of an order by an intelligence agency. Could it be? Sure. But critical thinking demands facts, not speculation. Facts are: 1. Intelligence agencies have been known to force companies to give them access to their products. 2. Companies have been known to comply, if reluctantly, at least until a whistleblower exposes the program. 3. Intel ME was developed as an on-chip version of an external card that is actually useful. 4. Intel has made poorly engineered products before. 5. Intel isn't in a habit of open sourcing firmware. 6. From a technical standpoint, Intel is fully capable of creating a system that doesn't allow C&C through a bug and an exploit. 7. AMD, the second largest computer chip maker does not have a matching system that can't be disabled and that has similar bugs. Based on this, I'd say it's possible that the NSA (or equivalent) asked Intel to develop ME and add a bug to allow C&C, but very unlikely. It's also possible that the NSA (or equivalent) asked Intel to develop ME and add C&C and Intel did it through a deliberate bug, but very unlikely. It's also possible that Intel tried to develop a feature the market might want, and screwed up the implementation. This seems to me to be very likely. It's the simplest explanation (Occam's razor) and it requires only incompetence, not malice (Hanlan's razor), so it's sort of by default most likely. If someone can produce an iota of evidence to the contrary I will change my allocation of probabilities appropriately, but so far the evidence is "it could have been done" and "they've been known to spy on people in the past". In my book that's not a strong enough argument.