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Your average desktop/laptop CPU runs a blackbox like Intel AMT or AMD PSP which is basically an always active mini-CPU that runs in the background and is OS-agn
by m-p-3 6y ago
Your average desktop/laptop CPU runs a blackbox like Intel AMT or AMD PSP which is basically an always active mini-CPU that runs in the background and is OS-agnostic. If you consider your OS max privilege level as ring 0, this is ring -1.
If/when someone manage to conpromise those, they can basically take over your computer, and Intel/AMD doesn't provide any sort of killswitch or physical way of disabling it.
- marshmallow_12 6y agoTell me more about this. What does this system do, and why can't we do anything about it?
- silly-silly 6y ago> What does this system do, It can be used for 'out of band' management of your system, including firmware/bios rollouts and updates. Allows remote hijacking of attached hardware devices. Basically can puppeteer your entire system. > why can't we do anything about it? Because there is no ability to update or modify this code. It is only updatable by the hardware vendor as it is encrypted, signed and checked during update.
- legends2k 6y agoThe first section of [1] explains that with references [1]: https://legends2k.github.io/note/clean_me https://legends2k.github.io/note/clean_me
- marshmallow_12 6y agooh my. I don't see why bloomberg got all busy with hidden Chinese chips. It looks like intel already have it covered.
- ekianjo 6y agoNot just Intel. amd too.
- salawat 6y agoAlas, it is so. Graphics cards have much the same going on. It's part of why Nvidia will likely never opensource or mainline their drivers... They have a huge need for blobs and hardware backed secrecy in order to enable most systems to be compatible with HDCP. That means they need to be able to attest to their cards having not been compromised since leaving the factory. As someone could in theory cobble together an HDCP compliant rig and good heavens, might be able to intercept and decode HD content! So much of what makes the tech giants so lucrative is that they act as centralization points for industry level orchestration of what user behavior to support. You can bet that if an industry working group is stoked, there's likely hidden in there somewhere an implementation detail intended to curb an undesirable user freedom or general capability.
- mindslight 6y agoThe biggest difference is that graphics cards don't have network access. Without network access, proprietary code can be an annoyance, but won't be an outright compromise. (sure the code could still do nasty stuff like facilitate tempest or other sidechannels, but that's leaps and bounds ahead of the built in assumed-RCEs of ME/PSP).
- katbyte 6y ago> HDCP compliant rig and good heavens, might be able to intercept and decode HD content! As if that even matters - pointless standard. can't think of any content that there isn't a torrent up hours after it's available lol
- boring_twenties 6y agohttps://libreboot.org/faq.html#intelme https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intelme
- jart 6y agoFaraday cage can do something about it.
- fsflover 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- anta40 6y agoTurn the power off. Unplug all cables. Problem is (temporarily) solved :D
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y agoYeah, until I want to actually do anything with it.
- 8note 6y agoSolved until somebody invents some form of technology for storing energy over time,and another for communicating without wires
- rubatuga 6y agoI think you mean Intel ME not Intel AMT.