5 ms·

guys i'm curious... about security: some say intel has a backdoor, but there is this guy Nicola who says it's not true... if it's not true, why is the driver cl

guys i'm curious... about security: some say intel has a backdoor, but there is this guy Nicola who says it's not true... if it's not true, why is the driver closed source, and why is it impossible to disable ME?

wmf 4y ago
You can get a range of answers to that question but ultimately none of them are provable so the conspiracy theories will continue.
anonym29 4y ago
Intel CSME (formerly ME) and AMT ST (formerly PSP) have many properties that are / would be desireable for someone who is/was building a backdoor (DMA, TCP/IP stack that can use onboard ethernet without the host OS being aware, closed source, unremovable, etc). Keep in mind that even if there has not been a backdoor deliberately added, there absolutely have been serious exploits in ME and PSP, and even for those who are not worried about the government, these security coprocessors still pose grave risk to data privacy and security, potentially handing "ring -3" access to non-government hackers. While I personally share your belief that these are probable backdoors, it is important to remind skeptics that they pose a grave security and privacy threat even outside the context of a government backdoor conspiracy. There's a great talk on the risks posed by the capabilities of these security coprocessors by an extremely well-versed individual at Google who was (leading? involved at a high level?) working on Google's efforts to neutralize these dangerous subsystems at Embedded Linux Con in 2017: https://youtu.be/iffTJ1vPCSo https://youtu.be/iffTJ1vPCSo
- charcircuit 4y ago
  >DMA, TCP/IP stack that can use onboard ethernet without the host OS being aware, closed source, unremovable, etc You do know a wifi card has the same capabilities, right? There are many processors in your computer that can talk to the rest of the system in a privileged way. >there absolutely have been serious exploits in ME and PSP, Such as? I wouldn't call any of the found vulnerabilities serious. >that they pose a grave security and privacy threat even outside the context of a government backdoor conspiracy. Okay, but you need to balance those problems with the very real security benefits this allows Intel to offer.
  - fsflover 4y ago
    > You do know a wifi card has the same capabilities, right? WiFi card has no full access to everything, including CPU, RAM. On my machine, it’s isolated into a dedicated, hardware-virtualized VM (Qubes OS). > Okay, but you need to balance those problems with the very real security benefits this allows Intel to offer. Such as?
    - 7to2 4y ago
      Exactly. Even if we assumed for the sake of argument that wifi cards have complete access to the system, that in and of itself does not excuse CPU vendors to broaden the attack surface and prevent owners from narrowing it back down. I can't wait for riscv systems to take off. Hopefully we'll get more than the two horrible choices we have now and, hopefully, they won't be able to abuse the market in the same way. Screw both intel and amd for deliberately putting us all at risk.
      - anonym29 4y ago
        >Screw both intel and amd for deliberately putting us all at risk. Keep in mind, if these are government backdoors, it's likely Intel and AMD were compelled to put them in, there's a gag order on the existence of the program, and there's a gag order on the first gag order. It could be a situation where Intel and AMD really had their hands tied, so to speak.
        7to2 4y ago
        That's why I'm rooting for riskv processors, so that we can get the equivalent of reproducible openSSL binaries. US chips that are found to be irreproducable can be rightfully ignored.
      - charcircuit 4y ago
        What's special about RISC-V? How does companies not having to pay for using an ISA in a processor having anything to do with whether they implement other processors inside of their processor?
corna 4y ago
I simply think that a an explicit backdoor in Intel ME would be quite a risky move, but I do not have access to non-public information, so who knows? Also, the ME plays a fundamental part in the initialization of the Intel silicon (especially from Skylake/ME11 it appears), so it makes sense that it can not be disabled freely. It is close source because it is the way it works in the silicon world, as having an open firmware exposes information which may be bring advantage to the competition.

wmf 4y ago

You can get a range of answers to that question but ultimately none of them are provable so the conspiracy theories will continue.

anonym29 4y ago

Intel CSME (formerly ME) and AMT ST (formerly PSP) have many properties that are / would be desireable for someone who is/was building a backdoor (DMA, TCP/IP stack that can use onboard ethernet without the host OS being aware, closed source, unremovable, etc). Keep in mind that even if there has not been a backdoor deliberately added, there absolutely have been serious exploits in ME and PSP, and even for those who are not worried about the government, these security coprocessors still pose grave risk to data privacy and security, potentially handing "ring -3" access to non-government hackers. While I personally share your belief that these are probable backdoors, it is important to remind skeptics that they pose a grave security and privacy threat even outside the context of a government backdoor conspiracy. There's a great talk on the risks posed by the capabilities of these security coprocessors by an extremely well-versed individual at Google who was (leading? involved at a high level?) working on Google's efforts to neutralize these dangerous subsystems at Embedded Linux Con in 2017: https://youtu.be/iffTJ1vPCSo https://youtu.be/iffTJ1vPCSo

charcircuit 4y ago
>DMA, TCP/IP stack that can use onboard ethernet without the host OS being aware, closed source, unremovable, etc You do know a wifi card has the same capabilities, right? There are many processors in your computer that can talk to the rest of the system in a privileged way. >there absolutely have been serious exploits in ME and PSP, Such as? I wouldn't call any of the found vulnerabilities serious. >that they pose a grave security and privacy threat even outside the context of a government backdoor conspiracy. Okay, but you need to balance those problems with the very real security benefits this allows Intel to offer.
- fsflover 4y ago
  > You do know a wifi card has the same capabilities, right? WiFi card has no full access to everything, including CPU, RAM. On my machine, it’s isolated into a dedicated, hardware-virtualized VM (Qubes OS). > Okay, but you need to balance those problems with the very real security benefits this allows Intel to offer. Such as?
  - 7to2 4y ago
    Exactly. Even if we assumed for the sake of argument that wifi cards have complete access to the system, that in and of itself does not excuse CPU vendors to broaden the attack surface and prevent owners from narrowing it back down. I can't wait for riscv systems to take off. Hopefully we'll get more than the two horrible choices we have now and, hopefully, they won't be able to abuse the market in the same way. Screw both intel and amd for deliberately putting us all at risk.
    - anonym29 4y ago
      >Screw both intel and amd for deliberately putting us all at risk. Keep in mind, if these are government backdoors, it's likely Intel and AMD were compelled to put them in, there's a gag order on the existence of the program, and there's a gag order on the first gag order. It could be a situation where Intel and AMD really had their hands tied, so to speak.
      - 7to2 4y ago
        That's why I'm rooting for riskv processors, so that we can get the equivalent of reproducible openSSL binaries. US chips that are found to be irreproducable can be rightfully ignored.
    - charcircuit 4y ago
      What's special about RISC-V? How does companies not having to pay for using an ISA in a processor having anything to do with whether they implement other processors inside of their processor?

corna 4y ago

I simply think that a an explicit backdoor in Intel ME would be quite a risky move, but I do not have access to non-public information, so who knows? Also, the ME plays a fundamental part in the initialization of the Intel silicon (especially from Skylake/ME11 it appears), so it makes sense that it can not be disabled freely. It is close source because it is the way it works in the silicon world, as having an open firmware exposes information which may be bring advantage to the competition.