you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]happysmash27 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Is there a text-based summary? I am on mobile right now.

[–]Intuit 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Intel put a separate, proprietary processor into i3, i5, and i7 chips (at the very least). They call it Management Engine (ME). This runs its own proprietary OS. It has access to all the hardware, including monitoring what the main CPU is doing. It is running at all times, even when the computer is sleeping/hibernating. The main CPU can't tell what it's doing/monitoring. Since the ME runs its own OS, it can monitor things no matter what OS the user is running: Windows, Mac, Linux, etc., even Tails.

Never mind the "justified" uses of this, just consider that any insecurities in it open your machine to hacking by third parties.

[–]happysmash27 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I've known about Intel ME itself for a while, but what about the whisper blower, and is there any new information, for example, confirming it intentionally being a backdoor, or perhaps a remotely exploitable vulnerability even when the remote access is disabled in the BIOS?