SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Hugo Landau has written a blog post about why Intel will never let hardware owners control the Management Engine. The Intel Managment Engine (ME) is a secondary microprocessor ensconced in recent Intel x86 chips, running an Intel-signed, proprietary, binary blob which provides remote access over the network as well as direct access to memory and peripherals. Because of the code signing restrictions enforced by the hardware, it cannot be modified or replaced by the user.
Intel/AMD will never allow machine owners to control the code executing on the ME/PSP because they have decided to build a business on preventing you from doing so. In particular, it's likely that they're actually contractually obligated not to let you control these processors.
The reason is that Intel literally decided to collude with Hollywood to integrate DRM into their CPUs; they conspired with media companies to lock you out of certain parts of your machine. After all, this is the company that created HDCP.
This DRM functionality is implemented on the ME/PSP. Its ability to implement DRM depends on you not having control over it, and not having control over the code that runs on it. Allowing you to control the code running on the ME would directly compromise an initiative which Intel has been advancing for over a decade.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by epitaxial on Tuesday July 24 2018, @03:28AM (11 children)
Can this blog author provide any proof that Hollywood is involved in management engines? Does the ME even interface with HDCP at all?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @05:21AM
The HDCP is the reason I have been very reluctant to adopt HDMI.
I consider HDMI drivers as already crippled just waiting for denial of worky.
To me, its a Business-Grade system just awaiting a nuisance denial-of-service virus or prank to shut it down by corrupting some key file. Its mostly for businessmen who will tolerate stuff that does not work. Personally, I consider a machine that does not do what I tell it to do, even though its perfectly capable of doing it, like most businessmen would see an insubordinate employee.
However, its been my observation that businessmen will tolerate insubordination from their machine.
But if some employee flat tells their supervisor "No!", the supervisor's response is apt to be "You're Fired".
(Score: 2, Informative) by bob_super on Tuesday July 24 2018, @06:43AM (2 children)
Nope. SN is just having one of its regular moments of excessive paranoid overreaction. Many of those are driven by hardware-level spying, however unlikely and impractical, because Linux & friends take care of the software paranoia, but too few people have access to custom hardware (let alone with decent performance).
If someone has added a processor to handle the increasing complexity of the hardware we're dealing with, and the ever more complex security protocols that badly attempt to keep said hardware safe (ironically, before handing execution pointers to Microsoft code), then that person must have a nefarious intent, and must be working for those people who either spy on us, want money for the entertainment we consume, or clearly both.
Intel, ARM, and AMD employees take blood oaths, and are under constant watch after they depart the company, to make sure that none outside of the trusted halls ever spills a word of the conspiracy which watches us from Ring -1.
All hail Ring -1! All hail Ring -1! The first rule of Ring -1, is you don't ... Just a minute, doorbell's ringing.
(Score: 2, Touché) by anubi on Tuesday July 24 2018, @07:07AM
Didn't I read something like that about the DVD_CCA encryption? Way too many permutations! Can't be done!
And a Norwegian kid gave their stuff back to them on a platter? (DVD-JON DeCSS ).
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Informative) by urza9814 on Tuesday July 24 2018, @03:40PM
That would be a decent argument if any of this stuff was actually secret. But when Intel officially confirms that they have code in the management engine that was custom written for government security agencies, it's kinda hard to still dismiss the existence of such code as a crazy conspiracy theory...
http://blog.ptsecurity.com/2017/08/disabling-intel-me.html [ptsecurity.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @10:44AM (1 child)
It's not a secret; Intel is upfront about it.
See here:
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @12:47PM
A blog post and an obscure e-book isn't likely to be sufficient to meet the legal standard of informed consent.
I think the real question here, is: "Has anybody reverse engineered this to the level where they can demonstrate actual use cases in a courtroom?"
Because it probably is exactly what it looks like. And while they may have posted on some obscure blog, I can recall no one ever signing a contract defering their reservation of rights to Intel. In consequence any equipment that they own that implements this, and has functionally changed service on behalf of a third party, could reasonably be interpreted by a jury as violating wiretapping statues.
And given the frequency with which people claim other peoples shit on Youtube, it is highly likely that DRM claims have been falsified. So while some courts may regard digitally violating the sanctity of a domicile, as something doesn't constitute sufficient harm to produce standing, there are almost surely cases where the DRM clients, have harmed eachother.
It isn't about paranoia, it is about the law. Or more to the point, the unwillingness of the judiciary to hear cases where digital civil rights are concerned.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @01:30PM (1 child)
Yes. It's written right in there, with explicit links to material published by Intel.
To quote from that linked page [intel.com] (note the domain of the link!):
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Tuesday July 24 2018, @07:10PM
Yeah HDCP is used for copyright protection. How does it interface with the IME?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday July 24 2018, @02:03PM (2 children)
Considering that Hollywood is what, about 5% of the market?
How does that sneak past the BoD, who are presumably beholden to making profits for the shareholders?
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday July 25 2018, @08:22AM (1 child)
I believe Hollywood is being used as plausible deniability that the real reason is increased governmental snooping and ability to shut down systems.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Reziac on Wednesday July 25 2018, @01:55PM
Having worked in Hollywood, two observations:
1) Hollywood's real function is as a giant open-air money laundry. (Not only "Hollywood accounting" but that most films lose money by design. 90% of film productions never make it to the can, but everyone involved still gets paid. TV is much cleaner because budgets are fixed, unlike film where they're open-ended.) Everything is sorta technically legal and above-board, but only because it's hard to prove waste wasn't ...allowed, if not outright deliberate.
2) Outside of the lawyer contingent, who will always behave like lawyers, Hollywood is too disorganized to be useful to any gov't for anything other than propaganda. And in America, Hollywood has always been under the control of the communist left (nowadays meaning the diversity police), so that's the propaganda we get; not exactly useful to a gov't seeking stability and cohesion, but perhaps to one seeking division and chaos (and its own demise, but that's a different problem).
But I think another poster nailed it: this article has little foundation, but a very large axe to grind. It's an opinion piece, not an Intel manifesto. I looked through this HL's other articles, and while lots of good technical points, kinda has that RMS skew, so to speak.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.