Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Sunday January 15 2017, @12:21AM   Printer-friendly
from the where-there-is-a-will,-there-is-a-way dept.

In some shiny good news to us of the tinfoil hat crew, Phoronix is reporting:

Many free software advocates have been concerned by Intel's binary-only Management Engine (ME) built into the motherboards on newer generations of Intel motherboards. The good news is there is now a working, third-party approach for disabling the ME and reducing the risk of its binary blobs.

Via an open-source, third-party tool called me_cleaner it's possible to partially deblob Intel's ME firmware images by removing any unnecessary partitions from the firmware, reducing its ability to interface with the system. The me_cleaner works not only with free software firmware images like Coreboot/Libreboot but can also work with factory-blobbed images. I was able to confirm with a Coreboot developer that this program can disable the ME on older boards or devices with BootGuard and disable Secure Boot. This is all done with a Python script.

Those unfamiliar with the implications on Intel's ME for those wanting a fully-open system can read about it on Libreboot.org.

Looks like I may not have to go ARM on my next desktop build after all.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday January 15 2017, @01:22AM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Sunday January 15 2017, @01:22AM (#453975) Homepage

    Sod off, you faggot,

    Soylentnews has Universal Appeal. [youtube.com]

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   -2  
       Offtopic=3, Funny=1, Total=4
    Extra 'Offtopic' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   -1