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from the you-might-have-paid,-but-it's-not-your-computer dept.
Over at Hackernews is a link to a discussion on how the Intel Management Engine (ME) is preventing screenshots, by bypassing the host CPU.
If you're on an Intel machine that you've purchased in the past 2-3 years, that computer almost certainly has an Intel Management Engine. You might not know what that is, and that's okay. You may also be unaware that the operating system on your computer could be leveraging features in the Intel Management Engine when consuming DRM Media.
This links to a blog posting on the Intel ME in response to Rosyna Keller's twitter posting about being unable to take screenshots from Netflix (The Rosyna of the article title).
The core of the technical detail is taken from Igor Skochinsky's presentation on the ME (PDF Link) . The article raises the questions over the position of the ME in the system and the security implications of the ME subverting the host machine hardware outside of the main processor:
Given that the ME sits in a position where it can configure the chipset and operate on the PCI bus, there are some serious security implications here I wish I could mitigate. Among them is the ability of the ME to run arbitrary code on the host CPU via option ROMs or presenting a disk-drive to boot from. Also among those abilities is the possibility to perform DMA to access host CPU memory. And another one is the ability to configure and use PCI devices present in the system (such as the ethernet card).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 05 2015, @02:25PM
the end game always ends up like this; there is no point in acting surprised about this. The 'democracy' system is approaching the 'bottom of the barrel' of its life cycle. It is just an unfortunate stroke of luck for you guys (and me) that we were born at this time, rather than a different point in the cycle.
Plato observed these patterns over a thousand years ago [wikipedia.org].
I'm curious to know about the possibility of manufacturing all the components of a 100% free general purpose computer using global startup campaigns and the pooling of funds from userland.
Moving forward into the future, my advice to anybody with logical ability and desire for higher consciousness is to take a vigilante stance and devote a bigger chunk of your time in learning how to cause chaos, destroy, rearrange, modify, hack, crack, reverse engineer and p0wn computing and signals systems. The same advice applies to students of Electrical Engineering and Electronics.
God cannot exist without knowledge of the Devil.
(Score: 2) by Open4D on Monday January 05 2015, @04:22PM
Perhaps this is the kind of thing you're hoping for ... Librem Freedom-Oriented Notebook Near Halfway to Crowd Funding Goal [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 05 2015, @04:59PM
That Librem notebook project looks like a half-decent poke in this direction given the/their limitations.
What I would like to have is a Desktop PC (Tower Case, ATX Motherboard, Chipset, CPU, RAM, Video Card, Sound Card, Network Card, Drivers, etc) which I can build myself whose components are all 100% Free (as in GNU philosophy) and 100% user-controllable.......what is the chance of ever seeing this?