[tor-talk] company devised process to disable Intel Management Engine

[Milton Scritsmier]

On 12/10/2017 7:01 PM, InterN0T wrote:

> Keep in mind that just because you have a laptop that uses an Intel processor, doesn't necessarily mean that you also have Intel ME enabled by default. I don't think my laptops support this feature unless I've missed something that someone can enlighten me about.
> 

No, today it's in virtually all Intel processors used in desktops and
laptops. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine .
Most consumer PCs don't have ME firmware that supports remote management
features such as AMT. But even consumer PCs still have running ME
firmware which still does various stuff and has almost total access and
control of your PC. The ME firmware has an API that can be called from
Windows (I don't know about Linux, but I'd be really surprised) to have
the ME do things like decryption.