Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Intel Security Technology

MINIX: Intel's Hidden In-chip Operating System (zdnet.com) 271

Posted by msmash from the what-is-happening dept.
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, writing for ZDNet: Matthew Garrett, the well-known Linux and security developer who works for Google, explained recently that, "Intel chipsets for some years have included a Management Engine [ME], a small microprocessor that runs independently of the main CPU and operating system. Various pieces of software run on the ME, ranging from code to handle media DRM to an implementation of a TPM. AMT [Active Management Technology] is another piece of software running on the ME." [...] At a presentation at Embedded Linux Conference Europe, Ronald Minnich, a Google software engineer reported that systems using Intel chips that have AMT, are running MINIX. So, what's it doing in Intel chips? A lot. These processors are running a closed-source variation of the open-source MINIX 3. We don't know exactly what version or how it's been modified since we don't have the source code. In addition, thanks to Minnich and his fellow researchers' work, MINIX is running on three separate x86 cores on modern chips. There, it's running: TCP/IP networking stacks (4 and 6), file systems, drivers (disk, net, USB, mouse), web servers. MINIX also has access to your passwords. It can also reimage your computer's firmware even if it's powered off. Let me repeat that. If your computer is "off" but still plugged in, MINIX can still potentially change your computer's fundamental settings. And, for even more fun, it "can implement self-modifying code that can persist across power cycles." So, if an exploit happens here, even if you unplug your server in one last desperate attempt to save it, the attack will still be there waiting for you when you plug it back in. How? MINIX can do all this because it runs at a fundamentally lower level. [...] According to Minnich, "there are big giant holes that people can drive exploits through." He continued, "Are you scared yet? If you're not scared yet, maybe I didn't explain it very well, because I sure am scared." Also read: Andrew S. Tanenbaum's (a professor of Computer Science at Vrije Universiteit) open letter to Intel.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

MINIX: Intel's Hidden In-chip Operating System More

MINIX: Intel's Hidden In-chip Operating System

Comments Filter:
  • Now I have to go change my pants

  • Three questions (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @09:09AM (#55505407)

    1) Do AMD processors have similar vulnerabilities or is this an Intel issue only?

    2) Why isn't Intel being held responsible to fix this, either by action of lawmakers or through lawsuits for providing a faulty product?

    3) Shouldn't Intel either have to patch the vulnerabilities or issue a recall?

    • 2 and 3: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Because it is functioning as intended for its usage among authoritarian regimes (the US included thanks to Congress, the NSA, CIA, and domestic SigInt/PsyOps.)

      The Clipper chip concept was never off the table its implementation just became less 'warrant and seize' and more 'illegal wiretap'.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      1) Yes
      2) Because shitty nerds decided it was an issue.
      3) Intel doesn't need to recall anything. It is OFF by default.

      I can't emphasize this enough, it's a non-story that affects absolutely nobody except for platforms used by enterprise (think business laptops for asset tracking)

      The average person does not have the Management engine turned on, it's built into the PCH chipset, not the CPU. You can actually rip out the firmware for the IME from the BIOS if you're paranoid as hell.

      From Wikipedia https://en.wiki

      • Thank you. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @11:44AM (#55506537)

        Thank you for saying that it's off by default - everyone seems to just gloss over that one. More than that, there are only two ways to enable it:
          - using a keyboard shortcut during BIOS POST (physical access, the machine is already owned in any number of ways including just taking the drive out, why bother with AMT?)
        or
          - enable it remotely through arbitrary privileged code execution on the machine (it's owned already) AND you have a certificate issued by a trusted CA specifically for AMT provisioning (costs money), and that certificate's domain matches the one being given out by DHCP at the time of provisioning (meaning the network is owned too). If you already own the machine to the point of executing whatever you like with admin-level permissions, and you own the network to the point of changing DHCP options, why bother with AMT?

        For someone to get anywhere with AMT / vPro, they would already have exploited far easier routes to getting anything they could get through AMT / vPro. This is the reason we have seen exactly zero articles about people being exploited in the wild through AMT / vPro - anyone that knows what it actually is, and what it takes to run it, knows there are far easier ways in, and those easier ways are a predicate to using AMT to do whatever they could already do.

    • Re:Three questions (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rickb928 ( 945187 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @11:32AM (#55506451) Homepage Journal

      What should Intel be fixing? MINIX is licensed under the Berkeley license, and apparently they are in compliance. If there is a known security vulnerability, it was not part of the reporting, so far. Perhaps we need to trust Intel that they have secured this adequately, and I know it is common practice to declare all security to be 'vulnerable', and that is assumed to be a best practice, but to enlarge that attitude and declare all such features as unacceptable due to undisclosed or, more correctly, unknown security breaches is naive.

      Intel and others have delivered systems with these 'power off' or out of band management systems for decades. The risks are well understood by those who need to deal with them. Crying the sky is falling dilutes the real arguments, for instance the necessity of these features in consumer grade products, deployment via OS vendors such as Microsoft of widespread out of band management without explicit knowledge by consumers, and lack of useful management tools for SMB users who are not entirely aware of the risks.

      Tanenbaum's root complaint seems to be he got little or no credit. Fair enough.

      And if you don't understand how attractive an out of band management is, you don't need to. That doesn't make it less useful, just makes you unaware, and be glad you are. All that nasty stuff needed to make large organizations function is worthy of scrutiny, but best left to professionals, despite your closely held distrust of authority.

    • Not just processors; all integrated circuits are black boxes to you, black boxes to the engineers that design circuits with them.

      The datasheet doesn't actually document the wiring, it documents the interface, and the hardware diagrams are equivalent circuits from the perspective of the published API. Sorry.

      This is a feature, not a bug, so there will be no recall. Note that this only exists if you have the AMT installed; that's the fancy part you have to pay extra for! Companies that want and have a use for

    • Re:Three questions (Score:5, Funny)

      by Major_Disorder ( 5019363 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @02:19PM (#55507841)
      Ask the question people really care about.
      Can you play Quake on the Management Engine, and if so, at what frame rate.

  • No mention of AMD? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Zobeid ( 314469 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @09:12AM (#55505417)

    Do AMD processors have any counterpart of this nonsense?

  • Overblown -- oh and AMD isn't any better (Score:3, Informative)

    by CajunArson ( 465943 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @09:12AM (#55505423) Journal

    This stuff is overblown since these management engines are only ever active in a limited set of corporate environments where out-of-band management is a huge plus that actually improves security by not requiring your IT drone to physically access every system even if it's turned off.

    Oh, and don't think your magical AMD saviours are any better. There a TrustZone processor that you have zero control over embedded in their products that does the exact same bad stuff.

    • these management engines are only ever active in a limited set of corporate environments where out-of-band management is a huge plus that actually improves security by not requiring your IT drone to physically access every system even if it's turned off.

      I think you mean that they only have a use to the consumer in a limited set of corporate environments. IME is active on all their chips.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The ME is actually active all the time. Basically the modern Intel architecture just doesn't live without ME managing things. It may not be network enabled or remote accessed depending on the configuration, but it's pretty much always there now, and always active.

      Even the vendors don't really know what all it may be doing, just that they have to interact with it to provide certain features or interrogate it to explain why the system decided to go haywire.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Uteck ( 127534 )

      But they are active even if you are not using it. They sit listening on the first Ethernet port and will even grab a DHCP address. Given the access they have, and the inability to turn them off, if they can get exploited there is nothing you can do.

      Moving your connection too another NIC can stop it from communicating, but it is still active and waiting.

    • Except it's been hacked [theregister.co.uk].
      And it's active all the time.

    • Case where security is better due to vPro: a company I used to work for was buying vPro-enabled desktops so that we could provision them and install them in the 2000+ locations they have across the US, so that when Windows shits the bed and needs to be reimaged, a support guy from the call center can take care of it remotely instead of calling out a 2-hour minimum service tech for $LOTS per hour to reimage it.

      The math showed that in one year, the average amount of reimaging happening in locations that didn'

  • How is this news again? (Score:3)

    by Gabest ( 852807 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @09:14AM (#55505435)
    Before the cloud, people used to put their own servers in server rooms. That's the interface to manage your machine from outside.

    • The new part is that you make people pay you for putting the computers you manage into their server room, pay for the power to run them and put their software for you to manage on it.

      It's kinda like being the admin for a server farm, only that you don't get paid, but in return, neither do you have to pay for anything, you're not responsible for anything you do to the computers and you can do with the software and data on them whatever you please.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by arth1 ( 260657 )

        It's kinda like being the admin for a server farm, only that you don't get paid, but in return, neither do you have to pay for anything, you're not responsible for anything you do to the computers and you can do with the software and data on them whatever you please.

        Oh, you still pay for it. The fees include both hardware, operating costs and administration (done by largely unqualified people, but still administration of sorts). It's just cheaper due to scale.
        And you're still responsible - the contracts tend to have clauses that you must not interfere with the hosting or other services. So if you deliberately break the hardware through software (quite doable, alas), don't expect them to blindly replace broken gear forever.

        • You buy the hardware I make, I retain the ability to do whatever I please with it and you can't do jack shit about it.

          This is basically what Intel is telling you. No, you needn't pay Intel to do it, but then again, neither can you keep them from doing whatever the fuck they want to your hardware, software and data.

          • Intel and the TLA's saying it's benign, we should probably just trust them implicitly, it's fine.
            Also unintended consequences never, ever happen

    • Before the cloud, people used to put their own servers in server rooms. That's the interface to manage your machine from outside.

      This doesn't prevent a system from coming into your environment already compromised. That, to me is the scary part. Your order could be intercepted and compromised or compromised at the vendor before shipment. And there is no way to scan the subsystem for threats.

  • The years of the Minux desktop (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sinij ( 911942 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @09:29AM (#55505535)
    Apparently, we have been having years of Minux desktop all this time and never knew.

  • Tanenbaum: a professor of Computer Science...? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Barnoid ( 263111 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @09:29AM (#55505537)

    Kids these days...

    Andrew S. Tanenbaum is the original creator of MINIX, not just "a professor" at Vrije Universiteit.

  • We can always use a Raspberry Pi, right?

  • that's been around for decades? except they add more stuff to it and now it runs in a separate processor?

    • That's like saying the computer in a Tesla Model S is like the engine in a Ford Model T.

    • No it's not. It's literally like having a full second computer running in parallel to your main computer, except that it is always running as long as there is power to your machine, and you can't shut it off, and it can take over your main machine.

      It's a great feature for corporate environments where the remote access helps IT do their job. For everyone else, it's a f__king stupid idea because the average person has no idea what it does or why it's there, or even that it IS there, which paints a great big

    • Re:Isn't this like a BIOS? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ledow ( 319597 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @11:27AM (#55506429) Homepage

      Do you know of a BIOS that runs when the computer is off?

      This is beyond "when I get the magic packet IRQ from the Ethernet controller I will wake up" into "there's a full, general purpose OS running on every processor, talking to the network, interpreting traffic, able to intercept every memory access, and which we have no way to probe, investigate, debug or understand and which may well be auto-updating from the Internet on a regular basis without our consent".

      Question: How do you generate a secure private key on a computer with this in? Literally, you can't.

      With BIOS, the scope was so limited that it couldn't be used for such things, and was just "the code that the computer started at" (literally, a soft-reboot is "jump to address 0, the first line of the BIOS).

      This is a full set of processors listening to everything your other processes do all the time no matter what OS you run or security you apply. And nobody knew what it was doing. And the governments have been removing it from their purchases for years by making Intel make chips without it.

      If THAT ONLY wasn't reason enough to worry about what it could be doing, you clearly haven't understood what it could be doing.

      Literally, this is a full-above-root compromise of every machine on the planet under Intel's sole control. Everything from microphones to connected devices to nearby wireless etc. could be turned against the user.

      Doing that with "just a BIOS" was much harder, much more obvious (i.e. you could generally disassemble the firmware and/or inspect it step-by-step as it was running) and much less damaging.

      Intel has a full computer in every chip on almost every motherboard on the planet. And nobody knows or understands why (because computers work just fine without such a feature, always used to, and still do when you disable such things by forceful means), nobody was really told about it, and it's taken years to discover even what architecture/OS it's running on, let alone what it's doing.

      One virus exploiting one flaw in this and anyone can gain control of the planet over the Internet with NO WAY to clean it off or even detect it.

      • Re:Isn't this like a BIOS? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by zeugma-amp ( 139862 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @12:11PM (#55506735) Homepage

        This is a full set of processors listening to everything your other processes do all the time no matter what OS you run or security you apply. And nobody knew what it was doing. And the governments have been removing it from their purchases for years by making Intel make chips without it.

        This. Right here. The fact that governments have demanded hardware without it is reason enough NOT to trust that it is 'safe'.

      • Re:Isn't this like a BIOS? (Score:4)

        by dissy ( 172727 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @02:36PM (#55508051)

        Do you know of a BIOS that runs when the computer is off?

        Sure: All HP servers, all Dell servers, all IBM servers.

        HP calls it "iLo" or "Integrated Lights-Out"
        IBM calls it the "RSA" or "Remote Supervisor Adaptor"
        Dell calls it the "iDRAC" or "Integrated Dell remote access"

        The hardware has been pretty standard for some time now. Although HP used to require purchasing a software license key per-server to be allowed to use it.

        Intel ME/ATM is the same thing but available in desktop grade computers, any core-i chip with vPro.

      • Do you know of a BIOS that runs when the computer is off?

        Was this an attempt at a joke? The answer to this question is: All of them since the days of ATX and if you were a corporate customer it predates this too.

  • if my computer starts acting odd like it is being remote controlled i will first wipe the drive and do a clean install with a newer cleaner more secure operating system, and if this bad behavior still persists i will take a fucking 8 pound sledge hammer to it and turn it in to a pile of junk in short time

    • Hackers detivoize the Minix install and every PC commences mining cryptocurrency on behalf of our 'enemy' and the 3 letter agencies are unable to crack their way in since a firmware update retivoizes the machine locking the backdoors.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Pascoea ( 968200 )
      Your hardware bill must be obscene. If I smashed the hell out of my PC every time it did something "weird" I'd be buying a new one every week. But hell, I guess it would be fun to go full-on Office Space on a computer every other week.

  • This is a little bit awesome, though. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Seven Spirals ( 4924941 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @09:44AM (#55505609)
    I've been a MINIX user for a long time. I was introduced to it in college in my operating systems course by the Tannenbaum book. This in-chip weirdness is, uhm, bizarre. However, MINIX is still interesting. It's one of the few microkernel based Unix variants and it's innards are particularly clean and easy to hack on due to it's heritage as a teaching OS. I don't know what the hell Intel was thinking, but don't blame MINIX. Go install it and use this as an excuse to get your own hands dirty. :-)

    • I've been waiting for someone to port Linux interfaces for SystemD (previously udev, kevents, and HAL) to Minix for a while, which would make it capable of replacing the Linux kernel.

      Beyond that, you'd need to port in the file system and hardware drivers. Since they're separate services, you can make GPL versions out-of-tree and just load them into Minix. In-tree versions of adapted netbsd, freebsd, or dragonflybsd drivers are allowable.

      • I've been waiting for someone to port Linux interfaces for SystemD (previously udev, kevents, and HAL) to Minix for a while, which would make it capable of replacing the Linux kernel.

        While I see what you are getting at and it's a laudable goal, I don't see anyone wanting to dig into systemd to do it. It's like dissecting a skunk. You might learn something, and even do something to help, but it won't be pleasant.

        • SystemD uses well-understood Linux kernel facilities such as the facility that sends notifications to an application when new hardware is plugged in, rather than having stuff constantly poll the USB/PCI bus and then run mknod scripts in /dev.

          You may as well say nobody probably wants to dig into glibc to figure out how loading ELF executables works.

    • Before Linux existed I was running Minix on an IBM XT... The code was so clean, I could pretty comfortably find how every single part of the system worked... The more recent Minix 3 is a bit more mature, but everywhere I've looked the OSS version is still more clean and understandable than any other usable OS.

  • So it's a backdoor/// (Score:3, Interesting)

    by evolutionary ( 933064 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @10:03AM (#55505735)
    Let's call this what it is: A variation of the "clipper chip" like the government tried to do years ago, except this is more powerful and way worse. It's a backdoor that can potentially operate at a level few not in certain government departments or Intel top level developers can access. Perhaps it's time to give Intel the cold shoulder. Need to confirm if AMD has this backdoor OS in it's processors or not. Wonder how China and Russia respond to this sort of thing? Will we ever see an end of this screwing the end user for corporate and/or government interests?

    • Re:So it's a backdoor/// (Score:5, Insightful)

      by swillden ( 191260 ) <shawn-ds@willden.org> on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @10:44AM (#55506065) Journal

      Let's call this what it is: A variation of the "clipper chip" like the government tried to do years ago, except this is more powerful and way worse.

      That's a mischaracterization so egregious it could be called a lie.

      The ME (and AMD's analogous PSP) have nothing to do with government, and nothing to do with cryptography (though they make heavy use of it). Clipper was about enforcing a standardized encryption mechanism with a built-in backdoor specifically for law enforcement. Completely different thing.

      ME and PSP are remote system management tools. Their purpose is to enable enterprises to remotely administer systems, including not only being able to remotely install a new operating system, but to strongly verify the installation from the running OS. The reason it's in all systems, not just systems targeted at enterprise use, is that it's more economical to have a single solution

      That said... you are absolutely correct that these tools *could* be used by malicious parties, whether for corporate espionage, government intrusion or anything else, and they are incredibly powerful, and not understood nearly well enough outside of the teams at Intel and AMD who build them. I know some of the people at Intel who work on this stuff and I'm pretty confident that they're doing good work, and doing the right things... but the lack of transparency makes me really nervous.

      Remote management tools make sense, but it should be possible for end users to disable them, or to take ownership of them and use them for their own ends. The details of exactly how they work, including their source code, should be published. Indeed, I think government should mandate the publication of low-level system management tools and firmware. We need a lot more academic research into the security and operation of these systems.

      • Re:So it's a backdoor/// (Score:4, Insightful)

        by evolutionary ( 933064 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @11:03AM (#55506221)
        You seem very confident (feels almost defensive), but ask yourself, why is it closed source yet using an open source core? Nothing to with government? How would you know that for sure without the source? It's been well documented that the government has approached virtually everyone, even Torvalds, asking for backdoors. Some said yes, some said now, some were likely given a deal they could not refuse. The first thing anyone tries to do in spying is to create doors people don't know about or rebranding it as something else. The admission of the purposes of the clipper chip was met with a lot of resistance. So the government agencies decided to keep other attempts a secret to reduce resistance. Rebranding is a classing way of hiding something in business. why not government. Unless you know what is in fact in the source it is impossible to say my hypothesis is "egregious" because only top people even know what it does. And why would you put something like "DRM" in something at that low and dangerous level. The DRM is as much as Intel will admit to. (and they may have their hands tied and gagged). Never confuse statements given to the public for media purposes as complete disclosure. If it's as innocent as you say, why hide it? We've had evidence leaked that proved government intentions to hook into all system domestic and foreign through hacks in software and hardware. And a backdoor of this nature is pretty consistent with what we've found from brave people who put their lives on the line to let the public know.
        • Did you read my post?
          • Yes in detail. You said you knew some of the people. We all probably know somebody somewhere in our in IT. I've been around enough to know that often IT professionals at all levels cannot tell everything about where they work. Usually because of standard NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) but there could be other reasons too. I know enough to not probe too deeply if information is not being relayed consistently, and if I knew more than I should because of a slip of the tongue, I certainly wouldn't post it he

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by epine ( 68316 )

        The ME (and AMD's analogous PSP) have nothing to do with government, and nothing to do with cryptography (though they make heavy use of it). Clipper was about enforcing a standardized encryption mechanism with a built-in backdoor specifically for law enforcement. Completely different thing.

        What makes you so sure this isn't a government-friendly end-run around the failure of the Clipper chip program?

        All we're presently missing is a handful of Snowden codenames for the many ways this advantages the NSA in the

    • The clipper chip [wikipedia.org] was a back-doored encryption device. It has nothing to do with the hardware level access that the ME has in an Intel based system.

  • Minix, that's terrible (Score:4, Funny)

    by Chrisq ( 894406 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @10:08AM (#55505765)
    Minix, that's terrible. What I want to know is why they aren't running HURD.
  • To lazy to track this down. but I recall something about this Linux thing from Linus Torvalds in the mid 90s ;) lol

  • It's important news, even if a little old (Score:3)

    by evolutionary ( 933064 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @10:20AM (#55505881)
    this was reported 4 years ago and I remember reading this article awhile back:

    https://www.eteknix.com/expert... [eteknix.com]
  • To Access this, Just tell me ;) I will keep it to myself ;) Trust Me ;) Wink Wink

    "running on three separate x86 cores on modern chips. There, it's running: TCP/IP networking stacks (4 and 6), file systems, drivers (disk, net, USB, mouse), web servers. MINIX also has access to your passwords."

  • TFA claims the latest version runs on three separate x86 cores. Are these three in addition to the stated number of cores on the chip, or is it running on three cores that I paid for, and interfering with my use?

  • wow the FUD is strong in that one (Score:5, Informative)

    by kamakazi ( 74641 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @11:42AM (#55506519)

    We have a couple facts here, and a whole bunch of conclusions.
    The facts are that there is a general purpose OS running a microkernel in a management layer on unspecified Intel CPUs. This general purpose OS provides at least network accessible management interfaces.
    The conclusions are this general purpose OS is infinitely exploitable to steal all your top secret information and redirect all you web requests to the mind control platform of the month.
    This Minnich character (I enjoyed that similarity, Minnich/Minix) then jumps to a call to neuter everything below the user installed OS including UEFI. He then juts off on a side tangent and says trust me (He is a Google engineer) to always install good safe firmware on your Chromebook. That was a nice subtle bit of astroturfing there. He also blames Minix for slow boot time on an Open Compute server, not sure where minix plays into that or what axe he is grinding.

    Let's look at it a little more objectively. Why do these processor companies keep putting general purpose OSs at a level which was traditionally all hardware/firmware, and why do systems makers use an accesible programming layer to configure hardware like UEFI? Well, whe we were running 386s and 486s we really were running microprocessors. Hardware was relatively static, device support was locked at time of manufacture, processors did processing (with maybe a coprocessor for math) and accessory cards did a single function each. In that time frame supers, like the first Crays, couldn't even boot themselves. They used a completely separate computer to boot and for time scheduling and such. Now today, we have computers which are powerful on the level of the early supers. Our processing no longer all happens on the CPU, but also in the GPU(s) and other pieces in the system. We no longer have external memory and bus controllers, they are built into the processor or the mandatory northbridge, and are much more capable and adaptive. There are hosts of sensors built into modern processors. All of these pieces need to be managed. There is an absolute necessity for a relatively capable computer in there to manage all these pieces.
    It used to be done with static logic arrays, controlled by registers, and we called it BIOS, and it had a little interface that could usurp the monitor output and keybpoard and chirp the speaker, later got so fancy it could hijack a mouse on some systems. It was very limited, in fact, on the earliest PCs it didn't have a UI at all, it had dip switches or jumpers on the system board.

    Now with the advent of negotiated buses (even memory buses, back in the day I never would have conceived of a CPU being able to ask a memory module what capabilities it possessed and automatically configure timing parameters to best talk to it) the management processor has a lot to do. On high end machines they even do this negotiation on the fly with the advent of hot plug PCI buses and on the fly memory error compensation. By the nature of the beast this management engine has to be able to see all the data buses, otherwise every single connection interface would need an out of band management channel.

    I suppose you could make this management engine like a FPGA, configure it once and burn your bridges, no further interraction possible, but then what happens when you need to add or change something?

    Likewise it often doesn't need a network interface, but if it doesn't have one then we have to do wake on LAN with yet another baby management computer. How about physical intrusion detection? again, not often needed, but sometimes...

    Basically what a general purpose OS in the management layer does is give nearly infinite flexibility. This technology is a big part of the reason so much of our stuff just works.

    Now, I am not really a drink the cool-aid from the benevolent overlords kind of guy, I am not at all in favor of secret OSs underpinning our hardware without our knowledge, but let's not throw out the baby too. That capability is in most cases useful

  • 2017 is the year of MINIX on the desktop! All of the desktops...

  • How to exploit the Intel Management Engine (Score:4, Informative)

    by najajomo ( 4890785 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2017 @07:30PM (#55510687)
    Due to a 'bug [theregister.co.uk]' in the code, you can access the AMT [theregister.co.uk] with a zero length password. The ME cannot be completely removed, but due to a request from the NSA [threatpost.com], it can be disabled with a secret kill switch [theregister.co.uk].

Slashdot Top Deals

You are always doing something marginal when the boss drops by your desk.

Close