Intel Management Engine

I think they know every human on the planet. But yeah, Think about that. It can't be discouraging. If you want to hide something don't do that with a computer. Easy fix. But I maybe wrong.

It's not stupid at all. In contrary, it's a very clever way (implementing ME) to control the users.

Anything that is bad for the users is good for the manufacturer. Vice versa.

This is the very foundation of dialectics.

"It's not stupid at all. In contrary, it's a very clever way (implementing ME) to control the users."

I didn't think about that when I posted. I read on wikipedia that it's under the "operating system" level. You can install any os you want, they know it. I don't want to move more because I don't really know. I don't have libreboot machines.

But yeah, if you "deactive" it they will know it... It's an "operating system" under the main os. "GNU/Linux, Windows, BSD, etc.". It can "access" the content in ram, has a networking capability. If you shutdown the machine, it's open, run all the time.

"Intel Management Engine, Explained: The Tiny Computer Inside Your CPU"
https://www.howtogeek.com/334013/intel-management-engine-explained-the-tiny-computer-inside-your-cpu/

For my self, I don't care a lot, but some people can become crazy. It's a blackbox.

Have you tried me_cleaner? It's not that difficult of a procedure.

Thanks for the links. It's very interesting.

If you want to know how to do it, I can help. I used a Raspberry Pi, a Pomona SOIC-8 clip, and 6 female to female jumper wires. Of course you can replace the RPi with something freer. me_cleaner removes most of the ME, as much as possible while keeping the computer functional.

Me cleaner is awesome, got a few comps with a version of coreboot + me cleaner on it.

X230 and T430 + a quad core. :)

I was looking the Intel website and I found an historical article about the 8086 cpu. I don't want to past the picture but you have a "microcode rom" on the chip. It seem that you can do nothing about that. It's a blackbox. I think it's a 'secret operating system/interface" that's run with the cpu. So yeah... I think you can't hide very much. They know what you with your computer all the time. It's like a "bios software" that is already flashed and come with the cpu.

well, I think I need to learn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Microcode

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcode

but I'm suspicious.

But thank you for me_cleaner. There are a lot of resources.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsmHmYxyoxg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CQUNd3oKBM

Microcode is purely a hack to support certain features in the microprocessor without having to implement them in hardware. It is very common in CPUs, regardless of the manufacturer, and still used today (I'm not sure if it's still on a ROM).

While Intel might theoretically have smuggled in- or be smuggling in- nefarious code this way, it's hard to see any reason for that. The 8086 was released in 1978 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_8086), well before the Internet or encryption was available to the public. What exactly would they have expected to do with a back door?

I think libreboot devices are a dead end at this point, mostly, until newer tech can be librebooted.

We have two options that might work long term, laptops like mnt reform which have only one harmless blob, or coreboot + intel me disabled, which are way newer, albeit not nearly as libre as libreboot.

Keep in mind, libreboot devices will eventually run out and/or die.

I get why some like Jxself prefer to use libreboot, but I think what is important more, is running a fully free os, without a functional backdoor, meaning it can't do anything dangerous to anyone.

I used to think Parabola had some merit, but I think they may need a larger team, due to having 50k packages...

As for Guix, Trisquel and especially pureos, they fail in my opinion for other reasons. Hyperbola, is the only one I will use, but that being said, its not for anyone who is a newbie who isn't willing to learn.

Thus, I recommend newbies go for Trisquel even though I don't believe its that good, because the worst thing is going back to proprietary garbage like malwaresoft winbugs, especially version 11, crapple whatever version, gaggle croakbooks or anything on that level...

If you don't use those distros but want something that can be free software, depending on its use, devuan or debian and use jxself's repo to install a libre kernel and remove all blobs in general.

Those would be my suggestions, though if these don't sit well with you, feel free to look for other likewise alternatives or better.

I actually think Hyperbola has the better documentation for installation, parabola doesn't say how to install with FDE without encrypting boot for non libreboot devices, last I checked...

Albeit, the guide I found for this on Hyperbola was made by a user in hyperbola's installation part of the forum, it might be on page 2 or three by now and isn't official yet, but I used that guide for a lot of my devices, because typing two passwords into my computer to load it, the same one, is annoying.

;)

Anywho, sorry for the long winded response, peace all, hope this helps somewhat.

I may be wrong but I think the cpu (processor) has access to all the hardware. At less at the computer memory. You rely on the cpu to do all the things with the computer. The computer can't work without one.

> As for Guix, Trisquel and especially pureos, they fail in my opinion for other reasons

I don't know why you think these are bad distros. Hyperbola may be great for some people but I prefer to have a wider selection of packages including a full-fledged desktop environment, and I don't have any problem with things like systemd, Wayland, pipewire, OpenJDK, etc. since they are all free software. I liked Parabola when I tried it, and the only problem I have with Trisquel is that it is usually two years behind Ubuntu.