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Comment by Triesault | Hacker News Reader

Where is the suggestion that Intel ME isn't a backdoor? The article states:

> In this article, we describe how we discovered this undocumented mode and how it is connected with the U.S. government's High Assurance Platform (HAP) program.

> Googling did not take long. The second search result said that the name belongs to a trusted platform program linked to the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).

>We believe that this mechanism is designed to meet a typical requirement of government agencies, which want to reduce the possibility of side-channel leaks. But the main question remains: how does HAP affect Boot Guard? Due to the closed nature of this technology, it is not possible to answer this question yet, but we hope to do so soon.

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> We believe that this mechanism is designed to meet a typical requirement of government agencies, which want to reduce the possibility of side-channel leaks.

Interesting that Intel will provide this to the US government for enough money, but wouldn't offer it as an additional $50 or $100 option for end-customers to disable the ME.

I think there are probably enough privacy conscious people who would be willing to buy a Skylake or newer platform from Intel if they could easily disable the non-BUP components of the ME for a reasonable fee.

$50 or $100 for turning off the spyware in my own CPU is hardly reasonable.

Sure it's unreasonable, but at least charging for it would be better, and make more business sense, than the current "Fuck You, Plebe" they offer to us prisoners of the FVEY panopticon.

You are seeing this wrong. Intel has two reasons to have ME:

1. It is useful in business settings

2. It enables the US spy agencies complete surveillance of all PCs

It's the second point that explains why they can't make it optional. And that makes business sense. That way they ensure backing from the NSA, instead of having to fight against them.

It can be useful for other purposes too, for example for enforcing DRM so that DRM code runs on a ME engine. And of course DRM code can be backdoored too so playing a specially crafted video would run code from it.

Intel ME is not an effective DRM scheme. You need to be exceptionally careful when you mention DRM, because if it becomes commonly believed that Intel ME could be used to implement DRM all of a sudden the DMCA comes into play. Research into Intel ME vulnerabilities becomes a federal crime.

This isn't necessarily true: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/techftc/2016/10/dmca-s...

Of the four criteria in the exemption, I wouldn't put it past the government trying to make the case that exposing a NSA spy program somehow falls afoul of good faith investigation - but the general view that "any DRM research is a crime" is no longer accurate.

The good-faith requirement also means that likely you could not publish a way for someone to disable the "effective anti-circumvention measure". Even if you could, anyone who used that research to disable their own devices is arguably not conducting "good faith security research". While researchers might be safe, nobody will be able to use the results of their research legally except the companies that produce DRM (so that they can make it more secure). I don't think that's actually an improvement to be honest.

> Intel ME is not an effective DRM scheme.

The PAVP module is part of the ME firmware. Which means the management engine is, among other things, a DRM implementation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_GMA#Protected_Audio_Vide...

https://recon.cx/2014/slides/Recon%202014%20Skochinsky.pdf (page 17)

> because if it becomes commonly believed that Intel ME could be used to implement DRM all of a sudden the DMCA comes into play

It is already common knowledge that the ME is used to implement DRM.

The DRM functionality of the ME has been discussed in several books. [0] The ME contains DRM functions to securely decode content (e.g. streaming video) in a way such that decoded content cannot be snooped by the host processor before it is displayed to the user (ostensibly via a secure channel like HDCP).

[0] http://www.apress.com/us/book/9781430265719

It's only a federal crime in the US ... aren't these guys in the UK?

All signatories to WIPO have DMCA-like laws (including the "effective anti-circumvention" clauses). All countries with "modern" copyright laws are signatories to WIPO, so I would not put money on it being legal in the UK.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/296ZB

(Though it is somewhat more limited than the DMCA.)

> because if it becomes commonly believed that Intel ME could be used to implement DRM all of a sudden the DMCA comes into play. Research into Intel ME vulnerabilities becomes a federal crime.

This is rather an argument against DMCA or an argument why researchers working in this area should consider leaving the USA.

All signatories to WIPO have DMCA-like laws (including the "effective anti-circumvention" clauses). Given how many countries are signatories to WIPO, there are very few countries where it would be strictly legal to do research into "effective DRM schemes".

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