Wow. SPARC and Java, two things you wouldn't ever expect Intel hardware to ship with! The mention of SOAP-based protocols is also rather surprising, since they have rather high overhead, and this means ME is not just a little 8051-class MCU but almost a fully-featured PC itself...

The amount of complexity - and the opportunities to hide things in that - has increased so much compared to earlier PCs that in some ways I think the development of computer systems is headed on a rather treacherous path. When systems are so complex that no single person can understand them entirely, it's easier to make them behave against their owner's will.