>A few months ago, [Trammell Hudson] discovered erasing the first page of the ME region did not shut down his Thinkpad after 30 minutes. This led [Nicola Corna] and [Frederico Amedeo Izzo] to write a script that uses this exploit. Effectively, ME still thinks it’s running, but it doesn’t actually do anything.
Why is nobody talking about this on Sup Forums? Guess discussing traps and /fa/ watches and chinese shit and (((phones))) is totally more technology-related than that in 2016. Who cares about technology on a technology image board.
So it's a way to overwrite ME firmware on ThinkPads without anything bad happening?
Justin Hughes
WTF is ME and does my X220t have it?
Robert Ross
Yes. In principle it works on any ivy bridge, sandy bridge, and possibly skylake CPUs, not just on thinkpads.
Intel Management Engine is a device that lives on the northbridge on any modern intel CPU that can operate even when the system is turned off, and has full access to the disk and memory at all time. Features include the ability to brick the CPU on demand, and full TCP/IP stack access. It is able to send and receive network packets even when the computer is turned off (so long, of course, as it's connected to a power source).
AMD has also recently implemented similar technology, called AMD PSP.
Benjamin Martinez
Thanks for reposting. I was the first OP for this thread here. I tested the ME cleaner script on a T420 and it works. No reboots, no NSA backdoor.
Only the first little bit of it. The ME basically goes into a different mode where it's in a sort of (non operational) recovery state but thinks it's still working.
Yes, your computer probably has it. IntelME is the Intel Management Engine. It's a micro controller inside of your CPU. It operates independently from the main CPU and it has full TCP/IP stack and memory access. It has complete Ring-0 access, and starts before your BIOS. It also shares flash memory with your BIOS. It can send and receive network packets, even through a firewall. It can turn your PC on or off and there's nothing you can do about it. What OP is talking of is a script that will disable this backdoor. It's a good idea even if you don't care about government spying. If criminal hackers somehow get into it, 95% of computers would be compromised. This means all government computers, the ones at banks, prisons, factories, tech companies, and even all of Intel's own machines could get 100% anally wrecked. The only solution would be to basically buy a new computer.
Dominic Campbell
I've been waiting for this kind of workaround to be discovered. I have a Skylake i7 in my deskop I'd like to clean when it's more proven because i hate the idea of this "feature".
Logan Williams
Wait wait, this works on haswell CPUs too?
Jack Brown
actually ME has ring -2 (SMM) access
Eli Martinez
I think only ivy bridge and later have intel ME. Also the earlier incarnation of intel ME can be completely disabled because it doesn't live on the northbridge like the newer version). I don't know the exact details for that, though.
You could try the script and report back, although it hasn't been proven to work on skylake yet.
Anthony Peterson
Can this work on anything other than ThinkPads? For example a desktop mobo?
Elijah Hill
ME exists at least since the Core2 family
Connor Collins
Actually it turns out it does work on haswell [1]
It's not about the mobo, it's about the CPU. See the currently supported devices:
>Working on: >Intel i5-6500 >Skylake >MSI Bazooka B150M >Stock AMI Bios >61fd606
Angel Bennett
Oh man this is cool. Does this mean libreboot on some newer hardware? Sounds exciting.
Chase Wilson
Incorrect.
Joseph Peterson
Pretty certain he's right actually.
Ethan Bailey
I see Intel PR team is already out in full on damage control.
Levi Scott
Yeah, the future of freedom looks bright.
Colton Gonzalez
Nope. It has Ring-0 access.
Jason Martinez
>The only solution would be to basically buy a new computer. Why not just use firewall that blocks everything except traffic to your vpn server?
Dominic Baker
did the gubmint demand a backdoor or why does intel have these sorts of systems in place?
Nathaniel Rogers
It won't work. IntelME can get around it. Read up on it a little.
Brayden Brooks
Oh you're just retarded. Carry on then.
Ryan Ramirez
Is there any way to undo the mod in case I find out that it doesn't work on my laptop?
Hunter Price
Their excuse is that it targets the business sector (e.g. big company man buys 5k laptops and some disgruntled employee keeps the laptop when leaving, they want to lock it up remotely, and maybe get files from it beforehand, or maybe the laptop was stolen and you want to brick it).
Of course it's not like it puts you at a disadvantage to have the entire world by the balls now does it?
Parker Torres
I can hack my router? Bullshit.
Grayson Powell
nice goalpost movement my dude.
Camden Flores
This seems risky. I already killed my previous motherboard by flashing some stupid shitty modded BIOS.
Owen Torres
The script takes a firmware image and then modifies it to remove the offending segments. You proceed to flash the freedom'd image onto the CPU. All you have to do to undo this is to flash the original image.
James Rivera
It's for large companies to manage shitloads of computers without needing to physically be there. You can use ME to configure the BIOS from a thousand miles away. No OS or anything needs to be present either. However, there's no need for a "feature" like that in a home computer (unless you plan to do some malicious big brother shit with it).
Totally. Neo Sup Forums is real and also incapable of fact checking.
Technically it can, considering it can observe and record your keystrokes, dumbass.
Josiah Reyes
So if it doesn't reboot after 30 minutes on its own, it worked and I can leave it there?
Zachary Walker
Exactly.
Angel Morgan
I wonder if this allows me to upgrade cpu in my cheap laptop. Beause this model is known to restart after 30 minutes when a cpu that isn't whitelisted is present. Switching from celeron to i5 would be cool.
Aaron Hughes
>Intel Management Engine is a device that lives on the northbridge on any modern intel CPU that can operate even when the system is turned off, and has full access to the disk and memory at all time. Features include the ability to brick the CPU on demand, and full TCP/IP stack access. It is able to send and receive network packets even when the computer is turned off this sounds like complete bullshit
Nathaniel Rodriguez
Believe it or not, it is true.
Carson Wright
Nice. I'll give it a try.
Joshua Rivera
>restart after 30 minutes when a cpu that isn't whitelisted is present this is making me nervous. what would a "blacklisted" cpu be?
Carson Bennett
No one has tested on X99/haswell-e yet :c
Jordan Gray
Knock off processor from China
Evan Parker
Man, so tempting...
Any other risks (after flashing it properly, that is) aside from having the PC restart after 30 minutes?
Eli Allen
whitelisted as in officially supported by this laptop model and chipset some other models work, but for 30 minutes, while other don't boot at all, even though they are supported by chipset
same thing happens with wireless cards, but people found a way around that and remove whitelist check from bios/uefi
Nicholas Moore
Will this work on the X200? I bought one recently and I'd like to remove the ME, but now libreboot has been hijacked by a tranny.
Jason Peterson
But if the processor was made in China, why would it they make it with that "ME" thing if its gonna shut itself down automatically?
>It can send and receive network packets, even through a firewall
No it fucking can't you dumbass. A packet is a packet, if it tries to waddle through my pfsense, it's dropped.
>It won't work. IntelME can get around it. Read up on it a little.
No it fucken wont
>Technically it can, considering it can observe and record your keystrokes, dumbass.
So fucking what, how the hell does that enable it to pass my hardware firewall? Please do tell.
Lucas James
Technically it could brick your PC, but this is just as likely as you are to fry your GPU when carefully OCing it incrementally.
Ethan Walker
Chinese knock off CPUs don't exist. The most they do is change out the heat spreader from older chips with new heat spreader claiming to be a newer chip. The Chinese don't have the technical facilities to produce x86 chips at anywhere near intel process nodes.
Most commonly they just take ESs and sell them on ebay or the same with OEM xeons.
Jace Gutierrez
Hello intel employee. How are you doing today? Do they not give you breaks on weekends these days?
Parker White
Reminder that Intel included the JVM in the ME to help rapid development at NSA/CIA
Ryder Ramirez
>whitelisted as in officially supported by this laptop model and chipset >some other models work, but for 30 minutes Why would they restrict the processor like that.
If it boots and you're using it, its because it works, right?
Lincoln Carter
want better cpu? buy a laptop model version that comes with that cpu, instead of buying the cheapest one and replacing cpu on your own
Blake Reyes
What kind of hardware do I need to use this? Does this involve specialised tools like librebooting an X200 does?
Oliver Smith
You must be new here. Sup Forums is always right, even if you're too dumb to understand it. All three of those (You)s were so delicious.
Could this be why my pc rabdomly draws current in short bursts when turned off?
Logan Bailey
I hope you have at least one non-Intel NIC between your Intel CPU and the Internet
Colton Miller
Dude. I despise intel me and am contemplating trying this out with my thinkpad.
I'm just a lowly network admin at a mid sized firm.
ya cunt, here's one more for your sod ass
Connor Cruz
For now, yes. You need an external flasher.
U made, lil bich?
Eli Carter
Rapid question:
Intel ME belongs to Intel AMT which is part of Intel vPro. According to specs, both 6600k and 6700k do not have vPro. Aren't these two cpus botnet free, then?
Cooper Torres
(7) No. Not even gonna give you a (you).
But I'm right.
Thomas Clark
It could be, but it could also be other factors. What do you mean by turned off? Do you mean "I pressed the button labelled shut down in wangblows 10"? Because that doesn't shut the computer down. What do you mean by drawing current in short bursts? Did you use measuring equipment at the PSU output or on the rails? Note that out to PSU in doesn't mean much and can be caused by bad source or electromagnetic effects.
Dylan Russell
Congrats? How the fuck are RISC super- computers in any way related to x86 architecture?
As I said, China simply doesn't have the facilities to produce x86 silicon at anywhere near the process node intel is at.
Owen Flores
It's not in the CPU, it's in the chipset (vPro).
Elijah Perry
No, Intel ME is on every chip after C2D.
Adam Gonzalez
When you said firewall the first time you were BTFO because intel ME objectively bypasses firewalls installed on the host machine. That's when you changed the goalposts and got butthurt when nobody fell for it.
Jackson Torres
Nice! Is this usable with desktops? ASUS motherboards, theoretically...
Easton Sanders
No, anything past some point (ivy bridge, inclusive?) has the ME no matter what. Don't know where you're seeing otherwise.
Ayden Hall
>x200 It doesn't have ME, fampai, it's pre-ME. x201 was the first one with ME.
Jack Baker
I guess in theory if the pfsense box is running on a CPU that also has intel ME then there potentially could be traffic between the two intel ME CPUs that simply gets intercepted on both ends before the host OS has a chance to filter it.
Seems fairly unlikely though
Logan Fisher
Earlier incarnation put the chipset off the CPU but this is no longer the case.
Yes, there's been at least one reported success. In principle, it can work on any ivy bridge, sandy bridge or skylake CPU. See
Cooper Brooks
That wasn't me. I simply came in and corrected wrong statements.
We need poster id's.
Lincoln Thomas
Yes to both. There's also the option to use other networks than your own (satellite not excluded). But the point was that having a firewall on a non-dedi box would be completely useless.
Jonathan Reyes
Wankblows 7, wake on lan is turned off. My powerstrip has switchable outlets controlled by a master outlet(pc), when that draws current the outlets become live...you get the idea
Samuel Rivera
so what's the point of flashing libreboot on it?
Jose Jackson
>>>/reddit/
Isaiah Barnes
Having a dedicated hardware firewall running ARM or similar is probably your best bet then.
Landon Collins
What about Haswell?
Asher Hughes
Yes, assuming there's no intel satellite to which the device does connections to (chances are, there is one, in my opinion - it's not very hard or costly to setup for someone like intel). It depends on your microthreat model, in other words.
Nevermind, looks like it was since 2006, and more full-blown starting in 2009 with nehalem. libreboot.org/faq/#intelme
John Bennett
Proprietary BIOS is proprietary, Libreboot doesn't get around ME, it gets around proprietary BIOS.
Parker Price
how much longer until we have real botnet-free cpus? lowRISC is promising a RaspberryPi type board with an open RISC-V chip in 2017. i hope RISC-V does for hardware what Linux did for operating systems.
Ehhh, it would have to be a massive satellite, I just can't see getting any sort of signal penetration through houses and apartment buildings using an internal antenna. Any large antenna would be easily noticed and anything small enough to be baked into the Silicon simply wouldn't be able to receive data. It MIGHT be able to transmit if the receving satellite is large enough, but the only way you'd send a signal back to such a small transmitter would be with a massive directed signal to attempt to break through buildings or other obstructions.
Not to mention world wide coverage would take a network of satellites.
So it's not impossible but I find it highly unlikely. My dad works with GPS satellites and he's taught me some basics.
Jaxson Ortiz
My phone has no problem doing just that.
Christopher Ortiz
It was on the PCH before but it was moved to the northbridge. It's not rocket science.
Dominic Jenkins
Really? Does it actually SEND data to a satellite, or merely receive strong gps signal? Beause there's a difference.
Mason Collins
Your phone connects to a local cell tower at most a couple miles away which has a fiber optic data connection to a local ISP.
Unless you have a satellite phone, in which case you'd know how difficult it can be to aquire signal and you'd know how shit the latency on satellite communications are and why most people don't bother with it.
Jeremiah Rodriguez
It connects to a mobile tower which is an ANTENA connected to a satelite
The ME has been there for quite awhile now, but after the Core2 era there stopped being an option to disable it in the BIOS. Hopefully we'll all be able to flash our boards with a cleaned up BIOS sometime soon.
Liam Taylor
I do have a satellite phone and yes, latency is retarded, but even if the ME engine was trying to communicate with fucking mars, so long as the communication bypasses your infrastructure, it's out of your hands. It's not like intel needs to constantly send out everything about every part of your hardware.
Aaron Nelson
I just don't think it's happening user. I'm sure they do shady shit but operating an array of secret satellites isn't it.
Jace Perry
Even if that's the case (where's the evidence) it's in the chipset of most vPro enabled PCs and not in the CPU or northbridge. The article is 6 months old and in that time only kaby lake was "released". So it's not in the CPU for most at all.
Jayden Allen
Are you legally retarded or just an idiot? Dont matter though, you fit right in here.
Luke Johnson
This is very interesting because I have never come across something like this before. What laptop is it?
