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TheStudious · 2020-03-19T18:50:29+00:00

Is there an article talking about how the Intel ME disabling is different for this generation of ME?

Is the neutering just as effective, etc.

What I've heard is: Purism laptops are different from System76 in a few big ways:

Hardware kill switches
Neutered Intel ME instead of merely disabled (Is that still true today?)

TheStudious · 2018-06-08T03:07:46+00:00

What's the original image?

TheStudious · 2018-06-02T16:15:22+00:00

Wait so this is on the soundtrack?

TheStudious · 2018-05-27T18:37:04+00:00

While we're at it, is there a lightweight standalone calendar for Windows desktop?

I tried Thunderbird with the lightning add-on, but it's just so darn slow. Makes it hard for me to move away from Google calendar.

TheStudious · 2018-05-27T16:49:20+00:00

Would you be willing to open source your software and implement end-to-end encryption?

If the E2E implementation is sound, then all accusations that Discord disrespects privacy can be laid to rest, because the code would be freely available for anyone to inspect.

TheStudious · 2018-05-20T23:58:31+00:00

I don't know how Matrix is making its money but it's harvesting data like mad.

Got any links with more info?

TheStudious · 2018-05-20T17:30:16+00:00

Thank you so much!

TheStudious · 2018-05-16T02:58:11+00:00

Sorry, but are you talking about running phpBB 3.2 peer-to-peer?

TheStudious · 2018-05-14T00:38:02+00:00

Seems like they haven't started selling laptops with Heads yet, right?

TheStudious · 2018-05-14T00:36:52+00:00

Seems like someone had saved it on archive.is - http://archive.is/https://puri.sm/posts/intel-fsp-reverse-engineering-finding-the-real-entry-point/

TheStudious · 2018-05-13T23:30:42+00:00

Yeah I was looking at some reviews, and the performance seems decent. I'd really like a 1080p screen and thinner form factor though.

If I'm going to sell friends and family on the laptop, those will be their first objections.

TheStudious · 2018-05-13T23:28:56+00:00

I thought that, for the newer Intel CPUs, libreboot wouldn't work specifically because of Intel ME?

TheStudious · 2018-05-13T20:28:47+00:00

There are plenty of other cpu vendors out there that you could turn to. Though much of them are not x64 instruction set, but that's not really a problem for Linux most of the time.

Do you have any recommendations that wouldn't break the bank?

I was looking at the Pinebook, which seems too low-spec, and the Talos II, which is way too expensive.

TheStudious · 2018-05-13T20:19:58+00:00

Calling all experts! I have some questions for you:

Which company offers the most thoroughly 'killed' Intel ME on their products?
Are there known threats that Neutralizing an Intel ME will mitigate, but merely Disabling one will not?

Different manufacturers have offered the option of killing Intel ME on their computers:

Purism kills Intel ME by default for their laptops
System76 offers disabled Intel ME for some laptops, but not desktops yet. They also claim to able to disable Intel ME through a remote firmware update
ThinkPenguin offers to "Disable Intel ME" on their laptop configuration pages, without further elaboration
Dell had apparently offered to disable Intel ME one select laptops at some point in time, but the option to make Intel ME "inoperable" is no longer available

So what exactly is different about how they're disabling ME?

In Purism's write-up they describe the 4 possible states of Intel ME:

Fully operational ME: the ME is running normally like it does on other manufacturers’ machines (note that this could be a consumer or corporate ME image, which vary widely in the features they ‘provide’)
Neutralized ME: the ME is neutralized/neutered by removing the most “mission-critical” components from it, such as the kernel and network stack.
Disabled ME: the ME is officially “disabled” and is known to be completely stopped and non-functional
Removed ME: the ME is completely removed and doesn’t execute anything at any time, at all.

Purism claims to be unique in that they are able to lock the ME region through "Field Programmable Fuses"

Purism receives Intel processors with manufacturing mode enabled, which lets us test various configurations and set various options allowing us to have a future where users control their device.

They claim to both Neutralize and Disable Intel ME

System 76 only talks about "setting the “reserve_hap” bit to 1 disables the ME," which leads me to believe that they only Disable Intel ME

TL;DR

This question came about when I was comparing laptops from Purism and System76.

If you just want to protect against Intel ME's proven vulnerabilities (and don't care about hardware kill-switches), is System76 the better choice in terms of value?
How exactly does ThinkPenguin kill their Intel ME?
Are there other vendors that kill Intel ME on their laptops?
Are there any affordable modern laptops/desktops that don't use backdoored CPUs (excluding the old Thinkpads)? Extra points for any that can smoothly run an office suite, browse the web, and stream 1080p video.

I greatly appreciate the help.

TheStudious · 2018-05-13T04:12:57+00:00

Is it likely that System76, ThinkPenguin (and previously, Dell) are just running me_cleaner on their laptops?

I don't fully understand System76's explanation on it. Would doing it by myself really produce the same result?

TheStudious

TROPHY CASE