Thank you Alberto for the answers, but I was not questioning the ME "per-se". Anyway, if ME is required for platform initialization, why not stopping it after said "platform initialization"? Also you said "ARM provides TrustZone, which is something like Intel ME". Permit me to disagree : TrustZone is only an operational mode of the CPU, not a whole computing subsystem like ME with its own CPU running its OS.. Also as you said ARM ltd doesn't strongarm (pun unintented..) its customers to make ALWAYS Trustzone uncontrolable by the "end user" (the physical and .. legal owner for me..) If ARM SoCs can live without this kind of ... companion for the main CPU, what remains the argument of Intel to convince us of the fact the their CPUs cannot live without their beloved ME running side-by-side (I know, I know, Intel doesn't have to speak to us miserable microbes, their real customers are more noble entities...)
But anyway (and I will stop here with my trolls..), back to the main topic of this thread: - Purism guys : I for one, I think that you are doing a really great job (my previous mail was a troll/sarcasm, take it with a tongue in cheek :-P) and I wish you great successes, but as other senders said in this thread, I think that we, the Libre community cannot put big hopes in the promises of entities like Intel or AMD anymore, and should actively explore alternatives to the x86 world (and encourage initiative like Talos..)
That being said have a nice and happy Christmas! Florentin Demetrescu
----- Mail d'origine ----- De: Alberto Bursi alberto.bursi@outlook.it À: coreboot@coreboot.org, echelon@free.fr Envoyé: Sun, 24 Dec 2017 22:27:28 +0100 (CET) Objet: Re: [coreboot] Coreboot Purism BIOS is free? open?
Meh, Intel ME is necessary for x86 platform initalization. Without ME the PC does not start at all.
Anyway, the ME is used to provide third parties control and "security" over the user's system by cutting out the middleman (board firmware). Due to technical reasons they added all this functionality in a single place, because it would be silly to have 3 different hardware backdoors when you can just have one doing 3 different things.
On consumer PCs it provides DRM, and on office PCs it provides limited (but quite useful) remote management, plus more (it can execute a customer's dedicated java applications on its own integrated JVM, for example).
For example I've seen some Dell PCs that had integrated some kind of third party anti-theft functionality inside their UEFI firmware, where you would license a third party software and then connect your PC's UEFI firmware to their servers or something, so when it is stolen it can still be tracked whenever it connects to the internet again. Don't know if this feature is using the Intel ME, but it is an example of feature the OEM might want to add to their products.
Intel themselves also added random stuff to the ME (like advanced fan speed control), just because they had a relatively powerful processor in there, so why not add more features to it. see here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine#Modules
Does the industry ask for this? Maybe. What is sure is that Intel thinks that this backdoor thingy offers features their customers want or might find interesting to add features to their products. These features should be the ones sought after by end users.
And "Customers" in this case is companies designing PCs and embedded systems with Intel products. Not people, end users. End users buy motherboards or PCs from Intel's customers.
Note that ARM provides TrustZone, which is something like Intel ME, but is a generic feature, the OEM can do whatever it wants with it, even disable and not use it at all. AMD mindlessly followed Intel's footsteps by integrating ARM cores running the TrustZone feature, and calling this Platform Security Processor.
So it's not just Intel that thinks his customers might want more control over the products they sell to the end user. Maybe they are all misguided. Maybe not.
Remember, it does not matter what is actually real, but what company managers think is real.
There is many people that still thinks that "secret" is "safe", and that does not understand that software will have bugs, that it's only a matter of time before it becomes vulnerable.
For example, HDCP (HDMI cable antipiracy feature) is still in use even if it was (and is) regularly busted by 30$ devices. Not even for pirating, usually it is busted because it is causing compatibility issues in devices.
The people in charge of government agencies in the US know better, at least. They asked for a ME feature to disable it in the hardware with High Assurance Platform certification. And due to Intel being cheap, this switch is available in all MEs after version 11, Intel didn't make a custom ME only for the US government. Currently it requires using external tools to edit the setting on the motherboard's flash chip (or being an OEM), same as the older method of nuking modules manually.
I hope I helped you understand the most likely reasons why ME exists.
-Alberto
On 12/24/2017 08:46 PM, echelon@free.fr wrote:
By the way you said : "ODMs/OEMs are the real customers of Intel/AMD" and "Intel/AMD serve them law" (which law???) I have a scoop : a friend of mine happened to work in the marketing department of a (very large) OEM, and speaking about ME he told me that Intel OBLIGED them to adopt and integrate the ME! (in the beging the OEM guys were reluctant..) Of course this is only "street whispering" (and I will not force you to buy this..) but, but, as we say in Romanian "there is no smoke without fire..." ;-) Just my 2 satoshis.. Florentin
----- Mail d'origine ----- De: echelon@free.fr À: coreboot@coreboot.org Envoyé: Sun, 24 Dec 2017 20:31:53 +0100 (CET) Objet: Re : Re: [coreboot] Coreboot Purism BIOS is free? open?
No you didn't answer my question Peter, sorry!.. I am NOT questioning the "legitimacy" of ME/PSP (be it from a purely corporate/financial point of view..). (By the way I have no "legitimacy" myself to put this question of "legitimacy" to begin with..) I simply don't understand (and this is why I pollute the coreboot ML with this blah-blah..) why ALL (I insist on capital letters _ALL_) the systems (consumer/office even .. industrial..) have to have this kind of .. "technology" activated ALL the time (at least from the Intel/AMD point of view)?? For me this is simply irrational!.. Period!.. (And for the fact that consumer devices outnumber office/industrial/governmental devices, I will belive you when I see REAL statistics, sorry!..) Florentin
----- Mail d'origine ----- De: Peter Stuge peter@stuge.se À: coreboot@coreboot.org Envoyé: Sun, 24 Dec 2017 18:29:48 +0100 (CET) Objet: Re: [coreboot] Coreboot Purism BIOS is free? open?
echelon@free.fr wrote:
(can we anymore speak about "owner"?..)
We can and we must, if we want to own anything at all.
Don't get tricked into merely consuming services and products; take ownership and shape your reality.
echelon@free.fr wrote:
But what has Netflix (or Sony, or the entertainment industry in general...) to LEGALLY gain by strongarming Intel/AMD to keep ME/PSP activated on all x86 platforms (not only consumer ones!..)?
Philipp Stanner wrote:
I don't get it, too. ME has nothing to do with what you can do with your machine and what it can perform.
Even if 90% of users use their machine for multimedia purposes...
Follow the money. What drives Intel sales? We can't know. Who are the strongest partners officially? That would be Microsoft (with Windows) and ODMs/OEMs. Intel serves them, by law.
I guess that consumer devices significantly outnumber office devices. That's where the content industry comes into play.
MSFT wants UEFI Secure Boot, so that OEMs are not required to deliver security.
Content industry wants PAVP, so that hardware owners can not legally access unecrypted versions of the content.
ME is Intel's answer to both those requirements and a few more, as described pretty clearly in the PSTR[1] book.
And the DMCA and EUCD legal foundations align (un?)surprisingly well with the technical implementation details.
//Peter