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Comment by markokrajnc | Hacker News Reader

It may be, that Intel didn't plan this as an NSA/XYZ back door - but it doesn't actually matter. What matters is that we know 1) Intel has such technology implemented in allmost all desktops/servers currently running 2) you can access those machines remotely (even over GSM) and perform reads/writes.

Example misuse: somebody can put illegal stuff on your machine and then sue you...

(Intel has marketed this feature for big companies so they can format the HDD remotely over GSM in case laptop was stolen.)

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They can remotely wipe my stolen machines? That's the one cool thing I've heard. How come I haven't received that email in my spam box? Poor marketing attempt if that's what they're aiming for. I'm not running a huge company but they could at least try targeting the SMB sector (I think I qualify for that). I'm against the ME vector up until it's actually useful to me.

P.S. fbi please don't hax0r me for commenting. Actually, go ahead, ya bastards.

>1) Intel has such technology implemented in allmost all desktops/servers currently running

Ever wondered why Google is working on their own CPU?

Wondering - when that happens - if their firmware is open source but monitored for ad targeting should we be OK with it?

Freedom 1 of the FSF is (https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html):

"The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish"

In this sense you should be able to change the firmware (since it is open source in the sense of the OSI definition) and remove the monitoring for ad targeting. If this is not possible, Google's firmware is not open source (see https://opensource.org/osd).

opensource != free software

>> you can access those machines remotely (even over GSM)

Is this really true? All modern Intel chips come with embedded mobile phone tech to allow remote access? Sources on this?

One example source: http://www.intel.com/content/dam/doc/product-brief/mobile-co...

I guess they don't (yet) have embedded mobile phone tech. I guess they use wireless cellular modem integrated in many laptops.

EDIT: Here the relevant part from link above: "Notification via an encrypted SMS text message over a 3G network. For this option, the laptop does not need to be connected to the Internet. This feature works even if the OS in not running or has been reinstalled, thanks to a hardware-to-hardware link between the 3G card and the Intel AT system."

Seems like they finally got the "Clipper" chip through... this is basically a trojan horse for spy agencies.

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