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Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

I'm skeptical that the FBI have the technical capabilities to turn the IME into a trojan horse (in the biblical sense). More likely NSA-levels of sophistication. Plus there's also the issue of doing the actual implants (either via postal intercepts, physical access, or breaking into networks) which are illegal for the FBI to do but semi-legal for the NSA to do against foreign targets.

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If Intel was cooperative, then all the FBI would need to do is ask them to help. That would fit with an Intel employee being aware of it happening. Pure speculation on my part, of course.

Intel wouldn't even have to be cooperative with an NSL in place.

Can't the FBI request services from the NSA?

And there have been versions of the Intel ME in the wild with known remote exploits AFAIK.

Yes, although this was made legal only recently.

Doesn't mean it wasn't already happening at some level.

Isn't this a two edged thing in legal courts - if there is a widely available backdoor to hack Intel systems, how can any digital evidence be taken without some measure of doubt?

That is the whole "parallel construction" debacle. Once they have the evidence, they come up with a cover story for how they could have legally obtained it.

If Intel added the feature for use by groups like the FBI, they wouldn't need to reverse engineer or hack anything. Intel would hand over the keys.

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