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We weren't speculating before - we were trusting them - Intel has long produced the entire chip and chipset (i.e. the entire path between the CPU and the network interface). They could have implemented backdoors previously.

All that's changed is that they are implementing function which makes it obvious that this is possible.

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Yes right, we were. But we were able to install our own firmware before there was the IME.

And it has also changed in the sense that the IME is a full fledged autonomous universal computer which has it's own RAM, ROM, clock etc. It is not just some very specific chip with hard-coded functionality, no, it can e.g. load and run Java applets. So it is a very powerful moving target which can be used for whatever it is programmed to. Rootkit researcher Joanna Rutkowska called it the perfect rootkitting infrastructure.

Are there any documented cases of this vector being used against a user?

Not documentation, but... a former co-worker had done some work for intel agencies. He told me about something that was similar to this (though back in the 2008 time frame, so not using IME). If he can be believed (and I can neither confirm nor disprove what he told me, nor can I now prove that he ever said anything), this approach has been used for a long time.

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