[Cryptography] Intel Management Engine pwnd

[Bill Stewart]

> On Wed, Nov 22, 2017 at 6:37 PM, Jerry Leichter <leichter at lrw.com 
> <mailto:leichter at lrw.com>> wrote:
>     In fact it's unlikely a system that complex *could* be implemented
>     directly in hardware for any reasonable price, if at all.  That's
>     why microcode was invented.  And ... there's tons of it in any x86
>     implementation.  Is that hardware or software?  Is that distinction
>     even meaningful?

Yes, it's still meaningful.
If it's hw, you can't update it.
If it's firmware, sometimes you can.
If it's software, usually you can.

(Or if it's an Android OS, and there's a planetary alignment between 
Google, your phone manufacturer, and your phone carrier, simultaneously 
with Mercury being retrograde, the moon being full, and you or at least 
your phone being at a hacker conference or somewhere with 0.5 bars of 2G 
wireless, then sometimes you can upgrade that too.)