[Cryptography] Intel Management Engine pwnd

Henry Baker hbaker1 at pipeline.com
Wed Nov 29 17:10:55 EST 2017


Everyone here should be aware that the "power off" button on your laptop now does about as much as the "power off" button on your TV: NOTHING!  (TV's have refused to actually power off ever since tube TV's from the 1950's; now they refuse to power off due to the time required to reboot Linux/Android/Palm/Kali ...)

Ever since I got my latest Windoze laptop last year, I noticed that it didn't retain all of its battery charge when *powered down*.

I soon discovered that this laptop did retain nearly all of its charge *when I removed the battery*.

So clearly, something below the operating system continues to run, and run quite vigorously, in order to continue running down the battery.

What a pain in the butt this is: I have to remove the battery every time I pack it into my bag, else the battery will run down & leave me stranded.

It's utterly amazing how little the needs of *actual users* factor into product design any more; the needs of the HSA/CIA/FBI/NSA/corporate spying (aka "management capabilities") prevail over individual users every time.



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