There are speculative topics that appear on this forum such as IME. Many of us that don’t work in technical fields encounter the vast material on IME and cannot, on our own, find (or understand) evidence to rule out IME (and other “hardware backdoors”) or to reasonably disregard them. Much of the …

The shortest possible answer to this question for people who only like to skim a single sentence is that you should not concern yourself with Intel ME at all. [image] curious78: there are counterposts citing “FUD” or something like “I can’t believe it took this long for the IME to be mentioned…

Thank you for this. You have indicated “You should not disable Intel ME” " There is no reason that the security advantages that Intel ME does provide have to be part of an overall insecurely-implemented package" " you also should not go out of your way to modify an Intel or AMD product yourself …

The topic seems to be controversial precisely because the kind of people who frequent this forum, and “privacy people” generally, fall into the false dichotomy of thinking that if something is a vulnerability we must defend ourselves against it at all costs. If a technical vulnerability is demonstra…

[image] hxn: no matter how rare or theoretical it is, people need to rid themselves of it even if it ends up causing them more harm in the long run And we saw that play out to a degree with Yubikeys and all the fearmongering around that. Like newsflash, by the time the equipment to actually d…

I also wrote a rather lengthy reply about this in the other thread seems there is one every 6 months. [image] How can I have a computer without Intel ME? Questions You have to assess the risk and benefit of having it before making a blanket statement that it is bad. It is…

You mention disabling IME using me_cleaner would introduce more issues, but what if you disabled it using the HAP bit instead? @dngray commented in another thread that no one fully understands what the HAP bit does but that it might affect things like Boot Guard. I still have a couple thoughts/ques…

If you read through that entire thread you linked instead of just @dngray ’s last comment, I think you will find that I have already given my thoughts on these questions. I’m not sure what else I can add to the conversation, but if you find anything missing from my explanation I’m happy to clarify.

Intel ME & hardware backdoor speculation

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jonah (Jonah Aragon) September 10, 2024, 9:47pm 4

Well this is something that will be covered in actual detail when we write a KB article or post about this topic, I’m just saying what is the case for people who encounter this post in the meantime and have immediate concerns.

How secure is System76 laptop with disabled Intel Management Engine compared to other mainstream laptops?

Topic		Replies	Views
How secure is System76 laptop with disabled Intel Management Engine compared to other mainstream laptops? Questions hardware	18	2747	June 11, 2025
IME, Coreboot, what about it? Questions	12	1371	December 26, 2023
Hardware backdoor as a security threat? General	20	1862	March 8, 2024
Is disabling IME using HAP bit ideal? Why would the U.S. require it? Questions hardware	1	612	December 19, 2024
Paranoid about being backdoored? Questions hardware	20	5478	July 9, 2024

Intel ME & hardware backdoor speculation

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