undefined | Better HN

0 pointsmysterypie8y ago0 comments

> Maybe I'll hold off on patching for a bit.

I think you're suggesting extremely interesting but I'm not totally clear on it. So someone[1] has come up with some code to either disable (kill switch) or remove the Intel ME. (Setting the HAP bit is the kill switch.)

Now Intel and its vendors are going to issue a patch for the Intel ME. Are you saying that as a result of applying this patch we might not be able disable or remove the Intel ME? In other words, we'll end up with a slightly more secure Intel ME, but be worse off since we can't exploit any bugs to get rid of it?

If I'm understanding you correctly, this sounds like the iPhone situation: upgrade to a newer iOS and lose the ability to jailbreak.

[1] https://github.com/corna/me_cleaner/wiki/HAP-AltMeDisable-bi...

0 comments

1 comments · 1 top-level

jlgaddis8y ago

Basically, yeah.

Hold off on patching this vulnerability so that it can be exploited later in order to disable ME entirely. Their firmware updates could very well close off these existing "known holes", making them impossible to exploit.

If we can take advantage of them to kill the ME entirely, that's even better than Intel releasing this fix.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse