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“We have obtained fully functional JTAG for Intel CSME via USB DCI”

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Re: “We have obtained fully functional JTAG for Intel CSME via USB DCI”

#341

Post by heroprotagonist »

fragmede wrote: post #86
WhitneyLand wrote: post #52

One way to think of ME is, we all woke up one day and discovered we have had high resolution night vision spy cams installed in our bedrooms. The next realization is there is no way to turn them off or remove them. It’s posisble even moving won’t help. And yet we really don’t seem to care much. Lesser issues generate national outrage and high volumes of press coverage. Why? HN may be uniquely positioned to show us th…

> And yet we really don’t seem to care much. I know we're used to "Internet speed" and the tweet happened an entire 24 hours ago, but give it a bit of time before declaring it dead. Wired and Vice need a second to write it up, and see if it hits the mainstream before declaring the issue ignored. Not saying it will get picked up, though I sure hope it does, but as you point out, it's a bit obscure and takes some expla…

> Wired and Vice need a second to write it up, and see if it hits the mainstream before declaring the issue ignored.

You're right about this new development of the functional JTAG being very recent and needing time to get around. However, security folks and others have been decrying the potential of the IME backdoor for years.

That they've been largely ignored for years lends some credibility to the thought that "we don't seem to care much." It's hard for most laypeople to understand, and it's difficult to get people excited about something they don't understand (unless they are convinced that they do understand, of course).

Re: “We have obtained fully functional JTAG for Intel CSME via USB DCI”

#342

Post by daurnimator »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #227
igor_filippov wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the military.

They must be decades behind, then. I don't think in-house Russian engineering capabilities have been competitive let alone ahead of the consumer electronics curve going back at least a decade in the of fabrication. Maybe when it was 1997 and everything was DIP.

MCST make stuff used by russian military. see e.g. Elbrus chips https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbrus-2S%2B

Re: “We have obtained fully functional JTAG for Intel CSME via USB DCI”

#343

Post by 1001101 »

giobox wrote: post #307
pmontra wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely agree about tapeing the camera. Zuckerberg does it too https://www.theverge.com/2016/6/21/11995032/mark-zuckerberg-...

While I don't care one way or another what people choose to do to their own devices and am happy to accept that it's probably a good practice, it does always cause me to chuckle when the "Zuckerburg does it" argument is thrown out. I think the threat profile faced by "the rest of us" is probably just a little less intense than someone as well known, wealthy, famous and influential as the CEO of Facebook, but perhaps…

The money for that tape came from selling our privacy.

Re: “We have obtained fully functional JTAG for Intel CSME via USB DCI”

#344

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

goldenkey wrote: post #175
elif wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that "we really don't seem to care much" It's that even those of us that care vehemently, have no recourse. It is impossible to fight a secret police state.

Well with that attitude it is... Part of winning is to even begin to believe you can fight...

There's ongoing work to fight against this, it just takes a very long time because the problem domain is incredibly complex.

RISC-V [0] is an open ISA that looks promising. Unfortunately, the privileged instruction set is still a draft, which is important for getting a full modern OS up and running.

lowRISC [1] is as non-profit open hardware company that has been working on a fully open RISC-V-based SoC that can run Linux. In their about page they claim it'll be ready this year.

There's also the stuff from SiFive. They have an arduino-comparible microcontroller, and have ongoing work for a 64-bit quad-core. I don't think their hardware is open, though.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC-V

[1] http://www.lowrisc.org

Re: “We have obtained fully functional JTAG for Intel CSME via USB DCI”

#345

Post by shenki0 »

cyphar wrote: post #100
nolok wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said above; I think I didn't make my point clear enough: my concern was not about it making it easier to be comprised, but about it making the clean up pretty impossible, on a hardware level. Software do-over is a very well accepted solution (don't bother cleaning the rootkit, just format reinstall), but hardware do-over (change the cpu) is going to be a hard pill to swallow.

This was a problem even before Intel ME. Modern server motherboards (and several workstations) have a second Linux installation on your motherboard (known as a "baseboard management controller" or BMC) that cannot be removed. There have been many exploits found in the software running on BMCs, and if you want to "clean up" an infected server then you have to throw out the hardware if you want to be 100% certain.

The bmc situation is changing. There's an effort to support the ARM SoCs upstream, and there are a number of companies working on open source BMC stacks.

https://github.com/openbmc

Re: “We have obtained fully functional JTAG for Intel CSME via USB DCI”

#346

Post by palisade »

WhitneyLand wrote: post #52

One way to think of ME is, we all woke up one day and discovered we have had high resolution night vision spy cams installed in our bedrooms. The next realization is there is no way to turn them off or remove them. It’s posisble even moving won’t help. And yet we really don’t seem to care much. Lesser issues generate national outrage and high volumes of press coverage. Why? HN may be uniquely positioned to show us th…

I've been warning friends and family about it for years back before it was well known, my first email about it was 2015. Their reaction has been one of three things; you're too paranoid, who cares so what, and stop talking to me. I've always made a variety of suggestions and updates on general security issues, even beyond the Intel ME problem, to friends/family via email.

It is not just a matter of apathy. They get violently ill at being told to think about protecting themselves. If you tell them not to put their debit card into an ATM without giving the card reader a tug to see if its real first for example, they'll do it wrong anyway just to spite you. It isn't that giving the tug is hard or that it isn't wise, but they simply do not want you to be right or have to think about it.

Admitting that you are right about that one little thing means they have to deal with all the other issues that you brought up as well. There is probably an interesting field of psychology to be researched with just that phenomena alone. I don't think this is just the people I know personally because I've encountered a lot the public who has this mindset as well. It is how we got ourselves into these problems in the first place with no recourse.

I stopped sending the emails about a year ago because they asked me to. The reason stated is that no one cares about security and a number of them had already auto-forwarded me to the junk folder. Or, told me they saw my name and would skip my emails and not open them. I don't even feel like bringing it up again now that it is a going concern. They will continue to not care.

I find it frustrating.

EDIT: I've disabled Intel ME on my machines. I would offer to do it for others but they'd have to acknowledge it's something that concerns them to want that help, and they won't.

Re: “We have obtained fully functional JTAG for Intel CSME via USB DCI”

#347

Post by cjbprime »

jmnicolas wrote: post #210
confounded wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even better is a hardware kill switch, especially for the mic.

But now you have to trust the switch to really deactivate the mic. I'm a recursive paranoiac !

The usual* way to handle this is to have a small LED next to the mic/camera that shows when it's on -- and have it wired up to the device in series, such that it's software-impossible for the device to be powered without the light being on.

*: it's what we did on the One Laptop Per Child laptop, and I'm sure others have too.

Re: “We have obtained fully functional JTAG for Intel CSME via USB DCI”

#348

Post by rdtsc »

vog wrote: post #21
_0ffh wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"AMD have something similar so no help there" It's probably worse for AMD. For Intel now at least we'll probably get the ability to securely disable everything below ring -1.

It's such a pity that there is no real competition in that area. (Unless you go the totally different architectures such as ARM or RISC-V.) AMD had the chance to differentiate from Intel here, instead they blindly immitate the same customer-hostile stunt.

Wonder what POWER processors have?

Re: “We have obtained fully functional JTAG for Intel CSME via USB DCI”

#349

Post by PascLeRasc »

breakingcups wrote: post #56
maccard wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're being overly paranoid. If the attacker has physical access to the machine, chances are you're compromised anyway, even before this vulnerability.

I don't think thats the right attitude. There's a difference between being able to open a machine to install malicious hardware / steal hdd's or just plugging in a generic USB stick to pawn it. I know some of you might argue that even generic USB sticks can do damage and, whilst I agree, this attack is still a degree worse than most of those. Thus far the most damage an unknown USB stick could do was type commands as…

Yes, it's just like the example in the first season of House of Cards, where the journalist for some reason is conned into putting the USB into a server. That plot was really stretching to find a way to kill off a good character but still it shows how a "guest" could try to discreetly manipulate a system.

Re: “We have obtained fully functional JTAG for Intel CSME via USB DCI”

#350

Post by cyphar »

ddalex wrote: post #242
cyphar wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've seen first hand how a cool, small, simple feature is blossoming into something dr. Frankenstein would be proud of. Complete aside, but the whole story of Frankenstein is about how Dr. Frankenstein is repulsed by his actions the moment that he brings the monster to life. So he most certainly wasn't "proud" of his actions, he was horrified by them. But I agree that this is likely how some of the engineers who wo…

> So he most certainly wasn't "proud" of his actions, he was horrified by them. In the end, yes. But the novel starts with him being so proud of the golem that he takes it home with disastrous results. Hmmm, maybe the comparison to ME isn't that far-fetched. > I don't buy that they designed it Yep, this is what I'm saying - it's unlikely that they ever told Intel "put this in there". > it's very likely they sabotaged…

> In the end, yes. But the novel starts with him being so proud of the golem that he takes it home with disastrous results.

We must've read very different novels. In Chapter 5[1] (when he finally recounts how he brought the golem to life, after talking about his life and his studies up to that point) it's clear that he instantly regretted it.

> I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.

And he didn't take it home with him. He leaves his laboratory and heads back home. The golem lives in the forest for a long time, and finds a family living in a cottage. While hiding from them, he learns to speak, and tries to talk to them. They shun him, and he is filled with anger at his creator for creating him and leaving him alone. So he finds Frankenstein's home and then kills his family.

Maybe some adaptions of the book have different stories on this topic (I've only ever read the original) but I would argue that a depiction which shows Frankenstein regret his decision much later (and the golem's murder of his family being something other than revenge against his creator for abandoning him) is missing the point of Shelly's story.

[1]: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/84/84-h/84-h.htm#chap05

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