> Intel ME and the (assumed [0]) partnership with CIA to design and build this system
I worked at Intel on ME and the things that came before it until around 2013. I can tell you two things --
1. No, Intel ME wasn't born out of a desire to spy on people nor was it -- to the best of my knowledge but I honestly believe I would know -- created at the request of the US government (or others). It was an honest attempt at providing a functionality that we believed was useful for sysadmins. If it was something done for the CIA, I believe it would probably have been kept secret instead of marketed.
2. It was initially going to be much "worse". Early pilots with actual customers -- such as a large british bank -- were going to run a lot more stuff -- think a full JVM -- and have a lot more direct access to the user land.) Security concerns scrapped those ideas pretty early on though.
In retrospect, I personally believe the whole thing was a bad idea and everybody is free to crap on Intel for it. But the thing was never intended as a backdoor or anything like that.
I worked at Intel on ME and the things that came before it until around 2013. I can tell you two things --
1. No, Intel ME wasn't born out of a desire to spy on people nor was it -- to the best of my knowledge but I honestly believe I would know -- created at the request of the US government (or others). It was an honest attempt at providing a functionality that we believed was useful for sysadmins. If it was something done for the CIA, I believe it would probably have been kept secret instead of marketed.
2. It was initially going to be much "worse". Early pilots with actual customers -- such as a large british bank -- were going to run a lot more stuff -- think a full JVM -- and have a lot more direct access to the user land.) Security concerns scrapped those ideas pretty early on though.
In retrospect, I personally believe the whole thing was a bad idea and everybody is free to crap on Intel for it. But the thing was never intended as a backdoor or anything like that.