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So, you just bought a new laptop. But you want full control over it -- no possibility of corporate, government, or black hat hackers compromising your system and either snooping on you or shutting you down for wrongthink.
So, you just bought a new laptop. But you want full control over it -- no possibility of corporate, government, or black hat hackers compromising your system and either snooping on you or shutting you down for wrongthink.
So you do all the right things. You cover the webcam. You uninstall bloatware. You use a VPN. Maybe you even install Linux, because no doubt there are all sorts of undocumented backdoors in Microsoft or Apple software.
Well, I'm sorry to inform you that none of this matters. It doesn't matter what software you install on your laptop or what hardware you are using (PC or Mac). If it was made in the last 12 years or so, it contains a piece of hardware known as the Intel Management Engine.
The Intel ME is essentially a tiny, completely independent, computer living inside your motherboard. It has its own CPU and runs a very small operating system.
It runs 100% of the time -- even if your computer is *turned off*.
It runs 100% of the time -- even if your computer is *turned off*.
It has direct access to your computer's memory and network controllers. This means it can snoop on the programs you are running and the internet activity you are engaging in, and it can send and receive data over the internet on its own, without your knowledge.
The ostensible purpose of this chip is to allow administrators to manage a system remotely, without having physical access to the machine. This is obviously useful for businesses, govt, etc. who have hundreds of employee computers they need to work on.
However, the chip is almost certainly part of a 2013 NSA project to "insert vulnerabilities into... IT systems". It also gives Intel, or anyone else who has knowledge of the inner workings of the ME (which is a highly guarded secret), the ability to remotely compromise a system.
Someone with sufficient knowledge of the ME can remotely snoop on your system or even gain control of it, shutting it down or preventing you from doing certain things with it.
We have seen how companies have been acting lately. It is all but written into the terms of service of most large companies that they do not want you using their products or services to go against the orthodox progressive ideological grain, and they will shut you down if you do.
The next frontier of this corporate tyranny is your computer. If Intel decides that "extremist disinformation" is a big problem that needs to be solved, they have built the power into every computer since 2008 to snoop on it and shut it down arbitrarily.
(a quick side note: AMD also has a similar system in use, with the same exact problems in terms of security. You can't get away from this by switching CPU companies.)
Now, there are various unofficial ways of "disabling" the ME. But none of them can disable it fully, only appear to maim it in various ways. It is still there, still running in the background -- and Intel is constantly working on neutralizing these "threats" to their backdoor.
So how do you get around this?
One solution is to simply use computers made before about 2008. To be safe, this means the pre-Core-series era; i.e., we're talking single-core Intel Pentium 4 or Pentium M CPUs or older.
The problem is that these are dog-slow by modern standards.
One solution is to simply use computers made before about 2008. To be safe, this means the pre-Core-series era; i.e., we're talking single-core Intel Pentium 4 or Pentium M CPUs or older.
The problem is that these are dog-slow by modern standards.
You can install modern (i.e. secure) Linux on a laptop from 2004, and it will work, but you will be banging your head against the wall waiting for things to load. But, if the digital apocalypse happens, it is at least better than the alternative.
Upgrade that 2004 laptop with a solid state drive and as much RAM as it can take (since old RAM and SSDs are dirt cheap now), and it will do much better. Still slow, but manageable in a pinch. You won't do any gaming on it but you can log on to websites or chat servers.
That's one advantage we have in the modern day: we have the ability to upgrade old computers with things like solid state drives that boost their performance far past what they were capable of when they were brand new.
But this brings me to a related point: Wirth's Law.
But this brings me to a related point: Wirth's Law.
"What Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away."
Perhaps you've heard this before. It's Wirth's Law, an observation that states that as hardware gets faster, programmers essentially get lazier and the software gets correspondingly slower, so you don't notice a real speed increase.
Perhaps you've heard this before. It's Wirth's Law, an observation that states that as hardware gets faster, programmers essentially get lazier and the software gets correspondingly slower, so you don't notice a real speed increase.
You can observe this if you try to use a modern web browser on that old 2004 computer. Install whatever was available at the time (early Firefox versions), and it'll be blazing fast loading the same websites in comparison to the latest 2020 browsers.
So that's another thing you can do: use old software.
This is also a security thing. Modern software is either subscription-based, so the company can cut you off at any time, and/or is secretly communicating with mysterious servers sending "analytics" data back to Acme MegaCorp.
This is also a security thing. Modern software is either subscription-based, so the company can cut you off at any time, and/or is secretly communicating with mysterious servers sending "analytics" data back to Acme MegaCorp.
Even Microsoft Office does this. Just the other day it was revealed that MS Office can be hacked into over the internet.
OK. If your copy of Microsoft Word can be hacked into over the internet, you're doing it wrong. Your web browser? That makes sense. Your word processor? No.
OK. If your copy of Microsoft Word can be hacked into over the internet, you're doing it wrong. Your web browser? That makes sense. Your word processor? No.
Old, single-user licensed software (or free, open-source software) does not have this problem.
I use LibreOffice or old versions of MS Office for things like word processing or financial calculations.
I use LibreOffice or old versions of MS Office for things like word processing or financial calculations.
I can get away with this because MS Office as a product suite became feature-mature in the mid-90's, i.e. it has all of the features the average person like me expects. So I can use Office '97 all day long and never wish I had a newer version because I'm missing some feature.
If you're a power Word user using weird, obscure features that nobody else uses, you might notice the difference. I don't because I'm just writing essays and punching formulas into Excel cells.
So, try to use the latest 2020 version of Office on that 2004 laptop, and it will grind to a halt under the weight of 20 years worth of code bloat and unnecessary features. Use an old (pre-2007) version of Office, and it won't have any trouble at all.
I maxed out my thread tweet limit. More below...
The long and the short of the Wirth's Law discussion is that the main thing locking us in to these modern, bloated systems with Intel ME backdoors is the hugeness of modern software that won't run on older systems.
We need simpler websites that don't have 20 MB of Javascript that need a jet engine's worth of CPU power to run properly.
I'm working on learning the skills necessary to create such websites. It's not that hard; you just need to limit yourself speed-wise and code efficiently.
I'm working on learning the skills necessary to create such websites. It's not that hard; you just need to limit yourself speed-wise and code efficiently.
The point of this thread is that we need a contingency plan in case of the digital apocalypse. Don't be caught out in the cold when Intel or Apple decides you are not allowed to use your Macbook any more because you have been wrongthinking too much.
