Microsoft Is Making a Secure PC Chip—With Intel and AMD's Help - You will own nothing, and you will be happy

[Ponchik]

i've looked for new pluton-related headlines every month or so and, as predicted, microsoft and their journo orbiters have been almost completely silent about this stupid chip since november. some rat dude from ms talked about it on a gay podcast and this person on hackernews (lol) said they worked on pluton and answered a few questions about it. that's it. i'm used to big tech quietly fucking people in the ass without normies caring because twitter and msnbc haven't beamed it into their heads 24/7, and i'm fucking tired of it

i'm not sure if i overreacted to pluton - i thought this was going to be the most inhumane shit microsoft has pulled in years, permanently pozzing every single x86 pc for years with their shitty apple t2 clone and locking them down until the end of time. in reality, this is probably just going to be another intel me-esque black box that replaces tpm chips and that's it (which is still bad, don't get me wrong). the potential for pluton to be nightmarish is still there, i'm just trying to temper my expectations a bit

What was the last intel chip without the IME?

i think some of the older core 2 duos didn't have the ime yet but i'm not sure what the cutoff point is - there's a tool called me_cleaner that's supposed to neuter the intel management engine to some extent without completely removing it, but it hasn't been updated in a while and i'm not sure how well it works with newer cpus

 

[AomineHTC]

i think some of the older core 2 duos didn't have the ime yet but i'm not sure what the cutoff point is - there's a tool called me_cleaner that's supposed to neuter the intel management engine to some extent without completely removing it, but it hasn't been updated in a while and i'm not sure how well it works with newer cpus

The cut-off point is a messy one, if you were to consider the fact that the IME could be technically bolted onto any available 945 series chipset (mobile: 945PM, 945GM, 945GME, 945GMS, 945GSE, 945GT, 945GU, 943GML, 940GML [|] desktop: 945P, 945PL, 945G, 945GC, 945GZ, 946PL, 946GZ, 955X). All it needs is an 82573E LAN controller + AMT BIOS module/option ROM, and you'll have the IME in your system. In 945 series-based boards that don't include the 82573E and its required BIOS support, the IME won't be there as it's located on the 82573E.

That being said, I have seen only two 945 series boards in circulation with AMT. I believe those two boards are the Intel Desktop Board D945GTP and the D945GCZ. This is from my experience however, so there may be additional boards that I have missed out.

What was the last intel chip without the IME?

I'm surprised you'd ask such a question when most don't even seem to care about the details. Anyways, if you're looking for a usable Intel-based system that simply lacks the IME hardware-wise, look for an nForce (e.g. EVGA 132-CK-NF79-A1) or a Radeon Xpress (e.g. DFI LANParty UT ICFX3200 T2R/G) board. These chipsets don't contain the IME, and they certainly don't have an equivalent that is similar to the IME to my knowledge.

If the aforementioned chipsets aren't favorable for your uses, you could look for an older Intel-based board with support for the Core 2 Duo/Quad CPUs at the very least. For example, the ASRock ConRoe865PE/GV supports all 1st generation Core 2 Duo and Quad CPUs despite the fact that it uses a Pentium 4-era chipset. This was before the AMT crap happened too, so these Intel chipsets aren't affected by what I had mentioned earlier.