[Spooky23]

Try using Intel ME. Than come back and tell us that's a tool for mass surveillance.

If you think there's a evil NSA front for this type of stuff -- its Absolute Software. Their bits have been embedded in most BIOS packages since the 90s, and nobody has heard of them.

[trome]

Absolute with their Computrace product is selling what amounts to a hardware rootkit, which can be enabled with a simple unprivileged exe or bash script.

You can wipe, encrypt, lock, view & kill processes, retrieve any file and view every file on machine, and view hardware & software status and licensing. It also incorporates a bunch of other features, but those are what scare me most.

This is only made worse by the fact that it is readily exploitable: https://threatpost.com/millions-of-pcs-affected-by-mysteriou...

[Spooky23]

It certainly seems unusual that this software exists, but only from a single company. You would think HP/Dell/Lenovo/etc who are desperate for services revenue, would be making a similar technology if it was valuable.

A past employer looked into the product and had a reasonably high level engagement. We never got complete answers to many questions, and the company itself didn't feel particularly large. Granted we disengaged when we couldn't make the ROI work -- we just don't lose many devices. It seems unusual that a teeny company from Vancouver that nobody has heard of can navigate the bureaucracy of massive PC vendors and Asian suppliers of motherboards and android SoCs for decades.

It also seems weird when you consider that Intel, despite having a near monopoly on x86 and the ability to get other mega corps to put Intel stickers on things, (and even push them to make Atom phones that nobody wants!) gets comparatively little love for its management layer.

[trome]

Intel's ME/vPro can do a lot, but its nowhere near the fit and finish of Computrace. They aren't very good on sales, but once you become a reseller there are a ton of features you can access & use to manage your computers.

The reason Absolute is Vancouver based by the way is the Canadian Govt gives massive tax breaks to software companies, hence why a ton of point of sale and other software companies are based just to the north.

[jakeogh]

Thanks. https://www.absolute.com/en/about/persistence