[enkrs]

Definitely paranoia. If you want to believe NSA is spying trough your Intel system, they could do it trough vPro and not some RNG calculations. One might assume that NSA can easily tap into the built in VNC server[1] of the CPU.

[1] Computers with particular Intel® Core™ vPro™ processors enjoy the benefit of a VNC-compatible Server embedded directly onto the chip, enabling permanent remote access and control. A RealVNC collaboration with Intel's ground-breaking hardware has produced VNC Viewer Plus, able to connect even if the computer is powered off, or has no functioning operating system. http://www.vnc.com/products/viewerplus/

[binderbizingdos]

Basic Assumptions:

> You have activated Intel vPro technology on the PCs through configuration of the Management Engine BIOS extension (MEBx).1

http://www.vnc.com/products/viewerplus/ViewerPlusUseCases.pd...

[anonymfus]

Because you don't reflash firmware every time you enable/disable this technologies, it's obvious that there must be some code which checks configuration flags to activate this features.

Twist is that such code is executed on dedicated specialised processor in chipset/CPU with own firmware and it does much more:

http://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-usa-09/TERESHKIN/BH...