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corna / me_cleaner

Tool for partial deblobbing of Intel ME/TXE firmware images
GNU General Public License v3.0
4.51k stars 279 forks source link

my UEFI already has an option to disable ME. Does this make me_cleaner redundant? #362

Open KSPAtlas opened 3 years ago

ginto37 commented 3 years ago

Depends. me_cleaner can completely remove ME from your device, which is safer because it can't be re-enabled by a script or update later without you knowing. But completely removing ME might cause problems for your device.

You could try disabling in UEFI and then check the status of the ME regularly using the information in the wiki, just to make sure it's effective and stays disabled: https://github.com/corna/me_cleaner/wiki/Get-the-status-of-Intel-ME .

KSPAtlas:

davidhealey commented 3 years ago

Does this make me_cleaner redundant

How much do you trust your motherboard manufacturer? UEFI is already proprietary so there is no way to confirm what the disable ME option they provide actually does.

FrostKnight commented 2 years ago

Not even close, uefi is crap in general anyways...

Btw, without coreboot, I don't see the point of me cleaner, if the device is new enough, due to intel's evil ways, they might find a way to make it work again. Aka, the intel me. :(

KSPAtlas commented 2 years ago

Not even close, uefi is crap in general anyways...

Btw, without coreboot, I don't see the point of me cleaner, if the device is new enough, due to intel's evil ways, they might find a way to make it work again. Aka, the intel me. :(

Its an Intel b75 motherboard with an Intel i7 2600. So not exactly new.

FrostKnight commented 2 years ago

Intel i7 2600

Hmm... are you talking about this one?

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/52213/intel-core-i72600-processor-8m-cache-up-to-3-80-ghz/specifications.html

I thought he must have meant one that was like gen 4 or higher...

Perhaps there is a purpose then...

Hmm...

Yeah, I don't see why it wouldn't be a good idea then.

I thought it must have had some irritating bootguard and proprietary graphics and sound blob requirements.

Yeah, it is worth it then. My bad...

Had no idea...

Espionage724 commented 1 year ago

I don't believe it does, but I guess it could vary depending on the implementation.

On the Dell Latitude 5591 I have (Coffee Lake), there's a EFI variable for disabling ME (can set with setup_var), but it doesn't do anything. Using me_cleaner to set the HAP bit does disable ME though.