He has also worked on a number of free BIOS/UEFI including coreboot and serialICE.

But in reality, it is another restriction on user freedoms, imposed by a company, and used to control your computing.Ĭarikli offers a moderately technical explanation of what's happening with Management Engine, the ways in which it restricts rather than empowers users, and how it violates the four freedoms of free software.Ĭarikli may be best known for his work on the Replicant project, which he co-founded with Aaron Williamson, Bradley Kuhn, and Graziano Sorbaioli.

The Intel Management Engine is a tool that ships with Intel chipsets, purportedly to ease the job of system administrators. Thanks to Denis GNUtoo Carikli, we have a new basis for that conversation in this article. Serious as though these bugs may be, we cannot let them distract us from the broader issues: Intel considers the Intel Management Engine a feature, while it's nothing more than a threat to user freedom. With security issues like the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities discovered in Intel chips in early 2018, it became more important than ever to talk about the necessity of software freedom in these deeply embedded technologies.

Management engine