by: James Quaid
The title has been a maxim of the Solari Report for years. In a previous commentary, I related decades old stories, where:
- The FBI demanded a back door into all the digital offerings at a central office switch manufacturer where I was employed.
- A former Microsoft developer’s story of how the NSA demanded back doors into all Microsoft’s OS’s.
- And how Linus Torvalds admitted there was a back door in Linux.
So, finally this story breaks..
Intel Management Engine – Take Action
Free Software Foundation | 19 January 2018
Any hacker public or private could also delete, modify and or frame you with incriminating material at a whim. Think about that for a moment. If your computer has this back door. Your computer/s are a potential serious liability.
Now, let’s say you:
- Have accumulated a few thousand $USD equivalent in Crypto Currencies.
- Are working on an uber multinational contract bid.
- And / or are working on a patent, etc.
Then you are a prime target. The more valuable the info, the more likely the ever growing “Stolen Crypto Funded Hacker Community” will be attempting to exploit these engineered back doors.
It’s time we start demanding accountability for these invasions of privacy. More importantly, we should only buy from manufacturers that have a commitment to privacy.
There is good news in this arena. Due to these egregious violations of our privacy, the Open Source Hardware community has started offering clean computing platforms to the general public. But, this is just a start. This Open Source movement needs to become main stream. And all manufacturers and their investors need to be held accountable for any engineered back doors in any device.
