“Let Chaos storm, let cloud shapes swarm; I wait for form”

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 14th, 2023

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  • I think that a lot of the IntelME stuff is what people would typically call a conspiracy theory, not like a theory of a conspiracy, but rather where the conspiracy is largely invented for the purpose of being scared or angry, or for attention from others who get scared or angry. Obviously not all of it is, and there are people who do research it, but the videos about it that you usually see on YouTube, most of them are like this.

    The thing is that intelME isn’t like a government conspiracy where there isn’t much if any tangible evidence for it, IntelME is physically installed on millions upon millions of Intel PCs around the world, so it’s very easy to test the myths and claims by sacrificing some of these Intel computers. The fact though that most of the people making claims seem to not want to do that, suggests that they don’t think it’s as big a problem as they say it is. There are few people who have tested it though, a notable example from 34C3 where they found that it’s actually much more boring. Honestly the idea that people say it cracks Wifi passwords, or exchanges data home with a server, all this stuff people claim can be easily tested, even analyzing the network packets from a PC to see if it actually phones home when it’s off (can do that by probing an Ethernet cable and capturing the signals externally. The reason I claim the IntelME stiff is a conspiracy is because most of the people making the claims resist investigation, the same way that Flat earth theories and Lizard people theories resist investigation. My example of probing the network cable? Yeah I proposed that to someone already and they claimed IntelME would know the Ethernet is being probed, when I inquired how I was given many nonsensical claims, from microphone listening to talking to IntelME on another computer skewing the results, can’t make this shit up.

    So to summarize, a lot of the claims are unsubstantiated claims, which could be easily proven or disproven due to easy access to IntelME based systems, but isn’t because the people making the claims can’t be bothered, and to top it all off many of them simply make arguments to resist investigation of IntelME in the first place, just like classical bad-faith conspiracy theories, and actual investigations like the one shown as 34C3 are swept under the rug. I don’t think IntelME doesn’t have issues or that it isn’t a security risk, it is like any firmware, but the sensationalized claims made about it regularly online don’t hold water, and the people making them should be called out for perpetrating conspiracy theories without merit. I’d leave some links to them but I don’t know if that’s allowed here, could be considered harassment.


  • This is why we need better resource/battery management services with Magisk or Xposed integration. On my phone the Rom has one integrated already, lets you set apps to be prevented from running in the background completely, preventing tracking, annoying notifications, and battery usage. Though unfortunately these types of tools aren’t available on all roms, and they really need root or system access to be effective.







  • If everyone refused to pay their taxes the government would just get the money from elsewhere, either by making cuts to infrastructure or worse, by just printing more money and driving up inflation. So cutting them off from tax money doesn’t do anything, they made up this game (money) and they can break the rules of it.









  • Considering the extreme risk involved despite the low odds, I would not.
    It is tempting and the odds of hitting that 1% on the first press are low, so the chance of a payoff is very good, but on the other hand, you won’t get any money if you hit that 1% first try, so even leaving money for loved ones is out of the question there.



  • Silicon isn’t a conductor, it’s a semiconductor. Also conductivity is dependent on temperature, hot stuff usually conducts easier, though some things conduct easier when they are colder. Even at the low voltage it’s more complicated than “Conductors” and “Insulators” we learn in those ultra basic electronics guides online (or in school if you’re lucky).




  • The problem is that basically any anti-cheat that isn’t server side and is installed locally on the machine is in one way or another a rootkit (especially the ring 0 ones), and because their purpose is obfuscation they often do more than they say they do and their operators have no accountability, we can’t, and shouldn’t trust them. Server side ones make sense and I don’t have any issues with those, as those can’t affect the host machine (except due to vulnerabilities).

    Though I’d argue it should be optional for “private” experiences, like private servers.

    I’m a big proponent for decentralized online play where the servers aren’t based on the company which has a desire to make money off you (the whole reason they’re trying to put rootkits in people’s computers). Especially after all the shit around online games terminating their services and becoming unplayable, for games with decentralized online play and matchtaking services this basically wouldn’t happen, sure a game could become unpopular but even if there were no servers for a game like that, one could still start up a server for their friends to play on together, these games never really die.