'Occupy' affiliate claims Intel bakes SECRET 3G radio into vPro CPUs

Intel has apparently turned up one of the holiest of holy grails in the tech sector, accidentally creating an zero-power-consumption on-chip 3G communications platform as an NSA backdoor. The scoop comes courtesy of tinfoil socialist site Popular Resistance, in this piece written by freelance truther Jim Stone, who has just …

[Don Jefe]

Serious Business

As I've stated before, contrails are mind control and anti-anxiety chemicals dispersed at high altitude by the Lizard People to prevent Earthlings from engaging in the Galactic Economy.

Why, oh God, why is El Reg giving this guy any attention? Yes, he's obviously an idiot, but he's also, obviously, an attention seeking idiot. Feeding retarded trolls is dangerous business. Once they've lost their fear of sane people, they only increase their irrational behavior. When you encounter one it should be euthanized as humanely as possible, not fed.

Unless, this is some sort of Lizard People false flag operation and El Reg is a major disinformation organ working on their behalf...

Is El Reg staffed by Lizard People operatives?

[NomNomNom]

Re: Serious Business

"Why, oh God, why is El Reg giving this guy any attention? Yes, he's obviously an idiot, but he's also, obviously, an attention seeking idiot. Feeding retarded trolls is dangerous business."

That's ironic coming from someone who just claimed Chemtrails are mind control and anti-anxiety chemicals dispersed at high altitude by Lizard People. Hypocrite much?

The fact is there is insufficient evidence about Chemtrails either way, but if it IS true then it certainly won't be "Lizard People" will it, that's nuts. More likely IF it is true the Chemtrails are probably the work of the United Nations which has already admitted their goal is to form a new world order and one world government. Those chemical experts the UN sent into Syria, what do they do the rest of the time?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Serious Business

Is the Reg involved in the dispersal of Chemtrails? Is the LOHAN device the uber device to subjugate all mankind?

How lucky we we all that underground LOHAN Resistance Movement managed to sabotage one of the latest test flights by bursting their ballon early?

Or, did their scaly hands (claws?) prove their downfall by damaging the latex in their secret bunker?

SAVE YOURSELVES!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Serious Business

That's ironic coming from someone who just claimed Chemtrails are mind control and anti-anxiety chemicals dispersed at high altitude by Lizard People. Hypocrite much?

You may want to pay attention to the giant whooshing sound over your head :)

[fLaMePrOoF]

Re: Serious Business

It's called sarcasm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Serious Business @AC

"You may want to pay attention to the giant whooshing sound over your head :)"

Your comment absolutely made my day! Thank you. Even though you don't know why, it is still fantastically funny!

[sabroni]

Re: Why, oh God, why is El Reg giving this guy any attention?

My guess is that they were expecting clear and concise explanations as to why he's wrong in the comments. But just flying into a rage and name calling works just as well....

[Wzrd1]

Re: Why, oh God, why is El Reg giving this guy any attention?

Apparently, wake on lan and dual core are new things to the manic individual being reported on.

So are the basic laws of electronics, where radios require oscillators, an antenna, etc.

Put the antenna on the chip at usable power levels, inductively interfere with the chip's operations.

But then, the laws of electronics, which *is* a branch of physics, are all part of the Grand Conspiracy of the Space Aliens.

Or something.

[Jonathan Richards 1]

Antennae

If the 3G circuitry is going to operate to fulfil the Evil Purposes outlined, it must be self-sufficient, i.e. not rely on any features of whatever motherboard it's plugged into. I don't know how long it is since Jim Stone looked inside a PC, but typically the CPU is covered with a freaking great heatsink, and enclosed in RF shielding that would make it next to impossible to get reliable signals in or out, let alone wake up my hard disk and wire details back to the NSA.

Generated a lot of indignation hereabouts, though. I checked the calendar to see if April had arrived without warning.

[Don Jefe]

Re: Antennae

There's nothing but Liberal Sorcery inside a computer. You use all the fancy words you need to make yourself comfortable with bringing the Devil into your home and office; it won't matter. No one hears the screams of the Damned.

[ITBloke]

Re: Antennae

You're nuts. Go see a doctor,or if you don't trust them, go upstairs and ask your Mom to help you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Antennae

"typically the CPU is covered with a freaking great heatsink, and enclosed in RF shielding that would make it next to impossible to get reliable signals in or out,"

I'm not going to argue with the general point you're making, but it looks like you need to be reminded that the CPU is not the only Intel-badged chip on an Intel-centric motheboard.

Briefly waking up the hard disk isn't difficult (it's controlled from an Intel-supplied chip).

You're perhaps on safer ground with respect to [not] getting data out of the box without a hard-wired connection.

But then again if you've seen Fabrice Bellard (FFmpeg, QEMU, PC emulator in JavaScript, etc) turn a VGA adapter into a DVB-T digital television transmitter using nothing but software, you'll realise that lots of things are possible given compute power and (a lot of) intelligence (in M. Bellard's case, not of the CIA kind). And who without a specifically targeted spectrum analyser would ever notice an unexpected DVB-T signal which was just strong enough to get to the innocent looking white van parked half a kilometre away (with a TV aerial on the top)? Not saying it's very likely to happen, just saying it's a lot more plausible than you appear to think.

http://bellard.org/dvbt/

TEMPEST. You know it [still] makes sense.

[Jonathan Richards 1]

Re: Antennae

Good points, thank you. I concentrated on CPUs, because the article is headlined "... vPro CPUs"

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Antennae

The article may well have been headlined "vPro CPUs" but a great deal of the vPro-specific stuff is in the support chipset rather than the expensive thing with the big heatsink and blower.

[TimNevins]

Re: Serious Business

The very first post *always* seems to discount any criticism as lizard people or tin foil conspiracists.

Try watching the following which actually provides scientific evidence.

What in the World Are They Spraying?

youtube.com/watch?v=jf0khstYDLA

[Nigel 11]

C hemtrails

Don't know if there's anyone gullible enough to believe this stuff here, but the fundamental weak point in the "chemtrail" conspiracy theories is the crazy idea that any fine particulates sprayed into the atmosphere several miles up actually descend onto ground even vaguely underneath.

In fact, anywhere (even everywhere) on the planet is not just possible but probable.

I've had my car (in London) covered in red dust courtesy of sandstorms in the Sahara. Darwin recorded the same on a boat off the coast of Brazil (and it's now known, sandstorms in the Sahara are an important source of plant nutrients in the Amazon basin). I've seen and smelled woodsmoke in Minneapolis from a forest fire a thousand miles West. People in the UK can suffer allergic reactions to plants that grow only in the USA. That Icelandic volcano with an impossible name shut down aviation in Europe. Bigger volcanoes in the past have turned sunsets spectacularly orange everywhere on the planet, and have even caused dips in global temperature for the year or three it took for the dust to finally settle. The crew of a space shuttle reported that the Earth's atmosphere was "all milky" in the weeks after Pinatubo (Phillipines) errupted.

And that's all with ground-level sources of dust!! Targetted Chemtrails - ROFL.

[Don Jefe]

Re: C hemtrails @Nigel

You've obviously been effected by the chemicals. Note how you trot out antecdotal evidence refuting the proof hanging over your very head, but so calmly accept the status quo. That means you have been exposed. Possibly more than others since Minneapolis has been a target of government chemical based population management for years. That's why nobody ever leaves the area; they're content just where they are..,

[Peter Simpson 1]

Re: Serious Business

Sorry, I don't have an hour and a half to find out what they're spraying.

Could you summarize, please?

(and while you are at it, please explain how spraying stuff at 30000 feet gives you any control at all of where it lands)

// Hmmm...maybe *that's* why Canadians are so mellow?

[Cocoa Jackson]

Re: Serious Business

TimNevins wrote on Contrails [chemtrails]; "...actually provides scientific evidence ... What in the World Are They Spraying?[see comment]

Simple balance in critical thinking setting aside biases and the truth on 'chemtrails' is clear. Have you actually researched activity outside of high volume air traffic areas in the US? Global ecosystem geoengineering in a relatively small area of the planet is just not feasible.

There definitely are despotic scenarios facing our species and they are front a centre.

Top of the list we have a global economy controlled by Banks. Overseen by the BIS, Bank of International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, who set policies for all Central Bank Corporations. The BIS create the monetary agenda for all banks, your bank. Banking has 'Friends with Benefits' ; government, transnational and local corporations as stakeholders in an emerging hegemony. Not 'small to medium business', but vaste corporations. This is in plain view.

Recommend getting your critical thinking focused on this issue first.

Why keep an eye on 3G vPro CPU issue? Because it is "Serious Business", literally.

Clandestine access of our interface via our data pipeline has monetary ramifications for our whole working life. As transnational corporations leverage power and wealth to write laws to suit their profit premise in country after country. Operating out of any court that fits their agenda, prosecuting transnationally those breaking their laws. The US already has highest percentage of the world's prison population, that trend looks like spreading.

This technology as a tool could be very profitable for the 1% and their 'Friends with Benefits'.

Then we have the rest relying on the trickle down. Inclusive of wannabes who follow neoliberal right and left in ignorance.

________________________________

http://youtu.be/90UAEtt0ta8

http://goo.gl/mIQrWE

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Serious Business

And the Lizard People have now established their base here:

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=380484&y=311014&z=120&sv=weston&st=3&tl=Map+of+Weston-under-Lizard,+Staffordshire+%5BTown%5D&searchp=ids.srf

[ChrisG13]

Re: Serious Business

They have another colony here

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=169500&y=11500&z=120&sv=lizard+point&st=3&tl=Map+of+Lizard+Point,+Cornwall+&searchp=ids.srf&mapp=map.srf

[BillG]

Re: Serious Business

As I've stated before, contrails are mind control and anti-anxiety chemicals dispersed at high altitude by the Lizard People to prevent Earthlings from engaging in the Galactic Economy.

No you fool, everyone knows the Lizard People are the pawns of the Trilateral Commission.

[Henry Wertz 1]

Do have a extra CPU

I don't like to dismiss anything out of hand.

As discussed a few times on semiaccurate.com, these later Intel chipsets *do* have an ARM CPU on board to do some kind of various functions (i.e. it is in fact a black box that Intel says is for security.) Does it have a 3G radio? I really don't know but to me it seems doubtful.

It seems like to be addressable these'd have to have an MEID (the replacement for CDMA-style ESNs and GSM-style IMEIs) and someone would have noticed by now some cell co would have a huge number of extra subscribers if these 3G chips existed and were actually active.

As a thought experiment, suppose it exists. An inactive portion of the chip could be enabled via some malware, but otherwise Wake On Lan type stuff is LAN-only. To have any chance of knowing *which* 3G radio you've turned on you'd need the MAC address. IPV6 had the MAC encoded in part of the IP address (exposing your MAC address as part of the IPV6 address), but Linux uses an IPV6 privacy extension to throw a random value in there instead of MAC, and Windows doesn't put the MAC address there either (since some XP patch, and out of the box in Vista and 7 AFAIK). MAC addresses by original IPV6 design would have been visible to anyone on the IPV6 internet, an actuality fact they aren't (except possibly on Macs...) It'd be very difficult then to determine which device needed to be turned on, with no particular info (over the internet) on even what brand computer you're talking to.

Also, a right on the CPU (or chipset) on a motherboard, inside a case, with no antenna, is the worst possible RF environment, you'd probably have to be within a block of a cell site to have a chance of it getting service.

edit: As a practical matter, there are photos (micrographs?) of the chip, and there's an ARM on there but no radio.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Do have a extra CPU

"It seems like to be addressable these'd have to have an MEID (the replacement for CDMA-style ESNs and GSM-style IMEIs) and someone would have noticed by now some cell co would have a huge number of extra subscribers if these 3G chips existed and were actually active."

Not if the NSA had a secret court order preventing that disclosure of information.

The heat spreader or the heat-sink could be used as the antennae.

The next question, which 3G band(s)?

[Don Jefe]

Re: Do have a extra CPU

Of course Macs display their MAC. How else are people supposed to know you're using one? Besides, it's right there in the name!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Do have a extra CPU

Of course Macs display their MAC. How else are people supposed to know you're using one? Besides, it's right there in the name!

You're in fine form today, hahaha :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Do have a extra CPU

3G radio - not realistic. Any radio is useless without a stack to drive it. 3G would have been the wrong choice because both the baseband and the upper layers are humongous. Now Bluetooth... (either classic or the low power variety) is a different story.

Also, why the CPU? Intel ships motherboards and chipsets (thought they are trying to disengage from that now). That would be a much better place to put any remote backdoor functionality. In fact, some of it was there all along - just pick an Intel driver source and read the lights out management section and the treatment of "special" vlan tags (Linux drivers used to disable it at init time).

[Cliff]

Re: Do have a extra CPU

I haven't looked at the chip, wouldn't know what I was looking for if I did, would have to take sometimes word for things... But IF there was any kind of wireless antenna with small amount of processor strapped into it embedded in there, my first thought would be RFID for identification/uniqueness than 3G. I could see that being useful if I had a chip factory, anyway.

[Primus Secundus Tertius]

Re: Do have a extra CPU

I could see a use for RFID to prevent chip factory employees unofficially exporting a proportion of the manufactured output.

[John Smith 19]

Re: Do have a extra CPU

"As discussed a few times on semiaccurate.com, these later Intel chipsets *do* have an ARM CPU on board to do some kind of various functions (i.e. it is in fact a black box that Intel says is for security.) Does it have a 3G radio? I really don't know but to me it seems doubtful."

What an intriguing observation.

So ARM good enough for their server (IE Expensive) processors but not for your next mobile design?

Not exactly a case of eating your own dog food is it?

And has the FCC gotten a lot more relaxed about RFI & unlicensed emitters spaffing out lots of RF energy? I got the impression they can get pretty awkward if stuff that's not designed as a radio transmitter starts acting like one.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Re: Do have a extra CPU

>I don't like to dismiss anything out of hand.

I suspect a deal with Microsoft.

Ballmer has the last laugh as buyers storm MS Stores, buying forklift truckloads of Win 8 DVDs and Surface tablets because the microwave voices told them to.

It's pretty much the one plan Redmond has that might actually work.

[Frederic Bloggs]

Re: Do have a extra CPU

Not much point putting it in a cpu here in deepest Sussex. No 3G. Not for miles.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's likely an element of truth to it...

And watch the commentary from the useful idiots turn from "What crazy nutjobs those people are! Everyone point and laugh at their ridiculous conspiracy theories!" to "Well of course the NSA did that, what else did you expect? Everyone stop talking about it now, it's old news." in the blink of an eye, once something like this is confirmed by a leak...

[oolor]

Re: There's likely an element of truth to it...

Given what we now know about the NSA's programs, it seems a little far fetched as they seem to have ready access through software channels, hardware is much harder to mess with - although I am not going to go so far as to say it can't or hasn't happened.

A few months ago even some of my more conspiracy-minded programmer and developer friends thought I was a bit over-estimating the capabilities, now they think the opposite, however, I overlooked the possibility that they subverted human and software systems to the degree they did because I assumed they had much better methods of getting and decoding the data in the first place.

In reality, they seem to have done a good job of targeting data - specifically the metadata - to be the first filter and then only get the other info later if effort requires. Note, that I am simply considering the task of sorting and filtering data, I make no apologies for the questionable (il)legal tactics, reprehensible political and employee complicancy, and public naivety (this commentard's included).

The reason I think it is unlikely beyond the electronics challenges is that there is no need for that large a data stream for general surveillance, it would just be more noise rather than easily actionable data (which is also my thought with respect to most of the current surveillance as well as much of corporate and marketing data mining).

[frank ly]

From the linked article

"Frank from across the street is an alternative operating systems hobbyist ...."

Jim Stone has been spying on me! How do I disable the phantom power supply?

[pierce]

Re: From the linked article

cut the blue wire.

[Captain DaFt]

Re: From the linked article

"cut the blue wire."

Whoa, whoa, WHOA! Cut the red wire first, or you'll set off the bomb!

[Graham Dawson]

Re: From the linked article

"Whoa, whoa, WHOA! Cut the red wire first, or you'll set off the bomb!"

Um... they're all yellow.

[Don Jefe]

Re: From the linked article

Yellow is always the airbag circuit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: From the linked article

I respectfully disagree with you, sir, it's definitely NOT the blue wire. Last time I cut it, but nothing, ABSOLUTELY nothing happened. So I cut the red wire and still nothing. To cut the story short, I cut the white wire, and boy, did my wife get angry at me then, cause, like, she'd been charging her i-thingy, and it bleeped and died when I cut that white wire.

[Frank Rysanek]

Re: Cut the blue wire

Actually the purple wire, for +5V standby power from an ATX PSU. Or just pull the mains cord (found outside the case).

In a laptop, remove the battery.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: From the linked article

How do I disable the phantom power supply?

Ghostbusters?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who pays the bill?

Who pays the bill?

No, not the $10 Pay-as-you-go bill. That tiny amount of money could easily be hidden in the government books.

No, I mean the $476,876,456.13 roaming data bill when a Canadian-pwned Canadian-Telco-registered PC gets moved to the USA for a couple of days and has to pass a few kilobytes back to CSE. How would the government spies hide that amount of dosh?

Oh, I see... They'd just list it under: "F35 Fighter, Qty 1"

[Mother Hubbard]

Not so far to fetch

Intel’s Sandy Bridge will debut at CES

Published: December 14th, 2010

http://www.computerdealernews.com/news/intels-sandy-bridge-will-debut-at-ces/18660

[...]

With Intel anti-theft technology built into Sandy Bridge, Allen said users can set it up so that if their laptop gets lost or stolen, it can be shut down remotely. The microprocessor also comes with enhanced recovery and patching capabilities.

[...]

[Roger Stenning]

*epic facepalm*

These are also the people who want to legalise pretty much every narcotic on the planet. This is a prime example of why they shouldn't be in charge of anything more complex than a wooden spoon.

That is all.

[Schultz]

"These are also the people who want to legalise pretty much every narcotic"

Sounds quite sane when compared today's policy of random criminalization, or to last century's prohibition of alcoholic beverages in some countries.

Some wars will never be won. And the war on narcotics -- fought against well-organized freedom fighters also known as ordinary citizens -- seems to be one of them. Not even the illegal activities of the NSA seem to have made any difference in that respect.

[Potemkine]

Re: *epic facepalm*

Why should be narcotics legalized when we already have alcohol, the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: *epic facepalm*

These are also the people who want to legalise pretty much every narcotic on the planet.

Yes, because prohibiting it drives up the price to a point where it is profitable to get people addicted. That's also why legalisation will never happen - too many snouts in troughs on a global scale.

For a history lesson, look up "prohibition". I'm not *for* drugs (never touched them, never will), but the economics are not exactly rocket science. The only reason the Dutch policy doesn't fully work is because of drugs tourism, the trade to "inland" users has pretty much collapsed to a point where the problem can be controlled.