Does the Pyra have something similar to IME (Intel Management Engine)?


Ooops, I had written from what I knew from mobile chipsets with Trustzones and other similar secure element, I expected IME to be something similar according to what other people wrote here, but it looks like it's not the case.

After reading up a bit about IME it does seem to be a very bad idea that's quite different from the concept of secure element.
 
IME is a consequence of creating CPUs for the American market I'm afraid. It's almost certain that AMD also has backdoors for the NSA/CIA the same way that Intel does, but generally chip manufacturers are not allowed to disclose that they have inserted them. This would also highly likely include any ARM CPU manufacturers that market to the states, but there is no way to be certain unless the CPU design is open source (and you trust the manufacturer).
 
There are plenty of places that dodgy code or functionality could be snuck into the OMAP5 if someone wanted to. Not least the boot ROM and the "secure monitor" that isn't really used in non-secure-boot OMAPs other than for L2 management, but is still something that exists.

Of course, the Linux kernel and userspace is a far bigger attack surface...
 
Last edited:
Back
Top