The Intel Management Engine (ME) is a grave threat to the freedom, privacy, and security of computer users. The Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities discovered in early 2018 have drawn a great deal of unwanted attention to Intel, and this provides us with an opportunity to educate others about the dangers of the Intel ME, as well as other ongoing injustices imposed by proprietary software.

If there is an event at your university or in your community addressing the Intel chip bugs, we urge you to distribute printed copies of our report on the Intel ME by Denis GNUtoo Carikli, with the following foreword by Free Software Foundation president Richard Stallman:

Meltdown and Spectre are errors. Grave errors, to be sure, but not evidently malicious. Everyone makes mistakes.

Intel has done far worse with its CPUs than make a mistake. It has built in an intentional back door called the Management Engine.

Important as these bugs are, don't let Intel's mistakes distract you from Intel's deliberate attack!

Download a printable PDF of the article here.

These events provide an excellent chance to inform our friends and neighbors about why free software matters. Please let us know if you bring this article to an event, and let us know how it turned out.