EC/SMC are highly board specific, some even run open source firmware that can be replaced (eg. on Chromebooks)
The issue with the ME is that its firmware is signed with an internal Intel key, combined with its property of having full access to the entire system.
Even with this hack of invalidating most of the firmware, we don't know for sure what is left running on the ME.
The EC, SMC, and other blobs are much more the domain of the board designer, and are much easier to make a libre implementation for.
No, it does not. FSP only includes x86 code to be executed on the main CPU. It may include stuff which talks to the ME but no ME firmware itself. You can use any UEFI extractor like UEFITool to check that.
# shutdown -r now
?
# echo b > /proc/sysrq-trigger
edit: there was a star but HN formatting ate it
That's not possible, but the next best thing is to have it never activate unless major changes are made to the BIOS flash, and those changes should be very visible.
Your computer suddenly reboots: very visible.
The flash partition table and/or BIOS suddenly change: very visible.
The ME is purportedly placed in "recovery" mode:
Since the MEI interface is disabled (not visible from a PCI bus scan), there is no way to activate the ME at runtime, even after a full system compromise. It would still be possible to rewrite the BIOS flash chip with a new ME image, but the system would need to be restarted before the ME would read the changes.I don't speak for the FSF, but it sounds like this is as close to an FSF RYF certification as any Intel CPU is going to get. FSF approval of a device requires that all user-modifiable software be Free Software. Previously, no recent Intel CPUs could be FSF certified as "RYF" because the ME chip would shut the system down after 30 minutes. (Side note: no recent Intel CPUs can be considered "stable" without microcode updates which also violate the FSF's RYF guidelines.)
[1] http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-fr...