Also, Purism is taking steps to get coreboot to run on their laptops[1][2], so the graph on this website isn't even right anymore.
And I just found out that, interestingly, the T400 and X200 both come with IME. The only difference is that the AMT can be fully disabled on older intel chipsets[0].
[0]: https://libreboot.org/docs/hardware/gm45_remove_me.html
[1]: https://puri.sm/posts/coreboot-on-the-librem-13-v2-part-1/
[2]: https://puri.sm/posts/coreboot-on-the-skylake-librems-part-2...
Purism has mentioned they may take interest in porting the rest of the way to libreboot someday.
The real issue too is that a lot of naysayers dislike Purism because they provide modern competition to people selling Librebooted laptops.
If I read it right they do the same as described in the gentoo wiki page (get rid of every module except the bring up).
we take the extra precaution of neutralizing the ME itself (removing everything but the “hardware initialization” module)
Am I missing something?
It seems like their current devices are sold with me_cleaner being ran, along with removing several "fuses". Which is pretty good.
I'm still unsure if buying these laptops actually sends a signal that this isn't OK. Intel gets their money in the end.
And even then, your RAM has proprietary code running on it (I'm not aware of any DDR4 that doesn't have embedded SoCs for initialization, none of that is done in CPU firmware anymore), your hard drives can have up to entire embedded SoCs with proprietary code running on them, and there isn't an unencumbered 802.11AN wireless chip in existence. The only bright side to that is none of that hardware has system-wide access the way these backdoor coprocessors do.
Most people don't know that IME exists, they won't know either. You won't see an uproar from the consumers, because there are few that care (us). You are better off informing the general public in my opinion.
EDIT: I'd actually put money into RISC-V products instead.
I know purism is just neutralizing IME, so it's the same as this, but they're the best solution right now, and I hope that by supporting them, I participate in a clear message to the industry that I don't want their undocumented blackbox on my hardware. Who knows ? Maybe one of the major players will take the hint and try to remove them, or document them. Or maybe a new player will displace them.
[0]: https://puri.sm/posts/reverse-engineering-the-intel-manageme...
[1]: https://puri.sm/posts/neutralizing-intel-management-engine-o...