Flaws found in Intel Management Engine (ME), TXE and SPS

Anak said:

Called and got off the phone awhile ago with Acer support and the gist of my conversation with them is; If my machine is out of warranty I have to pay for support. Pay for support?? I guess the poor bstrds that own an acer are in the same boat.

The rep asked for my last name and told me what phone number I was calling from, I said oh! you must have caller ID do you know how many children I have? There was no sequence of asking for credit card numbers but if I receive a bill from acer for their "support" I am going to be very upset!

I told the guy all I need is information on if and when acer might be placing the file on their website so I can D/L the patch and fix it myself because my model (DX4831 (see near bottom)) is not listed, and he replied "you will have to pay for support", I said what?
Acer already has patches to D/L for free except my model and that's why I'm calling, do you know if my DX will be included? All the other manufacturers are placing the patch on their websites for free like yours and the user fixes their machines themselves why do I have to pay to talk to you, I guess to be fair I can see how information and support can be construed as one and the same, but in my thinking this is BullS.

No matter how I tried to explain my predicament to the rep his only response was; I have to pay for support.

Stay tuned, If I do get a bill from acer it will be a Merry Freaking Christmas!

Holy crap, I thought Lenovo's bad labeling of their patches causing me to get sidetracked downloading the wrong one (I eventually scrounged around their site a bit more and found the one I needed) was awful. Having to pay for them just to answer one question that should be common knowledge is low.

Hi,

Yesterday afternoon I flashed the MEI FW myself being fed up with waiting for the OEM to put it on their support pages for my machine.
It's not something I'd encourage end users to do as you have to know exactly what FW you have as it can't be easily undone.
Still, the flash routine will check if the FW file is the right one, if not it won't go through with it.
The TPM module needed flashing as well and that took some doing before it was finally successful....


Cheers,

@Anak

i checked the list and it is somewhat confusing but i ran the tool, to make a long story short

I'm hosed


i'll be out to sea for the holidays so i'll monitor the forum and toshiba until i get to Sing and see how it all shakes out.

Many Thanks All

now i have to figure a way to check my wifes Toshiba in Bremerton Wa.

RaveBlack said:

Holy crap, I thought Lenovo's bad labeling of their patches causing me to get sidetracked downloading the wrong one (I eventually scrounged around their site a bit more and found the one I needed) was awful. Having to pay for them just to answer one question that should be common knowledge is low.

That reminds me, I have two lenovo laptops that will need to be updated, thanks for relating the need to be thorough.

kado897 said:

To be fair my HP lappy is only a month old so it should be well supported.

Understood. My reference to HP was from the early 2000's and before HP was in turmoil around 2010. On its own the turmoil was enough to turn me off of HP.

f14tomcat said:

Dell had been updated, too. Not rubbing it in, just a mention. Dell is notorious for being the "Slow Boy" fixing things. Might want to try an email inquiry to the people at Acer, that usually is not charged for.

No offense taken, I have already sent them an email and await their response.

fdegrove said:

Hi,

Yesterday afternoon I flashed the MEI FW myself being fed up with waiting for the OEM to put it on their support pages for my machine.
It's not something I'd encourage end users to do as you have to know exactly what FW you have as it can't be easily undone.
Still, the flash routine will check if the FW file is the right one, if not it won't go through with it.
The TPM module needed flashing as well and that took some doing before it was finally successful....
Cheers,

• When you say "you have to know exactly what FW you have" does that mean what is already installed so you can compare it to the new version or, you need to know for sure that the FW you pick to use is for your application? If the latter, how would you know?
• How did you know that you needed a TPM?

Over the years I've followed the mantra "If my machine is working properly and I'm happy that it does what I need it to, I don't need to flash my BIOS". It was something that has been in the back of my mind and trying to avoid all these years, but now it seems that I will have to, but I'm not sure, maybe the two lenovos but I may just leave sleeping dogs lie with the gateway.

As fdegrove said earlier and did make me feel better since I'm small potatoes:

fdegrove said:

Hi,
Possibly. But you have nothing to worry about anyhow. These security flaws are real but the chance of being hacked this way is really one in a billion for private users.

Cheers,

~~~ ~~~~ ~~~

dmesal said:

@Anak

i checked the list and it is somewhat confusing but i ran the tool, to make a long story short

I'm hosed

i'll be out to sea for the holidays so i'll monitor the forum and toshiba until i get to Sing and see how it all shakes out.

Many Thanks All

now i have to figure a way to check my wifes Toshiba in Bremerton Wa.

Thanks for getting back, and you're welcome.

Singapore? You'll be close to toshiba maybe they'll have the files up over there and you'll have better luck.

The best way to check your wife's would be to have a virtual machine running on both your machines, but personally I wouldn't flash through a VM, too many "things" could go wrong.

Good Day All And Anak

that flash or even just the check would be a big leap for me i'm not that smart (i thought about that to run cclean from afar when i knew she would not be bothered and such) kinda like updates from ms now, but i want to be married for a decade or two more :) or even longer.

Many Thanks

dmesal said:

Good Day All And Anak

that flash or even just the check would be a big leap for me i'm not that smart (i thought about that to run cclean from afar when i knew she would not be bothered and such) kinda like updates from ms now, but i want to be married for a decade or two more :) or even longer.

Many Thanks

I had to chuckle, through thick and thin my wife and I will be celebrating our 40th next year.

Anak said:

Singapore? You'll be close to toshiba maybe they'll have the files up over there and you'll have better luck.

The best way to check your wife's would be to have a virtual machine running on both your machines, but personally I wouldn't flash through a VM, too many "things" could go wrong.

No "things" can go wrong as it is impossible. You can't flash a BIOS in a VM. You would need access to the host computer. Perhaps you mean remote access.

As for Singapore being closer to the Toshiba factory than the US is, are you suggesting they actually go to the Toshiba factory and ask for a physical copy of an update that hasn't been released?

Clearly I don't understand releasing things on the internet as I thought popping around to the geographically closest hardware manufacturer with a Floppy or a CD-RW wasn't required.

No "things" can go wrong as it is impossible. You can't flash a BIOS in a VM. You would need access to the host computer. Perhaps you mean remote access.

• Perhaps I do, thank you for the clarification.

As for Singapore being closer to the Toshiba factory than the US is, are you suggesting they actually go to the Toshiba factory and ask for a physical copy of an update that hasn't been released?

• No, you are. I'm suggesting he check the toshiba site over there.

Clearly I don't understand releasing things on the internet as I thought popping around to the geographically closest hardware manufacturer with a Floppy or a CD-RW wasn't required.

• It isn't but since he's in that area toshiba may be taking care of that area first. Think how MS rolls out their updates geographically.