Pretty much every x86 processor / chipset Intel has produced recently has a Management Engine. That's a separate, invisible, 32-bit x86 processor used to implement a variety of features. For example AMT. These features are generally useless for Linux users since they are not disclosed in a way useful to open source. On the other had, vulnerabilities have been discovered in the ME that suggest it is a security risk to us all. Some think that the ME has been designed for Government Access. Here's the latest disclosure of a latest weakness. This isn't the first and won't be the last: <https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000025619/software.html> Pretty much all firmware ("BIOS") needs to be update but I suspect many vendors will neglect to do this. This blog has lots of interesting details (these guys found the bug(s)): <http://blog.ptsecurity.com/> It turns out that the Management Engine is running Minix 3. Minix 3 is released under a BSD-like license. The license requires "advertising": “Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.” Intel is likely violating the license. <http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/12/02/supplying-legal-notices-free-software/>