Meet MINIX: The Intel In-chip Operating System Nobody Knew About

If you lot thought Windows was the nearly popular operating system for Intel x86-based PCs, call back again. That'southward because Intel has been running a complete operating system within its CPUs for virtually a decade without ever revealing that to any of its customers. Called MINIX, Intel'south built-in Management Engine is now a thing of furious debate beyond the global tech community too equally privacy advocacy groups for what its undisclosed presence all these years may take meant for our computers, our data and our privacy. What'southward even more than disconcerting is the extensive range of functions the Os has, including a full networking stack, file systems, various commuter software, as well as a whole spider web server.

Co-ordinate to reports, MINIX is an Unix-like open-source OS originally developed by revered software programmer Andrew Tanenbaum every bit an educational tool back in the eighties. Although its original purpose was to demonstrate operating system programming to students, the main aim of development shifted from education to the creation of a reliable, fault-tolerant and cocky-healing microkernel OS with the release of MINIX 3 in 2005. It is a version of this item OS that now reportedly runs within each Intel CPU, with the company said to be shipping the software with their chips 2008 onwards. So chances are, if you're rocking an Intel CPU, you have also had it on your device all these years as long as you're not running a PC from the Jurassic Historic period.

The fact the Intel has been doing this without intimating the users raises a whole host of technological and ethical questions. The software is said to be running on "Ring -3" level on its own CPU. Read that once more, that'due south Ring negative 3. Whole three levels deeper than Ring 0, which refers to the kernel of your OS and, is generally the lowest level that users by and large have access to. Regular software programs that we employ on a daily basis, say for instance, take place in "Ring 3" (positive iii); whole 6 levels above where MINIX lies. And that is exactly what'due south raising the hackles on many security experts, who believe it's presenting a huge privacy and security gamble for all users as it'southward running its services without ever being updated with security patches.

Intel's MINIX deployment has been so hush-hush that even the creator of the software had nary an inkling that the company was using his cosmos on its products. But at present that the news is out in the open up, many companies have apparently started to take the MINIX menace seriously with Google said to exist ane of those that are particularly concerned about what this might mean for their customers. The search giant is said to be "actively working" to remove Intel'southward Direction Engine from their internal servers, as the company believes that there'southward a clear and present danger to the company from MINIX's extensive range of functions if they keep running on its systems.

Source: https://beebom.com/meet-minix-intel-chip-operating-system/

Posted by: bloomwastles.blogspot.com

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