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Disable the AMT notice

Ajay_M_Intel
Employee
970 Views

-- I got this question on one of my blog post.

I am currious why every time I login to the pc, I get a box that pops up notifying me of the AMT. I find this particularly annoying for end users, is there a way to disable the notice. Thanks!

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7 Replies
Ylian_S_Intel
Employee
970 Views

That's an excellent question, I can't tell you just how annoyed I am myself by that pop-up message. Personnaly, I run "msconfig" and remove all Intel AMT auto-run applications and services except for the LMS service which is useful for accessing Intel AMT (The Intel AMT HECI driver). At this point, I do it so fast each time I setup a new computer, I don't even notice I am doing it anymore.

I imagine that the popup addresses some sort of privacy issue. On my own computers this is certaintly not an issue. It would be nice if this app included help to explain what is Intel AMT to users and why this warning would be useful.

Ylian (Intel AMT Blog)

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Ajay_M_Intel
Employee
970 Views

Ylian,

Thanks for your quick response. This does look like a annoying problem. I agree that end users need some message explaining what AMT is, some way to disable it if they don't need it, etc.

I will take this back to the product team and see what they have to say for this.

Ajay Mungara

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Ylian_S_Intel
Employee
970 Views

It would be nice if Intel AMT had it's own control panel. You to enter it and get information of version info, logs & events, amount of 3PDS memory allocated and by which applications and optionaly, control over enabling and disabling it, etc. This way, user have a better idea of what is Intel AMT, what is being reported and to who. It would address privacy concerts and make it useful at the same time.

Ylian (Intel AMT Blog)

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Jia-Shing_W_Intel
Moderator
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In the not-so-distant future, end-users will be given a check box to disable the message box from showing at log-on time.

In some countries, it is required by law that you need to indicate so if you have something running in the background so that users know. What AMT controls is the system and doesn't interfere with user privacy. I am guess that Intel just wants to stay on the safe side so it is there anyway.

Also, AMT is supposed to be transparent to end users since it is for manageability purpose. Do users really care about AMT properties? Well, I don't.

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Ajay_M_Intel
Employee
970 Views

Thanks Jia-Shing,

Well, I think I do care about AMT properties and I think it is important for users to know what is running in the background and anything we can do to address users privacy concerns is always a good thing. But, I think we should provide an easy capbilitiy for the user to disable this popup and we should provide some form of more detailed information explaining what this popup is all about. I actually like Ylian's control panel idea .. that will be nice for the user to have the knowlege of what is happening.

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mikesl
Beginner
970 Views

I would love to see the following in the next version of AMT, to give end users real notification when their privacy could potentially be invaded:

  • the Privacy Icon remain in the Notification Area of the Windows Taskbar (i.e. discourage users from removing it as Ylian has done)
  • the Privacy Icon register for Events that would include incoming connections
  • the Privacy Icon flash & change colour, or otherwise try to get the user's attention in a non-modal fashion (i.e. allows user to respond when they have a moment, rather than taking focus away from their current application window), whenever an incoming connection has been attempted or established
  • the Privacy Icon provide tooltip messages and/or a context menu that allows the end user to find out which AMT "library" (e.g. Redirection) has been used and is currently being used, as well as any information about the remote connection agent - i.e. information to help the end user judge whether the connection is from a "trustworthy" agent or from someone/somewhere they don't recognize.
  • In extreme cases of potential privacy breaches (e.g. Redirection of the user's local disk), provide an option whereby the user can authorize (or not) the attempted access.
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Ajay_M_Intel
Employee
970 Views

Great Ideas Mike. I will make sure to pass this along to the product development team.

I also blogged about a way to disable the popup box yesterday. Instructions to Disable the Intel AMT privacy notification popup.

It is very important that the user has the option of how he would like to be notified and I guess the preferred user experiece varies from user to user.

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