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http://libreboot.org/faq/#intel
Introduced in June 2006 in Intel's 965 Express Chipset Family of (Graphics and) Memory Controller Hubs, or (G)MCHs, and the ICH8 I/O Controller Family, the Intel Management Engine (ME) is a separate computing environment physically located in the (G)MCH chip. In Q3 2009, the first generation of Intel Core i3/i5/i7 (Nehalem) CPUs and the 5 Series Chipset family of Platform Controller Hubs, or PCHs, brought a more tightly integrated ME (now at version 6.0) inside the PCH chip, which itself replaced the ICH. Thus, the ME is present on all Intel desktop, mobile (laptop), and server systems since mid 2006.
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In summary, the Intel Management Engine and its applications are a backdoor with total access to and control over the rest of the PC. The ME is a threat to freedom, security, and privacy, and the libreboot project strongly recommends avoiding it entirely. Since recent versions of it can't be removed, this means avoiding all recent generations of Intel hardware.
Ties to Richard Stallman and his famous FSF Thinkpad X60: https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.htmlSecurity is always a trade off against convenience but in this instance the convenience is the ability to make use of entire product lines from Intel (and other manufacturers). At the end of the day it comes down to requirements and a personal choice about where to draw the line (*what might keep you awake at night*).
Luckily I spend most of my time developing in Emacs and use Xmonad (rarely sometimes XFCE) as a WM in Debian so requirements are low. Using this as a base setup I can't imagine any GUI or system I need to use locally needing more than 2 cores and 3GB+ RAM so should be good keeping to pre Intel ME hardware (Intel Core 2 Duo, etc) for the foreseeable future. Test servers and such can be external and scaled horizontally moving into distributed systems and parallel processing (e.g. basic example using a Raspberry Pi with nginx as staging server for web development rather than running Apache locally).
It seems like most of the promise lies with ARM architecture as an open platform moving forward so it will be interesting to see what develops here.
Some interesting projects in the mobile space as well... http://neo900.org/ ~Ben -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq