How does something like this access my network? Like if I'm connected to WiFi, what's the stack look like for this chip getting access to that without the OS cooperating?
"The Intel 82566 Gigabit Network Connection identifies out-of-band (OOB) network traffic (traffic targeted to Intel AMT) and routes it to the Intel ME instead of to the CPU. Intel AMT traffic is identified by dedicated IANA-registered port numbers. The [southbridge] holds the filter definitions that are applied to incoming and outgoing in-band network traffic (the message traffic to and from the CPU). These include both internally-defined filters and the application filters..."
100% of business PCs have Intel NICs because it's required for vPro. In the consumer market Intel NICs are generally considered (marginally) higher quality than Realtek. Intel Wi-Fi is also very common.
Because the intel me 'is' a standalone system. So it can do anything on its own. Of course it won't connect to your WiFi because it didn't know the password. But lan connections don't need password so it can connect and listen to it in that case.
Depends on your definition of "high-end", while I personally stick with Mikrotik and Juniper gear a TP-Link TL-SG2008 is only $70 and gives you 8x1GbE ports and support for 802.1x just fine. For wireless you'd use WPA-Enterprise, which is pretty common on most consumer grade routers (for some reason), readily accessible on anything you can install OpenWRT on, and then on prosumer stuff like Ubiquiti AP's.
