Sadly I just learned that even the remnants seem to cause known harm
Neither of the two methods to disable the ME discovered so far turned out to be an effective countermeasure against the SA-00086 vulnerability. This is because the vulnerability is in an early-loaded ME module that is essential to boot the main CPU.
"Additional major security flaws in the ME affecting a very large number of computers incorporating ME, Trusted Execution Engine (TXE), and Server Platform Services (SPS) firmware, from Skylake in 2015 to Coffee Lake in 2017, were confirmed by Intel on 20 November 2017 (SA-00086).[39] Unlike SA-00075, this bug is even present if AMT is absent, not provisioned or if the ME was ‘disabled’ by any of the known unofficial methods.[40] In July 2018 another set of vulnerabilitites were disclosed (SA-00112).[41] In September 2018, yet another vulnerability was published (SA-00125).[42]"
The citation indexed [40] (that is, the relevant portion) in your quote points to the Register article you also linked, just as the Wikipedia entry does in support of the statement:
"Unlike SA-00075, this bug is even present if AMT is absent, not provisioned or if the ME was "disabled" by any of the known unofficial methods."
That being the case I would expect the Register article to contain something that bolsters the quote above but if it does, it is so subtle as to escape my repeated rereading.
Neither of the two methods to disable the ME discovered so far turned out to be an effective countermeasure against the SA-00086 vulnerability. This is because the vulnerability is in an early-loaded ME module that is essential to boot the main CPU.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine#Disabl...