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Re:Reading privileged memory with a side-channel by contrarian_ on Thursday January 04, 2018 @07:57AM (#16069970)
That only fixes one variant of Spectre, and only for code running in kernel mode.

The "out of bounds" Spectre variant is still feasible.

Also: What about hyperthreads? It seems to be many people's assumption that the BTB is shared within a physical core.

Re:Reading privileged memory with a side-channel by bonzini on Thursday January 04, 2018 @08:56AM (#16070304)
The out of bounds variant is fixable in the OS, just add a fence instruction between the check and the load.

For code running in user mode, you flush the branch predictor on each context switch---again, new microcode + patched OS.

Hyperthreads are tricky. Those are not yet fixed by microcode AIUI, and in the future you may want a usermode program to say "I don't want indirect branch prediction because I am afraid of what the other hyperthread might do to me". That would require some new system call (like a new prctl on Linux) or something like that.

Re:Reading privileged memory with a side-channel by wilun on Friday January 05, 2018 @10:32PM (#16083688)
Great. Now we just have to think of new attacks using the same general idea to slow down all computers by yet another 10% :p