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A comment on Intel Issues Updates to Protect Systems from Security Exploits. Parent comment

Re:Intel Issues Updates to Protect Systems from Security Exp... by rdtsc on Thursday January 04, 2018 @05:21PM (#16074639)
> AMD isn't vulnerable to Meltdown not because they foresaw this issue, but probably because they simply weren't as aggressive as Intel in allowing speculative execution.

You don't see why being "aggressive" with speculatively loading data over a _protection boundary_ could be considered irresponsible? I for one, think AMD has the right to gloat if they want. It's not just AMD, besides the latest version of ARM it seems all the other CPU vendors decided to not be "aggressive" with their users' protected data (sparc, mips, amd, power, s390x).

Does it mean all those vendors and architects had PoC for years for this and were sitting on it? No but they could have had a hunch not to go that route. Just like a sane developer might have a hunch over opening a wide API surface to a server that contains sensitive data. It doesn't mean they know there is security vulnerability in one of the API endpoints, it's just sane practice.

> If next month a researcher develops Meltdown2 for AMD, are AMDs designers now suddenly idiots for missing an obvious security hole?

But who called any developers idiots here? I think you were the only one.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Intel Issues Updates to Protect Systems from Security Exp... by im3w1l on Saturday January 06, 2018 @02:54AM (#16084337)
Side channels are really hard to protect against. Caches, buffers (maybe you can check when they are full), branch prediction, sound, vibrations, timing, electricity consumption, em waves, temperature. Things leak all over the place.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Intel Issues Updates to Protect Systems from Security Exp... by isatty on Thursday January 04, 2018 @08:19PM (#16075704)
Such bullshit - there are loads of people, maybe not on SO, but on reddit etc that called them "idiot CPU developers", possibly misinterpreting what Linus said.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Intel Issues Updates to Protect Systems from Security Exp... by rdtsc on Thursday January 04, 2018 @09:17PM (#16075956)
Someone on the internet is mean, I have no doubt. I haven't seen a lot name-calling here. Let's stick to HN and let reddit deal with its own drama.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Intel Issues Updates to Protect Systems from Security Exp... by amazingman on Thursday January 04, 2018 @08:43PM (#16075814)
Why not just chalk this up to Dunning-Kruger and then move on to some other, more interesting/productive use of attention?
[ Parent | on HN ]