They didn't unintentionally break security features; they knowingly did so - the potential for information disclosure was widely documented. In their defense - the solution isn't trivial in general, and large parts of at least spectre apply in ways a CPU would be hard pressed to prevent (how is a CPU to know that even though memory isn't marked as protected from currently running code in actual fact that's because the JIT and the JIT-tted code are running in the same memory space?). But the intel CPUs are leaking a lot more data than reasonable.

Your parent was talking about Meltdown; that's the one that breaks security features, specifically: memory safety of a higher privilege level from a lower one.

Intent matters, at least to me. This does not seem to be a case like VW's diesel-emissions shenanigans.

The problem still is: one of the units responsible for increasing the processor performance was not working correctly. So the increased performance of the processor was obtained by not working correctly. That qualifies as cheating - if not by intent but then by nature of the design. It remains to be investigated how much of the security implications of their design choices was or could have been known to Intel. The fundamental attack concept was known for many years.

No, it just doesn’t. You’re diluting the meaning of that term to irrelevance. There are plenty of other words that adequately describe what happened - sloppy, careless, short-sighted. Cheating isn’t one of them.

You can easily cheat, without bad faith, by being sloppy or careless. You can also cheat in bad faith and call it being sloppy or careless. Breaking rules often has nothing to do with intent.

It is working correctly. A side channel is unfortunate, but in no way comparable to a missed page fault.

In that case, probably no processors are “clean” as 100% elimination of all bugs is highly unlikely. Just like a bit of growth hormones slipped into your food supply without your knowledge.