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A comment on Single random bit flip causes error in certificate transparency log. Parent comment

Re:Single random bit flip causes error in certificate transp... by Shikadi on Sunday July 04, 2021 @04:30PM (#27732371)
People who tout this don't understand the probability of bit flips. It's measured in failures per _billion_ hours of operation. This matters a ton in an environment with thousands of memory modules (data centers and super computers) but you're lucky to experience a single ram bit flip more than once or twice in your entire life

Edit: there's some new (to me) information from real world results, interesting read. https://www.zdnet.com/article/dram-error-rates-nightmare-on-...

Looks like things are worse than I thought (but still better than most people seem to think). Interesting to note that the motherboard used affects error rate, and it seems that part of it is a luck of the draw situation where some dimms have more errors than others despite being the same manufacturer

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Re:Single random bit flip causes error in certificate transp... by kevin_thibedeau on Sunday July 04, 2021 @06:34PM (#27733170)
Bit flips are guaranteed to happen in digital systems. No matter how low the probability is, it will never be zero. You can't go around thinking you're going to dodge a bullet because its unlikely. If it weren't for the pervasive use of error detection in common I/O protocols you would be subjected to these errors much more frequently.
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Re:Single random bit flip causes error in certificate transp... by Shikadi on Sunday July 04, 2021 @08:55PM (#27733840)
We're talking specifically about ECC ram, which solves the specific problem caused by cosmic rays (and apparently bad motherboard design). IO protocol error correction is a totally different problem.
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Re:Single random bit flip causes error in certificate transp... by DevKoala on Sunday July 04, 2021 @04:46PM (#27732488)
I was going to comment, but you edited your post. Yes, it is worse than we usually think on the software side.
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Re:Single random bit flip causes error in certificate transp... by Shikadi on Sunday July 04, 2021 @05:01PM (#27732584)
I still think it made sense up until now to not bother with it on consumer hardware, and even at this point. The probability of your phone having a software glitch needing a reboot is way higher. Now that it's practically a free upgrade? Should be included by default. But I still don't think it's nearly as nefarious as people make it out to be that it has been this way for so long
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Re:Single random bit flip causes error in certificate transp... by DevKoala on Sunday July 04, 2021 @06:17PM (#27733080)
I don’t think they are an issue in a phone, but in a system like a blockchain that goes through so much effort to achieve consistency, the severity of the error is magnified hence the lesser tolerance for the error rate.
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