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Community => Science and Technology => Topic started by: Svata on January 03, 2018, 02:15:00 am

Title: Intel fucked up. Like. BAD.
Post by: Svata on January 03, 2018, 02:15:00 am
https://gizmodo.com/report-all-intel-processors-made-in-the-last-decade-mi-1821728240 (https://gizmodo.com/report-all-intel-processors-made-in-the-last-decade-mi-1821728240)

Long story short. Every Intel processor made in the last decade has a massive security hole, and every OS is gonna have to write a patch to fix around it. It's predicted to cause a 5 to 30% hit to performance. in everything using an intel chip. Everything. Not just consumer-grade processors. Servers too.
Title: Re: Intel fucked up. Like. BAD.
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on January 03, 2018, 02:49:05 am
Ah crap, just looked. Got an intel processor.
Title: Re: Intel fucked up. Like. BAD.
Post by: dpareja on January 03, 2018, 02:55:20 am
Eep.
Title: Re: Intel fucked up. Like. BAD.
Post by: Art Vandelay on January 03, 2018, 03:04:37 am
For fuck's sake.
Title: Re: Intel fucked up. Like. BAD.
Post by: SCarpelan on January 03, 2018, 05:31:53 am
Whoa.

*Hugs his AMD-processor system*
Title: Re: Intel fucked up. Like. BAD.
Post by: RavynousHunter on January 03, 2018, 08:53:49 am
Holy hellfire.  I feel for the folks that have to deal with this bullshit, even if I'm...not-so-secretly glad I am, have been, and always will be an AMD man.
Title: Re: Intel fucked up. Like. BAD.
Post by: Svata on January 03, 2018, 09:56:12 am
Bad news, AMD brethren. Looks like since AMD won't let every detail of their CPUs' architecture be publicly known (which is completely understandable) the patches will, in fact, impact AMD-running systems as well, as this is gonna have to be an OS level patch, not something that can be done via drivers or something.
Title: Re: Intel fucked up. Like. BAD.
Post by: dpareja on January 03, 2018, 01:50:48 pm
Bad news, AMD brethren. Looks like since AMD won't let every detail of their CPUs' architecture be publicly known (which is completely understandable) the patches will, in fact, impact AMD-running systems as well, as this is gonna have to be an OS level patch, not something that can be done via drivers or something.

So, Intel fucked up, and everyone pays the price. Damn.

EDIT: Well, that assumes that AMD users install said patch. Granted, they may not have much of a choice on Windows, since MS has changed its patching regimen. Linux users might be able to avoid it, but maybe not, since I think it's a kernel patch.

EDIT #2: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/intel-amd-processor-1.4471322

Meanwhile, for those who care about such things, Intel shares have dropped 6%, while AMD shares have gained 9%.

Title: Re: Intel fucked up. Like. BAD.
Post by: Svata on January 03, 2018, 04:45:14 pm
Sure, but that probably means you can never update Windows again, if you want to avoid it.
Title: Re: Intel fucked up. Like. BAD.
Post by: dpareja on January 03, 2018, 04:48:31 pm
Sure, but that probably means you can never update Windows again, if you want to avoid it.

Which, considering the Shadow Brokers leaks (thanks, NSA!), is Not Advisable.
Title: Re: Intel fucked up. Like. BAD.
Post by: Sigmaleph on January 03, 2018, 08:09:24 pm
From what I'm reading, there are two attacks, Meltdown and Spectre. Meltdown is only confirmed for Intel but might affect AMD. Spectre definitely affects both. (source (https://meltdownattack.com/#faq-systems-meltdown))
Title: Re: Intel fucked up. Like. BAD.
Post by: dpareja on January 03, 2018, 08:27:08 pm
From what I'm reading, there are two attacks, Meltdown and Spectre. Meltdown is only confirmed for Intel but might affect AMD. Spectre definitely affects both. (source (https://meltdownattack.com/#faq-systems-meltdown))

Ew.

EDIT: But are these what are exploiting this Intel vulnerability? The dates (Intel back to 1995?) don't match, and this hole was only discovered in Intel, not AMD (or ARM). which Spectre, at least, can attack.
Title: Re: Intel fucked up. Like. BAD.
Post by: Svata on January 03, 2018, 09:44:28 pm
Note: There are, so far, no exploits in the wild that take advantage of the security hole revealed.
Title: Re: Intel fucked up. Like. BAD.
Post by: dpareja on January 04, 2018, 01:00:46 am
Note: There are, so far, no exploits in the wild that take advantage of the security hole revealed.

Isn't that down to the fact that the discoverers have managed to keep the details mostly under wraps? I think the only reason we know as much about it as we do is because Linux kernel development is open-source, so people can figure out what's being fixed from how the Linux kernel is being patched.

So once someone more nefarious figures it out (which I wouldn't be too surprised to see happen before the patches hit), watch out.

EDIT: https://www.askwoody.com/2018/multiple-reports-of-blue-screens-bsods-0x000000c4-when-installing-the-january-win7-monthly-rollup-kb-4056894/

Looks like there are some major issues with the main Windows 7 patch this month.

Title: Re: Intel fucked up. Like. BAD.
Post by: Cloud3514 on January 08, 2018, 02:50:54 pm
Great. More reason I wish I had waited for Ryzen 5.
Title: Re: Intel fucked up. Like. BAD.
Post by: dpareja on January 13, 2018, 05:11:15 pm
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3247788/computer-hardware/intel-says-new-firmware-patches-trigger-reboots-in-haswell-and-broadwell-systems.html

If you have an Intel Haswell or Broadwell processor, don't install the anti-Meltdown/Spectre firmware patch.

It's triggering reboots.