121–130 of 205 posts
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A null pointer doesn't hold a reference, though.
It does if you have something at 0x0. Or, to put it another way, I have no clue to what you're referring--what do references have to do with "The Billion Dollar Mistake"[0]? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Hoare#Apologies_and_retra... EDIT: my apologies, that joke was actually pretty good.
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It does if you have something at 0x0. Or, to put it another way, I have no clue to what you're referring--what do references have to do with "The Billion Dollar Mistake"[0]? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Hoare#Apologies_and_retra... EDIT: my apologies, that joke was actually pretty good.
What modern systems even map memory to 0x0? Doing so breaks the C standard, among other things.
Llvm won't use it for anything. (I think it starts putting things at 8). Trying to access it explicitly in C will generate `unreachable` instructions.
Would this entire Meltdown/Spectre thing count as the biggest mess-up of computing history? When yesterday the PoC repo was posted here, the spy.mp4 demo video gave me some chills. And now I can't update my OS before making an installation USB because Canonical can't just follow Linus' releases. Thanks.
I watched that spy demo. How does it know what memory location contains the password being typed?
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Are you suggesting that we recall the great bulk of modern CPU's? Like, literally gut everyone's computers, including those in data centers and running critical infrastructure, until replacements are eventually manufactured? Or did you mean something else?
I'd think it'd be reasonable to get a refund in some manner, provided you could provide proof-of-purchase for the CPU in question. I wouldn't expect them to replace any CPU, unless it was manufactured recently and still being manufactured. But a refund in some capacity? That's reasonable, I think. In the meantime, we would have to settle for the software fixes.
Is there a market of 99%+ seemingly authentic fake Intel chips out there?
I haven't even seen a proof of concept exploit that has the same conditions as in the wild. All the POC exploits seems to have been given some assistance in various ways (such as being given root perms or a preknown memory address).
Does anybody have an example of this JavaScript exploit or any exploit that would work in the wild?
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Or give a price break on future hardware. The fix is turning out to be incredibly expensive for ordinary users, virtualization vendors, hardware vendors, OS providers, cloud providers, etc. This incident demonstrates why you really don't want catastrophic bugs in the CPU. The fact that the hardware vendors missed this one makes you wonder what else is out there.
>Or give a price break on future hardware feels like this would happen: >intel agrees to give consumers a $30 price break in response to meltdown/spectre >in other news, intel raises the prices of next generation CPUs by $30
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Any sufficiently complex CPU surely contains some number of defects, perhaps even serious security defects, just as any sufficiently complex piece of software contains bugs and security holes. I wouldn't be surprised if someone tries to sue Intel over this, or even if they win, but this is way outside the scope of what a warranty would traditionally cover, which in the case of a CPU would be hardware failure. If a wa…
Of course the cost of producing products that actually perform at the level they're advertised to perform is passed onto the consumer, regardless of regulation.
For something like Meltdown/Spectre, the patches/workarounds reportedly barely affect some workloads, but cause drastic slowdowns for others. So already not everyone's affected to the same extent. Then you have computers with easily replaceable CPUs vs. stuff like phones and laptops which probably were only designed to work with a single CPU, and the manufacturer's already working on their next model and doesn't want to waste money building replacement parts for the previous one. At that point, maybe you have a complaint with e.g. Apple for selling you an iPhone that doesn't work as performed because they had to work around a security problem, and Apple might themselves go after Intel. The whole situation is a lot more complicated than "it should totally be covered under the warranty."
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Boxed Intel processors carry a 3 year warranty. It certainly seems reasonable for everyone who bought a CPU within the last 3 years to expect a warranty replacement with the manufacturer defect fixed. In the EU virtually every product comes with a 2 year warranty. So every CPU sold in the EU in the last two years should be replaced for free by Intel, even through OEMs. I wonder what potential class action lawsuits In…
Intel would just say it functions exactly as designed. :) (because it's a design flaw)
> Intel and other technology companies have been made aware of new security research describing software analysis methods that, when used for malicious purposes, have the potential to improperly gather sensitive data from computing devices that are operating as designed.
> […]
> Recent reports that these exploits are caused by a “bug” or a “flaw” and are unique to Intel products are incorrect.
(https://newsroom.intel.com/news/intel-responds-to-security-r... ; emphasis mine.)