Well, Torvalds has been heard from, along with Bloomberg and The Economist, as saying that Intel is in denial about this being a big, big problem.
Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
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Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#32Run through the Linus drama filter, the only thing I get from this is "Linus doesn't like the Meltdown/Spectre patches'; Linus having issues with a patch is, well, not particularly newsworthy. Is there something more significant here than a bad first go at this?
> Linus having issues with a patch is, well, not particularly newsworthy.
Why not? The lead engineer of the linux kernel project has specific issues with security patches from a major hardware vendor.
I understand the constant distaste that some users here have with Linus' style, but I don't understand the constant need to denigrate his positions by attempting to paint them as particularly diminutive.
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#33So are we going to unmerge this, and force Intel to fix this properly in microcode?
Said current patches haven't been merged. Just posted to the mailing list for review. Retpolines for Spectre, and PTI for Meltdown, are still in the kernel. Linus doesn't have too much disagreement with them. It's the IBRS / IBPB code for Intel's CPUs that Linus has a problem with. Also, not everything can be mitigated in microcode, for many reasons, not all of which I understand myself. Sometimes, only a fundamental…
Well, for one thing, modern CPUs aren't microcoded much. Real microcoded CPUs went out with the 1980s. The microcode in today's fast CPUs is mostly initialization, and maybe emulation support for some instructions nobody uses any more, like decimal arithmetic or 16-bit mode. The microcode can maybe turn some stuff off and tweak some tuning parameters. Anyone know what Intel's "fixes" really do?
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#34I must say that I'm really happy that Linux is taking a stance on this one. He doesn't care what the legal consequences to Intel are, he is pushing for a proper technical solution damned be the consequences.
It's Linus
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#35Am I the only person who finds this extremely difficult to read? The top says "David wrote" and then it looks like he's replying to a message from Linus Torvalds. So any quoted text is by Linus, right? But then....the letter is signed by Linus? So who wrote it? I know this is some ancient technology but Jesus, the user interface is horrendous.
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#36I think we should count ourselves lucky we have someone so good at spotting bullsh*t like this - and isn’t afraid to call it out as they sees it. Intel & friends have absolutely disgusted me lately, it could be all to easy to settle for less based on their standards, but let’s not let them set the standard - they’ve shown they can’t be trusted with quality and when they fail - they can’t be trusted to be transparent…
Intel transformed from a technology company to a management company. That somewhat explains their highly unreasonable behavior.
Yea... and what about every other chip maker who also have the same exploits? Can someone explain whether AMD and Qualcomm licensed this tech or if they also independently made the same mistakes? Either way, we really haven't seen much activity from them either.
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#37In case it’s unclear to anyone, David Woodhouse (the person Linus is replying to / previous poster) works for Amazon and previously Intel[1] aka @dwmw2 on Twitter, ironically his twitter profile is: “Kernel hacker. Known to occasionally promote an attitude of violence towards complete morons.” *[1] Correction, I thought (as does Google) that he still worked at Intel, but it was pointed out that he now works at Amazon…
Thanks for this, the beginning where he quotes himself threw me off.
I, too, missed the double-indenting at the start and thought David was replying to Linus. Once I got to the textbook swearing I double-checked and figured it out.
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#38Am I the only person who finds this extremely difficult to read? The top says "David wrote" and then it looks like he's replying to a message from Linus Torvalds. So any quoted text is by Linus, right? But then....the letter is signed by Linus? So who wrote it? I know this is some ancient technology but Jesus, the user interface is horrendous.
The first reading I had the same trouble, but you should watch the >> (Linus's previous post) and > (David's post) to figure out who said what. And this post is by Linus replying to David.
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Said current patches haven't been merged. Just posted to the mailing list for review. Retpolines for Spectre, and PTI for Meltdown, are still in the kernel. Linus doesn't have too much disagreement with them. It's the IBRS / IBPB code for Intel's CPUs that Linus has a problem with. Also, not everything can be mitigated in microcode, for many reasons, not all of which I understand myself. Sometimes, only a fundamental…
Well, for one thing, modern CPUs aren't microcoded much. Real microcoded CPUs went out with the 1980s. The microcode in today's fast CPUs is mostly initialization, and maybe emulation support for some instructions nobody uses any more, like decimal arithmetic or 16-bit mode. The microcode can maybe turn some stuff off and tweak some tuning parameters. Anyone know what Intel's "fixes" really do?
Wat? All the major hardware manufacturers from Intel to the hundreds of no name ARM licensees fix and cover up major issues in silicon with fixes in microcode (unless most chips from a particular mask/process are too screwed up, see Intel's 7nm process).
Doing otherwise would throw the onus onto kernel maintainers for Windows, Linux, and the various BSD distros, and they don't want a crapton of one off fixes for the plethora of CPU errata that Intel and others patch in microcode.
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#40Run through the Linus drama filter, the only thing I get from this is "Linus doesn't like the Meltdown/Spectre patches'; Linus having issues with a patch is, well, not particularly newsworthy. Is there something more significant here than a bad first go at this?
I don't completely understand the technical issues, but reading between the lines I think the patches in question add super huge overhead. The overhead is so huge that nobody in their right mind would enable them by choice. However, the behaviour is governed by an opt-in configuration at boot time. What this means is that by default the patches will do nothing but if you opt in, you will get a huge performance hit.
The end result is that Intel can say, "We've fixed the security holes". Linus can apply the patches and say, "I've fixed the security hole". However no distribution will enable it because they will suffer from a massive performance penalty if they do. The end result is that the security hole will remain, but the average person/manager/etc will not be aware of it.
As far as I can tell Linus is calling that out as being complete BS. From what I can tell, his reasoning is that if there needs to be a performance hit, then Intel can eat it. They will have to get their act together and fix the problem in upcoming processors or else basically nobody will buy them. The implication is that Intel has no intention of fixing the problem in the next generation of processors and is hoping to sweep it all under the rug -- they have a fix. It's not their fault if nobody enables it.
The situation is a bit delicate because if Linus forces the Intel processors to be slow, then Intel will blame him -- their patches are only slow if you opt in to some completely-not-understandable-kernel-patch-option. He's basically refusing to play ball at all -- which is probably the correct stance (assuming I understand what's going on -- insert disclaimer about being a random person from the internet here).
I don't think Linus is necessarily blaming anyone in particular. That's why he says the reasons behind the patches are unclear. I think he's hoping that causing bad publicity will get Intel to abandon their tactic of being politically careful. Getting slagged of by Linus carries a certain stigma and Intel may consider it prudent to offer up information more quickly in order to stem the damage.